OrdinaryTime
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Posts posted by OrdinaryTime
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It is ridiculous that you are being stuck with all that baking! I'm with nono. Tell them you can't afford the time or money to bake cupcakes every month.
As for the RE requirements, I might ask the other homeschoolers if they have ever broached the subject with the pastor before and what kind of reaction he had. Then you can kinda gauge if the confrontation has enough chance for success to be worth it.
Good luck!
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Also, just wanted to let you know, I still struggle with the Rosary. And my parents made us pray it every. day. of. our. lives. I just find it difficult to meditate on the mysteries while also saying the prayers. Too much multi-tasking for me or something. I do find just saying Hail Marys when I am very stressed or in labor to be very calming.:lol: Otherwise, I sometimes just meditate on the actual mysteries themselves, but don't worry too much about losing count of the number of prayers I say. I prefer to just pray to Mary in my own words, like a real mother. Different methods of prayer work for different people. I would keep trying with the Rosary since it is helpful to so many people, but I wouldn't let your success with that specific prayer alone determine your relationship with Mary.
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I agree with everyone else's comments, especially the idea that she is totally human and a woman. It makes me feel like she really, really understands my struggles. I pray to her for intercession, but much of the time I am just venting to her in my prayer because I feel she just knows what I am feeling.
A relationship isn't just praying for intercession, but really getting to know someone. I want to know the mother of Jesus and the spouse of the Holy Spirit. So even thought I could always just go straight to God, I want to get to know this person who is so important to Him. My relationship with Mary is really much more about relationship, not just who to pray to for something.
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Thanks for sharing all the links! I know in the future I have some kids who will really enjoy much of this.
For those with younger kids, like me, we just starting working on making multiplication string boards. It is in the art/handiwork category and has been a great project for us.
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I would start with the best illustrated picture books with a compelling story that you can find. If your kids are not used to being read aloud to, it may be difficult for them to jump into books with no pictures to help them visualize the story. Also, good picture books also work well with the age bracket you have; the two year old can look at pictures, but there are wonderful picture books with lovely stories and beautiful writing that is still enjoyable for the 9 year old (and adults, too)!I am choosy about what picture books I will read to my kids. If they bore me or have ugly pictures, I can't help but think my kids won't enjoy them either. Plus I am much more likely to read books to my kids that I actually enjoy myself.
Another good way to get your kids used to reading aloud is to listen to audio books in the car. A captive audience, you know! I would try to find ones that have an engaging narrator so it seems more like listening to a play than just droning. Sometimes you have to try a couple different books until you find one that everyone enjoys. I usually find they will complain a out a book for the first chapter or two, but by the end of the third chapter they are hooked. If they are still complaining by the fourth chapter, I move onto to another book. I personally really enjoy listening to the books with the kids in my car so I'm very good at always having an audio book ready to go.
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Americanstamps, I live in the City of Alexandria, VA, and just had two Air Force families who homeschool (or at least partly) move into my neighborhood. They are both great families! The one family (4 kids), who live next door, has three in public school and one at home, but has done Spanish immersion school in the past, so they sound somewhat familiar to you in educational choices. They are one of the nicest families I have ever met.
I love where we live, though housing is expensive. There are lots of homeschoolers around and tons of activities. You can usually find someone who "gets" you. The group of homeschoolers I know may not all do home births (some do!) but don't blink an eye at someone else choosing that route. Many of my friends tend to have fluid educational plans as well, homeschooling some kids, putting some in private or public school, basically just meeting the kids' needs a year at a time.
I also have a friend who sent her kids to the Spanish immersion school in Arlington, and they were very pleased overall.
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Just be patient with yourself. It takes time building a relationship with someone new. I've been Catholic all my life, but I feel like my relationship with Mary only really began to blossom when I became a mother. It's always a work in progress!
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I resonated with thishttp://http://simchafisher.wordpress.com/2010/10/07/thought-experiment/ post so much. Thisis how I think about my day-to-day path to salvation:
"You pray for the courage to forgive someone, and you soon notice that you yourself live next to the abyss.* You play next to it — you spend your life fooling around, threatening to throw yourself in, just to get attention — and the communion of saints is forever hauling you back, buckling your safety straps again, teaching you the same old rules of basic decency."
