Recently, I was talking with an administrator of a Catholic high school who was telling me what a difficult time they were having finding a qualified teacher for the their Religion Department. We, as a Church, are not doing a very good job of encouraging vocations—not only to priesthood and religious life, but also to pastoral ministry in general. There is no clear career path for someone to end up as a catechetical leader or […]
Every new year presents its own challenges. Not only have I switched grades this year, but I also haven’t been assigned an aide, and I’ve been asked to move my class from a classroom into the open worship space to teach. My parish only has four actual classrooms. The remaining faith formation classes meet spread out in the open worship space. While I’ve taught in this space before, it’s not an ideal teaching environment. Until […]
For the first 4 weeks of the program, I was working without an aide. Each time the DRE thought she had someone lined up, they would back out at the last minute. (Further evidence that recruiting catechists and aides is one of the hardest parts of the DREs job!). Finally, last night, I walked into class and there was my new aide. I broke into the biggest smile. Let me tell you why. 2 years […]
On Monday evening, I had the pleasure of attending the first catechist meeting of the upcoming religious education year. The meeting went very well and there is a wonderful spirit among the catechists and staff. The pastor and DRE offered warm welcomes and the Deacon and his wife offered a very helpful formation session on understanding the Bible with a focus on the Old Testament. I also had the pleasure of meeting my catechist aide. […]
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