You always have the most of everything - of faith, of eloquence, of understanding, of keenness for any cause, and the biggest share of our affection - so we expect you to put the most into this work of mercy too.
2 Corinthians 8:7
It is very easy to forget where we have come from and how far we have gone to get where we are.
During one Christmas holiday - circa 1962/63, our family travelled to Tolaga Bay on New Zealand's East Coast. We briefly stayed with my great uncle and aunt. They had a small shop, not unlike those you see in and about the Pacific islands. You know the kind. A kind of smallish shed with a shutter that opened outward and upward. It was somewhat larger than a roadside stall because my great uncle and aunt lived there as well. What was surprising even to me as a little boy was that the floors were dirt, or as we would say today, 'rammed earth'.
We had a short stay. My great aunt cooked on a wood-fired cooker and we sat on wooden fruit boxes at a makeshift table. Even our beds were palliasses set up on the top of boxes. My recollection is that my great uncle and aunt were very generous hosts and our family albums recall our special visit. There may have been other visits, but I don't recall. I do remember the sadness of being told of when both my great uncle and great aunt died.
As an adult I look back in wonder at their frugal
lifestyle and imagine their poverty. And right now I think of how judgmental
those very thoughts are. I'm pretty sure that my great uncle and aunt didn't
give a tuppence about what life had dealt them. They were happy. They had a
home. They had a living. They had a community. They had each other, and they
had cousin Jane. They had the most of everything, and when they had nothing to
give, they gave of themselves.
By chance I found a mention of my great uncle in Joan Metge's book [Tauira: Maori methods of learning and teaching] during which an informant tells the author how Uncle Potene would attend gatherings at the school and teach the names of the streams, how they came to named and the legends that went with them. He had much to give and he gave it freely.
Paul was exhorting a somewhat well off Corinthian community to do more to support the poor (church) of Jerusalem. He wasn't asking them to give everything, just what they could afford. There are those who can afford to give money, some who can afford to give time. While today we all appear to be time poor, we are - many of us - reasonably well off. We can afford to make a difference in the lives of those who are in need - clothing, food, cash, shelter, work, furniture, expertise, advice or mentoring. But we ought not for one minute think that giving is a one-way street. Giving is a work of mercy. John Paul II in his second encyclical, Dives in misericordia (1980), constantly affirms that God's mercy is infinite and is made flesh in Jesus Christ. Jesus teaches, preaches and lives mercy, and for those who show mercy, they are truly blessed - indeed, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy (Matthew 5:7).
My great uncle is a clear example of giving of himself when he himself possessed so little but the knowledge of his forebears. Be generous.
Peter Douglas
Great uncle Potene far left, at right my mother and great aunt. In front cousins Jane and Jock, brothers David, Richard and self.
They woke him and said to him, ‘Master, do you
not care? We are going down!’ And he woke up and rebuked the wind
and said to the sea, ‘Quiet now! Be calm!’ And the wind dropped, and all was
calm again. Then he said to them, ‘Why are you so frightened? How is it that
you have no faith?’ They were filled with awe and said to one another, ‘Who can
this be? Even the wind and the sea obey him.’
Mark 4:39 - 41
Our daughter returned home some months ago, part of the process of decision-making. We are again privileged to be a part of her daily life.
There is now more life in our home. But for our room and our daughter’s, the two other bedrooms are empty, their one time occupants now moved on, and perhaps never to return permanently. Those tidy bedrooms don’t make up for children who have to grow up and start looking after themselves.
Bit this is, after all, what we as parents aspire to. It’s our job. We have faith in our children, in the way we have taught them.
One of the richest, allegorical texts of Mark’s Gospel (4:35 – 41) is the story in which Jesus’ calms the storm. It has been understood as a picture of the confusion of the early church. Jesus’ questions his disciples, ‘Why are you so frightened? How is it that you have no faith?’ The disciples had failed to recognise Jesus’ presence, thinking him ‘asleep’. It is no surprise, that at the heart of this story, there is a story about who I am. It is no trouble being a person of faith when the going is good, but when my life is thrown into turmoil I struggle to see God walking with me. Notionally I know he is there, but in my anxiety doubt grows. Mark clearly tells us that his presence is constant and real, we need but call on his name.
