Did you talk about Christmas traditions with your group this year? Here, Julianne Stanz talks about two Irish holiday traditions. If Julianne’s Braving the Thin Places wasn’t in your stocking, get your copy here.
The Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary lead us up to and through the birth of Jesus Christ and his childhood. Today, we look at the Third Joyful Mystery: the Nativity. For my 50th birthday, my wife told me to splurge and buy a ticket to see Sir Paul McCartney live at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Even after John Lennon’s tragic death in 1980, I still held out hope that I might one day see one […]
We often lament the fact that stores begin putting up Christmas decorations around the time of Halloween! Oddly enough, I find a link between Halloween and Christmas. On Halloween, children put on costumes and proceed to act like the characters they are portraying. My granddaughter, Livvy, two years of age, wore a kitty-cat costume and crawled about meowing and purring for a week. Well, on Christmas, we celebrate the person whose “costume” we have donned […]
Parents and children are no doubt eager to catch a break from all of the screen time that comes with working and schooling from home during the pandemic. The Christmas holidays provide just the kind of respite that is so needed—an opportunity for families to gather around something other than a computer screen! I’d like to suggest reading books as a family as the perfect option for the Christmas holidays. Loyola Press is making that […]
My wife taught for years at several different Catholic high schools, and she recalls how, in one school, the principal insisted that there be no Christmas decorations during Advent, while at another school, the principal wanted the school festooned with Christmas decorations so that visitors to open house could see them! As catechists, we want to celebrate Christmas with those in our faith formation groups; however, most often, we end up not seeing them for […]
Catholic identity is characterized by five traits that are integral to the Christmas story, and Christmas can help us to strengthen our Catholic identity. Learn more in the video below. Read the post that inspired this video: Christmas and Catholic Identity.
You can always expect to receive certain kinds of Christmas presents from certain people. For example, I could always expect to receive gifts of some kind of clothing from my mom, because she felt it was her duty to keep me properly dressed. And she made no apologies for that! As catechists, we should make no apologies for offering gifts to others at Christmas that focus on the centrality of Christ. In other words, the gifts […]
To help you share the Christmas story with children, we’re happy to share a Christmas Bible story booklet with you. The text of the booklet is from the Loyola Kids Book of Bible Stories by popular Catholic children’s author Amy Welborn. Print out the booklet and share with your class in a session on the birth of Jesus, or send copies home for families to enjoy together. Use copies as Christmas cards to your students, […]
The celebration of Christmas is unabashedly Catholic. I describe Catholic identity as being characterized by five traits: a sense of sacramentality a commitment to community a deep respect for the dignity of human life, leading to a commitment to social justice a reverence for tradition a disposition to faith and hope and not despair These five characteristics are integral to the Christmas story, and Christmas can help us to strengthen our Catholic identity. I offer […]
On pg. 40 of my book, The Catechist’s Toolbox, I mention that one of the top ten things that can go wrong for a catechist is “You’re done with your lesson and you still have 35 minutes to go!” Would you believe 50 minutes? That’s exactly what happened to me last night! We took our 6th graders to church for the Sacrament of Reconciliation and we were told to anticipate that it would take the […]
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