Pop-Up Catechesis with Joe Paprocki
Spiritual Growth

Pop-Up Catechesis: Change Requires a Stimulus

How does water change to ice or steam? Well, it doesn’t do it on its own. It requires a stimulus, namely a change in temperature. When water is cooled, the molecules slow down and are bonded together to form ice. When water is heated, the molecules speed up and break free from their bonds, thus creating steam. But none of that happens without the stimulus of temperature change. In a similar way, if we hope […]

Caravaggio's "Conversion of Saint Paul on the Way to Damascus"
Junior High

St. Paul, Conversion, and Mission

As the year winds down, we’re taking a session to talk about St. Paul and his conversion and missionary journeys. Our guide is Finding God, Grade 7, Chapter 23, but as usual, I’m using that as a jumping off point rather than following the book’s lesson plan word for word. We are all called to conversion and mission in our ongoing faith journeys, and that’s the point of this lesson (the “big idea” as Joe […]

moon - LeonardoFernndezLzaro/500px/Getty Images
Ten Commandments, Sin, & Morality

Repentance as Course Correction

Among the many dramatic scenes in the movie Apollo 13, one has always struck me as a good example of what it means to repent—to change, to undergo conversion. It’s the scene where the crew needs to make a course correction in order to re-enter the earth’s atmosphere properly. If they come in too shallow, they’ll bounce off the earth’s atmosphere and back out into space. If they come in too steep, they’ll burn up. […]

No Picture
Liturgy and Sacraments

The Conversion Process – “Stirrings”

The New Evangelization is a renewed invitation to conversion. Unfortunately, conversion is a word that is often misunderstood. We tend to think of conversion as either the changing from one Christian denomiation to another or a dramatic bolt of lightning in which we hear God’s voice loud and clear, calling us to a major change in life.  As a result of these rather limited understandings, most people don’t feel that they have experienced, are, experiencing, or […]