And while this story still has an application to the life of the church today (clerical abuse, women and married priests, left-wing radical theologies, right-wing ‘traditionalists’, etc.) it is applies equally to letting our children go, to make their own decisions, to be independent, and trusting them to do right. They will experience life in a turbulent world, have enormous ups and downs, but in the end, we trust that they will know that you are there to love and support them. And, it’s our job. For the duration of our lives. And as we live in Christian hope for life eternal, it’s forever.
We have now returned to Ordinary
Time. Isn’t it time too that you returned to join this cycle?
Peter Douglas
CATHOLIC SCHOOLS AS COMMUNITIES OF THE WORD
Sacred Heart Catholic School, Ulverstone
by Beth Nolen in Liturgy News, Autumn 2021Many challenges followed the abrupt intrusion of COVID-19 into our
lives, including how to provide sacred rituals for students when there were no
(or few) students physically at school. Times of uncontrollable change shine a
spotlight on both strengths and cracks in our existing ways of working and
being, and reveal helpful insights. When we look back at the experience of
2020, there are key areas and core elements that, when conducted well, enabled
Catholic schools to flourish as authentic COMMUNITIES OF THE WORD.
1. Fostering relationships
Being deprived of our typical interaction with our communities
shed light on how much we need one another. At the end of our lockdown period
of ‘school from home’, curiosity drove me to ask my Y ear 8 son about his
thoughts on being home-schooled in the future. Mum, that’s a really bad idea. I
would have no friends, and I’ve realised that I actually need my teachers to
explain some things that I don’t understand in textbooks. We will never have
this conversation again! Unexpectedly, he has had no word of complaint about
school ever since, and a whole new way of working with purpose and appreciation
of his school community has developed.
Fostering genuine relationships is the basis for developing
authentic communities and is at the heart of Catholic schools being communities
of the word. One example comes from a Prep class at St Thomas More, Sunshine
Beach, Qld. In 2020, teacher
Tracy Flynn regularly invited parents to participate in the class
morning prayer ritual. When ‘school from home’ started, parents began asking
Tracy to share her class prayer. One parent independently created a video link
for the class to stay connected, and then Tracy received requests from parents
to lead her class for prayer. Participation via video allowed Tracy to see that
many children had created their own prayer spaces at home and some family
members joined in this time of prayer together.
My daughter’s school at St Dympna’s Aspley, Qld, sent home ongoing
resources using Microsoft Sway so that they could continue being a community of
the word while most students were at home. These resources engaged our family
in the story and the celebration, highlighting meaning through images, videos
of a small group of students at school completing various parts of the ritual,
readings from Scripture, reflections and prayers. I asked a staff member how
the school was able to create such high quality resources quickly in response
to rapidly changing conditions for celebrating liturgies. The answer was,
Relationships. We drew on people’s different strengths, including technology,
to bring it all together.
2. Nurturing spirituality
Email correspondence from a Prep student parent in Tracy’s class
at Sunshine Beach highlights what can happen through nurturing spirituality. A
parent describes how she was surprised
to find her daughter alone by a window early one Saturday morning,
so she asked her daughter if she was okay:
Yes. I’m just sitting
here with God, in here (pointing to her chest). How sweet!!! I said, That’s so
nice, Sweetie, that means you are never alone doesn’t it!? And she nodded. My
goodness what a beautiful moment. Thank you for your spiritual guidance!!
(Email between the parent and Tracy; used with permission from
both)
Although the term ‘spirituality’ does not have a universally
accepted definition (Adams..., 2016), Nye's ground-breaking work found that all
children have a sense of spirituality (Nye, 1998). Nye describes spirituality
for children and young people as recognising and supporting God’s ways of being
with them, and their ways of being with God (Nye, 2017). Her research has also
found that the younger the child, the more likely they are to seek spirituality
naturally by pondering the bigger questions of the meaning of life, death,
identity and purpose. There is also increasing recognition that spiritual
health is an essential component of adolescent health (Michaelsona..., 2016).
As children grow older, they may describe themselves as spiritual but not
religious, highlighting the broad definitions required for understanding
spirituality (Michaelsona..., 2016).
