liturgy Archives - Catechist's Journey

Pop-Up Catechesis: Aligning Ourselves with God

During week 2 of our Faith Refreshed online retreat, we are focusing on “Aligning Ourselves with God” and how the second pillar of our Catholic faith—the Sacraments—summarizes how we, as Catholics, worship. In this episode of Pop-Up Catechesis, we explore how through our worship, we realign ourselves with God and God’s will. For more information about how we align ourselves with God by celebrating the sacraments, check out the following links: A Well-Built Faith: A […]

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Faith Refreshed Online Retreat Week 2: Aligning Ourselves with God

Joe Paprocki

Welcome to Week 2 of Faith Refreshed, an online retreat to help us “hit the refresh button” in our spiritual lives so that we might better see things we weren’t previously seeing and return to our lives and ministry with a new outlook. Throughout this retreat, I am drawing from my best-selling book, A Well-Built Faith: A Catholic’s Guide to Knowing and Sharing What We Believe. We revisit the four pillars of our Catholic faith—the […]

Pop-Up Prayer: Guest Todd Williamson

Joe Paprocki

We continue our series, Pop-Up Prayer—brief interviews on the topic of prayer with prominent people in pastoral ministry and spiritual authors. In this episode, Todd Williamson talks about understanding the nature of communal prayer. Todd is the Director of the Office for Divine Worship for the Archdiocese of Chicago (a position he has held for 22 years!). He is also a speaker, author, and liturgist whose ministerial experience includes teaching and parish pastoral ministry. Be sure […]

Taste and See: Savoring the Liturgy

Joe Paprocki

One of my favorite books in recent years is Thich Nhat Hanh’s Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life, in which he introduces the concept of mindfulness—the practice of being fully present in each moment—as an approach to healthier eating and living. When we eat mindfully, we savor that which we are eating. To savor literally means to “give oneself to the enjoyment of.” It means to be mindful of that which we are eating and drinking—to unite […]

Evaluating Your Catholic School/Religious Education Liturgies

Joe Paprocki

Recently, I was invited by a pastor to observe his parish’s weekly Catholic school liturgy, which leads me to this post suggesting that it would be a good idea for every Catholic school and parish religious education program to evaluate the liturgical experiences they invite their young people to participate in. Before I go any further, let me ask you, what is your overriding concern about your school’s or religious education program’s liturgies? I’d love […]

Using YouTube Videos to Lead Song

Joe Paprocki

One of the techniques that I’ve used with young people to lead them in song, either in a catechetical setting or at a liturgy, is to project a YouTube video with the music and lyrics provided. This works especially well because young people are very visual and are more comfortable with this than with a hymnal or song sheet. Likewise, it is very effective when you don’t have a music minister present to lead song […]

Great New Liturgy Apps!

Joe Paprocki

Here’s some information about some great new Apps on the Liturgy! The first is the My Picture Missal App from Loyola Press. This App, available in the iTunes store at this link: My Picture Missal App, was developed for children with special needs and for young children. The intent of this interactive app is to help children learn, understand, and fully experience the Mass. Children with special needs have spiritual lives and, with communication assistance, can […]

VIRTUAL Pilgrimage to Italy: Time to “Fly” Home!

Joe Paprocki

My how the time has flown! It seems like just yesterday that we arrived in Italy for our VIRTUAL pilgrimage and now, here we are, packing our virtual bags and getting ready for our virtual flight home! I hope you’ve enjoyed this little journey! It’s been nice traveling with you. Before we leave, we will celebrate a wonderful liturgy with our Holy Father, Pope Francis and then one more exquisite dining experience! Today, we’ll gather […]

The Engaged Catechist: Forming Catechist Enrichment Groups

Joe Paprocki

In his book, Growing An Engaged Church (Gallup Press), Albert L. Winseman explains that, without true engagement, volunteers burn out quickly. He identifies 3 ways to make an immediate impact on the level of engagement of church members: clarify the expectations of membership help your members discover what they do best create small groups I think these can (and should) be easily applied to catechists, who, without engagement, do indeed burnout quickly. Those catechists who […]

The Six Tasks of Catechesis #2: Promoting Knowledge of Liturgy & Sacraments

Joe Paprocki

Recently, we began a series here on my blog about the six tasks of catechesis, focusing on the notion that God is calling each of us to fulfill a role that he has planned for us. Just as actors rely on certain strategies to immerse themselves in character, we too rely on certain strategies to “immerse” ourselves in the role that God is calling us to fill: the “best version of ourselves” (to borrow a phrase from […]