I will not recap the events of the event.  Many others have done that already and are much better at that sort of thing then I am.  I will highlight a few things that were most powerful for me.  First, I met people … a lot of people.  Many of these individuals I know from Twitter, Facebook as well as the podcasts and blogs that I follow.  I was amazing to talk to these individuals in person and to witness their drive and energy first hand.  People like Barb Gilman (a.k.a. Barb in Nebraska), a 3rd grade teacher in a Catholic school who has so much energy that she probably puts her 3rd graders to shame; and Maria “Bego” Johnson from another cup of coffee, who is the classic Cubanita and a hoot to be around.

There were so many others that I met and had the opportunity to chat with, including Pat and Brian Padley from In Between Sundays, Dr. Paul Camarata from The SaintCast, Fr. Jay Finelli from iPadre, Fr. Jim Tucker from The Catholic Creativity Community and even Dane Falkner who leads the team at DivineOffice.org.  I even made some new local friends while I was there too.

The highlight for me was being able to chat briefly with His Eminence, Cardinal Seán Patrick O’Malley, the “Blogging Cardinal” and who happens to be the shepherd of my Church.  He is such a humble man!  The Archdiocese of Boston is truly blessed to have him. His blog , Cardinal Seán’s Blog, gives you a peek into the life of a bishop and is a great way to stay on top of all the good work happening across our diocese.

Reflecting on the events and speakers of the CNMC, I have decided to add a new segment to my blog that will focus on catechesis.  I will select a topic monthly and write a reflection on the catechesis behind that topic.  Ultimately, I would not be using this blog to it’s fullest potential if I did not use it to share the Gospels in some way.  I hope this proves helpful to those that have questions about the faith and the Church’s teachings.

For those interested, you can view recording of the various sessions at SQPN’s uStream Archive and you can see pictures at the Archdiocese’s Flickr Page

Until next time, keep sharing the faith!

Over the past year, I’ve been looking at a lot of resources on the internet gathering ideas on class setup and lesson structure.  Part of what I plan to do next year is to throw my students off their game a bit.  The grade’s primary curriculum will be an in depth look at the Mass.  This will be a topic that will lend itself to discussion, so I’m going to move the students away from the tables and have the chairs placed in an open circle in the center of the room.  My hope is that the proximity to me and the other students will make the discussions more lively and intimate.  It should set the tone that all must participate and it doesn’t give anyone a place to hide. A huge plus is that there will be no table there to help them hide their texting under and while that hasn’t been a huge problem in the past, with an older grade I wanted to eliminate the temptation. My CRE is also working on a way to incorporate Theology of the Body into the year.  My experience is that sex is on every teen’s (and tween’s) mind, but they are uncomfortable discussing the topic with any reliable source of information.  I suggested a student retreat as an option for covering some of the material.

Intimidation aside, I’m actually excited about the change.  The Mass is such a central part of how we express our faith that I think this has so much potential.  Additionally, I’m hoping the three year difference in age will make for more intelligent discussions as compared to what I was able to have with my 6th graders.  I’m pretty sure the students will keep me on my toes, so I ask for your prayers that the Holy Spirit wins out.

Until next time, keep sharing the faith!

Now, I realize that what I’m feeling is not reality.  It’s not dead air and my faith tells me that someone, namely God, is always listening even if I don’t feel like He is.  With that faith as support, you keep on going.  You don’t give up.  You don’t let temptation win out.  And here’s the kicker … you need to PRAY about overcoming the dryness and until God reveals to you how to get past it, you offer up that dryness as suffering.

There is a great series about dryness in prayer over at Catholic Spiritual Direction.  Fr. Bartunek’s comments are very helpful in putting this into perspective.  If you are feeling spiritual dryness or want to read about it, I recommend going over there and reading the three articles Father has posted.

Until next time, keep sharing the faith!

What struck my when reading this is that, at it’s core, Catholicism has not changed much.  Sure, we’ve explained things more clearly to show how they pertain to a particular time; but the principles are very similar.  I mean seriously, who would have thought that in the early second century (which is when this is believed to have been written), there was an explicit prohibition against abortion, or that one could not approach the Eucharist if they had not confessed their sins first.

I guess there is some truth in the saying that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

For those interested, there are a number of English translations for The Didache.  Below I will link one of them as well as the audio book:

The Didache at New Advent
The Didache Audio Book

The writing is very short but a great way to peer into our Church’s history.  While it may not be a catechism, per se, you can’t deny that it describes ”the Way”.

Until next time, keep sharing the faith!

