Extra, Extra! Read all about it!

Posted May 20, 2012 by Sue Klejeski
Categories: DRE & Faith Formation Coordinators
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The parish pastor discovered it. The director of evangelization and catechesis for the archdiocese encourages it. And, most important, the parents and children like it.

We’ve mentioned Sacred Heart Parish in Norfolk, Nebraska a couple times in the past months and are pleased to see the end-of-their-first-year-assessment published in their diocesan paper.

Heidi Snitchler said she enjoys the new “Family Formation” effort because she is learning more about the Catholic faith even as she teaches it to her children.  ”It’s opening my eyes as to how important my involvement is for the kids to learn,” said Snitchler, whose children attend public schools in Norfolk. “We go over terms and concepts in ways that help me communicate it to my children.”   Snitchler said she is pleased to be involved – both for her children and for herself. Her husband, Eric, is not Catholic, but he is involved in the lessons and is learning, too, Snitchler said.  ”We’ll be back next year,” she said.

Read more about the success of Sacred Heart Parish’s transition from a traditional religious education model to Family Formation here and here.

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Posted May 20, 2012 by Sue Klejeski
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No one can live continually in sin and continue to say the Rosary. Either he will give up the sin or he will give up the Rosary.      
Bishop Patrick Boyle

If families give Our Lady fifteen minutes a day by reciting the Rosary, I assure them that their homes will become, by God’s grace, peaceful places.

FatherPatrick Peyton 

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Seeing the Mysteries

Posted May 19, 2012 by Sue Klejeski
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It’s never too late to start a collection of pictures with religious themes to make into Rosary books for your children or godchildren. I’ve done this in the past by simply using a three-ring binder and plastic sheet protectors. Back each picture with a sheet of solid paper to hide the distracting print on the back and divide them according to the Mysteries. Catholic calendars, magazines and the internet are all good sources for suitable pictures. It’s a great help for little ones (and bigger ones), to better focus and understand the prayers, and it’s a wonderful way to introduce them to religious art.

From John Paul II’s 2002 Apostolic Letter introducing the Mysteries of Light:

Announcing each mystery, and perhaps even using a suitable icon to portray it, is as it were to open up a scenario on which to focus our attention. The words direct the imagination and the mind towards a particular episode or moment in the life of Christ. In the Church’s traditional spirituality, the veneration of icons and the many devotions appealing to the senses, as well as the method of prayer proposed by Saint Ignatius of Loyola in the Spiritual Exercises, make use of visual and imaginative elements (the compositio loci), judged to be of great help in concentrating the mind on the particular mystery. This is a methodology, moreover, which corresponds to the inner logic of the Incarnation: in Jesus, God wanted to take on human features. It is through his bodily reality that we are led into contact with the mystery of his divinity.

Rosarium Virginis Mariae (The Rosary of the Virgin Mary), #29

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Posted May 18, 2012 by Sue Klejeski
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“Say the Holy Rosary. Blessed be that monotony of Hail Mary’s which purifies the monotony of your sins!”
–St. Josemaria Escriva

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A tiny primer on Revelation

Posted May 18, 2012 by Sue Klejeski
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(to go with this week’s lesson on Marian Apparitions)

Revelation (reh-vuh-LAY-shun):  

  • VERB: God’s activity in making Himself and His purposes known to humankind through Christ, the prophet, and the Apostles.
  • NOUN: The content of the Faith that is communicated and handed on.
  • God reveals to human beings His intention to draw them into union with Him.  In the course of doing so, He discloses the mystery of His own inner Trinitarian life and the true destiny of human beings.  With revelation, therefore, comes a body of knowledge otherwise inaccessible to human discovery.
  • Known as Divine Revelation or Public Revelation, it must be accepted with the assent of faith as part of the Deposit of Faith.

Deposit of Faith:

  • The body of saving truth, entrusted by Christ to the Apostles and handed on by them to the Church to be preserved and proclaimed.
  • It embraces the whole of Christ’s teachings as embodied in Revelation and Tradition.
  • This Revelation was complete with the death of the last Apostle and cannot be added to.
  • However, it is like an inexhaustible treasure, one that consistently rewards reflection and study with new insights and deeper penetration.
  • The teaching is a divine trust, something not to be tampered with, altered, or devalued.
  • The Church sees herself as a trustee to this Deposit, preserving the living tradition with fidelity while making sure its efficacy and richness are undiminished.

Private Revelation:

  • Private revelation stems from apparitions or locutions that, although approved by Church authority as “worthy of belief,” do not require the acceptance of the faithful.
  • The content of such revelations may never be in contradiction to public revelation, which is found in the Sacred Scriptures and in Sacred Tradition.
Hat tip to the Catholic Dictionary, Stravinskas, which I highly recommend you have on your bookshelf!

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Learning from Art

Posted May 17, 2012 by Sue Klejeski
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“Genuine sacred art draws man to adoration, to prayer, and to the love of God …” but it also teaches.

We can learn a great deal about what the Church teaches on a variety of doctrines from this piece by Velazquez.

