As part of the Second Vatican Council, the Church formulated a permanent synod of bishops that would consult in a collegial way with the pope. A synod does not rule on doctrinal matters but does serve as in an advisory basis to the pope.
Beginning in October, Pope Francis will convoke a synod of the entire Church on synodality that is, how Catholics can better live in communion with one another and promote the Gospel to the entire world. This synod is unique because it begins at the “ground floor” of the Church in local dioceses led by their bishops.
The Vatican has prepared a Synod 2021-2023 website to help Catholics--including high school students--learn about and participate in the events of this synod.
Use this exercise to open or close a class period. Its purpose is to help the students get to know each other better. You will need cards Ace through 8 from a deck of cards.
Choose any eight of the following sentence starters and print them on the board:
Someday I hope to . . .
It upsets me when . . .
I admire people who . . .
It is important to me that . . .
I wish I could change . . .
Sometimes I wonder why . . .
I am convinced . . .
I hope I never . . .
I am trying to improve my character by . . .
People would like me better if . . .
I am afraid that . . .
I get discouraged when . . .
When I don’t get my way I . . .
I would like to tell _________ that . . .
I’m sorry about l . . .
I am happiest when . . .
I complain a lot about . . .
The last time I cried was . . .
I have definitely decided to . . .
When I hurt someone, I . . .
I’m proud of _____________ because . . .
When people tease me, I . . .
Tell the students to spend a few minutes deciding what they might say if they were called on to finish each of the sentences on the board. Tell them to think of endings that tell something truthful about their values. If they wish, they can work with a partner to think up their answers.
After a few minutes, show them the cards in your hand. Pick an outgoing student to draw a card. The number chosen will be the sentence he or she must finish aloud in front of the class. Before that student shares, choose another student to draw a card. The second person will then have a minute or two to think up his or her response before having to share.
Continue the same process for as long as time allows.
Ask your students to list three favorite places for prayer (e.g., in their rooms, in nature, at church, while driving, etc.). Then have them write a paragraph naming their top favorite places to pray and explain why.
Have the students share what they have written with a partner.
Create a grid on the board or screen that tallies all of the favorite places to pray. Call on some students to share their favorite place with the entire class.
Finally, print these Gospel references on a worksheet or where all can see. Ask the students to look up the references in the Bible and write the names where Jesus prayed.
Luke 5:16
Luke 6:12
Mark 14:32
Matthew 21:12-13
John 17:1
Luke 23: 34, 46
Answers
Desert
Mountain
Garden (Gethsemane)
Temple
at the Last Supper
on the Cross
The Five First Saturdays of Reparation devotion is connected with Mary’s apparitions at Fatima, Portugal in 1917. In 1925, eight years after the initial apparitions, the Blessed Mother again appeared to the principal seer, Lucia dos Santos, at the convent at Pontevedra, Spain and said: “I promised to assist at the hour of death, with the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, shall confess, receive Holy Communion, recited five decades of the Rosary, and keep me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the all the mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me.”
Later, inn an apparition of Christ, Lucia was told that the confession could be made any time during the eight days before, or the eight days after, the First Saturday. “It could be longer still,” Christ told her, “provided that when the receive me, they are in the state of grace and have the intention of making reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”
Share this video on the First Saturday devotion.
Review the ways to practice the First Saturday devotion.
Assign students to contact local parishes and ask if they do anything special to commemorate the First Saturdays.
Provide or suggest opportunities for Confession in the weeks before and after the First Saturdays of each month.
Encourage students to practice the First Saturdays of Reparation devotion.
St. Augustine of Hippo’s Feast Day is on August 27.
Conduct a lesson on one of Augustine’s most famous works, The City of God, which he wrote in the wake of the Visigoth sack of Rome in 410. The City of God takes a sweeping view of human history. It divides history into a massive struggle between the sinful inhabitants of the City of Man, exemplified by the dying Roman Empire, and the pilgrims or believers in God who live in the City of God. Citizenship in these cities depends on one’s love. Augustine points out, however, that the Church is not automatically the City of God. Because the Church includes sinners, it must always cooperate with God’s grace and work diligently to be a sign of God’s active love in the world.
Use one or more of these exercises to increase the students’ familiarity with this influential but difficult text.
View and discuss the online video overview of St. Augustine’s City of God. (You can sign up for a free trial or purchase a membership to this website.) This video outlines three purposes that St. Augustine had in writing The City of God: 1) to refute those who blamed Christians for the fall of Rome; 2) to show how peace is possible on earth; and 3) to emphasize the reality of hell.
