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Article

Meeting the Rhinoceros

Thomas Merton makes a valuable role model for the spiritual journey of the adolescent rhinoceros. At times even the most optimistic teacher may despair of the possibility of ever communicating meaningfully with adolescents. The significant number of developmental tasks facing …

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Tuning in to youths' media culture

Rather than criticize teens' preoccupation with the media, these religion teachers use it in their faith formation efforts. Adolescents often feel most fully alive and in tune with their peers in the midst of a media experience--a rock concert, a …

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Article

The Spirituality of Work

Teachers who structure justice into their workday lives model a moral vision for their students. I requested a review copy of all religion textbooks used in Catholic high schools some years ago and scoured over 30 books looking for references …

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Seven habits of highly effective Catholic college graduates

Evidence of a total Catholic education may be found in persons who have cultivated these principles of action. The title of Stephen R. Covey's long-running bestseller The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (Simon & Schuster) kept circling in my …

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Peace: The Countercultural Value

Ours is a violent society. Furthermore, evidence strongly suggests that we are learning to accept violence as normal behavior. As a people, we appear to be increasingly indifferent to daily images of warfare, racial hatred and ethnic cleansing. Murder and …

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A Multiple Intelligence Approach

Helping students discover how they are smart should be the goal of assessment. Is multiple intelligence instruction the way to proceed into the 21st century? Many educators in Catholic settings with whom I have worked remark that the theory reminds …

Article

The Community Service Dimension

A high school senior leans over the shoulders of two 9-year-olds struggling with math homework in a tutoring program at the community center. Two students carry food baskets up the narrow flight of stairs to the residents of a housing …

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Thou Shalt Not Kill: The Church Against Assisted Suicide

Will we allow doctors to become accomplices in self-destruction? That's a question the U.S. Supreme Court is facing. The results of its decision will be felt everywhere. WHEN I FIRST SAW my 39-year-old friend Jim lying in a nursing-home bed, …

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Thomas Merton: Something of a Rebel

One of the world’s leading Merton experts takes another look at the monk who changed the course of American spirituality from his monastery cell. ON A RECENT VISIT to a secondhand bookstore in a Midwestern city, I found an exceptionally …

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Saint Jerome: The Perils of a Bible Translator

“WHAT IS THE BEST TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE?” This is the question that people who teach biblical studies hear more than any other. A bewildering abundance of alternatives is available to those who want to begin reading the Bible. This …

Article

Six Ways to be Truly Catholic

I always thought that I would have made a great archbishop in Salzburg during the time of Mozart. But instead I'm the archbishop of Milwaukee in the time of rock 'n' roll. That's the way life turns out. We live …

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August 15: Assumption of Mary - Mary, the First Disciple

Considering how important Mary is in Christian history, the New Testament says little about her. What it does say, though, speaks volumes. SHE MAY BE THE MOST FAMOUS WOMAN who ever lived, and yet there is surprisingly little in the …

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Give Penance a Chance

Think back to the last time you did something that hurt someone, even if it wasn't intentional. How did you make amends? Did you apologize? Did you offer to make it up to them in some way? If so, then …

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The Ethics of Cloning

Amazing. Maybe it's because I can still be wowed by yet another Spielberg dinosaur film. Maybe it's because I find the processes of reproduction and the inner life of DNA to be as much about mystery as they are about …

Article

Top Ten Reasons to Be a Catholic

Many of us have been raised in the Church, but why do we remain Catholic? This author shares her favorite reasons and invites you to consider your own. “DO YOU ALSO WANT TO LEAVE?“ (JOHN 6:67). When Jesus first asked …

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Dance: An Awakening

Ms. Sawaya Lamb teaches dance at Judge Memorial Catholic High School in Salt Lake City, Utah. Mr. Wagoner, a former technical director at Judge Memorial Catholic High School, is now assistant principal at Saint Vincent School in Salt Lake City. …

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The Church

Central Characteristics of Roman Catholicism Catholicism is a remarkably rich religion, characterized by a complex tapestry of beliefs, practices, values, rituals, traditions, and more. When viewed “from the outside”—that is, by those who do not share its communal life—Catholicism is …

Article

Names and Images of God

Fill in the three columns ("Names for God," "Images of God," "Feelings Evoked by Names and Images") for each of the age categories in which you have lived to date. In the "Names for God" box, list all the names …

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A Christmas Legend: The Birth of Jesus and Gift Giving

Session Overview: This 2-hour session is designed to use role-playing skills for a presentation to an audience. Scripture: This session is based on Luke 2:1-20. Read the Scripture passage to the young people after the role-play, "Christmas Legend," has been …

