catholic family faith

keeping current from children's ministry

I just receive the July/August 2011 children's ministry magazine.  One of the magazine's featured articles is "keeping current."  Here are some interesting tidbits of information...

• Grade point averages of kids who attend church regularly are 14.4% higher than the GPA of kids who don't.
• 70% of kids ages 5 to 9 have a TV in their bedroom.  Of those kids, 32% are already overweight or at risk for becoming overweight.
• 7.5 million kids under the age of 13 actively use Facebook, according to a recent survey conducted by Consumer Reports.

children's ministry magazine is a wonderful resource!  If you are a parent or catechist and would like to see more articles from children's ministry, check out

http://www.childrensministry.com/

What can we do about the problem of illegal drugs?

I just read an interesting article on npr.org about the failure of the global war on drugs.  The Global Commission on Drug Policy just releasted it's report with recommendations for changes in policies on drugs.  (You may read the entire report at http://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/Report)

One of the recommendations struck me:

Less emphasis on "simplistic 'just say no' messages and 'zero tolerance' policies in favor of educational efforts grounded in credible information and prevention programs that focus on social skills and peer influences."

I think that the Church and parents have an opportunity to make a great impact "in favor of educational efforts grounded in credible information and prevention programs that focus on social skills and peer influences"?  How can we influence social norming so that people of all ages (it's not just a teen problem) will be moved to care for and respect their "temple(s) of the Holy Spirit" (1 Corinthians 6:19)?

Food for thought on a beautiful spring day!

Pope Benedict XVI proposes a Lent without selfishness

Beginning on Wednesday, March 9, 2011, Ash Wednesday, we begin the Season of Lent, a period of 40 days during which we prepare for the celebration of the Paschal Mystery - the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ - at Easter.  In a resent address, Pope Benedict XVI challenged Catholics to "rediscover the Baptism that delivers us from all selfishness which impoverishes and prevents us from connecting with God and with our neighbors."

 

Through Lent, Catholics participate in the actions of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, with the intent of conversion.  Through the practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, we "give up" our own wants and invite the Holy Spirit to change our hearts, to convert our thinking and the way we live our lives to be more like Christ Jesus.

In your home, what will you do to act on this challenge from the Pope?  How will you promote a spirit of selflessness and cooperation among your family members?  What is one area that you would like to focus on for conversion in your life?

To read the full text of the Pope's message for Lent, visit

http://www.zenit.org/article-31816?l=english

 

February Faith & Fun for Families

Here in Michigan it's cold and snowy.  It's fun to play outside in the snow, but only to a certain point.  When you can no longer feel your fingers, toes, or nose, it's time to go inside.  So in February, kids and adults in the north often suffer from "Cabin Fever" from being pent up in the house too long.

Check out these sites for activities to help your family beat Cabin Fever with faith & fun.

Family, Faith, and Fun from Loyola Press - Includes February Saints calendar, family activites, and inspiration for daily family life.

Pflaum Reproducibles for Winter - Reproducible activities for winter from Pflaum Publishing.

Winter Activities for Kids - Top 10 outdoor activities from FamilyEducation.com.

Winter Craft Activities for Kids - Fun crafts to fight winter boredom from FamilyEducation.com.

Family Fun Ideas - A website full of fun ideas for families - FamilyFun.com.

 

Vocations Awareness Week

The Catholic Church in the United States celebrates National Vocations Awareness this week, January 9-15, 2011. 

When Catholics hear the word “vocations,” we tend to think primarily in terms of the priesthood and religious life.  So when we hear about the vocations crisis, we primarily focus on the shortage of priests and religious sisters and brothers.

The vocations crisis, however, is much broader than just the priesthood and religious life.  In addition to priests, the Church needs lay people to serve in leadership roles in parishes and other ministries.  The World, too, needs people from all walks of life to take an active role in organizations serving people in need around the globe.  Thus, it is vital that we pray for and work to instill a sense of vocation in all people of the Church. 

All persons, because they are created by and in God, have a vocation, a calling, a natural inclination to live a particular way of life utilizing the abilities and talents with which God created them.  We shouldn’t be asking, “Am I called to a life of vocation?”  Rather, we should ask, “What vocation was I created to live?” 

In his message for World Vocations Day in 2001, Pope John Paul II said, “Every life is a vocation.”  The priest, the religious sister, the lay ecclesial minister, the teacher, the doctor, the engineer, the secretary, the construction worker, the delivery person, indeed everyone is gifted with talents, abilities, and interests that incline them toward the jobs in which they work.  Vocation goes beyond work.  It includes the entire process of living. 

