eCatechist

"Becoming" by Julie Quinn

 Jeremiah 29:11

“For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Sometimes it feels as though we are hanging on the side of a cliff…we have reached a breaking point at which we must choose between hanging on to our old way of life by our fingernails, or trusting God and letting go…falling into His arms…It is at this point of submission, this leap of faith, that the Lord does His finest work in us.  We are becoming what He has desired for us from the beginning…something beautiful.

juliequinnart.com

Handbook for Today's Catechist - Review

 Handbook for Today’s Catechist, by Ginger Infantino. Liguori Press, 2009

This short, readable guide is a wonderful tool for beginning catechists, and is a nice refresher course for those catechists with a few more years of experience.

The first half of the book focuses on the tasks of catechesis while sharing some helpful tips for successful lesson planning and classroom management. There is also some attention given to meeting the needs of students’ different learning styles, which is information that will be invaluable for reaching all students in the way they learn best.  While much of the information in this section is general in nature, it has value nonetheless in that it will guide a new catechist in the early stages of her journeys. 

The second half of the book offers a succinct review of some of the most basic precepts of the Catholic Church.   Realistically, it is fair to say that most catechists come to their position having had no real religious formation since their high school days, if not earlier.  This refresher course is the perfect fill-in-the-gaps tool for that person.  Infantino pulls together very simple yet important reviews on topics ranging from Scripture and Tradition to Prayers and Liturgy, to Jesus as True God and True Man.  She presents the information in a straightforward way that does not require any theological background to truly understand. 

In the hectic lives that many of our catechetical volunteers lead, there is often not much time for outside “training” in catechesis.  Handbook for Today’s Catechist offers a quick-read, valuable tool for solid faith formation; it’s a great resource for helping to “teach the teacher.”

Reviewed by Jenifer Truitt, Coordinator of Religious Education, St. Oliver Plunkett Catholic Church and creator of St. Olivers PSR

 

 

 

Reading Your Bible, 5

Bible Reading:

Gateway to a Renewed Relationship

By Steve Mueller

Our Bible journey is a also getaway from our normal everyday routines. Like a vacation, we want to stop the busyness of business to relax, reflect, and recharge our batteries. Reading the Bible renews our spiritual life by bringing us face to face with God who wants to be in relationship with us. Relationships take time and effort. Our Bible journey ought not to be just a one-night stand but rather a lifetime journey with this divine companion. We need times to just stop, take time with God, and revitalize our relationship.

Through our biblical journey, we have the opportunity to refresh our vision of what our world is like, rethink our values, and change our behavior because of our relationship with God. Our desire is not just for theology—faith seeking understanding—but for spirituality -- faith seeking embodiment. The Bible is the doorway which leads us from our ordinary material external world to a spiritual, extraordinary, inner one. God stands at the door and invites, but we have to decide to step across the threshold.

Our Bible journey will be an opportunity to discover new worlds – to see new sights and meet new people. We will gain new perspectives that will help us to see our old familiar world in a new way. We will meet new people who will challenge us to relate to them. We will discover new customs and patterns of behavior which we must adopt if we want to be on good terms with our hosts. We never know what might happen if we decide to make the trip. Bible country is full of surprises!

© 2009 Steve Mueller

Sundays By Design, November 15, 2009

                                                        Sundays by Design

                                                        November 15, 2009

                                                              Readings

We have lots of reasons to be fearful these days.  The weather is weird, the economy is poor, there are wars and rumors of wars.  The oceans and the skies and the earth may all be coming to an end, and we’ve heard more than once that our generation shall not pass away until all these things have taken place.

But we’re not as uneasy as the community for whom Mark’s Gospel was written.  They knew they had a crazy man―the emperor Nero himself―hunting them.  He had already executed Peter and Paul, and his soldiers could be at their door at any moment.  The thunder of the Roman army could surely cause the stars to fall from the skies, and shake the powers in the heavens.

But when Jesus talked about the end times he wasn’t talking about the Romans, and he wasn’t predicting global warming either.  He was warning of that day when “the elect” would be gathered and saved while the world as they knew it burned away. 