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Ideas for Teaching Feminine Spirituality

In 1994, I started teaching a course on women's spirituality for seniors at Holy Names High School, an all-girls school in Oakland, California. Finding materials for such a class was a challenge. No textbooks or other resources existed that were …

Article

The Connections Binder: A Theology Project

The Connections Binder encourages students to find meaningful connections between the content they are studying in class and something from the world outside the classroom that they find interesting or appealing. I assign this project at the beginning of my …

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Using Literature in Theology Classes

Editor's note: The author of our feature article, Kathleen Hodapp, was one of the participants in last summer's workshop "The Catholic High School As Faith Community," held here in Winona, Minnesota, as well as on the East Coast and the …

Article

Service and Justice

We are standing on the brink, and our bishops are urging us to jump. Many of us don't know where we'll end up, and we aren't sure whether we'll land in one piece. Yet the sense of urgency is building, …

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A Thousand Teenagers Singing at Mass?

Every August, despite our enthusiasm to bring fresh ideas to our classrooms and curriculum, the same question lingers for us as we plan for another year of all-school liturgies: How do we get a thousand teenagers to sing at Mass? …

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A One-Day Retreat on Service in the Inner City

Our sophomore class day retreat focuses on finding spirituality in the inner city. It is a kind of "urban plunge" experience within a spiritual framework, and students go on this retreat during the same semester that they take a social …

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The Harvest Is Abundant: Reflections on a Spirituality of Service

Service is a golden word these days. Everybody's doing it: governmental bodies, schools, churches, even neighborhoods and families. Court sentencing frequently includes community service, the federal government holds service up as a value in programs such as Americorps, and state …

Article

Methods That Tune In to the Students' World

Jack Kelly, who teaches religious studies at Saint Albert High School in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, offers us thoughts on how to engage students, using the contemporary media that are so familiar to them. The textbook, chalkboard, and teacher remain valued …

Article

To Teach as Jesus Did: A Teacher's Reflections

"To teach as Jesus did." It's a phrase that must have been tucked away somewhere in my mind because it sprang to consciousness when I was asked to consider writing this article. "To teach as Jesus did." What an awesome …

Article

Leading Students to Hermitage:

Editor's note: A few months ago I met (by mail and phone) Sr. Mary Farrell, SC, who has taught at Saint Peter's High School in New Brunswick, New Jersey, for thirty-six years. Much of that time, she taught French and …

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Forms for the Hermitage Experience

For more information see Leading Students to Hermitage. Preparation for Hermitage Dear __________________________, Your day for hermitage is _____________________ in the MORNING at 8:00 a.m. or AFTERNOON at 1:40 p.m. To come to hermitage, you must do the following things: …

Article

Story Collections for Classroom Teaching and Youth Ministry

The following is a list of story resources and collections for teaching or ministering with teenagers. [Editor's note: See the article "Helping students Get the Most Out of Stories" for ideas on using these stories with young people.] Most items …

Article

Helping Students Get the Most Out of Stories

For the past six years I have been researching the power of stories for communicating Catholic religious and moral values. At the same time, I have been experimenting with stories in my high school classroom (tenth- and twelfth-grade classes in …

Article

Building Faith Community in the High School

In a workshop entitled "The Catholic High School as Faith Community," religion teachers, campus ministers, and school administrators discussed, among many things, the obstacles they face in trying to build faith community in their school. One obstacle they addressed was …

Article

Gospel Values Across the Curriculum

Given the current educational climate in our country, most schools are making a concerted effort to create a clear vision for education that will carry them into the twenty-first century. That forward-looking "visioning" and "refocusing" for the future includes an …

Article

The Power of Parables

We all know that a good story will almost always act as an excellent springboard for reflection. Jesus' most effective teaching tool was the parable. He would gather his disciples and tell them a story with a message that moved …

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When the School Play Becomes a Faith Experience

As a teacher in a Catholic school, I have always been concerned with trying to demonstrate to my students how, in a practical way, Catholic values and the Christian worldview are relevant to their lives. A Catholic school does not …

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Growing as a Faith Community

Over the past nine years as a campus minister and theology teacher at Saint John's Jesuit High School in Toledo, Ohio, I have witnessed and been part of the growth of our school toward the ideal of being a Christian …

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Schoolwide Prayer in the Words of "Me"

What distinguishes a Catholic school from a public school? The obvious answer is that, at least potentially, a Catholic school is a faith community. Whether it is truly a faith community depends on more than the offering of religion courses, …

