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Francis is all about encounter with Jesus Christ. What is ENCOUNTER? Marc From The Bad Catholic blog tries to describe encounter: This is a fancy way of saying that to have encountered something implies that there is more to know about it, more to see, and more to experience. Encounter is that type of knowledge which confronts and experiences a mystery as a mystery. Putting you face-to-face with a mystery. He finishes, Damn, it s hard to evangelize. You cannot prove and subsequently explain God to the unbeliever. The evangelist can only hope to help arrange the meeting. That is your job as a teacher/catechist. Arrange a meeting between each student and Jesus Christ. And when you have encountered Christ, you are changed! Fulton Sheen, in talking about the Magi, meeting Christ in the stable and then going home a different way quipped Of course they went back by a different road; no one comes to Christ and ever goes back the same way. YOU are not the same. YOU have entered discipleship. 2
So the big question for you as catechists is How Do I arrange this meeting between student and Jesus so as to encourage discipleship? READ SLIDE Step 1 is Break the Silence talk about Jesus and discipleship. (62% of Catholics seldom or never share their faith or view of God with anyone else.) Sherry - We need a wide spectrum of opportunities because there is no single silver bullet. We need to have a variety of different paths or doors to discipleship available and visible so that most people will find at least one way to connect with or draw closer to Christ. Hopefully you will leave here with variety of strategies to answer the question on How you arrange a meeting. FACT The majority of Catholics don t believe that a personal relationship with God is possible, so this task is a challenge 3
People encounter Christ in other people. THIS IS MY FAVORITE I SEE CHRIST IN SO MANY PEOPLE. People who sacrifice or serve in amaze ways. People whose love of Christ or fellow person is so beautiful. They inspire me. A disciple is someone who has dropped his nets to follow Christ. Someone who wakes up every day asking, Lord, show me how to do your will this day. I have a friends who says every morning when she wakes up she prays Holy Spirit I give you complete freedom to work in my life today. THAT s a disciple. Here s the obit of another disciple - READ Are you a disciple? How can you become one. Are you working on it?????? Take todays suggestions and put them to use in your own life and grow your discipleship! You cannot pass on what you do not have. YOU must be a disciple to grow one. You must know Christ personally and develop a relationship with him And YOU MUST TALK ABOUT YOUR FAITH, YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH Christ. What other opportunities do you have as a catechist or teacher to have your students rub shoulders with disciples? Because we need this community of disciples, we do not make it to heaven alone. How about inviting members of the parish (on a regular basis) to share their lived experience of God with your students. There are sop many untapped stories of faith 4
hiding in our parishes because we do not talk about faith. How about inviting those who have recently gone thru RCIA to talk with your students? They have made a conscious decision to follow Jesus Christ in the Catholic Church, which is exactly where you are headed with your students, so collect those stories and get them in front of your class. And parents are modeling faith to their children all the time. Help parents become disciples. Encourage the practice of the faith, tips, family devotions of practices, a monthly or weekly email. Here s what one parish leader did: READ 4
Our role is to teach prayer, not just prayers. Prayer is an attitude, an awareness of God, a taking time for and with God that can happen in many ways. Children are naturally attracted to God; we need to foster that. Give them, examples of prayer, let them know how simple it can be; give them time and space for prayer. DO NOT RUSH THROUGH PRAYER. Model Daily Prayer start with gratitude Meister Eckhart If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough. EXAMIN & MATTHEW KELLY Pray in many different ways: Silent prayer help children to focus during silent prayer, think of how you love God, and how much God loves you. Can you feel God s presence, can you feel God s peace surround you? Talk with God about the best and worst of what is happening with you right now. Ask for guidance and listen for God s guidance. Prayer tent in the room Prayer journals Spontaneous prayer stop and pray every time you hear a siren, three for the trinity Talk about your own prayer life Tell stories of answered prayer and ask students about their answered prayers Prayer wall in the hallway, encourage students to pray Memorized prayers and made-up prayers 5
Pray with music, My friend Calvin listens to lots of popular music for messages about God. and he says if you listen to love songs, they describe God s love for us. You cannot listen to someone attempting to describe perfect love and NOT describe God. Pray while painting or sculpting or dancing Pray in crazy ways: Pray for the student on your left, right, front and back today, Pray as you walk around the school/parish campus Throw a dart at a map each week and pray for the people in the place where the dart hits. Start a wall or Facebook page for intercessory prayer Pray with films like these: They are excellent meditations on global hunger and poverty. Pray online Loyola press has an online 3 minute reflection that s nice. 5
READ Creative Voice And here s what Pope Francis said, We ask only one thing: that you reach out! And that you go and seek out and encounter the most needy! But not alone, no. With Jesus! Does this mean going to convince someone to become Catholic? No, no, no! You are just reaching out to meet him, he is your brother! That is enough. You reach out to help them, the rest is done by Jesus, by the Holy Spirit. Remember well: we need to encounter the neediest. With Jesus, we who are in need, we reach out to those who are even more in need. And maybe Jesus will show us the path to meet with those who need it most. When you meet those most in need, your heart will begin to grow bigger, bigger and bigger! Because reaching out multiplies our capacity to love. An encounter with others makes our heart bigger. Take courage! Feed the hungry a Thanksgiving food drive is not enough. What happens to that food? Who distributes it? Why are people hungry? What is your parish doing to combat the root causes of hunger. As much as possible, wrestle with this get your students to the soup kitchen or food pantry, get a speaker in to talk to the students WE CANNOT ASSUME THAT THEY KNOW WHY THEY ARE COLLECTING FOOD. Service makes sense to young people and keeps them connected to their faith. 6
