Planning for a great year
An opportunity to grow in faith
Will this coming year be just another “ho hum” year for you? Or are you planning for a great year? Well, a great year of course! As you plan, there are four specific areas of growth to cultivate in your learners: message, community, worship, and service. And you can plan your own growth in these areas as well.
Let’s have a look at a simple way to do this. You can apply the following planning process to every lesson you teach. Let’s suppose your lesson is on one of the Ten Commandments.
Message
As you plan for the year, read through the entire background material for the lesson. The message is the content material which is to be presented to learners, and which we hope will be a part of their knowledge of the Catholic faith which remains with them for all of their lives. For example, if you teach the seventh commandment, explore the real meaning of "steal” for the learners you are dealing with. Perhaps they don’t steal money or goods. But do they steal attention from others? Do they steal time from themselves by wasting too much of it on television or the Internet?
Tip: Learners should be able to tell you how following the commandment can be integrated into their lives in the coming week and what changes in their lives might be necessary to follow the commandment.
Grow your own faith: Deepen your own understanding of God’s message. Revisit what you believe about what you are teaching. Do you still believe it? What does “steal” mean for you? Do you always do a full day’s work for a full days pay? Are all of the deductions you take on your income tax legitimate? Are you responsible in the use of your time?
Share your faith: Share your struggles and your growth in understanding with your learners.
Community
What do your learners know about community? Do they identify their family, parish, neighborhood, school, and country as examples of community? If not, plan to discuss how the particular commandment you are addressing during that lesson might affect the different communities.
Tip: Learners should be able to tell you how disregard for the commandment would injure each of the communities they are part of, They should be able to say how following the commandment more obediently in the coming week will make each community more of a reflection of God’s presence.
Grow your Own faith: Are you only in communities which you have chosen? Have you been called to community by others? Does your participation in various communities bring you closer to living the way you know God wants you to live? The way you participate in and share your gifts with various communities can certainly be tied to your understanding of the commandments. Sometimes “community” is seen as a secular term, but bringing spirituality to your civic organization or your neighborhood group can raise things to a higher level.
Share Your Faith: Tell your learners a story or two about how your intention and your manner of treating people either helped others to see or hindered others from seeing the reflection of God.
Worship
It is a privilege to pray and worship with the students who have been entrusted to our care. Plan to teach them the prayers of Catholic ritual, such as the Our Father and the Creed, Integrate prayer into your catechetical sessions- If learners have expressed that they are not always perfect in their adherence so the fourth commandment, help them to pray for their parents, ask for God’s help to be more respectful, thank God for his gift of their parents and all that they do for their children and for the world.
Tip: Prayer should always be an element in your catechetical sessions or religion classes. Connecting the prayer to students’ lives and current catechetical themes helps them see the connection between liturgy and catechesis.
Grow your own faith: Many of us frequently do nut make time for our own prayer life apd growth in spirituality. In your preparation time for teaching, pray for each of your learners. Take that a step deeper by connecting your prayer time to the topic you are presenting. Por example, “Good and loving God, you know that the students in this class are seeking to know you more- Give them the gift of understanding that will lead them to know that your commandments have been given to help them on their life’s journey. Let them see the commandments as guiding beacons rather than restrictions on their freedom,”
Share your faith: Share with your students some of the times when you have not had enough patience with yourself, Tell them about some times when your worship life has sustained you in your ministry as a catechist or teacher.
Service
Children today are busier than in any generation before them. My children started playing organized sports at about the fourth grade; today there is T-ball for boys and girls who are four! To instill in these busy folks a sense of service to others may be your most difficult task. Perhaps the best way is a “back door” approach by having them identify the needs of others, the environment, or a cause. In a study of the third commandment you might talk about their participation in Sunday Mass and what the last words are that are spoken by the priest or deacon, Ask them what it means to say, “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord,” Who needs to be served? What do they need? And how could we plan to meet some of those needs?
Tip: You will be surprised at how well learners can identify needs and how to fill those needs when challenged to think about others, Challenge them to do one small thing to meet some need in the coming week,
Grow your own faith: Catechists and teachers generously give of their time, energy, resources, and their hearts, but sometimes we get comfortable with ourselves and need to have a challenge. Listen to your learners! They will lead you to opportunities for generosity that never occurred to you. Listen to your fellow catechists! Hear what has made them better servants.
Share your faith: Tell your learners where your comfort zone is—and where it ends. tf you can, identify a challenge you heard from them, and tell them how you will take a step to meet that challenge in your life in the coming week. Listen to your heart, and you will know what step to take.
A new year means new life
Perhaps this will be your greatest year of growth as a catechist and as a person. No matter our age, our years of catechizing or our situation in life, we can look the “status quo” in the eye and declare that this is not what we planned. Your life as a catechist or teacher should always be open to newness and change. RTJ
Anne Comeaux is the director of the Office of Continuing Christian Education for the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, Texas.
