Our annual Lenten journey has begun. I don’t know about you, but it seems like I always start this penitential season really well, but then quickly fall into the same old busy-ness of parish life. In fact, for most catechetical leaders, Lent is our busiest time of the year. How do we counter that? First and foremost, we have to make a commitment to prayerfully focus on what the season means. It’s a time to […]
I love when someone answers a question with a wild guess or a funny remark, but then that answer proves right on target. Such was the case in a recent lesson on making moral choices and the Sacrament of Reconciliation. I was explaining that we need to form our consciences to be able to make good moral choices. Since I learned long ago never to take for granted the students’ vocabulary knowledge, I backed up […]
Are you looking to inject new life and energy into your parish’s adult faith formation program? Here’s a suggestion that will guarantee results, especially if your parish and the community are multicultural: tap into the energy of Latinos, Asians, and African Americans. In a 2015 CARA survey, people were asked, “How interested would you be in the following?” Catholic volunteer/aid organizations Language classes for parishioners Whole family catechesis classes Small faith communities Catholic fraternal societies Community […]
When you get down to it, each of us is walking around with a vision of a hoped-for reality—an alternate reality—for ourselves, for those we love, for our community, for our world. We imagine a world that exists somewhere beyond what our eyes can presently see. We have a choice: we can either approach life as a problem to be solved, a contest to be won, or as a mystery to be entered into more […]
![St. Vincent Ferrer by Giovanni Bellini (circa 1430–1516) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://catechistsjourney.loyolapress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/St-Vincent-Ferrer.jpg)
This is the second of three articles on the Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Lent is a season in which we respond to the Lord’s call to “return to me with all your heart, / with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.” (Joel 2:12) As I remind young people of the requirements for Lent, I usually share this passage with them to remind them that this obligation is nothing more than responding to […]
Many years ago I was inspired to create an interactive Lenten bulletin board based on the popular children’s board game, Candy Land. Using colored construction paper squares, I fashioned a winding path to represent the 40 days’ journey from Ash Wednesday to Good Friday. Instead of Lollipop Mountain and King Candy’s Castle, I created stops along the way that reflected the Gospel readings for the six Sundays of Lent and ended at Calvary. Visual clues […]
A reflection on Matthew 17:1–9 Light and dark woven together colors blend together to provide an image threads of our lives intertwined to create each unique life Only God and I can see my tapestry Not even my closest companion not even my soul-mate can know the full tapestry that is me. Even I cannot see, at times. The image changes shifts blurs My eyes tune out the colors I do not wish to see […]
My friend Steve once related that perhaps the most influential experience of his childhood—in terms of his Catholic faith—was getting out of the bed one night to go to the bathroom and seeing his father on his knees saying his prayers bedside. Steve had no idea that his dad prayed at all, let alone on his knees each and every night. Because children are so strongly influenced by their parents, we need to do all we […]
Another LAREC—Los Angeles Religious Education Congress—is in the books and, as always, it was a phenomenal experience to be with over 40,000 brothers and sisters in Christ, all of whom were fired up for the mission of proclaiming God’s word to all people. It was an honor and a privilege to give two presentations to a total of nearly 1000 participants, and I was fed and nourished by the breakout sessions I attended (especially those […]
What’s your security blanket? For young children, security blankets and other such comfort objects are healthy things. They are “transitional objects” to ease the trauma of separating from their mothers. However, we all must eventually cut the apron strings and leave our security blankets behind. Unfortunately, we tend to replace our plush toys with more sophisticated security blankets, not to ease the anxiety of our separation from our mothers, but to ease what we sense as […]
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