This Issue

• Living out our Call to Holiness, Community, and Service
• For Principals and School Boards
• For Educators
• For Parents
• Forming Adult Faith
• Compendium Corner

Living out our Call to Holiness, Community, and Service

This is how all will know that you are my disciples,
if you have love for one another. (Jn 13:35)

The United States Catholic Catechism for Adults calls us a generation of seekers, living “within a culture that in some important ways provides support for belief in God while at the same time also discourages and corrodes the faith in practice” (6).  No matter our age, our position in life or our family circumstance, we hunger and thirst for something more. We seek something deeper, more meaningful, and more lasting. We follow others who throughout history have also yearned for more, and are poignant examples of living lives in search of truth, joy, and fulfillment.  In today’s world, people continue to be drawn to the Catholic Church and respond to her welcoming invitation to find fulfillment, a sense of mission, justice, mercy and most of all – love.  “The Church does more than welcome new members; she forms disciples” (6). 

The transforming love offered through Jesus Christ “reminds us that this Kingdom is already in our midst, and as his disciples we are called to assist him in bringing it to its fullness” (6).  And so our journey continues and Jesus, through the Church, continues to invite us, his disciples, to reflect on our call to holiness, community, and service.

This issue of To Teach offers suggestions for exploring discipleship and the call to follow Jesus, especially as we approach the start of Lent.

Back to Top

For Principals and School Boards

• Take time on a regular basis to reflect on the population of your school:  Who are your families?  What are the circumstances of their lives?  What are their needs and how do you meet their needs?  How does your school and parish work together to call people to holiness, community and service?  How do you as a parish and school invite people to journey with you?  What do you offer that is unique?  How do you welcome people into your parish community and into your school? Consult Follow the Way of Love, the bishops’ statement on families for further reflection and discussion questions.
• To celebrate Catholic Schools Week (Jan. 31-Feb. 6), identify the special charisms of teachers and staff members in your school.  Utilize bulletin boards, websites, the parish and school newsletter and other media tools to highlight their gifts, what they bring to the school and community, and celebrate how they model Jesus in their day to day lives.
• Name several ways that the overall mission, goals and objectives of your school call students, families and staff to holiness, to community and to service.  Use Catholic Schools Week as an opportunity to publicize their journeys to the parish community and to the community at large.
• Identify former students, teachers and staff members who have lived out Jesus’ call in their own life.  Invite them to visit with current students, teachers and staff and share their stories.  Celebrate their life and journey as a parish community and school and publicize in the diocesan and local newspapers.
• Use “For Discussion” and/or “Meditation” from St. Augustine as part of opening or closing prayer as part of your monthly staff or PTA/PTO meeting from Chapter 1. My Soul Longs for You, O God from the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults.

Back to Top

For Educators

• Take time to reflect on God’s call in your life.  How are you called to holiness?  To community?  To service?  What are the opportunities you have recognized in your life that have profoundly impacted your relationship with Jesus, with your family, with your peers and with your students?
• As an educator, how do you “invite” students to journey with you?  For knowledge?  For faith?  For love?  How do you help students understand what it means to be a disciple of Jesus and to have a mission in life?  What, in your life, models that call for others and how do you share this with students?
• Take a moment each day during Lent to journal (try the Reader’s Journal, Essentials for Christian Living, or any of the Spiritual Thoughts Series.)  Record a few thoughts or words that speak to you in a meaningful way and provide a moment of gratitude in your busy day for the opportunity to witness to the children and families in your school. 
• Dialogue with students and ask them to name the people in the parish community whom they see living out their call to holiness, to community and to service?  Find creative ways to celebrate these parishioners and invite them to share their stories with your students.  Take a picture of them with your class and send them a framed copy as a thank you.
• Invite a college student from your area to visit with your class about their spiritual journey, how they have grown in their faith and how they see themselves as being a disciple of Jesus.  Record the event with pictures and comments from students and then send the student a framed thank you that includes pictures and comments from students about what they learned from the experience.
• Invite students to name creative ways in which they can be examples of holiness, community, and service during the season of Lent.  Invite each grade level to develop a project around of these areas to be carried out during Lent.  Celebrate the result of the projects during Holy Week and publicize the results to the parish community and the community at large.
• Distribute the Operation Rice Bowl materials to students and invite all of the families in your school to participate.