It is fitting that National Vocations Awareness Week begins on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, when Jesus began his public ministry.  In his ministry, Jesus drew upon his natural abilities and interests to share God’s love with everyone he met.  He utilized the talents that were woven into his very being.  Jesus enjoyed and required time in prayer, talking to the Father and gathering strength and perspective for his time teaching and working with the people.  Jesus genuinely love people, especially the poor, sick, and vulnerable.  He had a gift – a wonderful and great gift – for helping people to reconcile with God, with others, and with themselves, healing them of their physical, emotional, and social illnesses.

And who helped Jesus learn his calling and discover his natural abilities?  Mary and Joseph, as well as his relatives and neighbors in the community of Nazareth.  Jesus learned who he was from Mary’s and Joseph’s gentle challenges and encouragement to discover his gifts and abilities.  As he interacted with his relatives and neighbors, he learned what he enjoyed doing and what others appreciated about him. 

When parents bring their children to the Church to be baptized, they make a promise to raise them in the ways of Christ Jesus and the teachings of the Church.  Within that promise is the responsibility to help their children discover and grow into the persons that God created them to be.  As parents watch their children grow, they help them to discover their abilities, usually by providing them a variety of opportunities to try new things.  Parents also help their children to realize the things they enjoy doing, encouraging them to participate in the activities that they like to do.

Parents do not work alone.  The Church, specifically parish communities, has a responsibility to support them in their role.  Within the parish, children, young adults, and people of all ages are invited to engage in activities to help them figure out the purpose for which God created them.  They participate in a variety of prayer opportunities to discover the style of prayer that suits them best.  They engage in service activities that challenge them to try new things and determine the kinds of activities they really enjoy doing.  They are invited to discern their gifts and talents so as to live according to the natural inclinations of the Spirit within them.

While National Vocations Awareness Week primarily focuses on the vocations of the priesthood and religious life, the entire people of God must begin to understand the overall definition of vocations, the natural inclination to live a particular way of life utilizing the abilities and talents with which God created us.  We need to create opportunities for people of all ages to explore their personal vocations so that every person created in God’s image may fully discover who God created them to be and to live their lives, utilizing their talents and abilities to the fullest.

If every person is challenged and helped to live fully, according to the Spirit’s calling within them, we will no longer have a vocations crisis in the Church or in our world.

For resources to use to explore vocations in the home, classroom, parish, or school, visit:

 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (www.usccb.org) - http://foryourvocation.org/

Thanksgiving

So what are you doing today?  Visiting family?  Eating more than you need to eat?  Watching football?  (Any hopeful Lions fans out there?)  Watching movies?  Going through the Black Friday ads and plotting your route?

In the United States, the tradition of Thanksgiving is said to have begun with the colonists at Plymouth, who celebrated a successful harvest with a feast.  The first Thanksgiving holiday proclamation was given by President George Washington in 1789.  Abraham Lincoln officially established the Thanksgiving holiday in the midst of the Civil War in 1863.  In 1941, President Roosevelt signed the bill establishing the last Thursday of November as the official day of the Thanksgiving holiday.

This tradition of celebrating a successful harvest with a feast, however, goes back centuries.  Most ancient peoples celebrated successful growing seasons.  The Native American tribes of the Cherokee, Seminole, Yuchi, Iriquois and others celebrated the Green Corn Festival on the first full moon when the first corn crop was ready to harvest.

The Celts celebrated three festivals of harvest.  The first was observed with Lughnasadh (LOO nah saw) on the first of August.  Mabon was celebrated on the Autumn equinox, the day of equal day and night, on the twenty-first of September.  The third and final harvest festival was the three day celebration of Samhain (SOW inn), October 31-November 2.

The ancient Romans celebrated Ceresia on the fourth of October.  This celebration was dedicated to Ceres, the goddess of corn.  This autumnal festival included the offerings of the first fruits of the harvest along with parades, music, games and sports, and a thanksgiving feast.

The Hebrew people celebrate Sukkot, the Festival of Booths or Tabernacles, outlined in Leviticus 23:42-43 and Deuteronomy 16:13-15.  This festival is celebrated on the fifteenth day of the seventh month (Tishri,September-October), after the gathering of the harvest.  They erect booths to commemorate their ancestor's 40-year wandering in the desert of Sinai.  The first and last days of the festival are Sabbath days, on which they do no work.  For seven days they present food offerings to the Lord.  On the eighth day, they gather in assembly and present food offerings to the Lord.

It is only natural for us to celebrate the gifts given to us by Creator.  Everything that we have comes from God.  In the agrarian societies of our ancestors, the harvest festival was a natural reminder that all food - and everything they had - was a gift from Creator.  They knew that they would not have the food and supplies that they needed to get through the winter months if it weren't for the gifts of sunshine, rain, soil, and seed, as well as animals for hunting.  They recognized that all of these gifts were provided for them through the goodness of the Creator.

