Reversion stories are always a good time on a Monday morning, right? ;-)

Happy Monday, all!!! Notice the enthusiasm? I'm not actually enthusiastic, although I'm in a good mood. ;-) I'm just trying to pep up all of our Mondays into The Happy Place, otherwise I will fall right asleep at my desk and may topple onto the floor. And the floor is *really* gross in here. :0 (note to self: place work order for a deep tile clean, pronto...)

So what's the what today, you ask? Well, a couple of fun things. First, my latest piece at Catholic Mom is up, and it's my reversion story.

*angels sing*

I don't know about you, but I love faith stories. Everyone has one, even if you've been Catholic your whole life. This is mine, for what it's worth. ;-) This is a totally new piece, not a reworked one. It was an interesting emotional experience for me to write it. I had forgotten a few of the details until the writing process brought them back to me, and it was this whole nostalgic moment. If you have the time and inclination, I would *love* for you to read it and leave me a comment over at Catholic Mom with a brief synopsis of your own faith story, and/or who your own patron saint is!

That's a happy topic for a Monday morning, yes? Aside from that, I'm just exhausted. I had a great weekend, to be sure. Chilly days, LOTS of tea drinking and knitting.

*swoons!*

I even wore cozy handknit socks! It was the perfect knitting weather. In fact, expect a crafty post tomorrow or Wednesday, it made me THAT happy. Mike and I tackled a painting project in our living room that neither child managed to sabotage, so that's always a good thing.

Today, I dropped Anne at school, looking very cute in a new dress we procured for her during a Target run, and then made it to work with my coffee. About ten steps from my car I realized that I had left my mug inside, and BACK I WENT! Thank *goodness* I recognized my folly before I got closer to the library, it would not have been pretty otherwise. ;-)

Then I prepared for my class, and taught at 11 am. It went well. I had a nearly full classroom, with just a few students missing. This is a team teaching setup, so they only see me on Mondays. Since last Monday was Labor Day and we were off, I haven't seen them all in a few weeks, and quite a few new students had added the class since then. So, there was lots of administrative housekeeping to attend to, and I could tell that a few students find paying attention to be a real challenge. ;-) I try to keep things interesting with humorous anecdotes where applicable. Overall, the vibe in the classroom is very positive and attentive. Two classes down, ten more to go. :)

Now, I just need to make it to tonight, when I can relax over a drink with my Mike. I'm on a very challenging chat reference shift as I type (read "challenging" as "ANNOYING" :0) and then I have a few quick things to finish before I jet off to get both kids ready for their swim lessons. After those are done, I need to drag them home and fix *something* for dinner (anybody got any ideas?!) for the three of us, as Mike teaches on Monday evenings. Then get both kids settled down and in bed. THEN have aforementioned drink, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Is it 8 pm yet?

What is up with you this fine Monday, dear reader? :)

The Catholic Nook: Catechesis and Ongoing Formation, Part II

Today's Catholic Nook post is brought to you by guest author, Shauna'h. :) Catch Part I of Shauna'h's story here. 

Part II: Down and Dirty With the Catechism

To say I was terrified before teaching my first 7th grade Faith Formation class would be an understatement.

What if the students hated me and found me boring? What if they asked me a question I either didn’t know the answer to, or was uncomfortable discussing (each week I had a litany of “please don’t ask me about divorce/same sex marriage/abortion/etc. etc.” running through my head)? What if they were wild, unruly beasts and I couldn’t handle them? What if I’m just not cut out for this?

Seventh graders are a tough crowd to teach in the best of times. They can be even more challenging when most of them have been forced into giving up part of their Tuesday evenings by their parents to learn about a God that many of them weren’t really so sure about. I had my moments of wanting to secretly list some of them on Craigslist (“One belligerent 13 year old boy, free to a good home!”), but overall it was a wonderful experience. I felt I connected with the students, and a few months into the year I began letting my guard down more. I began crafting my signature style of proclaiming the teachings of the Church, while serving as an honest example of challenges I’d come up against in my own life. I like to think my students appreciated this, and enjoyed having a catechist closer to their age than their parents.