That’s the design of the liturgy and Scripture readings in these last weeks of the church year.  We feel the momentum of the story as it comes crashing to that final judgment.  In fact, today is the last Sunday that we will read Mark until 2011.  He has told his story since last Advent, but now that the end of the year is imminent, it will fall to John’s Gospel―the Gospel set aside by the Church for the great feast days― to take us to the end of the year, and the victory of Christ the King.

 

Sharing God's Word at Home:

In what ways can you be a better steward of the earth’s resources?

 

Kathy McGovern ©2009

Note: If you would like to include "Sundays By Design" in your parish bulletin, contact Kathy at
mcgovern.kathy@yahoo.com for details.

Sundays By Design, November 8, 2009

  Sundays by Design

November 8, 2009 

Readings

It must have been great to be a scribe in the Temple at the time of Jesus.  People bowed and scraped and made sure you got the best seat, the best food, the best deal.  After all, you were the expert on the Torah, and that made up for a multitude of sins.

Like taking care of the widows, for example.  Any beginning Torah student knew that God had been very, very clear― from the sands of the Sinai to the cities of the prophets―that Israel was to take care of the widow, the orphan, and the alien in the land.  And yet, how complacently they all watched, these experts in the Law, as the poor widow fulfilled her Temple duty by placing those two tiny coins in the treasury.

Where was their shame?  Where was the scribe who stood and said, “This is a disgrace!  This poor widow has just placed all she had to live on in our coffers.  Why is she so desperately poor?  It was our duty to take good care of her, but we have ignored her.  She, on the other hand, has not ignored us, but continued to give from her great want so that we could be comfortable.”  Notice that the early part of today’s Gospel says the scribes “devoured the houses of widows”.  It probably happened little by little, week by week, desperate penny by penny.

I’ll bet that was what Jesus meant when drew attention to her.  He wasn’t praising her for putting her life at risk by donating her last coin to the Temple.  He was lamenting the blatant sins against the covenant that had put her in that terrible position to begin with.  Sharing God's Word at Home: Do you know someone who is not being adequately cared for?  

Kathy McGovern © 2009

All Saints & My Life with the Saints

All Saints:Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets and Witnesses for Our Time by Robert Ellsberg

An Interview and a Review

 

My Life with The Saints by James Martin, SJ

Note: When you go to Amazon.com you will be amazed to find hundreds of books on the lives of the saints. Where to begin? Over the years I have seen many of these titles. My Life with the Saints and All Saints are among the best. Both books read easily helping the readers to better understand saints and to make connections to everyday life.

Presention by James Martin, SJ

Reading Your Bible, 4

Reading Your Bible:

God’s Mystery in Our History

By Steve Mueller

As we become aware of God’s mystery in our history, we increase the degree of care in our relationships. Although we often equate faith with accepting a list of doctrines, faith is essentially our commitment to God and our relationship with God. The root of the word faith in Latin means the “bond” which establishes and sustains a relationship. This is synonymous with our sense of trust.

When we trust someone, we entrust ourselves to them. So our care and commitment to others in relationships always involves greater sharing. As one greeting card company reminds us, “when we care enough we send our very best!” So our Bible reading reminds us about the long history of other seekers who have discovered God and committed themselves to a more conscious relationship. We can learn from their example.

As we begin to live a more conscious spiritual life, the effects ripple out to every part of our lives. In our hectic world, we are bombarded by the need to make decisions that affect our lives. Since decisions are based on values, when our values change so will our decisions.

By encouraging us to look seriously at our relationships with God and with one another, Bible reading changes our priorities. By learning to notice God’s presence and activity, we add a spiritual component—we include God in! When we see our world with God present, we naturally shift our priorities to include God. And changing our priorities will affect how we make decisions about how to live. Making decisions does not necessarily become easier, but we see more clearly what is at stake and become more aware of what values guide us.

Changing our priorities through Bible reading helps us to deepen our family life because it constantly draws our attention to the task of living out the significant relationships. The Bible is a handbook for right relationships. It shows us where God has been found by some other seekers, how they were changed by that encounter, and how they found others with whom they could live in right relationship to God.