It is a little more difficult for those of us in post-industrial societies to remember that everything we have comes from God.  If we need or want anything, we just drive to the store and pick it up.  We get our food already processed and packaged from groceries.  We buy clothes from our favorite retailers.  We fill our houses with furniture and stuff that we get from furniture stores, chain stores, and malls.  We must make an intentional effort to remember from where all that we have comes.

On this Thanksgiving day, as you are feasting with your family, remember your ancestors who physically labored for all that they had.  Give thanks to Creator for the ease with which you can get food, clothing, and other things that you want and need. 

And if you're going out to get more stuff tomorrow, Black Friday, go about your shopping with an attitude of gratitude, giving thanks to God for all the bargains you get.  And remember, nothing matters more than family and love...nothing!

Give thanks to God, bless God's name; good indeed is the Lord, whose love endures forever, whose faithfulness lasts through every age.  (Psalm 100:4-5)

The Sacredness of Hunting

Today, November 15th, is an outdoors-man's holiday here in Michigan.  It is opening day of firearms deer hunting season.  In some aspects, it could be considered a "holy day."  Regardless of your opinion on the pros and cons of hunting wild game, there is a sacredness to hunting. 

Humans have been hunting game since the beginning of time.  Our ancestors hunted not only for food, but also for clothing and tools.  They utilized the entire carcass of the animal, returning the unusable to the earth.  Through the ancient stories handed down through the centuries, we know that our ancestors realized the sacred necessity of death to nourish and sustain life.  (It doesn't matter on which continent our ancestors originated; all of our ancestors hunted for survival.) 

The sacredness of hunting, however, goes beyond the experience of the mystery of life and death.  There is also a sacredness, a spirituality, of being out in nature with your buddies.

While the actual season opened this morning, several men that I know began their ritual as early as last Thursday.  They packed their gear into their trucks and SUV's and headed into the woods.  Why so early, you ask?  That's part of the sacredness.  People don't go hunting simply for the sport of the tracking, shooting, and food supply.  They also go hunting because it's a communal spiritual experience.  (Sounds rather like Eucharistic liturgy, doesn't it?)

All in all, the actual act of hunting is very short.  There is more time spent around campfires, walking through the woods, and sitting together waiting.  Last weekend, I asked a couple of teenage men who were planning to go hunting with their dads and uncles how their days usually progress when they're out hunting.  These young men told me that they usually get up well before dawn, eat some breakfast, get all their gear together, and de-scent themselves (they don't want the deer smelling them.)  Then they walk into the woods and sit and wait until late morning or noon.  Then they return to camp for lunch and rest.  Their rest might include naps, but more often it involves sitting around fires and sharing stories.  After dinner, around dusk, they return to the woods to sit and wait some more.  Then it's back to camp for more campfire stories, well into the night or even early morning. 

The sharing of stories is part of our spiritual experience.  I haven't asked, but I wonder how much of those conversations involves talk of God and spirituality.  My guess is that even if they don't name it "spiritual" and "sacred," there is more spirituality in those conversations than not.  Spiritual conversations do not have to be specifically religious or even contain "God language."  Spiritual conversations can simply be expressions of life experience.  Sharing stories of family and what's happened since last year's trek into the woods are expressions of life experience and, therefore, spiritual.

There is also the sacredness of communing with nature.  One of the ways that God reveals Godself to us is through the natural world.  Consider the seasons.  Spring is a season of new life.  God is the source of all life and continuously gives us the opportunity to turn from sin and return to God's love and renewed life.  During the summer, we bask in God's gift of long hours of sunlight, soaking up the hours of play and fun.  In the autumn, the leaves fall to the ground, dying, reminding us that life on earth doesn't last forever.  But despite aging and death, we know that God remains with us, just as the sap of the trees remains within them even though it's not flowing as it does during the summer.  Throughout the winter, we rest - Sabbath time for the earth.  God uses the winter to remind us of our body's and soul's need for rest and relaxation.  Through the contemplation of winter, we deepen our roots in God's love.

As hunters sit in the woods and contemplate nature, I believe that they can't help but consider the awesome life-giving power of God's love.  Awaiting the deer to come into view is rather like a Sabbath time, a time of quiet and rest and contemplation of life and God.

My prayer throughout these next fifteen days of the firearms deer hunting season in Michigan is that all hunters will experience the communion of being with their buddies and the spirituality of their Sabbath time with God in nature.

September Whirlwind

Is it just me or has September been a whirl of chaotic activity?  I feel like Labor Day was just a week ago, and yet I also feel that an era has passed me by.

