Following are suggestions for using videos from Arts & Faith: Holy Week with the young adults of your parish. Invite your group to deepen their experience of Holy Week through reflection and discussion of Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, and Good Friday. Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion Since I’m a chronic planner, living in the present moment is always hard for me. I like to think through all the possibilities and then take the next […]
Last night, music took center stage in my session as we we explored the Psalms! We focused especially on the myriad of feelings that are expressed in the Psalms and used contemporary music to capture some of those same feelings. Our emphasis was on the notion that we can talk to God under ANY circumstances and in ANY mood. Since last week was a snow day, not all of the kids remembered to bring in […]
This is a guest post by Pamela Tremblay. Christ’s Birth as an Invitation to Enter the Messiness The reflection states that Christ, “enters messily into the imperfection of our lives.” It then ends with the challenging question of “How will she bring his light to the world?” Young adults are a generation filled with passion and desire to change the world. They want to be people of greatness and are at a time in their […]
When it comes to playing music in class, I am always torn between my desire for children to hear and learn hymns they will hear in church and songs that have more “pop” to them: a more contemporary sound. I like some Christian rock, but I feel that if I rely only on that, the kids are not being catechized for the liturgy, which is an important part of our role. With that in mind, […]
Here’s a little something from the Dogma Dogs which provides songs of Catholicism for kids. Whattaya think? I have their CD but have never used it in class yet.
From time to time, you may notice that I mention playing a recording of a Church hymn. Over the years, I have built my own little library of CDs (now, of course, we can do so on our iPods, etc.) of sacred hymns to use both for my own enjoyment/inspiration and for use in catechetical settings. Recently, I just added a couple of CDs of traditional Catholic hymns to balance out my collection which is […]
This is an activity that I like to do with older participants (especially adults) who have a little more knowledge of the Church’s repertoire of hymns. I call it “If I Were a Church Hymn” and it basically invites participants to think of which Church hymn they would choose as either: their theme song the hymn that best captures the state of their spiritual life at this moment their all time favorite hymn The activity […]
During the Webinars on Wednesday and Thursday evenings, I received MANY questions about using contemporary music in a catechetical setting as a way to engage a young audience. Allow me to address some thoughts about that here (and as always, I invite you to weigh in as well). For young people, contemporary music is a huge part of their life. It speaks to them in a way that no other medium can. I often use […]
Today’s Lenten activity is an opportunity for catechists to reach those young people who are more musically inclined, tapping into the musical/rhythmic intelligence of some of your students. What Lenten Hymns Teach Ask the young people to identify some of their favorite songs that they keep on their smartphone or other digital player. Explain that some songs and collections are labeled with warnings that the content is “explicit.” Tell the young people that, for better or […]
Last evening was our Confirmation intensive during which we presented the Seven Deadly Sins, the Seven Virtues, and the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit using contemporary pop music (see my post from January 8 that provides a complete chart of songs used). It went very well and was a lot of fun! Here’s the scoop: Each catechist had a CD player and a CD with the appropriate songs for their session. I covered the […]
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