This evening I enjoyed my first 4th grade religious education class and I have to say that I LOVE IT!!! These kids are so darn cute! I have 16 kids (8 boys and 8 girls) and I have to say that they were really good: energetic, fun-filled, smart, and cooperative. Because of the size of the group and being in a different room that has desks instead of tables and chairs, I chose to seat […]
I’m looking forward to my first class tonight (I should say this evening, since I begin at 5:30 pm now!) with my 4th graders! I pray that the Holy Spirit will guide me to be an effective catechist tonight and always! Also, here is the recording of Part Two of my Getting Started as a Catechist Webinar:
Congratulations to all of the 8th graders who were Confirmed yesterday, including my class of 10 students! I pray that they will feel the abundant graces of the Holy Spirit and the Gifts of the Spirit, flowing in and through them all the days of their lives! As promised, I put together a guided reflection that I’m going to use tonight to help the young people reflect on yesterday’s experience. I think this will give […]
I finally got a chance to correct the Confirmation exams that my students took on Monday evening and I was generally pleased. They all passed! 4 students earned scores of 100+ (extra credit section on the Nicene Creed allows them to score over 100 pts) 3 were in the 80s and 90s 2 were in the 70s 1 took the exam with the DRE on Tuesday because he could not attend Monday night…I’ll have to […]
Every once in a while, it pays to be patient with kids’ silly behavior because it can play right into your hands. Last night was one of those occasions. As I was teaching about the anointing with chrism at Confirmation, I focused for a while on the fact that the chrism has a fragrance (sometimes referred to as “perfume for the soul”) which symbolizes how the Holy Spirit helps us to give off the “aroma […]
Yesterday, I provided a rather glowing summary of Monday evening’s Confirmation Intensive. Indeed, the evening overall went very well and was a positive experience. On the other hand, there are always a few moments that provide sobering reminders of the troubles that some of these kids have. The Confirmation Intensives allows me the opportunity to catch a glimpse, so to speak, of each of the five 8th grade classes. For the most part, each of […]
I began class last night by inviting the kids to join me in another room that I had set up with my “crystal ball!” I have a light fixture – a globe – that is tinted white and I placed a battery operated flickering candle inside of it and wrapped a purple cloth around the base of it. All of the lights in the room were turned off and I had a CD playing in […]
Tonight, as we begin our first of five Confirmation Intensives (class will be for two hours instead of 75 minutes, comprised of five different mini-sessions), I will be teaching about images of the Holy Spirit: water, anointing, fire, and a dove. To introduce this concept, I am bringing in a blank red octagon that I cut out of construction paper and afixed to a stick. I plan to show it to the kids and to […]
As I mentioned yesterday, one of the concepts we covered in Monday evening’s class was the Holy Spirit as our ADVOCATE. To help illustrate this point, I invited my aide, Lucy, to share her experience as a nurse, explaining how she advocates for patients. Here’s what happened: I first asked if anyone knew what an advocate is or what it means to advocate for someone. One of the young men responded that “it means to […]
This past Monday evening, Chicago lived up to its name as the “windy city” (although that name originated not as a description of the climate in Chicago but of the politics!) with wind gusts reaching 40-50 mph. A good night to be teaching about the Holy Spirit! Sure enough, just as I told the young people that we would be learning about the Holy Spirit, a huge gust of wind blew through an open window, […]
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