Independence Day, July 4, marks the end of the 2015 commemoration and remembrance of religious freedom in the United States along with current threats to religious freedom. Please note a summary of those threats at this link.
Also, as the Fortnight for Religious Freedom, is intended to be shared in your local diocese, please examine your local diocesan website for more information about events being sponsored in the coming week. (Note examples of events sponsored this week by the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend.)
There are several resources on the USCCB website with information about this occasion. For one, note quotes by Pope Francis on religious freedom.
Make sure also to follow the call to prayer for all issues around religious liberty at this Facebook page.
As you probably know from your own personal retreat experiences, there are many different ways to “retreat” with teens who are participating in a Confirmation, youth ministry, or campus ministry retreat. However, depending on the group and circumstances, some models definitely work better than others do. Here are a few options:
Two-Day Overnight Retreat.
This is usually an ideal option for a group. A weekend allows time for the relationships among teens and adults to develop in a variety of experiences, including small-group sharing, recreation, and communal prayer. A weekend retreat may be a teen’s first chance to experience an informal celebration of the Sacraments of Penance and Eucharist. Many teens who return home from a weekend retreat name the celebrations of the sacraments as the highlights of their time away.
One-Night Retreat.
Depending on how far you are from the retreat location, a one-night retreat can offer most of the same advantages of a weekend retreat. Yet, you may find that just when the group is coming together, it’s time for them to go home. For younger adolescents, however, one-night retreats are preferable.
One-Day Retreat.
These can be difficult, whether they are held on a missed school day or a Saturday. In either case, it is hard for the teens to put schoolwork or basketball practice out of their minds in such a short time. Rather than spending seven or eight hours together during a day, have the teens meet from about 4 pm to midnight. These “less used” hours make the retreat time more sacred. Just make sure the teens have a free day from school on the day after the retreat so that they can rest and recover.
Mini-retreat.
Shorter retreats of about three to five hours can be successful for breaking out of the regular youth group-like routine. Schedule a mini-retreat during the time your group usually meets, albeit adding two or three hours of extending time. With this extra time, provide variation from what you usually do in a class or meeting. For example, add more time for personal and communal prayer. If you rarely include music in your prayer, do so on this occasion. If possible, incorporate a Mass into this mini-retreat as well.
In anticipation of the June 18 release of Pope Francis' encyclical Laudato Si ("Be Praised" or "Praised Be") which focuses on environmental issues, please note information on several ways Catholic Relief Services is reaching out to address climate change issues around the world.
On CRS Cares for Creation you will find stories, photos, and case studies that highlight the many ways in which the Church is reaching out to help vulnerable communities adapt to the impacts of climate change. There are also have several prayers, reflections, and activities that help Catholics take action. This material is arranged by grade level with several strands written specifically for high school religion classes and youth ministry groups.
What are some ways you can promote vocations to the priesthood and consecrated life with your students? Read through the list of ideas below. Choose at least one of the ideas. Add others of your own. Develop a plan to work with others to implement these ideas at your school (or parish).
1. Perpetual Adoration
Arrange for a schedule of continuous prayer for vocations before the Blessed Sacrament at a school chapel. Collect names of students willing to sign up for fifteen minute or half hour blocks of time. Make this a regular event.
2. Publicize Special Vocations
Highlight special events like National Vocation Awareness Week, World Day for Consecrated Life, or World Day of Prayer for Vocations. Also take note of special vents offered particularly in your own diocese. Volunteer to distribute flyers or other promotional materials to your students.
3. Witness Talk
Broach the topic of vocations to the priesthood or consecrated life in class or as part of a campus ministry session or retreat. Speak personally about how you have and are currently discerning your own vocational call. Arrange for a priest, seminarian, and/or a professed religious to speak about their own calling.
4. Seminary or Motherhouse Visit
Call a local seminary or motherhouse of a nearby religious community and arrange for a field trip or for interested students to visit on their own to hear a presentation by the vocation directors, and perhaps the seminarians and novices themselves.
5. Website Links
Create a set of website links to vocation websites in your own diocese and beyond and place them in a place where students can easily access them. Assign them to write a reflection essay about any vocational stories they read about in one or more of the sites.