God calls us into relationships and makes demands about how we ought to live. Every relationship demands creating a community—a co-mission with the other. When lovers commit themselves to one another, their co-mission is to build a family. When believers join together, their co-mission is to create God’s dream community. The Bible provides help for understanding our common goal and the cost it will take to achieve it.

Bible reading also helps us to reorient our work life. If we can begin to see our work as a vocation rather than just a job, then the meaning of our work changes. Since meaning comes when we connect what we are doing to something else, the meaning of our work changes when we connect it to our relationship with God and our commission to create the kind of relationships with others which God desires.

Bible reading can also provide help with our elusive search for “peace of mind” and “the meaning of life.” Meaning cannot occur in isolation. Words become meaningful when we connect them together into sentences and arrange them into ever larger paragraphs and chapters. Meaning comes through placing elements into contexts.

So the meaning of our life as a whole comes when we put all the pieces together and then relate it to some larger context. For some this might be their family, for others a corporation or project. For religious persons the wider context is God’s reality. The Bible provides the context in which our lives can be understood. We are called to be in relationship with God in a community of fellow believers.

© 2009 Steve Mueller

 

Sundays By Design, November 1, 2009

 

Sundays by Design

All Saints Day

Readings

Ah.  It’s November again.  Can you feel it? It’s that sacred month that begins with two days of remembering those who have already gone home to God.  These are ancient Catholic traditions, ancient instincts that we are not alone here, but are all mystically connected in some wonderful way.

Today’s great feast begins a whole month of acknowledgment that the kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our God.  The saints are with us, in this very room!  Haven’t we always sensed that we are being guided and accompanied by the loving presence of “those who have survived the great time of distress”?  We have friends in high places, and they are interceding for us always.  The patron saints of all of our earthly travails---lost love, lost health, lost faith---have been so identified because there was something in their lives, on one side or the other side of heaven, that gained some vi ctory over these earthly enemies.  Give yourself a wonderful November gift and read My Life with the Saints by James Martin, SJ.

We too are God’s children, and what we shall be has not yet been revealed.  We wait in joyful hope for that day when we are greeted by the smiles of the martyrs, and our own beloved dead who loved us on both sides of the grave.

All you holy men and women, pray for us!

 

Sharing God's Word at Home:

Do you have a special connection with any particular saint?

 

Kathy McGovern © 2009

Note: If you would like to include "Sundays By Design" in your parish bulletin, contact Kathy at
mcgovern.kathy@yahoo.com for details.

We have five free copies of My Life with Saints by James Martin, SJ. If you would like a copy and in return write a brief comment and recommendation for eCatechist Blog, please send email to danpierson@faithalivebooks.com.

Reading Your Bible, 3

 

Reading Your Bible:

The Bible Journey: Taking Care of Business

By Steve Mueller

Like a business trip, we expect to gain something from our transactions with the people we meet. Whether we recognize it or not, our journey into Bible territory always begins with some agenda. Why is it we want to read the Bible and not some other book? There are thousands of books about religion, prayer, spirituality, psychology, history, etc. Why not read one of those? Answering this question for yourself is the first step on the journey.

The main business we are all in is self-making. Our lifetime is a journey on which we mold ourselves into who we are. Self-making occurs in and through relationships with others through whom we discover who we are and what our gifts are. Ultimately, we find our identity in relationship to God, the divine other who calls us into a special relationship. The Bible is our primary resource for discovering the person and plan of this God for us.

Like the business and economic activity that dominates so much of our everyday lives, our personal or sacred “business” also requires much time and effort. Just as a business trip has definite goals and agendas in mind, so reading the Bible ought to have some bottom line payoff for us. As the American philosopher William James liked to say, religious ideas also need some “cash value.” What is the practical application or usefulness of our Bible journey for our business of self-making?

Reading the Bible can profit us in many ways. First of all, since it opens up the often-neglected spiritual depths of ourselves and our world, it can jump-start our personal spiritual life and help us live out our relationship to God much more consciously. Living more consciously helps us to be more aware, to care, and to share.

As we notice how and where God is present, we become more spiritually aware and see our familiar world through the eyes of faith. Reading the Bible reveals that the surface appearances of our self and our everyday world hide a deeper mystery which normally escapes our notice.

