Tuesday, August 30, 2016

A Letter from Bishop Gregory John Mansour: 

Dear Catechists
Your role can never be underestimated. You hold the eternal souls of our youth in your hands. You bring them to Jesus and Jesus to them. Only the priest has a greater role in the parish.
Thank you for preparing your lesson each time. Thank you for training yourself as best as you can. Thank you for praying for and coming to know each one of the children entrusted to your care. Thank you for allowing the Holy Spirit to enter your heart and your classroom. And thank you for your generous service to pass on the beauty of our faith to the children.
+ Gregory    

Are you getting ready for your classes?  How do you structure your time?  How do you actually prepare a lesson?  What about disruptive students?  Check out this great PowerPoint by Kelly Edwards.

Saint (Mother) Teresa Worksheets  
Mother Teresa will be canonized on September 4, 2016.  Start your religious education class out by talking about the newest saint!   Look at this link for a variety of resources.  
Here is a video that also may be helpful for your classes:


Going Deeper Into The Spiritual Life - The Life Of Prayer
Click on this link for an article about prayer to encourage you to go deeper into your spiritual life.   Each month, there will be various contributors who will write these articles  The Maronite Servants of Christ the Light have written the first article on prayer. We hope that this is helpful to you!


Sunday, August 21, 2016

The Spiritual Child

As a religion teacher, I am approached by parents all the time with their children’s questions about God.  Children are the spiritual responsibility of the whole family and parish.  We all need to meet our children where they are during their development.  We really don’t have to have all the answers. Children are born spiritual beings and we, as their parents, grandparents, mentors, teachers, and friends are all their spiritual ambassadors. Studies have shown that children experience their parents’ love as embodying the love of God, or of the universe. Children speak and draw pictures of God that resemble the way they experience their own parents and important adults in their lives.  We should see our children as full of possibilities for love and goodness.  We should model forgiveness, values, and continue to show expressions of gratitude.  Each teacher, each pastor, each mentor that a child has sends strong signals of guidance and love.  Our Maronite family expands the field of love and this effect becomes a source of resilience and protection against unexpected events.  They learn spirituality and religion through their experience with us, through nature and through shared religious experiences.  

According to Dr. Lisa Miller in Spirituality of a Child, adolescents with a strong personal spirituality are 40 percent less likely to engage in risky behaviors than those not spiritually oriented.  There is a spiritual surge in adolescence and a quest for meaning and purpose in life. Teens struggle to build their own spiritual views and this helps to protect them against some forms of suffering. Teens with a strong sense of relationship to a higher power is 80% less likely to be addicted to substance.  A girl is 70% less likely to be exposed to a dangerous relationship (325 The Spiritual Child). These teens think about deeper purpose in life, their calling to serve to God and contribute to the world.   Dr.  Miller’s research showed that seeing a religious symbol improves cardiovascular functioning and can increase persistence and hard work.   


Welcome conversation. It is important to allow children to ask questions.   Sometimes we worry that we don’t have the right answer or we might say the wrong thing, but the most important thing is that we are there to listen to them and to welcome their questions with loving kindness. Say that you would love to explore those questions together!


By helping to shape our children’s inner spiritual core, we are building up their knowledge that they are children of God and are inherently worthy, that they have meaning and purpose in life, that their God-given talents are part of their calling and contribution to the world.  We want them to know that they are born to know, love and serve God in this world and help one another.  We want them to always feel connected to their religious community and guided by people who love them.  We want them to feel that they have purpose and that love is life-giving.  No matter what life presents, we want them to see events as blessings and even if those events are bad, that they are opportunities from which to learn.  


As religious education teachers, coordinators, and directors, our role is to encourage the spirituality of the whole family.  We have to encourage the parents to keep the children in religious education classes all the way from pre-school through high school.  So many drop out after first communion classes!  They never have the chance to develop their strong inner religious core!  We need to have the opportunity to pass the spiritual torch of our religious foundation.  

Registration for Maronite Faith Formation
This year we are trying an online form as well as taking registration after liturgies. We sent the form by email and we are putting it on our website. After just a few days, we received 60 registrations online! We used Google Forms, but other survey tools may be much better. Here's what ours looked like:
Don't forget to order your Faith of the Mountain books. Remember the activity book comes with the text book.