The Catholic New Media Celebration is an annual gathering of podcaters and bloggers where ideas are shared, newbies are inspired, and old friends (whether virtual or physical) get together.  This year, the CNMC will be happening in Boston, right in my neck of the woods.  I decided that I just could not pass up this opportunity, not only to meet the people behind the voices and the text, but to learn a thing or two from those in attendance.

The CNMC MMX (i.e. Catholic New Media Celebration 2010) will be happening on August 7th at the Pastoral Center for the Archdiocese of Boston.  Will you be there?

For more information, watch the video below or go to http://www.celebration.sqpn.com.

Until next time, keep sharing the faith!

A few weeks ago, Jeff Young, The Catholic Foodie had an episode on his podcast about the Divine Office.  This episode was not just about the prayer itself, but about DivineOffice.org.  The episode was primarily an interview with the crew of that ministry — Dane, Chriss, Denise and Greg.  DivineOffice.org is recording audio of the Liturgy of the Hours “with the purpose of promoting the tradition of praying always  through these ancient treasures of the Church, not only to Catholics but to all Christians universally.”

This interview had my headphones glued to my ears.  They not only explained how they ended up in this ministry but also explained what this prayer is really all about, and that helped demystify it for me quite a bit.  As I implied above, one of my biggest hesitations has always been how much time this employed-full-time-Catechist-by-night-husband-and-father would be able to commit to a prayer that could be lengthy.  I honestly never considered the possibility of just praying some of the prayers throughout the day.  The crew suggested that one begin with just one of the Hours of the day and grow from there.  I had always assumed it was all-or-none.  Additionally, the fact that you can pray the Hours together with these fine folks by downloading their recordings or listening to them directly off their site, made this even more of a possibility. One might otherwise feel lost or intimidated on how to pray them correctly.  Even though the recordings don’t contain specific instructions, they still almost double as a tutorial of sorts.

So I decided to begin praying the Divine Office.  I try to pray the three major hours each day — Office of Readings, Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer.  Occasionally, I’ll sneak Night Prayer in before going to bed.  These prayers are absolutely beautiful!  There is a lot of focus on the psalms and the readings thus far have flowed like stories.  This is this a great way to grow in your familiarity with the scriptures overall.  I’m starting to have a broadened understanding of salvation history even within the short time since starting this.

Have any of you contemplated trying the Divine Office?  If you have and have been scared off or have otherwise delayed doing so, let me strongly recommend that you listen to the interview on The Catholic Foodie, then go over to DivineOffice.org and have a look around.  The service is available for free directly through their website, RSS Feed or iTunes podcast.  They do have a paid iPhone app, but that is completely optional and not getting it will have no impact to your ability to pray the Hours.  (It’s a great app, by the way.)  I hope you will consider praying this beautiful prayer of the Church.

Until next time, keep sharing the faith!

Anyway, Sister usually answers reader-submitted questions on her blog. Last week, she answered a question from a catechist around the use of the left hand for making the sign of the cross. This post really got me thinking about the various traditions and devotions that exist in the Catholic Church. Our faith has so much to strengthen us as we progress through our faith journeys. I went to Catholic school from Kindergarten through high school and was constantly exposed to ways of expressing our faith, not only through prayer but through action as well. I can clearly remember learning the Hail Holy Queen in 3rd grade, learning how to pray the Rosary, walking the Stations of the Cross every Lent, attending First Friday Mass throughout the school year, learning how to follow along using a missalette (talk about confusing!) and having Benediction periodically. (Boy, I hated the smell of incense back then!!)

All of my students go to public school and therefore they get none of that exposure. For example, I was shocked to find out that none of my students had ever done the Stations of the Cross before!?! Many of these traditions are opportunities to better understand the meaning of our faith and to strengthen us spiritually. Additionally, they are beautiful, especially when you understand their history and meaning. I would love to be able to expose my students to these practices as tools to further their understanding of Catholic faith.

I have two challenges here. The first is time. How does one go about giving their students exposure to some of these traditions and devotions when one is limited to 1 hour a week with a full lesson’s worth of material to cover? The second challenge is the fact that while they are not exposed to this at school, most are not exposed to this at home either. Even if I could find the time to do at least a cursory review of some of these practices in class, there is very little expectation that it will stick without exposure to it outside of class.

I guess I have a whole summer to figure this out. Have any of you found successful ways of exposing your students to the beautiful devotions of the Church and its faithful (and making them stick)?

Until next time, keep sharing the faith!

I have been lucky enough to have participated in two excellent webinars over the past couple of weeks that have really helped me to reconsider how I should engage in my ministry.