Speaking of which, I was something of an exotic bird in my parish’s Faith Formation community. I was literally the only catechist without children enrolled in catechesis. It seemed to me that most catechists signed up as a way to evangelize the faith, to be sure, but also to do it in a convenient way that synced up their family schedules. Teachers would drop their kids off in their class(es), and then continue on to set up their own class. I was doing it purely for the love of faith and education, so I got all sorts of “I think it’s so amazing that you do this without kids!” comments each week. I felt like I was getting much more out of it than the kids were, frankly, but I appreciated the sentiment.

Perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of the experience was how much my own knowledge of and appreciation for my faith grew. Each week I learned something new, even if it was something small. Confession time: I never really got the Holy Trinity. God and Jesus, sure, but the Holy Spirit? He’s a dove, right? And I’m supposed to feel Him/It? I just never connected with that part of Church dogma, until I suddenly had to teach it to middle schoolers. My text book suggested a demonstration of the various phases of water: solid, liquid, and gas. H2O can be ice, it can be water, and it can be steam, and each of these phases are different and unique, but they are all water. This was profoundly eye-opening for me, and now I love teaching about the Holy Trinity.

As the year drew to a close, I felt strongly called to come back as a catechist the following fall. I was particularly interested in teaching during a sacramental year, so I signed up as an 8th grade catechist for the students working towards their Confirmation. Thus began my academic year of, quite honestly, moaning and groaning about how difficult my life was.

I had to co-teach (with a wonderful, kind man). I’m not so good at sharing, particularly when it comes to lesson preparation. Also, Confirmation classes all took place on Sunday night following the evening Mass. I was enrolled in a Master’s program at the time, and my assignments were due Monday morning. This meant I needed to plan ahead (*gasp*) and get my work done, so that I wasn’t rushing to do it after getting home at 9pm. Thirdly, the 8th grade curriculum had been designed by a church volunteer years ago, and it just was not to my taste. Lots of emphasis on general touchy-feely-ness (“Jesus loves you! Let’s sing!” If I wanted to sing about Jesus loving me I would’ve been a Baptist. Northern Catholics are so much more subtle), and the overall content structure felt loosey goosey. Lastly, the curriculum included two mandatory retreats, as well as frequent community service outings during which I was needed as a chaperone. All in all, it felt like a large time commitment during an already busy time of life, and I just wasn’t connecting with the material and my students the way I had the year before.

I found my way, however, and formed a strong bond with my co-catechist. It was nice having backup for kid wrangling, and his strong faith and knowledge further enlightened me. As we drew closer to the Confirmation ceremony, we were also rolling up on an event I had been dreading (and trying to weasel my way out of) with every fiber of my being since August: The spring retreat. All of the classes were driving two hours into the mountains of North Carolina, to a place called Teen Valley Ranch (TVR, as the cool kids call it), a non-denominational Christian youth center. We’d be stuck chaperoning wild teenagers for three days, singing cheesy Jesus songs, and doing outdoors-y things. Essentially my worst nightmare. I whined and WHINED to my husband and sisters about having to go. This was just so not my style.

By the second day, however, I found some of the songs oddly catchy, even a bit moving. It was fun to see my kids break out of their shells and be more vulnerable with each other. But by far the best part was the mandatory quiz/consultation we did with each of our students.

Each female student (my co-teacher took the males) scheduled time to meet me on the quiet front porch of the cabin we were staying in, and had to answer some required questions to demonstrate the necessary knowledge needed before undertaking Confirmation (questions about the Sacraments, graces of Confirmation, etc.). It was meant to be casual, and I quickly decided to take the opportunity to try to go a little deeper with the students. It was an occasion to ask them to open up to me about how they truly felt about their faith, and what it would look like once they were no longer required to attend CCD. Would they stop coming to Mass? Was their family supportive of their faith? I had some wonderful conversations.