By Justin McClain
During the upcoming break in the academic year, plan to use part of the time to refresh yourself in the life-giving words and teachings of Christ! Pope Francis addressed the need for renewal in a recent talk to priests. Catholic school teachers can find affirmation in his message as well.
The summer break can, and should, serve as an opportune occasion to seek 1) rest, 2) renewal, and 3) revitalization. This is true in terms of your mind, your body, and foremost, your soul. As such, here are a few scriptural passages to meditate on during the summer, in order to remain focused in a positive way on the promises of the new school year as of late August.
1. Rest
Jesus understands the need for rest. In the Gospels, Christ extended the divine “rest” that only he could offer, drawing us to seek him in order to find soulful relief from the weariness of the world. The school year is replete with busy schedules, numerous logistical demands, teenage drama, and numerous other concerns. Summer is the time to slow down, take a break, and rest!
For Reflection
“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light." (Matthew 11:28-30)
The apostles gathered together with Jesus and reported all they had done and taught. He said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” (Mark 6:30-31)
2. Renewal
Jesus has a way of renewing everything without changing anything. In other words, he remains the same as he has been since before time began: He is unchanging, just as God the Father and God the Holy Spirit are, with the Three Persons of the Trinity united as one God. While you will use the weeks during the summer to renew lesson plans, renew classroom policies, renew familiarity with content by attending professional development programs, and so forth, make sure that all renewal that takes place is in the vein of Christian renewal. Ensure that the preparations you are making done in the Lord’s name, are engagingly new, and inspirationally faithful and unchangingly refreshing. Attempt to imagine how new Christ’s teachings must have sounded to his first disciples when they began to follow him. Plan to present the Gospel to the students with this same newness, particularly in terms of charitably and accurately portraying the Church’s age-old moral teachings (e.g., Catholic social teaching), which are sometimes contrived as old-fashioned, but are actually beautifully and wisely designed by God for the ultimate benefit of humanity.
For Reflection
All were amazed and asked one another, "What is this? A new teaching with authority." (Mark 1:27)
"I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:34-35)
“May we learn what this new teaching is that you speak of?” (Acts 17:19)
So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come. (2 Corinthians 5:17)
Be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth. (Ephesians 4:23-24)
You have taken off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed, for knowledge, in the image of its creator. (Colossians 3: 9-10)
For this reason, he is the mediator of a new covenant. (Hebrews 9:15)
Blessed be the God and Father of Our Lord Jesus, who in his great mercy gave us a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. (1 Peter 1:3)
The one who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” (Revelation 21:5)
3. Revitalization
God is the author of your very life. He has given you free will because he wants your life to magnify him and to bring greater glory to the kingdom of God. Allow the Lord to breathe new life into any ministerial efforts, perhaps particularly in the midst of the end of a school year, when you may feel that you are suffering from burn-out, or that you are a shell of your formerly enlivened self.
For Reflection
“If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” (Matthew 19:17)
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish, but might have eternal life. (John 3:16)
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. (John 3:36)
(Specifically regarding the Eucharist, which the Catechism of the Catholic Church identifies as “the source and summit of the Christian life” [CCC 1324], meditate on Jesus’ remarkable Bread of Life Discourse in John 6:22-59.)
Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68)
Jesus spoke to them again, saying, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." (John 8:12)
“I came so that they might have life, and have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10)
“I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if dies, will live.” (John 11:25)
“I am the way and the truth and the life.” (John 14:6)
There are, of course, numerous relevant Old Testament passages that can be reflected upon as well, but the scope of this article was the New Testament, in order to emphasize Jesus’ fulfillment of the messianic prophecies as outlined in the Old Testament that allowed him to give us a newness of spiritual resolve. Hence, these are just a few of the multiple passages from within the New Testament that the Catholic school teacher can use for reflection in preparation for the next academic year and beyond.
This summer, in between the trips to the beach, other family outings, Independence Day barbecues, and other summer adventures, make sure that you (and your family) spend ample time with the Lord, in order to remember to rest, renew, and revitalize yourself by meditating on God’s goodness. In this manner, you can be an even more effective Catholic school educator in the next academic year, which will be here before you know it. In the meantime, happy summer and God bless you and your families with a restful vacation!
Mr. Justin McClain is a Theology teacher at Bishop McNamara High School in Forestville, Maryland.