How can we encourage real participation in these corporal works of mercy, and stir the deeper questions so that our young people become engaged in long-term solutions to the problems of this world? Some of your students are called to this work on a deeper level how can we foster their response if we do not engage them in this work? Shelter the homeless Habitat for Humanity, accepting refugees, Visit the Sick nursing home partnership?, St. Louis School, OP Motherhouse-SHG Visit the imprisoned not sure what to do about this one, any ideas? Bury the dead story about pall bearers from Catholic high school, St. Louis School funeral choir Organize a Helping Hands event St. Peter/Holy Family 6
Here s a concrete way to feed the hungry, globally. In an hour and a half, these volunteers packed 10,000 meals for people in Burkina Faso. 7
These first 3 very important these days as the Church is frequently being trashed by those without and within about our teachings on human sexuality Have you heard of affirmative orthodoxy, it means a tenacious defense of the core elements of classic Catholic doctrine, but presented in a relentlessly positive key. Examples: Chastity, for example, isn't just a "no" to premarital sex and lustful desires. Chastity is a "yes" to something much bigger, and far more enticing. It's a "yes" to authentic love, to making a complete gift of self, to seeing people through God's eyes, to purity of heart, and to a sense of freedom, fulfillment, and strength in sexual matters. Affirmative orthodoxy focuses on the positive fruit that freedom from sin brings us, not condemnation, fear, or guilt. Another example is Reconciliation. This Sacrament (of Healing) is imperative for a living faith, and yet people hide from it like it's the plague. Here we must continue to scream affirmative orthodoxy from the rooftops. Confession isn't to be understood as a place to hang your head in shame. It's a "yes" to the endless mercy of God and the healing power of his loving embrace. It's an experience of a loving Father, a taste of God's abundant goodness, and it's our access to true spiritual freedom. To approach Confession as anything else would be a lesser understanding so focus on how amazing a gift it is. Sell the benefits (with sincerity and enthusiasm) and sin is far less desirable. Let's 8
make it as clear as possible. We don't just need Jesus, we actually want him. Teaching in this way can help students KNOW and ACCEPT the teachings of the Church, and with older students, you can even practice how a young person might talk about these topics with another person who is sinning or ignorant or doubtful about some teaching of the Church. Comfort the sorrowful funeral choir, have a Mass said, write notes of comfort, add Bible verses Bear wrongs, forgive injuries MODEL this, our world is sorely in need of this, Look to Christ First grade People s Court after recess Pray for the Living and the Dead my mom s teacher our prayer may be the one that moves someone into heaven, mystical body of Christ 8
I love reading about the lives of the Saints - 60 Saints for Girls (Boys) Who Cares About the Saints with Fr. James Martin, You Tube older kids, also available for sale from Loyola Press The whole point of the Church declaring Saints is to give us models of discipleship and there are EVERY kind of saints. Saint John Paul the Great; His Five Loves Did anyone see the movie St. Vincent? Tell story.. What is a saint? A human being we celebrate for the sacrifices they make, for their commitment to making the world a better place. 9
Beauty can draw us closer to God. Who has felt this - A sense of awe and wonder and the generous providence of God when seeing or hearing something beautiful or amazing? Noah s Ark, stories of incredibly love and sacrifice? But this is only possible if we slow down to notice things. And care about things that kids care about. Listen, cultivate listening to show respect for others. Allow questions about everything don t be in such a hurry to cover the material especially catechists you ll never cover it all anyway! Allow time to think, to wonder, to ask 10
An visible sign of grace, instituted by Christ. A Sacrament is supposed to bring an encounter with Christ, so they must be celebrated well. Eucharist My Lord and my God REAL PRESENCE Schedule regularly, express your excitement for the Sacraments reverence, joy We can ask ourselves this question: When will we meet Jesus only at the end? No, no, no. We meet him every day. But how? In prayer. When you pray, you meet Jesus. When you take communion, you meet Jesus in the sacrament. When you bring your child to Jesus to be baptized, you bring him to Jesus, and you find Jesus. And you today, who receive confirmation, also you meet Jesus, but after confirmation the whole of life is also a meeting with Jesus! This meeting happens in prayer, when we go to Mass, and when we do good works: when we visit the sick, when we help the poor, when we think of others, the Pontiff explained. Confirmation New programs Chosen, HIGHLY RECOMMEND, 11
Talk about Jesus as a real person. Faith is a person, the person of Jesus. BOOK Wrestle with the Gospel and what it means to a 5 year old, 15 year old Provide time to read Scripture, use children s bibles and story books Have students rewrite a Scripture story to express the lesson in modern terms. Ignatian Contemplation St. Ignatius was convinced that God can speak to us as surely through our imagination as through our thoughts and memories. In the Ignatian tradition, praying with the imagination is called contemplation. In the Exercises, contemplation is a very active way of praying that engages the mind and heart and stirs up thoughts and emotions. - 12
Stations of the Cross, Living Stations, Maryknoll Stations Wearing a scapular Rosary Eucharistic Adoration/Adoration chapel lots of good stories lately about putting adolescents in the Adoration Chapel What other popular devotions are powerful for kids? 13
Charisms are gifts from the Holy Sprit that are our unique way of making Christ known in the world Bestowed at Baptism Can only be used for good Always there, never go away But only become activated when we seek discipleship However, it is good for our children to know they have these charisms, and that they are called to discipleship and need to discern and then use their charisms to make Christ known to others. Discern your own charisms and then look for them in your students, if possible. Expect that your students will accept discipleship and encourage their efforts. 14
I hope these strategies have been helpful. I send monthly emails to principals, teachers and catechists. If you come across a great idea, please pass it on to me to share with others. 15