RECongress 2011 - Period 2: Friday, March 18, 2011

CONGRESS 2011 WORKSHOPS & LINKS
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The practice of gratitude offers a practical spiritual pathway for active people. Grateful hearts connect us to God and others with love and thankfulness for our many gifts and blessings. When made a part of our daily life, gratefulness enriches us by deepening our appreciation for our life and relationships, even in the midst of worries and struggles. Based on his latest book, co-authored with his wife Dr. Noreen Au, “The Grateful Heart,” this workshop will offer guidelines for growing in gratefulness and for dealing with common obstacles to grateful living.

Dr. Wilkie Au is Professor of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, where he teaches in the area of Christian spirituality and spiritual direction. Author of several award-winning books, he gives workshops and retreats nationally and internationally. Dr. Au has served as a member of editorial boards for scholarly journals and is a leader in the field of spirituality and formation for spiritual direction and pastoral ministry.

8-02 Fishing the River: Doing Ministry Your Way AND Doing It Well (Workshop closed)

With the help of a true story and some laughter, this session will help you stand up for the way you prefer to approach your ministry, while also remembering what is essential for effectiveness – and some real pitfalls to avoid. This workshop is geared for all those involved in the various ministries in the Church.

8-03 Sunday Celebration of the Eucharist, in Spirit and in Truth (Workshop closed)

God calls us into deep communion, speaking loving words that inspire, heal and challenge, inviting us into the great Prayer of Thanksgiving and communion sharing, so our lives will continue to be transformed and renewed. How do we enable this to happen at Sunday Eucharist – not just for the “saved,” but for the “seeker” as well.

Learn how to make the Church’s teaching on adult formation come alive in your parish! We will discuss each step of the process, from theological background to the use of technology to promote participation. You will come away with new ideas and practical tools. Join us!

8-05 The View from the Pew: Parishioners Perceive Their Parishes (Workshop closed)

Participants are asked to rate their parishes on four dimensions: structural (administration), human resources (clergy and laypeople), political (power and group relationships), and cultural (values and rituals). The results are compared to findings from a national study of American Catholics. Together, we will examine the implications for improving the quality of parish life.

We, as Church, have a long and loving history of the arts enhancing religious knowing and celebration. Children especially love to be involved in creative experiences that help them connect their heart, head and hands with heaven. Come and join us as we look at practical ways that the arts, and drama in particular, can help children know more about God and themselves.

8-07 We Were Meant to Unfold: A Celebration of the New Cosmology of father Thomas Berry

Wise and deeply joyful, strong and yet very gentle, the great soul Fr. Thomas Berry, CP, died on June 1, 2009 at the age of 94, in the same place in which he was born, Greensboro, N.C., a place he deeply loved and one which nurtured his sense of nature mysticism from the time of his youth. Fr. Berry was a historian of world cultures and religions, who eventually developed into a historian of the Earth and its evolutionary processes, and thus came to describe himself as a “geologian.” This workshop will acquaint listeners with Fr. Berry’s wonderful work and its contribution toward the understanding of the “new scientific story” of the cosmos.

The psalms were the songbook of Jesus. Since the beginning of the Church, Christians have prayed and carried these texts in their hearts. As the Church moves toward a new translation of the psalms for worship, how do we prepare our communities to faithfully continue this tradition?

For over 30 years, liturgical composer and author Marty Haugen has presented workshops, concerts and presentations across North and Central America, Europe, Asia and the Pacific Rim. He serves as Composer-in-Residence at Mayflower United Church of Christ in Minneapolis. Haugen has over 35 recordings and 400 published editions. He has served as editor, consultant and contributor to hymnals for Catholics, Evangelical Lutherans and several other Protestant denominations.

It is John Paul II’s encyclical letter on the Eucharist, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, that includes the bold statement of this workshop title. How is the Eucharist perceived as a “school” for all who gather, with the teaching that empowers specific work in the community? Specific ritual catechesis will be featured.

