We wrapped up our time in Belleville yesterday… It was a day were we continued our conversations and prayer regarding discipleship, especially our own.  We especially talked about the recruitment and encouragement of our catechists and partners.  While parish folks worked on developing job descriptions (which, for whatever disjointed reason always reminds me of this youtube advertisement for a nanny), diocesan folks just began to scratch at the surface as to how to connect local catechists to the work and mission of the diocesan "chief catechist" (ummm, errr, that would be the bishop; it’s in the NDC, check it out!)

Mike Thiesen from the NFCYM was in today leading us primarily through creative lesson planning… we looked at the dynamics and possibilities of faith sharing with young people…  Mike pulled out some scripture skits and game shows from his back of tricks.

They were delightful and automatically had me scratching out notes for a session that I must organize for our diocesan youth conference…  He encouraged us to strategize a broad menu of "delivery systems" beyond the weekly religious education class.

This is the structure that rises above the centerpiece of the outdoor altar and amphitheater  ire  piece, Seemingly, It is meant to be a stylized M for Mary.  It was good yesterday to celebrate the vigil of the Assumption and sing a few Marian hymns.

Wednesday was pretty much about discipleship and the person of the adolescent student… We spent some time reflecting on the impact of Jesus on his early followers and our own call to discipleship… Michael Warren:  Can ministry to youth reclaim the connection to the tradition of formation in discipleship as a set of practices necessary for “seeing the Lord?” Can youth ministry do so unless the ecclesial assembly itself embraces these practices and celebrates them in ways that are credible with the young?… What are the practices of disciple?… Lots of stuff about teenage brains (possible oxymoron? you decide) and multiple intelligences. (click pic to see some of "our kids")
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS
This piece, seemingly of hands breaking bread, is located near a playground on the property.  The playground is surround by a painted sidewalk which retells the story of the seven days of creation.
TOUGH JOBS
Think you have a tough job?  Consider Sean O’Malley’s work as the Cardinal Archbishop Of Boston.  Read about it here.  (h/t to the Daily Saint)

Yesterday, Tom East drove us through a day of the skills of developing curriculum, especially in the light of the new framework for doctrinal elements for adolescent catechesis proposed by the US bishops last fall… He reminded us that the roots of word “curriculum” come from an understanding of “running the race.” … He referred to Carol Lytch’s work of Choosing Church and the circular process of belonging, experience, socialization … In planning curriculum, he invited us to answer the questions Know What? Know How? Know Why?  (to which I will be adding Now Who?   More on that later) … Note to self:  Curriculum planning by community is difficult, hard work that nonetheless empowers the community beyond the binder or textbook series to actively, passionately teach out of their own lived experienced faith … In this work, we are “building capacity,” a process of developing and strengthening skills, instincts, abilities, processes, and resources that will allow non-profits and communities (read here as Church) to survive and thrive in a fast changing world.

OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS
On an early tour of the shrine grounds this morning, I discovered a image of the teenage Jesus found in the temple.

LEADERSHIP
“A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.” ~Lao Tzu

While on vacation, on the morning of Wednesday, August 6, Pope Benedict XVI met with some 400 priests of the diocese of Bolzano-Bressanone in the local cathedral. He was welcomed by the local bishop, made some brief opening remarks, and then took six questions.

One of the questions dealt with pastoral attitude regarding the sacraments. Here is the answer in part:

I have to say that I’ve followed a path similar to yours. When I was young I was rather more severe. I said: the sacraments are the sacraments of the faith, and when the faith isn’t there, where there’s not practice of the faith, the sacraments can’t be conferred. When I was Archbishop of Munich I always discussed this with my pastors, and there too there were too factions, one severe and one more generous. I too in the course of time have realized that we have to follow instead the example of the Lord, who was very open also with the people who were at the margins of Israel at that time. He was a Lord of mercy, too open – according to many of the official authorities – with sinners, welcoming them or allowing himself to be welcomed by them at their dinners, drawing them to himself in his communion.