The first webinar was presented by Jonathan F. Sullivan, who is the Director of Catechetical Ministries for the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois.  The webinar was titled “Catechizing Digital Natives” and focused on the different ways that today’s kids process and learn information.  Below is the video recording of the webinar and here is a link to some of the resources discussed in the video.

The second webinar was presented by Joe Paprocki from Catechist’s Journey.com and Loyola Press.  Joe is well known among Catechists as not only an author of numerous books about being a Catechist, but also as an 8th Grade Catechist himself.  His webinar was titled “Growing as a Catechist: A Self-Evaluation Based on 7 Critical Tools from The Catechist’s Toolbox” and focused on how to reflect on our own ministries with the goal of tweaking our approach and preparation to add more impact when we catechize.

I found both of these webinars so valuable that I just had to share them with you.  As Catechists, sometimes we feel like we are left to our own devices and it’s nice to know that there are others out there who share their ideas with us.  It’s amazing when you find out that the problems you face in your classrooms and parishes are not as unique as you might think.

Until next time, keep sharing the faith!

For our parish, the formal Catechetical year is over.  Our Catecumen has been initiated, our students have had their final exams and classes are over until September.  I guess that means it’s time to reflect on the past year.  Teaching others is always a work in progress, no matter what it is that you are teaching.  Religious Education is, of course, no different.

As I think back, I tried some new things this year with mixed results.  Additionally, I tried some very successful strategies from last year, surprisingly also with mixed results.  But through the great discussions, the disciplinary issues and everything in between, something struck me; I think that as a Catechist, I’m learning more about the faith then I did when I was being catechized myself.

That statement I just made has a lot of meaning in it.  Some people would say that the catechesis my generation received as children was sub par, while others would say that my memory is slipping and I just don’t remember (Sr. Martina would be very upset about that), and yet others would say that I was just a kid and didn’t really care back then, which isn’t true at all.  I’d like to think that it is something totally different.  I’ve progressed in my faith journey since my days back at Our Lady of Fatima School in Jackson Heights, NY and I’ve experienced a lot more at this stage of my life.

I now have the opportunity, capacity and maturity level to delve deeper into what it is that Christ was trying to tell us 2000 year ago, and continues to tell us today through His Church.  I have a different prospective today then it did when my biggest worries were around lying to my parents about something silly or how I treated my friends or my little brother.  Today, as I prepare to guide the children charged to me, I have begun to understand how it all fits together and what the end goal really is — to love all unconditionally. That’s the big picture!  That’s what the message boils down to.  A one work summary of the Good News — Love.

By no means am I saying that I understand everything, after all, our faith is full of mysteries; nor am I saying that I even know how to put it all into practice in my own life, but all the preparation for my lessons has broadened my own understanding and has propelled my own faith journey further than I ever realized it could go.

Who could have imagined that my efforts to help with the Church’s mission to make disciples of all nations would have helped my own discipleship?  I thought I’d be sharing my own knowledge with my students and the Holy Spirit has used that to throw me a curve ball, to my own benefit no less.  He’s a sneaky one; or better put, He works in mysterious ways!

Until next time, keep sharing the faith!

RCIA is a whole different animal, isn’t it? While I understand the importance of catechizing individuals of all ages, I never really appreciated the difference between working with the parish youth and working with adults. As you all know, catechizing youth is generally structured with focusing on one broad theme for the entire year. In my case, the 6th Grade curriculum is primarily focused on the Bible, comparing the Old and New Testaments in an effort to better understand Salvation History and how it connects between the two collection of books. In RCIA, it’s a much broader approach. You have to try to share as much of 2000+ years of Scripture and Tradition in one year.

What seemed like an impossible task, has proven to be one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. It has not only been a privilege to follow Christ’s command to “make disciples”, but the discussions are so much more profound at this level. You can explore topics in much greater detail, helping foster a deeper understanding. Additionally, those discussions have helped me develop my own faith further by forcing me to contemplate some of the topics and questions in a way that I have never done before.

But there is something else that is uniquely special about RCIA … the Easter Vigil. The reward at the end of the program, not only for the candidate or catecumen, but also for the catechist. It’s not like sharing the faith with youth, which has its own rewards; but you get to witness your ministry bear fruit right before your very eyes. I was able to witness the rebirth of an individual through Baptism, who was then fortified by the Holy Spirit through Confirmation and unified with Christ through First Holy Communion; and the Holy Spirit did it in part through me. I have been truly blessed!

Until next time, keep sharing the faith!