I have long been an advocate of parishes forming small groups for adult faith formation and sharing, and I have blogged previously about the importance of small faith groups. I have also talked about the importance of training people to serve as small group facilitators. While it is helpful, it is not necessary for a small group facilitator to have formal theological training. What is needed are basic facilitating skills. With that in mind, I […]
We continue our year-long celebration of the 15th anniversary of the launch of Catechist’s Journey and publication of The Catechist’s Toolbox. Our celebration continues today with the chance to win a copy of my book, A Church on the Move: 52 Ways to Get Mission and Mercy in Motion. Well before the pandemic, I wrote A Church on the Move, recognizing that our parishes were in crisis and in need of new approaches to engaging […]
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 […]
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 […]
The new Directory for Catechesis has many thought-provoking and powerful lines, including the following: “Everything [in faith formation] is oriented toward the mystery of Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection.” (64a) “Catechesis communicates the heart of the faith in an essential and existentially understandable way, bringing each person into contact with the Risen One and helping him to reinterpret and to live the most intense moments of his life as Paschal events.” (64a) I find it […]
This is part two of a series exploring saints who lived as missionary disciples. Amid all the upheaval that we have recently undergone and are still going through, we sometimes forget that the saints also lived during times of intense disunity, strife, and racial tension. St. Martin de Porres reminds us of the necessity of compassion, particularly during times of difficulty and division. What can his witness teach us about missionary discipleship? Let’s explore his […]
Many standardized tests use the formula seen in the title for word analogies. If you are not familiar with the formula, it is “translated” accordingly: “Sunday is to the week as the Triduum is to the ______.” And the answer is: year. I learned this analogy years ago from the great liturgist, Gabe Huck, who made it a point to assert that, “Sunday is to the week as the Triduum is to the year.” In […]
As we continue our summer series, Preparing Hearts and Minds: 9 Simple Ways for Catechists to Cultivate a Living Faith, we come to strategy #6. Strategy #6: Invite, invite, invite! Ultimately, an advertisement is an invitation; after presenting all the information about their amazing product or service, the sponsors invite potential customers to join “other satisfied customers.” They then provide a phone number, a website address, and convenient locations so that potential customers can avoid being left out. […]
As we continue our summer series, Preparing Hearts and Minds: 9 Simple Ways for Catechists to Cultivate a Living Faith, we come to strategy #5. Strategy #5: Proclaim the Resurrection as the cause of our joy. One of the most often-used phrases in TV commercials is, “But wait, there’s more!” Just when you think you’ve heard it all and that it can’t get any better, the seller doubles down and tells you that it’s about to get […]
As we continue our summer series, Preparing Hearts and Minds: 9 Simple Ways for Catechists to Cultivate a Living Faith, we explore apprenticing those we teach in laying down their lives for others. Strategy #4: Invite a leap of faith. It is a fairly common practice in advertising to garner attention by making a claim about a product or service that is counterintuitive and requires a “leap of faith.” For example: a diet plan promises that you […]
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