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Pop-Up Catechesis: Speaking God’s Language Through Signs and Symbols

Throughout Scripture, God’s presence is manifested symbolically, in a burning bush, a pillar of fire, a column of smoke, clouds on a mountaintop, a mighty wind, a whispering sound, a dove, or tongues of fire. God did not reveal himself as a hologram in the same fashion as Princess Leia appeared to Luke Skywalker and Obi Wan Kanobi in Star Wars. Instead, God chose to reveal his mysterious, transcendent, invisible, and intangible presence through tangible, […]

Catechists as Mystagogues - text over watercolor background by Sergey Ryumin/Moment/Getty Images

Catechists as Mystagogues: Exposing Unhealthy Paths and Narratives

Joe Paprocki

A mystagogue is someone who not only teaches, but also leads and accompanies others into mystery (Directory for Catechesis 113). The mystagogue recognizes that our biblical understanding of mystery is not as something to be solved but as something to enter into, and as something that is revealed and yet remains hidden. One of the first ways that we as catechists do this is by helping those we teach to recognize unhealthy life paths or […]

Pop-Up Catechesis: Ordinary Time

Joe Paprocki

In most sports, the playing calendar calls for a training season, a regular season, and a playoff season. The training season is focused on refining the skills needed for the regular season. The playoff season is the climax of the season’s competition, with the ultimate goal of achieving a championship. That leaves us with the regular season: the long stretch of time when players and teams are called to put their skills into practice on […]

Trinity - art © Loyola Press. All Rights Reserved.

Praying with the Trinity

Darcy Osby

The Trinity is a beautiful mystery that cannot be fully explained or understood through human language, which makes it a challenge to communicate to children when we rely on words in our catechesis. The early Christians came to know God as trinitarian through their lived experiences of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We can help children to identify their own experiences of the Persons of the Trinity and therefore come to a […]

illustration of priest near altar in Ordinary Time - by Kathryn Seckman Kirsch © Loyola Press. All rights reserved.

There’s Nothing Ordinary About Ordinary Time

Joe Paprocki

One of the most misunderstood concepts regarding the Church’s liturgical year is Ordinary Time. We tend to think of certain seasons of the Church year as special: Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter. These seasons are indeed special. However, Ordinary Time is not referring to a season in which nothing special is happening. In fact, the Scripture readings teach us that there is nothing ordinary about Ordinary Time. Aware of God’s presence and continuing love, the […]

scared boy - Eakachai Leesin/Shutterstock.com

Helping Children to Cope with Violence and Tragedy—Again

Joe Paprocki

This year, we are marking the 15th anniversary of this blog, Catechist’s Journey. Sadly, within the first year of the blog’s creation, I found myself writing a post about helping children to cope with news about a mass shooting at Virginia Tech. A year later, I posted in the wake of a mass shooting at Northern Illinois University. Several years later, I posted again, as a result of the Newton mass shooting. Once again, within […]

Pop-Up Catechesis: Easter and the Spiritual Works of Mercy, Part 1

Joe Paprocki

The 50 days of the Easter season provide us with plenty of time to spread the hope and joy of the Risen Christ to others. One of the ways that we do this is by performing Spiritual Works of Mercy. While the Corporal Works of Mercy aim to help our neighbors with their material and physical needs, the Spiritual Works of Mercy aim to help people with their emotional and spiritual needs. All works of […]

Doing Arts and Crafts Projects in Short Class Times

Joe Paprocki

Most catechists experience the crunch of time when teaching, knowing that they have a great deal of content to convey to their participants in a very short time. Sometimes, the notion of incorporating an arts and crafts project in a lesson just seems impossible given the time constraints! Thankfully, over the years, I’ve heard of a number of suggestions from catechists about how to accomplish this. Here are a few of their ideas: Provide children […]

Pop-Up Catechesis: Feasting More Than Fasting

Joe Paprocki

In the Church year, Easter, our season of feasting, is longer than Lent, our season of fasting! While the 40 days of Lent lay out a program of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, we often don’t seem to have a game plan for how to celebrate the 50 days of Easter. I suggest that we focus on the concept of “feasting” during the 50 days of Easter. In this episode of Pop-Up Catechesis, we explore six […]

Pop-Up Catechesis: Exploring the Value of Cleanliness

Joe Paprocki

The phrase, “Cleanliness is next to godliness,” is not found in the Bible but is regularly used, nonetheless, by Christians as if it were. Perhaps that is because there is great truth in this statement. Scripture does tell us that God “makes all things new.” Cleanliness—referring to both personal hygiene and keeping our environments neat and clean—is a reminder to us of how God restores things and does indeed make all things new. In this […]