First of all, the event pictured is the Coronation of Mary as Queen of Heaven and Earth.  We think about this event when we pray the 5th Glorious Mystery of the Rosary.  Mary is easy to recognize in her traditional blue robes, and is shown with her body being supported by angels.  This is a reminder of the doctrine that she was taken up, body and soul to heaven in a unique favor known as the Assumption.

God is rightly pictured here as the Holy Trinity.  Can your children spot the traditional representations of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit?*  All are at an equal height and are playing an equal role in honoring Mary, using this picture to show that “their glory is equal“.

Neither the Assumption, the Coronation nor the Trinity are mentioned by name in the Bible, but this painting is just a wonderful reminder that Catholics believe Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition work together equally to form the full Deposit of Faith handed down to us by the Apostles. Both are the Word of God and deserve equal reverence and respect.

The Blessed Mother is shown here as perfect – a reminder of her perpetual virginity – and is pictured as regal as a queen should be.  It’s interesting to note that though this painting is now in a museum, it was thought to originally be in the private chapel of the Queen of Spain.  What better example could she have had!

*Father (older and holding a round object representative of the Earth)
Son (younger and seated at the Father’s right hand)
Holy Spirit (the dove resting on her head)

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While we’re on the subject …

Posted May 16, 2012 by Sue Klejeski
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Here are a few more parent-tested ideas on praying the Rosary together as a family:

Have reasonable expectations.  If you have two toddlers, a squirrelly preschooler, and a 1st grader, perhaps a full Rosary is too much for their attention span.  Try a decade instead (or just start with praying each of the prayers one time).

Do you have a regular drive that’s at least 20 minutes long?  That’s just enough time to pray a Rosary and you have a captive audience.  Use this time well!

Start by teaching your very young children the three basic prayers: the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be.  It’s amazing how easily most young children can memorize things like that.

It’s nice to pray it together while you’re all kneeling around your prayer table, but probably much more practical to do it while you’re walking, driving, or snuggling in a comfy chair.  I found that waiting for perfect conditions rarely happens, so we just started praying wherever we were.  It’s much more likely to happen that way!

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An introduction to our introduction

Posted May 15, 2012 by Sue Klejeski
Categories: Catechist's Corner, DRE & Faith Formation Coordinators, Parent's Perspective
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Close to the top of our list of favorite things is talking to others about the blessings of Family Formation! (I know, I know – no surprises there.)   One of the missions of our Core Team is to be “enthusiastic ambassadors” for Family Formation in a one-on-one way, our office staff gladly spends hours each month explaining different aspects to prospective users, we visit distance parishes to talk with their parents, parish councils, etc., we attend conferences, and each spring we offer an introductory workshop.

At almost all of these encounters, we give away folders full of basic information about the program.  It took awhile, but in a recent Aha! moment, we  thought why wait until we see you to give you the folder?

So [drum roll please], we are glad to share our folder of Family Formation basics with you, your questioning pastor, your skeptical mother-in-law, your fellow parishioners, your searching-for-a-better-way DRE, your friends and neighbors who want more family togetherness, and anyone else who would like to grow in the Catholic Faith and deepen their family life.

Simply click on the “Workshop Folder” link on the sidebar of our home page and you’ll open a zip folder of PDF files including sample lessons, topic overviews, Church documents in support of family catechesis, FAQs, practical basics, and tips for easing into the transition.  Thanks for reading and feel free to share!

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Honoring Mary in May

Posted May 15, 2012 by Sue Klejeski
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One of the natural activities to celebrate the Month of Mary is to simply pray the Rosary.  I’m actually laughing a little as I use the word “simply,” because anyone who has tried to pray a Rosary with small children knows that it’s anything but simple!  One mom in our program has found a way to motivate and remind her children to progress through this prayer by creating a banner with removable beads.

Their family starts with an empty banner and they add beads as they pray together.  By doing it this way, they’ve found that:

  • it adds an active element to the prayer, keeping little hands busy.
  • it helps them keep track of a whole Rosary even though their attention spans only allow them to pray a decade or two at a time.  They are easily able to pick up where they left off.
  • the color coding helps it to be a more orderly prayer time as each child is in charge of leading a particular color.

Thanks to Theresa for sharing this great idea with our parents during the May meetings!

 

 

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We can now add “award winning” to our name!

Posted May 14, 2012 by Sue Klejeski
Categories: DRE & Faith Formation Coordinators

Congratulations to Family Formation for being named the 2012 winner of the New Wineskins Award offered by the National Conference for Catechetical Leadership!

This award is designed to:

  • highlight and celebrate extraordinary achievement occurring in parishes (or parish clusters) in the ministries of evangelization and catechesis.
  • share successful initiatives that may benefit other parishes.
  • encourage continued creative innovation in parish catechetical and evangelization efforts.
  • reflect the spirit of the “new evangelization” promulgated by Pope John Paul II and the General/National Directories for Catechesis.

To qualify, the parish ministry must exhibit:

  • a strong catechetical and/or evangelization dimension;
  • innovative qualities;
  • a history or track record of at least three years;
  • a demonstrated record of effectiveness;
  • fidelity to Scripture and Church teaching.

Thank you to Katie Dubas from the Fargo Diocese for nominating us and for the NCCL for recognizing our work!

Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.

Matthew 9:17

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