In my book, 8 Steps to Energize Your Faith, I include “Delight in Nature and All of Creation” as one of the steps and explain that nature is a “vehicle for conversion, and because spirituality is ultimately about conversion—a deepening of our relationship with the Divine—we can experience conversion and grow in resemblance to our Creator by encountering nature and creation.” In short, the natural world serves as a significant portal to a deeper spirituality. […]
Explore saints stories associated with animals, weather, and the produce of the land. Our patron saints match sheet and online game can help. From protection against storms to the protection of bees and gardeners, the patronages of the featured saints are great to learn about in a lesson on care for creation or All Saints Day. Challenge fellow catechists to test their knowledge of the saints too! Learn about the featured saints and many more […]
This is an excerpt from Thrift Store Saints: Meeting Jesus 25¢ at a Time by Jane Knuth. September 27 is the feast day of St. Vincent de Paul and therefore, by association, it is also the feast day of the St. Vincent de Paul Society. There are still times when I get caught unprepared for a rush on a particular saint, but that’s not going to happen this September 27. I have ordered a box […]
At the time I write this, my group of seventh graders has narrowed down the pool of saintly candidates to three as we move toward electing a patron saint for our classroom. The finalists are St. Mary, St. Francis Xavier, and Blessed Miguel Pro. Mary is polling as the current leader, but who knows what the final tally will say. You may recall that when I originally shared this activity of electing a patron saint, […]
In her book, My Best Teachers Were Saints, author Susan H. Swetnam writes about St. Charles Borromeo, the patron saint of catechists, whose feast day we celebrate today. She explains that he supervised the writing of an accurate catechism, rewrote liturgical texts and music, and began enforcing clerical reform in Rome after the Council of Trent. She writes that he was, “an energetic reformer who took ‘always the most austere and stringent interpretation’ of the […]
In this election year, I’ve decided to use a general outline of the political process as a multi-week activity for my seventh-grade class to learn about the saints. I’ll frame this lesson as selecting a patron saint for our year together. This will be an opportunity to look to the saints as role models who exhibit heroic virtues worthy of examples of the Christian life. First, we’ll meet the pool of candidates. I’ll help the […]
A few years back, I read about a tradition that St. Faustina had with the sisters of her convent. On New Year’s Day, they would gather to pick a holy patron for the new year. Here is an excerpt from her diary, Divine Mercy in My Soul. There is a custom among us of drawing by lot, on New Year’s Day, special Patrons for ourselves for the whole year. In the morning, during meditation, there […]
I remember as a kid being thrilled with the Feast of St. Blaise, because it meant that I wouldn’t get any more sore throats during the remaining weeks of the cruel Chicago winter. So much of my piety back then was bordering (if not totally over the edge!) on superstition. Why? I was never really taught otherwise. I was taught that the blessing of St. Blaise would keep me not only from getting a sore […]
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