Article

Pulling Threads: Unraveling the Scriptures

Young people, and adults as well, often feel inadequate when reading the Scriptures. Many believe that the Bible is something you only hear in church, not something you read on your own as well. They fear misinterpreting it or not …

Article

Stations of the Cross by Students: New Light on an Old Tradition

A pilgrimage is a journey to a sacred place, undertaken for a spiritual purpose. A pilgrimage in our modern age could take many forms. For the season of Lent last year, I invited my junior ethics classes to make a …

Article

ROCKS

"God, being a teenager has so many ups and downs, so many vital decisions. It is a time when the pressures of one's peers are at a high, and the choices that are made will inevitably follow people throughout their …

Article

Questions for God

In a course on faith that he teaches at De La Salle Academy in New York City, David Detje, FSC, uses the film Oh, God! to shake up the students' notions of what God is like. He has gotten some …

Article

Lessons from an Inner-City Parish High School

Saint Paul High School in San Francisco, where I teach, is an inner-city parochial school. It is a school that, for all its shortcomings, has much to teach other Catholic secondary schools, precisely in view of the two attributes cited--namely, …

Article

Taking Off on the Ten Commandments

This classroom strategy is based on a method used by Fr. Steve Brice while teaching religion at Aquinas High School, La Crosse, Wisconsin. Young people love humor and satire. One way to alleviate pressures students feel from the culture around …

Article

The Quincentenary

As we are all aware, 1992 marks the quincentenary of Christopher Columbus's landing in the West Indies–thus, the "discovery" of America. For religious educators, this anniversary offers an opportunity to examine the injustices done to Native Americans by the colonizers …

Article

Using Imaginative Retellings in Teaching the Bible

Biblical stories have been imaginatively retold over and over again for centuries. A particular type of retelling, in which students assume the role of a biblical character then retell the story using a first-person point of view, has proven effective …

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Once Upon A Time: Using Student-Generated Stories in Religion Classes

Religion classes should be interesting, if not compelling, and they can be if what is interesting is determined by the students. This, of course, is not a new approach. Learner-centered educational theories have been popular for decades. Using story as …

Article

Introductory Activities for Teaching Christology

Mimi McCaul, who teaches at La Salle High School in Pasadena, California, passes along to you some of the strategies she uses in the course Jesus of History, Christ of Faith. Thanks, Mimi! Introductory Activity On the first or second …

Article

Expect Much, Praise Much, Be Present to Them

Course materials, such as the high school religion textbooks and teacher's manuals published by Saint Mary's Press, are a significant ingredient in the education of our young people. But we all know that the most important factor in a student's …

Article

Kinds of Relationships

Margaret Kueberth, a religion teacher at the Catholic High School of Baltimore, passed on two of her exercises that can be used in a sexuality or lifestyles course. The first exercise, which can be made into a handout, serves as …

Article

The Mirror Has Two Faces

We live in a culture obsessed with sex, and our students soak up that message in music, television, and film. I am astounded at how explicit the sexual dynamics, innuendo, and situations in typical teen dramas (witness "Dawson’s Creek," "Felicity," …

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Curriculum Offerings of Theology Departments

For a couple of years, Saint Mary’s Press sponsored a listserv discussion group online. Discussions on a variety of topics were pursued via e-mail. In this section of the web site, I summarize some of the highlights from these old …

Article

A New Look at the Sower and the Seeds

This is the text of a reflection given at the opening prayer service of the school year. The concept is interesting and could work well in a classroom or retreat setting. Scattered them wildly about (see Matt. 13:1-53; Mark 4:1-34; …

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Praying the Psalms

Remember the television show from the late 80's called "Doogie Howser, M.D.?" At the end of every show, Doogie would sit down at his computer and write a 2 or 3 sentence "blurb" that perfectly summed up his day and …

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Four Writers of the Pentateuch

This is a good activity for getting students thinking about the importance of context when reading scripture. I use it as a starting point to address the four writers of the Torah (Jahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, Priestly), but it would serve …

Article

Block Scheduling Tips

For a couple of years, Saint Mary's Press sponsored a listserv discussion group online. Discussions on a variety of topics were pursued via e-mail. It is my hope that I can summarize some of the highlights from these old files …

Article

Back to School: Beatitude Jingles and Cheers

Jesus taught us what happiness is all about in a Christian lifestyle and summed it up in the Beatitudes. Many people know the Ten Commandments by heart, and that is great. But as a Christian, we should also know the …

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