Composer, author and performer, Tom Kendzia has been a professional liturgical musician and consultant since 1980. He spends his time working with diocesan, parish and national conferences throughout the United States and Ireland. Formerly serving as music director in six parishes in Connecticut and Arizona, Kendzia is presently Director of Music at Christ the King Church in Kingston, R.I. He has over 100 songs published; his most recent collection of liturgical music is titled “Endless Is Your Love.”

Being Catholic means being passionate about the Kingdom of God. We are called to be full of hope, the beloved of God, and yet we are challenged to share the faith. How does one hold firm in our polarized world? Join a spirited discussion as we explore the genius of the amazing heritage that Jesus Christ has left us.

Discernment is where theology, prayer and pastoral practice intersect. We need to understand the steps involved in making a good discernment in a modern context where very modern questions arise.

The lives of Jesus, Mary and Joseph may seem inaccessible to us regular mortals. But they are not! Their lives, and their experiences, can speak to us in powerful ways, and give us practical wisdom for how to live our lives in the contemporary world. We will look at the members of the Holy Family and focus on a particular lesson from each to help us live happier lives.

The issuance of Nostra Eetate as part of Vatican II in the 1960s has led to profound and significant changes in Jewish-Catholic relations. These changes were made possible by the courageous acts in subsequent years by Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. We will see how relations have changed dramatically in the last two generations and the impact this has had on Jews and Catholics in our own times.

8-14 A Catechist’s Secret for Classroom Management: T.E.A.C.H. (Workshop closed)

Catechists T.E.A.C.H. to establish and maintain a positive learning environment: TEACH more than proctor, ENGAGE students, APPLY developmental psychology, CREATE a sense of community, and HARVEST hope within students, particularly those most at risk. Catechists will benefit from the spiritual, theoretical, practical and motivational support available in this session.

The Book of Job is the “greatest monument of wisdom literature in the Old Testament” and one of the classics of world literature. In this session, Jim McGill will show that the key to understanding its significance and greatness is to realize how it is structured. The prose folktale about Job that brackets the much longer poetic section in the middle is precisely what the Book of Job is not about. The greatness of Job is not that he is “patient” but that he is “impatient” and angry and honest. He responds to God in faith and trust but not through the traditional acceptance of evil as punishment for sin that wisdom tradition spoke of through the comments of his three friends.

8-16 Partnering with Parents in Children’s Faith Formation: Connecting Parents, Schools and Parish (Workshop closed)

Research shows parents are the most influential people when it comes to the faith practices and beliefs of their children. However, in recent years the role of parents in their children’s faith formation has lessened, not increased. This workshop will examine the causes of this lack of parental participation and offer practical suggestions for creating a stronger partnership between parish, school and home.

Dan Mulhall is currently Director for Catechist and Professional Development for Texas-based RCL Benziger. He formerly served for almost 10 years as the Assistant Secretary for Catechesis and Inculturation at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington, D.C. Mulhall is a regular speaker at national catechetical conferences and has presented keynotes or workshops at diocesan conferences around the country. He is also a columnist and book reviewer with Catholic News Service.

Jo Rotunno is Publisher at RCL Benziger and writes a bimonthly column for Catechetical Leader, journal of the National Conference for Catechetical Leadership. For the last 26 years she has worked in various positions in Catholic curriculum publishing and speaks nationally on faith formation topics. Rotunno was formerly on staff at the Office of Religious Education for the Los Angeles Archdiocese as master catechist and taught graduate courses in catechetics at Mount St. Mary’s College in Los Angeles.

When we hear the most common critiques of the Church – “It’s corrupt, look at the sexual abuse crisis!” “It’s superstition that needs to be replaced by science!” “I don’t need a Church getting between me and God!” “They just want to make us feel guilty and control us!” – we may be tempted to feel ashamed or defensive. The good news is we have been here before. These critiques have been with us for years because they express fundamental human anxieties. By engaging these critiques in a constructive way, we can address those anxieties and draw new people into our faith when they hear the Good News in our response.

Catholics have been doing just that for 2000 years. We call it Mass! “The Secret,” “The Shack,” “40 Days to a Purpose Driven Life” – have you wondered how these books are shaping people’s understanding of God? Is there something distinctive about our Catholic spiritual journey that would include or exclude some of the major insights of these authors? This workshop will explore the basic themes of these works in light of a Catholic spirituality.