Just as the disciples discovered Jesus alive after his death, so each of us as Christians has also experienced the living presence of Jesus. This living presence is the magnet that lures us onward into the mystery of the God who surrounds and supports us and desires to relate to us. We recognize God’s presence in the various experiences and events that whisper that our everyday material lives are not all there is. There is always “more” to reality than meets the eye! And this “more” is God.

The Bible is our primary handbook for learning how to live in a religious relationship with God. As seekers, we want to discover God’s presence, and then learn how to be in effective contact with God. The word ”religion” comes from the Latin word meaning to re-tie something. Religion encompasses our efforts to re-tie ourselves to God in the kind of relationship that God wishes.

© 2009 Steve Mueller

Sundays By Design, October 25, 2009

Sundays by Design

October 25, 2009

Mark 10:46-52

There have been some very bad times throughout history to be one of the “chosen people,” but to be a resident of Jerusalem between 597 and 587 BC. certainly ranks as one of the most terrifying.  By the time Nebuchadnezzar completed his destruction of the city he had killed a third of its citizens by the sword, a third by fire, and the last third were taken to Babylon―the “land of the north” hinted at in Jeremiah’s oracle today.

But they came back!  They departed in tears, but sixty years later they returned rejoicing.  And their return became the great healing moment for the broken Jewish people, who clung to this memory as they were hounded and murdered throughout the world in centuries to come.

When the Lord brought back Jaycee Dugard, and Elizabeth Smart, and POWs long feared dead, and soldiers safe on both sides of the battle, and a friendship that was lost, and a child who was estranged, and a leg or an arm or a heart that was broken, or a  faith that was on life support but then came roaring back, we thought we were dreaming.  But now, even in the midst of joblessness and insecurity, we remember how God has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.

What experiences of joyful return can you remember?

c) Kathy McGovern

Note: If you would like to include "Sundays By Design" in your parish bulletin, contact Kathy at
mcgovern.kathy@yahoo.com for details.

Reading Your Bible, 2

Reading Your Bible: Your Bible Journey, 2

By Steve Mueller

If the Bible is like a foreign country, then reading the Bible is how we make the journey there. Just as there are many travel guides and videos to acquaint us with places we would like to visit, so there are many helpful introductory books and study programs which help us to understand more about the Bible. But watching a National Geographic video from the comfort of our living room is never like being there in person. Likewise, no amount of second-hand knowledge about the Bible can substitute for the first-hand experience of immersing ourselves in the text by reading.

The journey to Bible country must always eventually be made in person because what we are seeking is not simply bits of information or sound bites telling us about God. Bible reading is different from most other reading that we do. We do not simply want information or good ideas about God. The Bible is not an “info-mercial” selling God like some product, which we can acquire. It is a guidebook for our relationship with God.

Reading the Bible demands that we take more time to pause, to examine our familiar world to discover the gaps through which we can become aware of the mysterious divine realities which normally go unnoticed. To read the Bible from cover to cover to get a quick overview of its contents is like the whirlwind tour of Europe which gives just a surface awareness. If it’s Tuesday this must be Paris!

How different it would be to live in Paris for weeks or months and absorb the experience of being there with Parisians! So likewise when we journey into Bible country, we do not want to be just tourists. We want to be sojourners—foreigners who enjoy the new region so much that they take up residence and perhaps even take out citizenship.

Making the Bible journey is a unique trip. It is not exactly a business trip, although we will profit from the journey. It is not exactly a vacation, although we will be refreshed and recharged if we go. The Bible journey is unique because it takes us to the center of our faith to meet this mysterious other called God. It is not an outward journey traversing the geography of the land but an inner journey over the landscape of our relationship with God.

© 2009 Steve Mueller

Sundays By Design, October 18, 2009

Sundays by Design

29^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Mark 10: 35-45

My husband Ben and I had a little windfall last week.  We always buy a raffle ticket for the Boys and Girls Club House contest.  Of course we wouldn’t know what to do with the winning million dollar house, but we love dreaming about it and of course we support the good work of the sponsors.