One in particular stood out to me. This student was very studious and well-behaved. She confessed to me that sometimes she has doubts, and doesn’t know if Jesus is really God. And what was Catholicism really good for in her life? I felt inspired to share my reversion story with her, and confronted her doubts head on. It was liberating and moved me profoundly. By the end, she was feeling renewed and inspired, and she hugged me with tears in her eyes. I cried once she was out of view, my soul stirred by this incredible opportunity to share faith and a deep human connection with a young woman.

That spring retreat wound up being the best thing to ever happen in my faith life. It reaffirmed my core beliefs and my increasingly strong ties to my parish community.

Becoming a catechist not only brought me closer to the students I taught, but to my fellow catechists, the Faith Formation office, and my parish as a whole. After some time, I started running into people from church at the grocery store, or discovered that some of my students lived in my neighborhood. It was the beginning of really acclimating to my new life in the South. We moved back North for new jobs last year, and leaving my parish has been one of the toughest parts of that transition. I’m in the process of trying to carve out a place for myself in my new parish while simultaneously juggling children, school, and work, but I’m certain that catechesis will play a role.

The Catholic Nook: Catechesis & Ongoing Formation

 For today's post, I'm very pleased to bring in guest author (my sister!) Shauna'h. :) This is the first part in a series addressing ongoing formation and the role of catechesis in our lives as Catholics. Catholics don't usually call instruction in Catholic doctrine, sacraments and Scripture "Sunday School." Our term for childhood instruction is CCD, or I used to call it "church school," and in fact it was on Tuesdays rather than Sundays, interestingly. (RCIA, the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults, will not be covered in this post). CCD refers to the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, an association established by the Church in 1562 to oversee religious instruction and the sacraments of Reconciliation, Holy Communion and Confirmation.

Any cradle Catholic will have memories of their CCD classes I'm certain, whether they be good or bad. And I think that an important thing to bear in mind is that even cradle Catholics need *ongoing* instruction in their faith. It is simply not possible to know everything there is to know about the Catholic Church, good qualities and painful history, and we always need to keep learning. 

Shauna'h wanted to present a brief history of her childhood faith experiences, her doubts as a young adult, and then her reversion in adulthood back to the faith of her youth. The thread weaving this all together is catechesis. Her young faith was formed by it, and it was in teaching CCD as an adult that she came to a fuller and renewed appreciation for her faith. Her teaching was her very own ongoing formation. And so without further ado, here is the first part of Shauna'h's story:

Part I: Amazing Grace

A love for education has been a common thread weaving through my life, and that extended to my faith experiences, including catechism, in my younger years. By the time I was receiving my First Communion, my mother had come back to her Catholic roots, and my youth is infused with happy memories of saying rosaries as a family, attending weekly Mass, and knowing more than my catechist by virtue of attending a weekly prayer group with my extended family. I was a precocious child, and I loved being able to answer questions that not even my teacher could, at times.

I enjoyed attending CCD, for the most part. As I got older I saw it as more of a hassle, naturally, but overall it was a very positive experience for me. I even helped teach one year when the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus at our small, Native American parish were short staffed and needed some coverage for a couple of youngsters who would be receiving the sacrament of Holy Eucharist. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I was kind of a catechism all-star. And so humble, too.

There came a time in my early 20s when I felt very removed from my faith. I found myself questioning the basic tenets of religion itself, not just Catholicism. I stopped attending Mass regularly, and I wrestled with whether or not I even believed in a higher power or the afterlife. In retrospect, I was experiencing what I feel was a healthy exploration of my faith as an adult, without the influence of my parents, but at the time I couldn’t shake my doubts or realize just how much I missed believing.

A few years later my husband and I moved to North Carolina, a bastion of Protestantism. There were only a couple churches within convenient driving distance to us, a stark change from the plethora of churches in western New York, where I grew up. I went to Mass once when my parents were visiting, but didn’t feel a strong calling to that particular church. It felt cold to me, as it was lacking in the gorgeous stained glass and statues I loved in the strongly traditional Catholic churches of my youth. So, I didn’t go back. The following year I felt called to attend Ash Wednesday Mass, and the only convenient evening Mass was at that same church, St. Therese. I talked my husband into attending with me, and off we trekked.

