Here are three video clips I’ve found recently which I think will be great to add to our little catechetical ‘stores’ for future use…
Number One. Liturgy (Adult Catechesis) I love this clip! It shows the continuity, difference and complementarity of the liturgical styles of Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis. We hear quite a bit of talk where people – depending on their own preferences – either bemoan Pope Francis’s liturgy and long for Pope Benedict’s, or on the contrary, enthuse about what a breath of fresh air Pope Francis’s approach is, compared to the supposedly stuffy approach of Pope Benedict. None of these attitudes will do! Let us be faithful to each one. This video shows it wonderfully. Thank you to Fr James’s blog where I found this.
Number Two. Confession (Youth Catechesis) No one beats John Pridmore for evangelising young people on Confession. (In fact, it was his testimony – which I have now heard at least a hundred times 😉 – that made me make my first full Confession at age 17) In the Confirmation session I used to lead on Confession, I always tried to ensure we had a young person give their testimony to the candidates on Confession. There is nothing like a young person, speaking from the heart, and exposing their own vulnerability, to enable young people themselves to go with courage to the confessional and open their hearts fully to Christ. However, if you do not have a young person to share such a testimony, I’d say this little clip is the next best thing.
Number Three. Evangelisation (Young People) This awesome little music video from Edwin Fawcett is ideal for ‘primary evangelisation’ of young people. As I’ve mentioned constantly on this blog, we must never jump straight into catechesis with young people – we need to spend time evangelising, allowing Christ to attract their hearts first. Unless some level of conversion has happened, catechesis will be like empty words to them. Resources for a youth evangelisation retreat are like gold dust – these are the priceless tools we can use to allow God to reach into young people’s hearts and call them to conversion. Edwin is a first-class youth evangelist. (The period of evangelisation in our Confirmation programme always used to include a praise and worship session with him… now he’s onto bigger and better things 😉 ) I love this video – it reaches into broken youth culture and allows God to draw young people to himself.
Great videos – and thanks for the great tips about youth!
One by ‘Fr Pontifex’ (Fr Claude Burns) if you haven’t seen him before…
Thanks for these resources Hannah! I’m anxious to try out the John Pridmore video when I next do my Confirmation class. I read his book. Amazing!
Thanks Marc! John is a winner! Hope you are well.
Here’s the latest video from the recently launched, YOUCATholic.com by Br. Steve DeMaio, a Salesian of St John Bosco:
On topic, but now being a bit controversial…
…what do you (anyone) think of the first few minutes of this:
– in contrast to the uplifting videos in the TiC article?
Mark Hart works closely with Scott Hahn, Jeff Cavins, et al, and the talk is for ‘Steubie Newbies’. (Listen to the audience ‘response’ particularly.)
Talks like Hart’s are clearly ‘bringing the punters in’, and switching on teenagers, but are they appropriate?
The reason I ask, is that I did in-depth research into psycho-religious pathology (cults/charismania) and addiction in the 1980s, as a result of alarm bells going off for me when these sort of speakers started emerging in Evangelicalism. I began to see the whole Christian thing as a hoax and simply a product of the Psyche or psychological manipulation, and I went into a desperate crisis of faith.
Of course, the most important thing is to save someone’s soul for eternity but, at what point in our quest for being ‘relevant’ to teenagers, should it stop? Or should it?
I used to joke about ‘Lapdancers for Jesus’ as being a sure way of getting men back in Church. Why not? At least, once they’re in, then you can give them the Gospel. But this is what is termed, ‘Bait-and-Switch’, and it is the most common deceptive technique used by Evangelicals/cults to convert.
Today, Evangelicals are using the ‘Trussell Trust’ Foodbanks and ‘Christians Against Poverty’ as the bait to do it, and in the 1980s it was Evangelical ‘Motivational Speakers’ (similar to Hart). I say this because before Evangelical Congregations buy into one of these Trussel Trust/CaP franchises they’re not trying to do anything for poverty already, so it’s just the latest fad, latest ‘must have’ in the Evangelical Toolkit, rather than something to supplement what they couldn’t do by themselves.
Last Year, I went to the National Christian Resources Exhibition with my boss, a (Catholic-leaning) Evangelical Minister, and we joked about how the Apostles managed to create people willing to die for their faith without all this ‘stuff’.
As many teenagers are clearly addicted to technology and the media, should we devise a code of ethics or, however good the media or message is, consider it secondary to who we are as being the best medium and message? Should we have a ‘Catechetical Toolkit’ of ‘cool’ resources, to quote the title of a popular book? Should we be ‘Hipster’ Christians?
http://hipsterchristianity.com/
Like most heresies, I think these things look very much like the real thing. Am I just off-beam and getting in a state about a storm in a teacup? Is it just my problem? Am I an old ‘fuddie-duddie’, or am I sensing something which has more in common with Charismaniacs and Hysteria than Holy Spirit?
(I know I’m asking for a ‘third bite of the pie’, and so feel free to not post this, or if you think it is not appropriate)