I think about how I play next to the abyss almost every day. How I flirt with sin from moment to moment, at first denying to look at the emptiness I could fall into. And then I look. And then I turn around and look at Christ, backing away from the edge in fear and trembling towards my God. The next day I'm hoping against hope not to be on that ledge again.
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Maybe visual cues could help? I wear a miraculous medal ring so I can see it on my hand all day as a reminder to ask Mary for help. I have a statue of Mary in almost every room, even a beautiful one on my kitchen counter.
Or maybe if you have a cell phone with alarms, you could set it to ring at noon every day to do the Angelus or some Marian prayer just to get in the habit of thinking of her each day. That would probably help extend her presence in your life until it became natural to think of her more.
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Oh, and as for material, our parish does have a parish library that is very well stocked with most major Catholic works as well as most recent works by orthodox theologians. It is a great resource for the teachers or any adult in the parish.
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I feel like currently the best outreach we have to lukewarm Catholics is through our Moms' Group. We have a pretty strong core of very committed, fun moms who have created a solid Catholic community. We generally meet on Tuesday morning to pray the Rosary together and let kids play. Once a month one of the priest comes and hears confessions for us at the house we meet at (on Church property) so we can watch each other's kids while going to confession. We have Mass together with our kids once a month. We do potlucks and religious field trips. It is a fun group. We draw in young moms with their first baby who are just lonely and looking for other moms. Often times, they are not weekly Mass goers, but aren't totally lapsed Catholics. I think seeing Catholic moms full of joy and living out their vocation with beauty and grace is a fabulous way of evangelization for these young moms.
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Our session consists of a word service, teaching by the priest, almost like a homily, and then a more formal, academic presentation of the topic by the lay teacher. We use the Catechism of the Catholic Church as the outline for the year, as well as Catholicism for Dummies. We basically do the entire section based on the Apostles' Creed and then some added topics. Each week the group is assigned reading in the CCC with any coordinating material from CfD. The teachers can use anything they really want for supplemental materials. For example, I just taught the class on Trinity. I went through the CCC material with the class, but also passed out and talked through several handouts (other creeds from the early church, a chapter on the Trinity from Frank Sheed's Theology for Beginners, an excerpt from some Peter Kreeft book). They give us quite a bit of leeway, but our RED is amazing and screens the teachers carefully.
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What kind of training is provided or expected of catechists? Are you given teaching material or topics? How much are you responsible for on your own?
We have four RCIA teachers, and as far as I know, none of us recieved training through the parish. Most of the other teachers have recieved extensive training through the diocese's Master Catechists program or have degrees in theology. I'm the only one who has neither. Besides ourselves, one of the parish priests always teaches for about 1/2 hour of our weekly session. So each week there is a preist and one lay teacher at the 2 hour session.
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your parish providing anything for evangelizing our baptized but lapsed Catholics? Is RCIA responsible for that?
Currently, there is not much outside the RCIA program and other adult parish educational opportunities I listed above. Last night my husband came home from our parish's Fathers' Group and told me he had somehow been put in charge of our parish's brand-new New Evangelization committee. He wasn't quite sure how it happened. :) Our pastor is a former Marine who seems to be able to draft people into ministries very effectively. Anyway, I guess we'll be offering something sometime soon! Any ideas are welcome!
Have you ever heard of Mystagogy, and does your parish offer it?
Yes, it is a bit short, I think, but we offer it for awhile after Easter.
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How many times a week are you meeting?
Currently, we meet once a week for about 2 hours. We also have two retreats throughout the program. We meet from September through June. I am hoping to maybe have another bi-weekly meeting that is more informal - less teaching, more spiritual companionship.
Does the parish offer any other adult ed besides RCIA?
Yes, there is generally at least one Bible study being offered during the kids' CCD classes for adults each year. (Hoping to pull parents in who are waiting around for their kids!) One of the priests usually heads up at once-a-month talk on different topics approapriate to the liturgical year. We have numerous speakers throughout the year on a variety of topics (life issues, contraception, prayer, evangelization, church history, etc.). We have a Catholic cinema program which screens either explicitly Catholic movies or ones with an implicit Catholic theme and then hosts discussion afterwards.
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What is the make up of your group? Mostly unbaptized and uncatechized? Catholics coming in to complete their sacraments? Protestant converts?
Ours is a mixed bag of everything. The biggest demographic is probably spouses coverting after marriage to a Catholic. We have about 20 in the group total. Last year we had 6 baptized, 8 brought into communion with the Church, and 5 recieving confirmation. It was a smallest group our parish has had in years last year.