Thus I would say in essence that the sacraments are naturally sacraments of the faith. Where there is no element of faith, where First Communion would just be a party with a big lunch, nice clothes and nice gifts, then it can’t be a sacrament of the faith. But, on the other hand, if we can see even a tiny flame of desire for communion in the church, a desire also from these children who want to enter into communion with Jesus, it seems right to me to be rather generous. Naturally, for sure, it must be part of our catechesis to make clear that Communion, First Communion, is not automatic, but it demands a continuity of friendship with Jesus, a path with Jesus. I know that children often have the intention and desire to go to Sunday Mass, but their parents don’t make it possible. If we see that the children want it, that they have the desire to go, it seems to me almost a sacrament of desire, the ‘vow’ of participation at Sunday Mass. In this sense we naturally should do everything possible in the context of sacramental preparation to also reach the parents and – let’s say – also awaken in them a sensibility for the path that their children are taking. They should help their children to follow their own desire to enter into friendship with Jesus, which is the form of life, of the future. If the parents have the desire that their children should make the First Communion, this somewhat social desire should be expanded into a religious desire to make possible a journey with Jesus.

I would say, therefore, that in the context of catechism with children, the work with parents is always very important. It’s an occasion for meeting the parents, making the life of faith present also to the adults, so that they themselves can learn anew from the children – it seems to me – and to understand that this great solemnity makes sense only, and it’s true and authentic only if, it’s realized in the context of a journey with Jesus, in the context of a life of faith. The challenge is to convince the parents a bit, through the children, of the necessity of a preparatory path, which reveals itself in participation in the mysteries and begins to foster love for those mysteries.

This is a fairly insufficient response, I would say, but the pedagogy of the faith is always a journey, and we have to accept today’s situation, but we also have to open it up little by little, so that it’s not directed at the sole aim of some exterior memory of things, but so that the heart is truly touched. In the moment in which we become convinced, the heart is touched, it’s felt a bit of the love of Jesus, and it’s experienced a bit of desire to move in this direction. In that moment, it seems to me, we can say that we’ve accomplished a real catechesis. The true sense of catechesis, in fact, should be this: to carry the flame of the love of Jesus, even if it’s small, to the hearts of children, and through the children to their parents, thereby opening anew the places of the faith in our time.

Full text can be found here.

Lots of introductory stuff from Monday. Of course, any CMD project comes with a gold-mine of a binder.

… The GDC states that the aim of catechetical activity consists in precisely this: to encourage a living explicit, and fruitful confession of faith  (66) and that The definitive aim of catechesis is to put people not only in touch, but also communion and intimacy, with Jesus Christ (80).  I have often stated both these lines but not so much with the emphasis.  That’s about to change…   No matter how much we want to complain about fallen-away Catholic skewing the statistics of the NSYR, “they claim you, do you not claim them?”  … If Jesus had proclaimed the “whateverism” creed of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, he would have never been crucified …  The sacred duty and joy of each succeeding generation of Christian believers has been to hand on the deposit of faith that was first entrusted to the apostles by Christ himself.  We have received the gift, the deposit of faith – we have not conceived it. It is the heritage of the whole church.  It is our privilege and responsibility to preserve the memory of Christ’s words and the words themselves and to teach future generations of believers to carry out all that Christ commanded his apostles (NDC 26)

OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS
This piece is outside the conference center where we meet.  It is described as a modern day Madonna and Child.

While on vacation, on the morning of Wednesday, August 6, Pope Benedict XVI met with some 400 priests of the diocese of Bolzano-Bressanone in the local cathedral. He was welcomed by the local bishop, made some brief opening remarks, and then took six questions.

One of the questions dealt with World Youth Day. Here is the answer in part:

You rightly said that it was a strong moment, from which we’ve carried home a little flame. In daily life, however, it’s often very difficult to perceive correctly the action of the Holy Spirit, or to be a means personally by which the Spirit can be present – so that the breath which dispenses with prejudices can do its work, the breath which creates light in the dark and makes us see that the faith not only has a future, but that it is the future. How can that be done?

Certainly, by ourselves we can’t do it. In the end, it’s the Lord who helps us, but we have to be willing instruments. I would say it simply: No one can give that which he doesn’t personally possess, which means we cannot transmit the Holy Spirit in an effective way, render the Spirit perceptible, if we ourselves aren’t close to the Spirit. Therefore, I think the most important thing is that we ourselves remain, so to speak, in the rays of the breath of the Spirit, in contact with the Spirit. Only if we are continually touched interiorly by the Holy Spirit, if the Spirit is present in us, only then can be also transmit the Spirit to others. The Spirit will then give us the fantasies, the creative ideas of how to do it; ideas that can’t be programmed but that are born from the situation itself, because it’s there that the Holy Spirit is at work. Thus, the first point: we ourselves must remain in the rays of the breath of the Holy Spirit.

