Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be taking aside each student and checking to see if he or she has taken to heart (memorized) a certain number of traditional Catholic prayers as spelled out by the parish curriculum. Before I do that, however, I plan to explain to the young people the importance and the value of knowing traditional prayers. Kids sometimes think that memorizing is a waste of time. But taking to heart […]
We wrapped up the year of family catechesis at St. Barnabas with a wonderful Pentecost celebration that included a delicious catered hot breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausage, and hash browns. After breakfast, we invited the children to join in a Pentecost procession led by Deacon Andy. To the sounds of Marty Haugen’s “Lord, Send Out Your Spirit/Psalm 104,” the children carried the sacred objects for the prayer table as they waved red ribbon wands to […]
If you were to create a pie chart showing how much time you devote to your home life (including sleeping), work, exercise, socializing, and hobbies, how big of a slice would you show for spirituality? For many of us, we might be tempted to add up the time we spend in spiritual practices such as going to church, praying, reading the Bible and other inspirational literature, and perhaps visiting a spiritual director or participating in […]
The Blessed Virgin Mary is so many things to us: she is our mother, our help, our comfort, and our joy. She is our model disciple; she is the “untier of knots.” She is also our model catechist. Here are three ways we can be more like Mary as catechists. 1. Say “Yes.” When I invite parishioners to prayerfully consider becoming a catechist, their first response is often “Who, me?” followed by expressions of doubt, […]
It’s hard to believe that the catechetical year is wrapping up! This past year at St. Barnabas, doing the monthly parent presentations for the Finding God family catechesis program, has been such a wonderful experience! We have one more session on the calendar for Pentecost Sunday. This session will be an end-of-the-year/Pentecost celebration. Tops on the agenda is a full, hot breakfast being served to the families in the program. We will also have a […]
This past Sunday was our last teaching session of the year for family catechesis at St. Barnabas, and we saved the “toughest” topic for last: the moral life! Of course, we didn’t actually save that for last; it just happens to be the last unit of the Finding God program. The theme of the session was, “The Moral Life: Stop Trying to Fix Yourself,” which gave us the opportunity to lay the foundation for the […]
Being proactive and taking the initiative are good things. In fact, the late author Stephen Covey considered proactivity as one of his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Unfortunately, this line of thinking often creeps into our spiritual lives, fooling us into thinking that we can take the initiative and be proactive in our relationship with God, when, in truth, spirituality is all about receiving. God takes the initiative to reach out to us, and […]
On Pentecost we celebrate the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles; this event marks the beginning of the Church. Bring the celebration of Pentecost to your faith formation group with our Pentecost Activities Packet. The packet includes a prayer service, a Holy Spirit crossword puzzle, a coloring page, and more. Combine using the packet with reading the story of Pentecost, found in the Acts of the Apostles 2:1–11, and the special seasonal lessons […]
We will have our last monthly session (not counting a celebration in May) for family catechesis at St. Barnabas on Sunday, April 28, as we explore the theme of Unit 5 of the Finding God series: “The Moral Life: Stop Trying to Fix Yourself!” Here’s a quick peek at the plan: Our learning outcomes are: Explain how we are all created in the image and likeness of God. Describe how being in a relationship with […]
This past Sunday was our penultimate parent session as far as delivering content. (Our May gathering will be a Pentecost celebration!) Our focus was on the Eucharist as that which sustains us, and we primarily did a “walk-through” of the parts of the Mass. Here’s a summary of how things went: Attendance remained steady, which was good to see; it has not fluctuated much from month to month since about November. I was “flying solo” […]
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