Dear readers, it’s that busy Autumn term again and I’ve been out of the blogging loop. This past month I have been…
Sadly not eating too much apple pie…
- Launching a formation course for new catechists in our deanery/area
- Teaching some inspiring young people from Salisbury about how they can be great catechists
- Missing the heat and my friends of Kansas City, Kansas 🙁
- Planning a series on the CCC for January onwards… (watch this space!)
- Geeking up on teaching strategies and classroom management in this brilliant book
- Enjoying a delicious luncheon with the Catholic Women of the Year
- Crying as I saw Dr Caroline Farey receive the message for catechists from the Pope – and knowing that she was praying for all of us catechists
- Burrowing away in the library working on the literature review for my dissertation
- Taking advantage of the wonderful Wholefoods store which is even more wonderfully near the library I’ve been using
- Meeting the new students at SPES and giving them an introductory lecture on prayer
- Receiving an email each day with a little chunk of the Catechism, specially for the Year of Faith
- Reading this fantastic book with my book club
- Seeing for myself that Come Follow Me really does work as amazingly effective children’s catechesis
- Making Delia’s yummy cottage pie with cheese-crusted leeks
- Hanging out at the new Vocations Centre for the Archdiocese of Southwark
- Embarrassing my 16-year-old brother by weeping as he starred as Joseph in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat
- Wondering whether I’ll need to take out a loan for the number of weddings I’ve been invited to next year
…and relishing my time with family and friends, which, after all, is what life is mostly about 🙂
What’ve you been up to? Share in the comments!
Hannah,
Greetings of joy to you. I really want to hear more about how Come Follow Me is going. I’m very interested to hear about the logistics of how it came together. Please do email me about it once you get a chance from your crazy schedule.
God Bless,
William O’Leary
Hey William 🙂
To get it started, a bit of work is needed. We found a carpenter in our parish to create the stand (see the website!) It needs three arms sticking out of the main pole, candle holders, etc. We didn’t have any dimensions but did a great job! Then you need to order the materials from France. We had a group of mums who cut out all the figures over the summer (you have to do it by hand, with scissors!) You also need to spend some time translating all the words which you use on the stand in the sessions from French into English (and ensure the translation is correct/biblical/liturgical).
However… When you have got all of this done(!) it is very easy to use from week to week. The downloads with the sessions from the website are easy to use. You will need a catechist who is talented with young children, and maybe has some Montessori background (or catechesis of the Good Shepherd). Eventually I think there will be some English-speaking catechist training through Maryvale specifically for this programme. One thing I have found a little hard is that the contents of the session is translated from French, and often doesn’t come across too clearly. The wording is simply not what you would say to seven-year-olds. So you need a bit of time before the session ‘translating’ how you would say this in real English….
We have found the benefits to be worth it. The differences I can see are:
1) The kids know how everything fits together. There is a wonderful flow of continuity from one session to the next.
2) They are developing interior life. They will sit for longer in the prayer time at the end for their personal prayer. (They are allowed to stay as long as they want)
3) Elements such as processing to the ‘holy place of meeting’ and singing a song to the Holy Spirit to open our hearts as we hear the Scriptures are really meaningful and teach the children about the Word of God/prayer without even telling them.
Some initial thoughts! We have just finished the first 7 sessions.
Thanks for the link to Come Follow Me. Will be using this site regularly from now on.
Great!! Have a good half term and a well earned rest!!
Lesley