Dear Lord Jesus, I come to you at the end of another year of faith formation. Thank you for all of the good this year: For the students you brought to my classroom, their laughter and participation and sharing. For my growth this year as a catechist and as a Catholic Christian developing her own faith. I ask blessings upon all of us as we go forth to summer break: For my fellow catechists and […]
Arts and crafts are not my specialty. I am upfront about this with my students, but I don’t want my lack of art skill to mean that we don’t have any artistic activities in our sessions. I certainly appreciate fine art. I have asked young people to draw pictures as responses to themes we’re discussing. And I do find some projects that I can lead that appeal to the artistic side of young people. What’s […]
Holy Week presents a perfect opportunity for catechists to change what might be the usual format for the session and create a retreat-like atmosphere to explore themes from this climax of the liturgical year. I do that in my seventh-grade classroom by focusing on several prayer experiences and activities aimed at helping the young people grasp the story of Jesus’ Passion and Death. I’ve written before about Preparing for Holy Week in Junior High, but […]
How can we catechists keep the message of Lent a focal point in our classes for six weeks? Beyond keeping a purple cloth on the prayer table, here are a few ideas for keeping Lenten themes the focus of every session for the entire season. Challenge young people to silence. I started this last year with my seventh graders. At first they had a hard time settling themselves for a few moments of complete silence […]
A recent class discussion showed the importance of building trust over time, which allows young people to feel free to ask hard questions. We were talking about the miracles of Jesus (Finding God, Grade 7, Chapter 12) and how they showed his love and respect for all people. That led to a discussion on how we are also called to respect the dignity of all life according to Christ’s example and Catholic social teaching. The […]
After a few weeks in a different classroom space, I was happy to return to my regular classroom. We had spent several weeks in the parish center across the street from the school while some maintenance issues—most notably, a broken furnace—were addressed. During this time, I had to improvise on a few things. I didn’t have access to Bibles for each young person. I carried over a couple of Bibles, one to display in our […]
Too often we think the only time to teach about the saints is during November or the end of October as we lead up to All Saints Day. While that is indeed a great time to talk about all the saints, opportunities to learn about the saints exist all year long. As we settle into the new year, let’s look at some of those opportunities. In January, many people like the tradition of picking a […]
When I wrote about the Marian learning stations, I might not have been realistic about what we could accomplish in the time allotted. Because I wanted to keep working groups small—three or four people per station—I went with more stations than I should have. As a result, we ran out of time before everyone could get through all the stations, especially since each activity took a different amount of time to complete. The idea, you […]
As you take some time to relax this week and enjoy the Christmas season, we bring to your attention a few articles you might enjoy from another Loyola Press website, IgnatianSpirituality.com. Staying Curious by Marina McCoy In his ministry, Jesus often asks others what they want. For example, he asks the blind Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?” (Mark 10:51) On another occasion, James and John approach Jesus, and he asks […]
With both the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Mary (a holy day of obligation) and the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe in December, and the readings in the second half of Advent telling Mary’s story in the days before Jesus’ birth, this is the perfect time to teach the children in our classes about Mary. I realized in my planning my Advent arc of activities this year that the Finding God art prints […]
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