Is there any difference in how the group is structured for candidates and catechumens? Is there a separate program for Catholics who need Confirmation only?
Everyone is in one class together (Catechumens, Candidates, those needing confirmation, those just wanting to further study their faith), except for children entering the Church with their family or teens who are making their confirmation a little late. They have a seperate children's program for them.
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Good idea to start a different thread! Sorry I muddied the waters in the other thread.
I have to take the kids to a birthday party now, but I'll be back later!
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I agree, Asenik, and maybe I shouldn't have brought up this strain of thought. I was just reacting to the original article, which over all was really good, except for the ending part. There are millions and millions of serious, committed Catholics throughout the world, and I believe with all my heart that the most joy-filled, most beautiful, best-laid path to our Lord is through the Catholic Church, His Bride.
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I don't think it is the only way, but I do think having that relationship with Christ in the sacraments is the best way. We absolutely do not teach that only Catholics go to Heaven.
I agree, too! I can't imagine trying to live for Christ without the grace of the sacraments. Living for Christ without the sacraments is like trying to get to Heaven on a unicycle when you could be taking a Harley. You can do it, but who would want to?
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I think it is important to know where the Church as a whole is, not just those already in the pews every Sunday, but the rest of our baptized bretheran, too. Whether they believe or not, practice their faith or not, they are baptized Catholics, and I want them to come to truly love Christ and His Church. (Plus, whether we like it or not, the fact that so many Catholics don't have deep faith is a scandal to the rest of the world.) The rest of the book had some interesting strategies and ideas for evangelizing or re-evangelizing these Catholics. I got some good ideas for my RCIA class in it. Actually, the author is coming to our parish tomorrow to do a day-long workshop for catechesists and parish leaders, and I am really excited!
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For an interesting read on the issue of the New Evangelization and helping evangelize our own Catholic brothers and sisters, I highly recommend Forming Intentional Disciples by Sherry Weddell of the Catherine of Siena Institute. I've been reading it lately because our pastor has been asking all catetechists, parish council, ministry leaders, etc. to read it. The first chapter of the book actually deals with many of the stats we've been discussing just to give one the lay of the land in the Catholic Church in America today. (This is the only reason I have these stats off the top of my head right now. I usually couldn't tell anyone what % of Catholics believe in a personal God!)
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Parrothead, if you go to this link and click on the first result, it leads you to a pdf with key finding from the survey. The second table deals with different conceptions of God broken down by religious affiliation. Catholics believe in a personal God at lower rates than evangelicalal Protestants, but are pretty much the same as mainline Protestant churchs, and surpass the Orthodox Church. I didn't think the Pew Forum was a Protestant organization, but I could totally be ignorant on this issue.
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"The trend in catechesis toward emphasizing that emotional connection has to be balanced with a solid education of doctrine and the importance of liturgy and the sacraments or we leave people with an emotional connection with nothing." I agree 100%. I hope I am not being interpreted otherwise. My experience is that the response to the truly horrific catechesis of the 70s and 80s has sometimes veered towads an over-correction, which is afraid to talk about a relationship with Christ because that sounds too "fuzzy and warm" or "too Protestant." A proper balance is all I'm saying.
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Asenik: "Grace attaches through the sacraments. More attaches to those properly disposed to receive. And more emphasis needs to be given to educating people about what it takes to be properly disposed." 1 Corinthians 11:29 Totally agree!!!
Sentence family and grammarland
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
I am working though The Sentence Family with my 7,6, and 4 year old. It is their very favorite subject this year. It is a solid, but engaging introduction to the types of sentences, some punctuation, and parts of speech via storytelling and art. By the end of the book, you begin easy diagramming. I think it would be fairly easy to make it more complex for older students as well by adding in further discussion of each part of speech beyond the basic meanings. It is not "open and go." The story and pictures are provided for you, but it works best if you really tell the story rather than just read it and draw the art with your kids. Also, the book has suggested activities to cement the concept with the kids, but there are no worksheets or pre-fab exercises. This works very well for our family, but I can see others not liking it.
I've looked at Grammarland and found it delightful - for someone who already knew a fair amount of grammar. I personally plan on using it in a few years, after my kids know enough grammar to get the humor in the story. I think it will be great fun as review and learning more complex grammar at a later age.