We got there late, and the place was packed. I hadn’t noticed before, but this was a dual language Mass incorporating the substantial Spanish-speaking contingent of parishioners, so it drew a large crowd. We got stuck sitting on folding chairs in the narthex, so I felt very removed from the Mass. I left feeling a small sense of enjoyment, however. It had felt right to be back at Mass again. So the following Sunday I told my husband I wanted to go to Mass. And then the Sunday after that.

I continued to go to Mass faithfully each Sunday throughout Lent. I hadn’t been to confession in probably at least a year at that point, so I abstained from receiving the Eucharist. I mulled over whether or not I wanted to make that leap into the sacraments again.

And then something wonderful happened. One week during Lent, as I sat watching the Eucharist be distributed, the church choir began to sing “Amazing Grace.” I love music and have always been an enthusiastic participant in church, so I sang along.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost, but now am found,

Was blind but now I see.

By the time I got to the last line in the first verse I became choked up. A wave of emotion fell upon me, and I was horrified to note that tears had quickly welled in my eyes. I quickly brushed them away, but couldn’t shake the strong feelings associated with them. I felt the Holy Spirit move in me that day, and from that moment on I knew I wanted to grow back into my faith. I still wrestled with doubts, but I wanted to confront them head on.

That summer, firmly and happily ensconced in my faith reversion, I debated becoming more involved in my new parish. I had come to love its beautiful simplicity and more modern music. The community was very friendly, as being Catholic in the South draws people together. While reading the church bulletin, I noticed that Faith Formation was starting up soon, and they were in desperate need for catechists.

Jackpot.

I hold a Master’s degree in secondary education, but had abandoned my pursuit of becoming a schoolteacher in favor of a different career path. My love of teaching remained, however, and I saw this as a way to combine several passions.

I was nervous, though. I had only recently come back to my faith; was I really ready to shape young minds on the topic? How much of a time commitment would this be? Was this really the right vocation for me? Shouldn’t I just look into becoming a Eucharistic Minister, or something?

I stopped by the Faith Formation office one afternoon after work and spoke with the office manager. She practically threw her arms around me in glee when I specifically cited interest in teaching the middle school grades, as those are the hardest for them to fill. I loved teaching that age, so I was thrilled. I told her I was interested but wasn’t ready to officially commit yet. She gave me the 7th grade textbook and told me to take my time, to “go home and pray about it. God will show you if it’s the right path for you.”

As soon as I began flipping through the text I was hooked. At my parish, students receive the Sacrament of Confirmation in 8th grade, so 7th grade is an important preparatory year for them to begin exploring more adult topics and questions of faith. I signed up to begin teaching the following month.

In Part II, I’ll talk about how becoming a catechist brought me closer to my faith than I thought possible, while drawing me into the parish community.

*Photo courtesy of Janaka Dharmasena at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Anticipating Advent...

This is going to be one of those lengthy, roundabout, Catholic Librarian stories, so settle in :)

Advent has become particularly meaningful to me as an adult. As a child, I don't recall doing much special for Advent - it was just the time before Christmas. I do remember the Advent wreath in church, and I always wanted my own candles, but we did not attend Mass with any regularity back then, and we didn't pray or engage in any traditions as a family, so it really didn't think too much of it. Christmas Eve was one of the two occasions per year on which we attended Mass, and I remember enjoying it, for the most part. Mainly, I remember feeling squeezed in the pew, because there were so many people that attended the Christmas Eve vigil at our parish.

As a young adult, in law school, I went into a very difficult time in my life with a very thin faith foundation. I attended Mass occasionally with my good friend Irena, but honestly, it was never at my initiation. I'm so grateful to her for getting the Church back onto my radar screen. As an undergraduate, I had attended Mass regularly, including daily Mass, but I just fell away from that closeness, because it just really had not taken root.