The Gospel of John tells us how, after the Resurrection, the Lord went to his disciples, breathed upon them and said: ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’ This is a parallel to Genesis, where God breathes upon a mixture of earth and it takes form and becomes a human being. Now the human person, who has been obscured interiorly and is half dead, receives anew the breath of Christ, and it is this breath of God which gives a new dimension of life, life with the Holy Spirit. We can therefore say: The Holy Spirit is the breath of Jesus Christ, and we, in a certain sense, must always ask Christ to breathe upon us, so that in us this breath becomes alive, and strong, and works in the world. This means, therefore, that we must hold ourselves close to Christ.

We can do this by meditating on his word. We know that the principal author of Sacred Scripture in the Holy Spirit. When we speak with God through Scripture, when we don’t seek in it simply the past but truly the present Lord who speaks in it, then it’s as if we find ourselves – as I said in Australia – walking through the garden of the Holy Spirit. We speak with the Spirit, and the Spirit speaks with us. Thus learning to be at home in this environment, in the environment of the Word of God, is very important. In a certain sense, it introduces us to the breath of God. Then, naturally, this listening, this walking in the environment of the Word, must transform itself into a response, a response in prayer, in contact with Christ, above all, naturally, in the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, in which he comes to meet us and to enters into us, almost melting with us. Also the Sacrament of Penance is important, which always purifies us, washes us of the darkness that daily life places in us.

In brief, it’s a question of life with Christ in the Holy Spirit, in the Word of God and in the communion of the church, in its common life. St. Augustine said: ‘If you want the Spirit of God, you must be in the Body of Christ.’ One finds the ambit of his Spirit in Christ’s mystical body. All this has to determine the unfolding of our day, the way in which it becomes a structured day, a day in which God always has access to us, in which contact with Christ is continually there, and in which precisely for this reason we continually receive the breath of the Holy Spirit. If we do this, we won’t be too lazy, undisciplined or indolent. Something will happen, our day will take on a certain form, our life will take a certain form in it, and a light will radiate out from us without our having to think about it too much, without adopting a way of acting that’s – to put it this way – ‘propagandistic.’ It will happen on its own, because it reflects our soul.

Full text can be found here.

As I try to post in the mornings. . . so far, not much to report. Yesterday involved planes, trains, and shuttle vans. . . getting a little delayed and getting a little lost.  I was rescued by a kindly shuttle van driver who received a $10 tip for a $10 fare.  Checked into Our Lady of the Snows and was greeted by Tom East and Ann Marie Eckert from the Center for Ministry Development.  And then, went to sleep.  At breakfast this morning, the 50-some gathered all seem to be good folks.  Will certainly have for for you tomorrow about day one here in Belleville, IL.

It’s a week later since the closing and there is still a residual of good feeling about the whole experience. (and, oh, yea, a little paperwork) As this is about ninth time (almost three months of my life) doing this, this is surprisingly uncommonplace.

Father Austin is still blogging about it as well- especially on the role of priests as travelling companions to young people. This has been a great summer to see that in action, both at WYD and High-LI. We are blessed by the priests who share presence with our young people. Read Fr. Austin’s blog here

Also, From my daily e-mail from Franciscan University:

I know it’s not easy to be young and Catholic today.  Our culture is saturated with many deadly distractions; many things seek to lure the heart and soul away from what is good, true and beautiful.  I speak to young people all over the world, and I’ve heard their concerns, fears, worries, pains and anxieties.  And I’ve been there myself.  In spite of all these things, however, I firmly believe that God is doing something truly wonderful in the hearts and lives of today’s young people.  They’re tired of all the gray, subjective, rationalistic approaches to life.  Like me, they’ve tried all that and found it lacking.  Human wisdom will never satisfy the soul; only God can do that.

~ Fr. Donald Calloway from Chris Cuddy and Peter Ericksen’s book

In competition, we seek peace. Faster, Higher, Stronger.  May these Olympics model sportsmanship, integrity, collaboration, and provide a troubled world a little diversion.

With the gutted Atomic Bomb Dome in the background, hundreds of paper lanterns float on the Motoyasu River at a memorial service for the atomic bomb victims in Hiroshima on Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2008. The western Japanese city marked the 63rd anniversary of the world’s first atomic bombing on Wednesday. Photo: by Katsumi Kasahara / AP / CBS