Nye (2017) reflects that, after spending time listening to
children talk about their spirituality for her research, they were frequently
unable to identify anyone else with whom they could continue these
conversations. To nurture spirituality, Nye recommends that adults respectfully
listen to our young people and allow them time and space to articulate their
deep questions about life and the meaning of their existence and their insights
into God; thus adults teach the use of silence. Adults create safe spaces that
allow students to ponder and communicate their experiences of awe, wonder, and
a wisdom and energy source beyond themselves that they may name as God.
Students build their capacity to engage in significant prayer rituals and
liturgies.
Understanding students' spirituality is invaluable for creating liturgical
rituals where students can find meaning and leave feeling challenged, nourished
and inspired to be the best version of themselves. Through my PhD research
focusing on what Early Years teachers need to build capacity to teach
Scripture, the rewards of focusing on spirituality as a
gateway for teaching religious education have become apparent.
Data from a Year 3 teacher revealed that, despite successfully enabling her
Year 3 class of 2019 to discover the riches of Scripture, she could not engage
her 2020 Year 3 class in religious education until she focussed on spirituality
first. It was then that exploring Scripture through religious education became
deeply meaningful. The major difference the Year 3 teacher identified between
the classes was that the 2019 cohort mainly came from families where religion
was part of family life. For most students in the 2020 cohort, this was not the
case. Therefore, nurturing spirituality became the access point in the
religious education of the class of 2020 for discovering rich meaning from
Scripture.
Spirituality refers to the student's interior meaning- making
journey, which is different from the religious education activity of
cognitively learning about faith communities and their religious beliefs and
practices, and different from participating in celebrating as a community of
the word. While all three are strongly interconnected, independently attending
to each element ensures time and intentionality for all three core elements.
When schools foster healthy relationships and engage well in all three
components, rich and deep meaning is attainable for all participants when
Catholic school communities celebrate the word of God.
A MODEL OF CORE ELEMENTS FOR CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS
Discovering
authentic meaning from religion.
How
is the mystery of God experienced?
What
opportunities exist for experiencing God?
How
is meaning found and expressed through participating in religious celebrations, religious rituals and
faith-based activities?
The model above builds on the model of religious education in the
religion curriculum for the Archdiocese of Brisbane (Religious Education
Curriculum P-12, 2020). Note the intentionality of all three elements, while
the goal of each element is to discover meaning. Faith is always invitational
through each element. It is also important to highlight that the element of
spirituality is not about teaching anything. Instead, it is about ensuring time
for reflecting, pondering and listening to how each person experiences wonder,
awe, mystery, transcendence and the deepest questions of life underpinning how
people choose to live.
3. Teaching prayer and Scripture
Recognising that students come to Catholic schools with diverse
backgrounds, there is a need for finding out what students know and understand
about prayer. Sr Hilda Scott from the Jamberoo Abbey in New South Wales
reflected on her experience at the Ignite Conference in 2016. In her view,
young people were thirsting for ‘understanding prayer’, and ‘to understand how
to connect with God’ (Scott, 2016). Therefore, teaching prayer is more than
merely teaching people to pray particular words. Sr Hilda’s own definition of
prayer is ‘God in communication with us’ (Scott, 2018).
Being a community of the word demands that we foster prayer skills
to experience ‘God in communication with us’. Teaching children how to use
silence is critical, especially in a world where silence can be rare. Mantra
prayer and breath prayer (focusing on every breath) are excellent for periods
of silence.
Similarly, exploring Scripture as literature, engaging in critical
thinking about the text, and pondering how the text reveals God’s dream for our
world leads to using Scripture well for prayer rituals and liturgies in
schools. Finding out about the text includes cultural insights, authorship, the
context of the text, and the genre of the text, which opens many new insights
for drawing a multiple layers of richness from the text.
4. Discovering meaning
At the end of the 2020 school year, I engaged in conversation with
someone who is not Catholic, who spoke about attending a Liturgy of the Word at
St Joseph’s primary school, Nundah, Qld, which she found deeply significant.
Students had ‘broken open’ the two different stories of the birth of Jesus, understanding
the Scripture stories so well they could explain their appreciation the
stories. In the liturgy, there was creativity, participation, deep
meaning-making – and no photography – as the community recognised this was not
a performance but a rich experience of the word of God.