Back to Top

Parents

• Order Pope Benedict XVI’s Spiritual Thought Series - Family or Follow The Way of Love as a gift for your spouse and for your married siblings.  Invite them to reflect on what was helpful to them and what challenges them.
• Utilize Catholic Household Blessings and Prayers to begin a new tradition of prayer in your home.  Pick out one new prayer each week for different occasions or celebrations and let family members take turns leading the prayer.
• Consider a neighborhood faith sharing group, utilizing Sharing The Tradition, Shaping The Future in a small group setting, exploring the seven themes of Catholic Social Teaching.
• Order Prayer For Families and share with friends and neighbors as a way to reach out to others.
• As the season of Lent begins, talk to your children about Operation Rice Bowl and how your family can participate in helping other families.  Utilize Catholic Relief Services Home Calendar Guide to assist your family and help children understand how your participation helps us all.
• During family discussion time, ask your children what they think it means to be “holy”.  Ask them to give examples of family friends and relatives whom they think live holy lives.  Share with them ways that you see them trying to live a holy life.  Ask them how you as parents can help them.
• Around the dinner table, begin a discussion with children on what it means to serve others.  Use examples from your own life and ask older children to give examples from their life.  Share with them ways that you see family friends and relatives serving others.  Discuss ways you as a family can reach out to other families in need.

Forming Adult Faith

"Forming Adult Faith" includes suggestions from the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults (USCCA) on how to promote ongoing faith formation among the adults in your school community.

The following chapters touch on different aspects of social ministry:

• Chapter 1.  My Soul Longs for You, O God.
• Chapter 7.  The Good News:  God Has Sent His Son.

Ideas and suggestions on how to use these chapters for your individual and group reflection can be found online and in the Reader's Journal for the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults.

Back to Top

Compendium Corner

"Compendium Corner" usually provides a list of questions and answers in the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church that are related to this month’s topic. The following questions relate to this month's topic.

• Review the questions and answers in preparation for your class.
• Consider how to use appropriate questions and answers as part of your lesson plan.
• Develop learning activities that help youths and young adults learn this information by heart (memorization).

Part I:  The Profession of Faith
Chapter Three:  Man’s Response to God

I Believe

25.  How does man respond to God who reveals himself?
26.  Who are the principal witnesses of the obedience of faith in the Sacred Scriptures?
27.  What does it mean in practice for a person to believe in God?
28.  What are the characteristics of faith?
29.  Why is there no contradiction between faith and science?
30.  Why is faith a personal act, and at the same time ecclesial?
31.  Why are the formulas of faith important?
32.  In what way is the faith of the Church one faith alone?

Part Three:  Life In Christ
Section One:  Man’s Vocation:  Life In The Spirit
Chapter One:  The Dignity of the Human Person

The Virtues

377.  What is a virtue?
378.  What are the human virtues?
379.  What are the principal human virtues?
380.  What is prudence?
381.  What is justice?
382.  What is fortitude?
383.  What is temperance?
384.  What are the theological virtues?
385.  What are the theological virtues?
386.  What is the virtue of faith?
387.  What is hope?
388.  What is charity?

The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church summarizes the foundations of Catholic faith. So, select one question a week (8-12 questions for the whole summer) to learn and memorize. Choose questions on topics that are of great interest, that you struggle with and want to understand better, or that you find arise in your classroom repeatedly.

• Review the questions and answers.
• Consider how to use them in the coming year as part of your lesson plan.
• Develop learning activities that will encourage you and your students to learn the teaching by heart (memorization)

To obtain a copy of the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, visit www.usccbpublishing.org or call 800-235-8722.

Back to Top

Past Issues