Yesterday morning was exciting because I knew who to expect in both of my classes. I was really excited to look over the questionnaire I had each of them fill out. These are the questions that I asked them:
What do you like to do in your free time?
What extracurricular activities are you involved in (sports, clubs, organizations)?
What do you want to do after you graduate high school?
What's your favorite quote? Why?
Why are you Catholic?
What is one reason you like being Catholic?
What do you want to learn in this class?
Essentially I was looking to get to know them and how interested they are in their faith.
I'll focus on the responses I received for the last three questions.
Why are you Catholic?
Majority of them said because they were baptized Catholic and that it is the religion of all of their family members.
What is one reason you like being Catholic?
The responses I got for this question were more original:
"It's not as strict as others"
"It guides me to be a better person"
"Because of how strong it is"
"Knowing that there is an after life and that we will be reunited with our loved ones"
"I get to get together with people I can relate to"
"Get to come to release time" <-- Now that made me smile!
"We have a lot of freedom"
"There are some amazing people you can meet just by going to Church"
What do you want to learn in this class?
Many of them wrote "more about God", Confirmation, and Catholicism. Here are the ones that stuck out to me:
"More about heaven and the afterlife"
"Just anything really"
"Anything about our faith. I've gone to 'religion' my whole life- yet I still feel as if I know hardly anything about it"
"As much as I possibly can about God, the Church, everything I can!"
"Be more holy"
And that is why I'm here. To teach them the beauty of our faith tradition, how our belief can call us to make a difference in this world, and that we are all called to be saints!
With that, we read the poem that recently blew up my Facebook mini-feed very recently. It is a poem called "We Need Saints" and was mis-attributed to Pope Francis. Oh well.
But check it out because it is beautiful!
We need saints without veil or cassock.
We need saints who wear jeans and sneakers.
We need saints who go to the movies, listen to music and hang out with friends.
We need saints who put God in first place, but who let go of their power.
We need saints who have time everyday to pray and who know how to date in purity and chastity, or who consecrate their chastity.
We need modern saints, Saints of the 21st century with a spirituality that is part of our time.
We need saints committed to the poor and the necessary social changes.
We need saints who live in the world and who are sanctified in the world, who are not afraid to live in the world.
We need saints who drink Coke and eat hot dogs, who wear jeans, who are Internet-savvy, who listen to CDs.
We need saints who passionately love the Eucharist and who are not ashamed to drink a soda or eat pizza on weekends with friends.
We need saints who like movies, the theater, music, dance, sports.
We need saints who are social, open, normal, friendly, happy and who are good companions.
We need saints who are in the world and know how to taste the pure and nice things of the world but who aren’t of the world.
(http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/blog/the-poem-pope-francis-never-wrote/)
We need YOUNG saints. We need more lay people to step up and respond to the call of Jesus. I shared this with them to encourage them to ask questions, to strive for holiness according to their already established lifestyles. As 16 year olds, they still have a lot of limits- yet they can be saints in the way they approach their class work, the way they treat their peers, their attitude at football practice and play rehearsals, the way they talk to their parents and siblings, etc.
I think they're already hooked to this idea and curious to know MORE.
Check out the wall!!! They did such a wonderful job! It looks great and I know Mary is interceding for us.
This year I am teaching Sacraments and Morality. Pretty sweet classes if you ask me! Before I can start though, I needed to get an idea of where they're at in their knowledge of these topics. I created a pre-assessment (pop quiz, whatever you want to call it), and warned them that if they answered all of them correctly, that I would have no reason for being there.
Now I did not expect them to know all of the answers, but I though they would have known a lot more than what they do.
Here are the questions I asked:
Define "sacrament."
List the 7 sacraments.
JEsus is truly present in the Eucharist. True of False?
What is original sin?
You can only make your Baptism as an infant. True or False?
The sacrament of Reconciliation is outdated and a sacrament that is no longer necessary. True or False?
What can a priest do that deacons can't?
List the sacraments of healing.
List the sacraments of initiation.
What are the gifts of the Holy Spirit?
What will take place at your Confirmation?
What's the difference between a mortal and venial sin?
Why do we go to mass?
Can we really encounter the Holy Spirit through prayer, liturgy, and sacraments?
How does the ministerial priesthood differ from the communal priesthood?
What sacraments imprint an indelible mark on the souls of Christians?
To put it nicely, they had a really difficult time answering these questions. I had one junior who was able to list all 7 of the sacraments. Many thought the "washing of feet" was one of them. Nobody could even list 1 gift of the holy spirit, most had the idea of what a mortal and venial sin flip-flopped, and one put that he honestly has no idea what Confirmation is. They will all be making their Confirmation THIS year. Now, I am bothered by the fact that my students have been in religious ed their entire lives, and a majority of them cannot at least list all 7 sacraments. Only one student knew what the Assumption of Mary was, nobody had heard of St. Dominic, World Youth Day, etc.! I mean, I know I'm in a small town, but REALLY?!? My students are very intelligent. They are taking Chemisty, Algebra 2 or even higher math, and yet all along they were given a very watered-down education of the most beautiful reality of this world-Jesus Christ and the Church!
They have the desire to KNOW about their faith, and they want to be HOLY! And I believe that they are holy! I am so blessed that all of my students want to be there, recognize their desire for God, and want to take this class. We will start from the beginning. I am so privileged to teach them the greatest love story there is- How Jesus came, died, rose, ascended, and established the living Church for each and everyone of us.
I'll be lesson planning this weekend and getting myself ready for our first full week of 80 minute classes!
Please keep my 11 students and I in your prayers!
St. Paul, pray for us!
Holy Spirit, inspire us!
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