Have the students research the influence of this text--how it was received by different groups at the time and how theologians regard it today.
Read a chapter of the book with your students, pausing to discuss and process the text. You might find it helpful to read the text while concurrently listing to and audiobook version. Search YouTube for several free options.
Our own Engaging Faith blog, founded in 2006, and currently with over 600 postings designed to aid Catholic high school religious educators has been selected by Feedspot at number 26 on their list of 100 Catholic blogs to follow. Thank you for your loyal readership over the years.
If you have an idea for supporting relgious educators that would make a helpful blog post, please contact Michael Amodei, Executive Editor, at mamodei@nd.edu.
Sr. Kieran Sawyer, S.S.N.D. shares information on how to promote meaningful dialogue in classroom discussions.
Dialogue in a religion classroom is an important element of an effective lesson. The interaction between students, whether on a one-to-one basis, in small groups, or in a large classroom discussion is an important part of forming faith. As teacher, you are both a facilitator of discussions and sometimes a participant as well.
Some dialogue is light and fun. When so, its purpose is to break down barriers and to build mutual understanding and enjoyment. It also carries over and makes serious dialogue possible. Serious dialogue, the heart of discussions in a religion course, helps students to share with one another topics revolving around their dreams and hopes, their questions and doubts, their values and goals, and their faith and prayer.
The dialogue process is based on several assumptions:
that faith is already present in each person, and that dialogue helps to surface, affirm, and strengthen that faith
that each person is a source of truth and wisdom, and that the truth of each individual is meant for and needed by the all the students in class
that all people, especially teenagers, want to open their hearts and share their deepest beliefs and doubts; all they need is listeners who care
that talking about the deepest values in a person’s life helps to clarify and strengthen them for the speaker; a person understands better what he or she has tried to articulate to another;
that the faith of the listener is also strengthened by the dialogue process; one of the most effective ways of alerting a person to the action of God in his or her own life is to hear about God’s action in the life of another
that dialogue creates common meanings and values that enable those who participate in it to become a community of faith.
Dialogue of the sort described here can only happen in an atmosphere of openness and trust. To establish such an atmosphere is to a large extent your responsibility as a teacher. But it is also true that dialogue itself can create such an atmosphere. Teenagers learn to share deeply with one another (and with adults) by dialoguing. Your role is to make it easy.
Here are some random thoughts connecting modern technology and social media with aspects of our life with God, family, and friends. If these ideas resonate with you certainly you and especially your students can expand on them—perhaps in a short brainstorming session or to create an icebreaker activity of some kind.
To get started, have you ever compared:
The presence of cameras everywhere to God’s omnipresence?
Think of how if a person goes missing, authorities can nearly recreated the person’s steps throughout the day using cameras on streetlights, at banks, attached to gas station awnings and more. Not to mention the many friends who may film a person in regular interactions. What is it like knowing you are being captured on camera?
God is everywhere. God sees everything we do. How does God’s omnipresence differ from being photo’d randomly? How is it the same?
Cancelling someone based on old social postings to God’s mercy and forgiveness?
We’ve seen this happen, right? Someone digs into a past tweet from five or ten years ago. Something a person (many times an adolescent) said is construed as something racists, homophobic, misogynistic, or something else. And that could be true. Often, however, the person has changed and reformed from previous views but they are nevertheless called out and “cancelled” from their current career or endeavor.
God calls us to repent and reform our lives. Jesus came to earth to minister to the sick, not the healthy. What might be a proper response to someone whose past “sins” have been discovered on social media? Would digging into someone’s past ever be warranted?
Making a movie via Vimeo or some other platform with how God will review a life on Judgment Day?
It’s fun to put our best foot forward in creating a short video on our phones using our past photos and videos. When we do this, the video forms a snapshot of our lives. It’s pretty typical for a person to only highlight the good memories and happy events in order to make a good, happy, and enjoyable video.
God will review or individual lives at our judgment, the times we did good and the times we did bad without repenting. He will separate the good and evil doers to his right and left. If you were making an accurate video of your life to show at Judgment Day, what would be on it?
Connecting with people worldwide on social media with the universal nature of the Church?
Staying in touch with old friends, making new ones, and communicating with people from all over the world is generally a positive aspect of social media. That’s why they call it social media, right? While there are many negatives to burying oneself into a screen and to trying to get to know someone without meeting face-to –face, social media platforms offer a chance to know a diverse and large swath of the population worldwide.
The Catholic Church is a universal church. In God’s eternal kingdom, we will know people from all areas of the world and all generations past and present. How can communicating via social media help to further the universal nature of the Church?