Wonder of wonders, they pulled our ticket out of the hat for one of the second prizes!  We won $2500.00 just like that.  We danced around the house and then I went off to my doctor appointment.  When I told my Orthodox Jewish doctor about our astonishing good luck his response was typical of him:  And so, Kathy, are you sending the money down to Ben’s mission in Juarez or are you going to spread it around locally?  Because, as I tell my kids, God gives us wealth so that we can serve, not be served.

James and John, those thundering Zebedee boys who did in fact suffer martyrdom in the years following the resurrection, wanted to sit at Jesus’ side when he came into his glory.  And I’m sure they do, now, in the eternity set aside for all who have learned, on this side of the grave or the other, that God’s understanding of power and glory is all about emptying oneself and taking the form of a slave.

What experience of service have you had that was more fulfilling than being served?

 c) Kathy McGovern

Note: If you would like to include "Sundays By Design" in your parish bulletin, contact Kathy at
mcgovern.kathy@yahoo.com for details.

Hand Me Down Faith - 2

“Whatever you do, work at it with your whole being.  Do it for the Lord rather than for men, since you know full well you will receive an inheritance from him as your reward.”  Colossians 2: 23, 24

Lord, You fill our lives with Your message.  Help me to work with my whole being to pass on that message. You send us holy men and women who are examples of Your love and who repeat Your words so that we may grasp one ounce of all You have to send.  Teach me to be open to Your Word.  To read and to understand and to be an example to others, so that I may one day be a part of your inheritance.

Catholic News Service Blog

The Catholic News Service Blog is an excellent site for daily updates of news about the Catholic Church from around the world. From this blog you will have access to many blogs and websites of Catholic interest.

St. Oliver's PSR

Jen Truitt, coordinator of religious education at St. Oliver Plunkett Parish in Snellville, GA, has created a very simple, easy to use website for the religious education program.

It's so practical with ideas for parents and catechists. And the "links" page does not overwhelm you with more than you need - just some of the best. Congratulations to Jen, who is one of the authors for eCatechist. Her entries appear in Creative Teaching Tips category. St. Oliver's PSR

Reading Your Bible, 1

Reading Your Bible:
The Journey That Will Change Your Life

By Steve Mueller

Let's face it. For most of us Catholics, the Bible is like a foreign country. We have heard fascinating stories about its people and places from others who have traveled there. We might even have met someone who, like some spiritual secret agent, has been a closet Bible reader for years without ever revealing these undisclosed excursions into Bible country. Although most of us might have secretly yearned to make this journey, for various reasons we have never made the trip ourselves.

Most Catholics recorded births, baptisms, first communions, and weddings in their family Bible, but never dreamed of reading it. They had been warned that there are too many dangers in traveling there on their own. “Private interpretation” was suspect and dangerous because it led directly to heresy.

Despite this, when their curiosity got the best of them, many Catholics decided to read it. They unwittingly assumed they should read it from cover to cover, only to find it obscure, puzzling, and even boring. Like so many other confused and discouraged seekers, they usually quit after the first few books.

But the Bible retained its fascination for us. We are like the great seeker St. Augustine some sixteen hundred years ago who tells of his conversion experience in his autobiographical Confessions (Book 8.12). Disillusioned by his superficial life-style and reluctant to enter into a deeper relationship with God, he heard the singing voice of a playing child chanting “take and read, take and read.”

Assuming that this meant his Bible, he opened it randomly to a passage from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans (13:13–14) which urged him to cast aside the past and begin a new relationship with God. As seekers, our intuition tells us that something good will happen when we heed the faint voices we hear prompting us to “take and read” our Bible.

 © 2009 Steve Mueller

"Reading Your Bible" is an eight part series. One each week

Sundays By Design, October 11, 2009

Would it spoil some vast eternal plan if I were a wealthy man?  That’s Tevya from Fiddler on the Roof, pondering the idyllic life of leisure and prayer and study that he and his family would enjoy if only he could somehow strike it rich.  I think that temptation must touch us all from time to time as we adapt to the stresses of the workplace. 

The rich young man who had observed all the commandments since his youth was simply trying to stay content with the wealth into which he had been born.  He wasn’t trying to extort or defraud, but just to maintain his status quo.  Jesus, as usual, turns the status quo on its head.