In the fall of my second year in law school (after a summer in which I seriously examined my goals in life and wondered whether I should continue my studies in that particular field, as I didn't like it very much) I went through a particularly painful couple of months. I was unhappy, I wasn't acting like myself, and I was making bad choices. One Saturday in late November, Irena and I ventured to Barnes & Noble - we're both readers, so we easily spent an afternoon browsing, and then bringing our prizes up to the cafe to examine over tea and scones. I was browsing away, and happened upon the religion section. Because this was a giant Barnes & Noble, their religion section was so large it actually had it's own Catholic subdivision, something I've never seen at any other branch I've been to. I started looking at a few titles...

Thirty minutes later, I limped up to the cafe weighed down with close to ten books. I was particularly taken with a title that focused on Marian apparitions. In high school and college, my family had come back to the faith via a prayer group that was inspired by a particular Marian apparition. It evoked a deep emotion in me that I hadn't felt in quite some time, and I bought the book. I also picked up a title about the history of the Church and a memoir about the lives of a group of men studying for the priesthood - a book I still love to this day and re-read every couple of years called The New Men, by Brian Murphy.

The following Monday, I was in class and contemplating whether I should check out the daily student Mass held in the campus chapel that I had seen a sign for. I remember thinking it over, knowing it would mean putting lunch off for another half hour as well as having to be around people I didn't know - all that introvert anxiety stuff. After class, I hovered near the building exit, trying to make up my mind...and I went. And my life has never been the same.

You're probably wondering what the heck Advent has to do with any of this, right? :) Well, I went home that day and turned on the tv. As I flipped, I passed by EWTN. It was the first week of Advent, and in the corner of the screen, they had placed a little Advent wreath icon with one of the candles burning. I don't know why that had such an effect on me, but it did. I kept turning the tv on to EWTN just to glimpse that little icon. Something about it evoked a childlike openness to reexamine my childhood faith in fuller detail; and I've been an EWTN devotee ever since :)

That was 11 years ago this Advent. Holy S*!@, that makes me feel old :) Ah well. After that Advent, I often got my hot little hands on an Advent devotional, and since I was then attending Sunday Mass, I looked forward to Advent homilies focusing on the season. My Confirmation saint is St. Cecelia, whose feast day is in November, and whom I've blogged about in the past. This November, I've been thinking alot about my grandmother, who passed away this summer, and whose name I wrote in our parish's book of names, in honor of the Feast of All Souls. November is a pretty big installment in my faith life each year.

Now that I have a child, Advent has inspired a creative kick in me that I'm really enjoying. This year, the Catholic Librarian's home will feature:

1.) Two Advent calendars. One is a chocolate Advent calendar that Henry drools over every year. Each day, the child opens a window to reveal a seasonal piece of chocolate. This is the secular installment to our Advent traditions :) The other is a beautiful wood Advent calendar that I received from the Catholic Company. Each day, Hank and I will open one of the boxes and take out a tiny ornament to hang on the featured nativity scene.

2.) Advent wreaths. We have a traditional, plain Advent wreath with taper candles, very much like the one in the picture at the top of this post. We light the candle(s) each Sunday evening between dinner and bedtime. The other is a special child's felt Advent wreath that I got for Hank this year. It's *adorable*. He can velcro the appropriate candle on each week.

3.) The Giving Tree. Our parish is going to featuring a giving tree, starting on Thanksgiving. Hank and I can go up and select an ornament detailing a child in need that we can buy a Christmas gift for. I'm going to have him assist in selecting a gift, and we can wrap it together so that he can place it under the tree at church. I want to start some lessons on charity and gratitude with him.

4.) Nativity scene. I have a small nativity scene I add to our dining room buffet each year, but Hank has the Fisher Price Little People Nativity Set, and we're going to set it up this Sunday. It's a really nice set, and my friend Sarah bought him a bunch of cool add-ons, like the three wise men and some extra shephards and animals.

5.) Advent devotional. This one, I still haven't finalized. I do have the In Conversation with God volume for Advent and Christmas, so I can use that for myself. I may stop at my local Catholic store to see if I can find anything that would be appropriate for Hank and I to read together.

So, I'm very excited :) I'm looking forward to truly sharing the season with Henry this year. Life is good...