8-19 Parish Renewal: Building an Evangelized and Evangelizing Faith Community

This workshop invites us to consider the implications of ministering and evangelizing in a postmodern world. We will look at how to engage today’s culture and build parishes that are vibrant and effective in bringing people to (or back to) Christ and Catholic faith practice. Specific aspects of parish life will be named and explored. This workshop gets practical and will be interactive.

8-20 Youth, Prayer and Sunday Mass: Exploring the Wisdom of the “Pyramid of Catholic Prayer”

Recent powerful research tells us that young people who pray often and well are most likely to carry their faith on into their college years and beyond. In this session we’ll explore practical strategies for imparting the “skills” of personal, communal, ritual and liturgical prayer through the “Pyramid of Catholic Prayer,” the pinnacle of which is the Eucharist. We will work on ways to help young people practice prayer, fall in love with praying, and grow into adults who pray regularly, deeply and often, in church and outside it.

Sr. Kieran Sawyer will present a program designed to help teens develop healthy, wholesome relationships and thus avoid problems like teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. The program, called “Sex and the Teenager: Choices and Decisions,” offers high school teens a Catholic perspective on sexuality and relationships. Such “tough topics” as contraception, homosexuality and abortion will be included in the discussion. The session will include an introduction to the U.S. bishops’ 2008 document, “Catechetical Formation for Chaste Living.”

Though the New Testament speaks of “resurrection from the dead” and never “resurrection of the flesh,” the Catechism states: “We believe in the true resurrection of this flesh that we now possess” (no. 1017). We will explore this important distinction and its potential impact on theology and pastoral practice, such as addressing, “What happens when I die?” or “Will I be 7, 27 or 77 years old when I rise?” We will find that a New Testament understanding of resurrection from the dead may conform more closely to the presuppositions of our modem world than a belief in resurrection of flesh.

In this session, we will explore why the Prophet Micah stands out as one of the most important of the prophetic voices in the Old Testament. Sometimes called a “populist,” Micah was a fiery critic of Jerusalem, angry at the Judean king’s foreign policies that brought down the Assyrian hammer on the villages of the Judean foothills where Micah’s village of Moreshet was located. Anti-war and pro-justice, Micah is clearly one of the most powerful, and certainly controversial, little books in the Bible. Bring your Bible and your curiosity.

This session will explore the phenomenon of social networking and examine the use of an online infrastructure to involve teens in the process of catechesis, by utilizing the skills they have established through social networking and using online applications. This will include the use of personal profiles, blogs and journals, as well as the use of digital video and audio as a means of expression and as a tool for faith formation

Ailis Travers is a writer and researcher in the Department of Catechetics for Veritas in Ireland. She is currently working on the development and implementation of FaithConnect, an interactive website for teenagers, and writing a theology text for high school students that will be part of the Credo Series. Travers previously taught theology at Loreto College in Dublin, Ireland.

Enda Donlon is a lecturer in education at the Mater Dei Institute of Education in Dublin, Ireland, where he teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses on the use of ICT (Informatiorn and Communications Technology) in teaching and learning. He has worked with the National Centre for Technology in Education in Ireland on a number of projects and on several web-based projects involving the use of ICT in religious education.

Polarized views of faith and science continue to confuse our culture and discourage the young from exploring the appeal of the sacred. Richard Dawkins’ book, “The God Delusion,” has garnered publicity and considerable sales. Similarly Stephen Hawkins has attracted media attention with his conclusion that creation does not need a creator. The impression that science makes religion redundant continues to present teachers with new challenges. In this session we will explore some contemporary attacks on religious belief and consider how to address them in catechesis and religious education sessions. “Hold firm ... trust,” for science does not make a fool of belief.

2011 RECongress Period 8

Religious Education Congress
March 20, 2011
1:00 - 2:30 pm

2011 RECongress Period 8

Religious Education Congress March 20, 2011 1:00 - 2:30 pm

Religious Education Congress
March 20, 2011
1:00 - 2:30 pm