Could it be that Jesus was inviting this young man into the adventure of his life by challenging him to a preview of heaven, where the securities of this world fall away and we see the world, with its astounding abundance, as God sees it? 

When Jesus multiplied the loaves he showed us that there is plenty of bread, and when he told the exhausted fisherman to cast their nets on the other side of the boat he showed us that he knows where all the fish are.  Maybe that’s why it’s hard for “the rich” to enter the kingdom.  When we cling to the status quo we can’t step into God’s status quo, and Jesus promises that that’s the only one we really want.

Have you ever stretched yourself out of your comfort zone and then been really glad you did?

c) Kathy McGovern

Note: If you would like to include "Sundays By Design" in your parish bulletin, contact Kathy at
mcgovern.kathy@yahoo.com for details.

Catholic Magazines

As I began my day, I felt anxious by the increasing quantity of information that it available through Catholic books, magazines, newspapers, websites, blogs and the internet in general. What is an appropriate response to information anxiety?

This is something that I have struggled with all my life. Today I am trying to focus on just a few sources with the purpose of seeking knowledge and not data. Through this blog we will highlight what we consider are some of the best resources that will help you grow in your faith and in your ministry as a catechist.

I have reviewed the websites of various Catholic magazines and I am familiar with their print editions.  All of these magazines are available by subscription and some of their current features and archives are posted online.

Generally speaking all of these magazines are well-designed and contain articles and resources that would be helpful to catechists and the adults in the Catholic parish. Take a look and if your resources permit subscribe to one or two. Or ask your catechetical leader to order for the parish catechetical library.

America Magazine

U.S. Catholic

Religion Teacher's Journal

Catechist

St. Anthony Messenger

Catholic Digest

Commonweal

Liguorian

There are many more. For complete list visit the Catholic Press Association.

c) Dan Pierson

"Three Strikes - You're Out"

Did you know that the idea of “three strikes – you’re out!” is not limited to baseball?  It’s true:  you can use the same philosophy in your religious education classes!  After you and your class have agreed upon the class rules, you will be in charge of making sure they are followed.   At this point, I suggest letting the children know exactly what the consequences will be for misbehavior.  The “three strikes” system has worked well for many teachers.  It works like this:

Every single time that one of the students behaves in a way that would be considered breaking a rule, gently call him or her on it.  “Ryan, remember we agreed?  Hands to yourself is a rule for this classroom.  That’s one.”   If Ryan continues, quietly approach him, and simply say, “That’s two.”  If Ryan still hasn’t gotten himself under control, you may take him quietly aside, and explain, “That’s three; now I need to have you speak to the director of religious education about your misbehavior.”   Have an aide walk him to the office, where the situation will be handled.   Most catechists are volunteers, not trained classroom teachers, and as such should never hesitate involve the director for disciplinary help – it’s part of the job!

Make sure that if you implement  the “three strikes” or any other discipline plan that you utilize it absolutely consistently every single time.  You will find that by consistently enforcing rules while remaining calm and gentle, you will have your students’ respect.  If you maintain a pleasant demeanor and find a way to be personally interested in each of them, you will also earn their respect.  I can guarantee you that if you have set the proper tone, the same little Ryan who was sent out of your classroom for his constant disruptive behavior will be the first one hugging you and saying hello next week, so don’t be afraid to be firm!

c) Jenifer Truitt

The Catholic Courier of the Diocese of Rochester, NY

If you are looking for one source for book reviews, movie reviews, resources for kids and articles for living faith daily, visit the Catholic Courier, the Official Newspaper of the Diocese of Rochester, New York.

This well-designed website for a diocesan paper is one of the best in the United States. And content is excellent and practical.

Faith Alive

Kids' Chronicle

Book Reviews

Movie Reviews

Congratulations to Bishop Matthew Clark and staff of the Catholic Courier for providing an excellent diocesan paper.

Boston College C21

Just this week I visited Boston College’s website, C21. What A surprise. One of the most exciting features is all the online courses for catechists and general adult education. For most courses there are definite beginning and starting dates, a fee, and moderator.

There are a few free courses that will introduce you to online learning and their “web searches” is a very creative way to provide guided reading and study on a specific topic.