School began.  While schedules became more routine - getting up early, school and work, evening activities, bedtime - they seem filled from before sunrise until after sunset.  Evening schedules consist of sports practices - football, soccer, tennis, cheerleading, lacrosse, to name a few - dance rehearsals, music lessons, school open houses, homework.  Pounds of paper have been eaten up in homework already. 

Since Labor Day, our parish hosted a Chastity Force Conference, had a picnic, celebrated Catechetical Sunday, and welcomed two new staff members.  Men's and women's Bible study groups started up again.  School-year-related ministries began:  Catechists have received resources and attended training sessions, including a day-long diocesan catechetical conference; high school youth ministry leaders participated in development and team-building retreats; mentoring ministry in our local public school.

When I think about it, since Labor Day, we've had three full weeks and three weekends.  That's not really a lot of time.  Yet so much has happened in those three weeks.

I have to admit that I didn't go into my office at the parish last Friday.  I felt exhausted and anti-social and just wanted to hibernate for a few hours.  I slept in a little.  I stayed in my pajamas until mid-morning.  I did some computer work writing lesson plans and beginning newsletters for religious education.  I cleaned the house a little and did some laundry.  It was a very productive day, and yet I had time to be quiet, to rest, and to contemplate life and God.  Since then, I have felt refreshed, restored, energized, and ready to meet whatever comes my way.

I think we all need to hibernate for a little while every now and then, especially when life gets really chaotic.  It helps us to re-focus and gain perspective.  Plus, we need to take time occasionally to connect with our God on a deeper level, even if we typically take time to pray every day.  We were not created to go full steam ahead constantly.  God created us to really enjoy life, to take time just to be for a while.  Despite our society's belief of working hard to get ahead, our bodies and souls need a balance of activity, recreation, and retreat. 

So if you've  had a crazy, chaotic September, give yourself permission to take a little retreat.  Sleep in.  Stay in your pajamas all day - or most of the day.  Go for a really long walk.  Read a good book.  Play a game with your family.  Just re-connect with yourself, your family, and with God.

Back-to-School Spirituality

It's August.  That means that school begins in just a few short weeks.  There's so much to do to get ready.  We need to shop for new school clothes and shoes, get new notebooks and binders, find the perfect backpack, and get new crayons and pencils.  We need to begin thinking about structured schedules, going to bed and getting up earlier, regular meals, and fitting in all of the extra-curricular activities.  And we need to stock up on extra foods and snacks for lunches and after school.

We have all these things to do to get our kids ready for school.  It's all so overwhelming that I wonder if we really consider our children's and family's spirituality.  Spirituality...one more thing to think about and do.

I invite you to consider spirituality not as one more thing to add to your list to do, but as an attitude that permeates your entire life.  Spirituality as attitude doesn't add more things to our "to do" list.  Instead, it provides us with a way of looking at and completing all of the things already on our "to do" list.

When we're out shopping for all our school supplies, we can practice spirituality by praying before and during our shopping expedition that God will help us to find what we need at prices that we can afford.  We can pray that our time spent together shopping doesn't put us at odds - parents against children, moms and dads arguing over costs - but rather that God fills us with love for one another, expressed through encouraging words and laughing with and for each other.

As we consider our schedules and all of the things that will keep our family active, we can draw on our spiritual values to help us determine which activities will be the best for our children's development, will help us to do what we truly love to do, and will help us keep all of our activities from keeping our family apart.  Our spiritual focus will help us to keep our eyes and hearts on God and one another and will put everything else into perspective.

When we're trying to get our kids into bed earlier, we can create routines that will help with the transition from activity to quiet and rest based on our faith.  We can say prayers together as a family.  We can share stories from the Bible, our ancestors in faith, or our own faith stories.  We can talk about all of the events of the day and how we saw and felt God present with us through the day.  We can anticipate tomorrow with all of its hopeful possibilities.  We can ask God to bless our sleep, to help our bodies get the rest they need so that we awaken refreshed and energized for a new day.

If we awaken in the night, instead of allowing all of our concerns overtake our minds, we can become aware of our breathing, remembering that our breath is God's life within us.  As we breathe, we can allow our heart's focus on God to blot out all of the things on our mind.

When our kids have all their stuff, are dressed and fed and ready to go out the door, we can bless them.  A simple blessing of making the Sign of the Cross on our children's foreheads and saying, "God bless you," can make a profound impact on our children.  As they recall that blessing throughout the day, they will remember our and God's love for them, which in turn will empower them to face their challenges and celebrate their successes.

I often think that we make living our faith difficult, when it really should be very simple.  By allowing our spirituality to overlie all that we do throughout the day, we and our children will develop a stronger relationship with God and with one another.

Celebrate the Triduum with Pope Benedict XVI

Check out this website:  http://pope2you.net/

To hear the Triduum liturgies from the Vatican, click on the Celebrate Easter with the Pope icon.