The opportunity to teach students about Scripture before using the
texts for prayer rituals and liturgies affords Catholic schools a clear
advantage. Allowing students to bring their creative ideas to preparing a
Liturgy of the Word allows the potential for meaning- making through the ritual
to deepen significantly. The use of appropriate and diverse drama strategies
can draw attention to critical parts of the text. After the proclamation of
Scripture, students might enter the world of imagination to interview one of
the characters, the Bible author or even God. Recognising that Scripture has
the potential to speak to the heart of any person, countless strategies can
shine a spotlight on how the text calls people to live today. Encouraging
students to identify multiple interpretations of Scripture ensures a deeper
understanding of the power of the text. Anything that encourages participants
to discover deeper levels of appropriate meaning from the word and the ritual
will help create powerful experiences where people are engaged, challenged and
inspired to be their best selves when they leave.
Ponder what aspects of the liturgy we want to highlight to
strengthen participants' meaning- making. Identify when students may be in
danger of ‘going through the motions’ rather than understanding the
significance of what they are doing. Respond by leading ‘mindfulness moments’
such as pausing during each action to make the sign of the cross. In the name
of the Father – we pause to think about God’s love in our lives; and of the Son
– we pause to remember the presence of Jesus here with us; and of the Holy
Spirit – we pause to recall how God’s Spirit is actively at work in our hearts.
Seeking feedback allows leaders to fine-tune how to provide
valuable prayer and ritual experiences. Strategies such as making time for
journal writing, respectful listening or anonymous feedback posts in a safe
environment can enable students to respond to questions such as, What meaning
did you find through this experience? How did this experience challenge you?
How did this experience inspire you to be the best version of yourself?
Even casual conversations with students can reveal deep insights,
as I found while talking with a Year 8 student at a social gathering in 2020,
when he stated, I think we should have more liturgies at our school. When
pressed to answer why, the student paused to reflect and then replied, Because
they remind us who we are and who God wants us to be. That student showed a
surprisingly deep understanding of why we continue celebrating as communities
of the word, even during the challenges of living in a pandemic.
Catholic schools can provide profound experiences of being a
community of the word, where participants listen with their ears, minds and
hearts, and leave wanting to return because the experience has enriched their
lives. Catholic schools have the gift of being able to provide three core
elements that invite people to discover meaning: through religious education
that engages students and leads to critical thinking; nurturing and listening
to the spirituality of students; and participating in religious celebrations,
rituals and faith-based activities. When all three elements are conducted well,
within an environment that intentionally fosters healthy relationships between
students, parents and staff, Catholic schools flourish as COMMUNITIES OF THE WORD.
Beth Nolen is doing
doctoral studies on building the capacity of Early Years teachers for teaching Scripture. She works as an Education Officer -
Religious Education for Brisbane Catholic Education.
Adams, K., Bull, R., &
Maynes, M.-L. (2016). Early childhood spirituality in education: Towards an
understanding of the distinctive features of young children's spirituality.
European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 24(5), 760-774.
doi:10.1080/1350293X.2014.996425
Michaelsona, V., Brooks, F.,
Jirásek, I., Inchleye, J., Whiteheade, R., Kingb, N., . . . Pickett, W.
(December 2016). Developmental patterns of adolescent spiritual health in six
countries. SSM-Population Health, 2, 294-303. Retrieved from
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ article/pii/S2352827316300052
Nye, R. (1998). Psychological
perspectives on children's spirituality. University of Nottingham, Retrieved from
http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/11177/1/243253.pdf
Nye, R. (2017). Spirituality
as a natural part of childhood. Retrieved from
https://www.biblesociety.org.uk/content/explore_the_bible/
bible_in_transmission/files/2017_spring_v2/transmission_spring_20 17_nye.pdf
Religious Education
Curriculum P-12 (2020), M. Elliot, L. Stower, & A. Victor eds. Brisbane:
Catholic Education Archdiocese of Brisbane
Scott, Hilda. (2018). Words
from the heart: episode seven. Wisdom from the Abbey: Prayer. Retrieved from
https://www. shalomworldtv.org/wisdomfromtheabbey
God’s ‘conduit’ Sr Hilda
Scott: ‘I can’t do anything without Him’. (October 2016). Retrieved from
https://catholicleader.com.au/ people/gods-conduit-sr-hilda-scott-i-cant-do-anything-without-him
