Catechist's Journey

Grow Your Soul: 7 Ways to Experience New Life During Easter

Growing Your Soul: 7 Ways to Experience New Life During Easter: #7 Unleash Your Imagination

Welcome to the final installment of my Easter series, “Growing Your Soul: 7 Ways to Experience New Life During Easter,” drawing from my book, 7 Keys to Spiritual Wellness. Today we explore the last tip: Unleash your imagination! Following Jesus’ Crucifixion and Death, all hope was lost, as was epitomized by the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. They were overwhelmed with despair, so much so that they weren’t concerned with where to go […]

Grow Your Soul: 7 Ways to Experience New Life During Easter: #6 Seek Beauty

Joe Paprocki

Welcome to the next installment of my Easter series, “Grow Your Soul: 7 Ways to Experience New Life During Easter,” drawing from my book, 7 Keys to Spiritual Wellness. Today we look at the notion of seeking beauty. On Easter Sunday, we expect the weather to be beautiful. We count on it being a sunny, mild day so that we can all put on our Easter best without having to be covered up by layers of […]

Grow Your Soul: 7 Ways to Experience New Life During Easter: #5 Recognize and Set Limits

Joe Paprocki

Welcome to our continuing Easter series, “Grow Your Soul: 7 Ways to Experience New Life During Easter,” drawing from my book, 7 Keys to Spiritual Wellness.” Our fifth tip is “Recognize and Set Limits.” Setting limits as a way to grow your soul may sound counterintuitive at first blush. We don’t normally associate the word “limit” with the word “grow.” Think about it this way, however: isn’t it possible to kill a plant by over-watering it? Of […]

Grow Your Soul: 7 Ways to Experience New Life During Easter: #4 Hold On Loosely

Joe Paprocki

Welcome to the next post in our Easter series, “Grow Your Soul: 7 Ways to Experience New Life During Easter,” drawing from my book, 7 Keys to Spiritual Wellness. Today we explore the fourth tip, which is to “Hold On Loosely.” One of the most-read and most-loved books in recent Christian history is Henri Nouwen’s With Open Hands. This seminal book begins with Nouwen telling the story of an elderly woman in a psychiatric ward who […]

Grow Your Soul: 7 Ways to Experience New Life During Easter: #3 Think Before Acting

Joe Paprocki

Welcome to the next post in our Easter series, “Grow Your Soul: 7 Ways to Experience New Life During Easter,” drawing from my book, 7 Keys to Spiritual Wellness. Today we explore the third tip, which is, “Think Before You Act.” During Holy Week, we entered into the Passion of Jesus Christ—a story that is filled with drama, intrigue, violence, scandal, and betrayal. Two of the most interesting characters in the story are Peter and Judas. […]

Grow Your Soul: 7 Ways to Experience New Life During Easter: #2 Delight in the Success of Others

Joe Paprocki

Welcome to the second installment of my Easter series, “Grow Your Soul: 7 Ways to Experience New Life During Easter,” which draws from my book, 7 Keys to Spiritual Wellness. This week, we look at the practice of delighting in the success of others. We tend to see others as rivals. It’s just human nature, and it begins when we are very young and we compare ourselves with our siblings and friends. It bothers us when it seems […]

Teaching About the Resurrection

Cindy Coleman

Not long ago during class, a student said, “But Jesus was just a ghost.” I immediately explained that Jesus wasn’t a ghost, but that he had truly risen from the dead. This experience reminded me that we can’t assume our students understand what the Resurrection really means. I want them to understand that Jesus was truly dead and rose to life again. I begin by using a picture book that combines the Gospel accounts of […]

Grow Your Soul: 7 Ways to Experience New Life During Easter: #1 See Yourself as You Really Are

Joe Paprocki

Welcome to the first installment of our Easter series, “Grow Your Soul: 7 Ways to Experience New Life During Easter,” drawing from my book, 7 Keys to Spiritual Wellness. We begin by looking at the notion of “seeing yourself as you really are.” So much of the Resurrection narrative has to do with sight and perception. Mary Magdalene did not recognize the Risen Christ at first. The two disciples on the road to Emmaus did not […]

Grow Your Soul: 7 Ways to Experience New Life During Easter

Joe Paprocki

One of my favorite quotes is attributed to the great Mahatma Gandhi, who said, “When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator.” I like to ask myself if what I have done or am doing presently serves to expand my soul or if it is diminishing it. I think that there are many things we do in life for recreation […]

Pentecost in the Classroom

Barb Gilman

Pentecost is often overlooked in my third-grade classroom. Because Pentecost falls on the seventh Sunday after Easter, the school year is usually over by the time we celebrate it. Still, I was determined to celebrate it with my third graders. After reading Kathleen Butler’s article on using art in the classroom, I decided to collect artwork related to Pentecost and show it to my students. I am fortunate to have a large interactive whiteboard in […]