Self isolation, faith sharing and sacramental preparation: sharing fresh approaches

Week 3 of our online conversations focused on the foundations to sharing our faith and the bedrock of our ministry.

  • This then can be a time to return to the fundamentals of the faith. We heard from Abbot President Christopher Jamison OSB (read his reflection here), who invited us to consider that “grace builds on nature”.  During this pandemic we are seeing the best (and sometimes the worst - trolley rage!) of human nature. It is important that we look honestly at ourself and the work around us and ask “what is human nature doing at present”. If we do that, we will find where grace can work. If we understand where people are reaching out, where people are seeking to transcend themselves, we see our human desire to move beyond ourselves. In this we have the opportunity to “meet God” coming towards us. And in the challenges to - the impulse to respond negatively. Our human nature can be directed as a way of reaching out to other people, and hence encounter the God who comes to us. We can look at the way that human nature is operating and discover ways to enable young people to engage with this, to recognise how we are working, and where grace is.

  • Abbot Christopher told us, therefore, that we should “not be discouraged”, not to be disheartened if we can’t put on our usual programmes and instead try to put meet our young people where they are at - in their human nature. He reminded us, as youth workers, youth ministers and chaplains that we are frontier people and can help the Church discover new ways to support young people to encounter the grace of God.

  • Catechists, chaplains and youth workers also shared their challenges and ideas as they worked through this “abnormal” time.

  • In the breakout sessions, participants discussed the following questions regarding faith formation and catechesis: “How are you being invited to put out into the deep?” “What do we create for these times of social distancing?” “What do we build for the future?”. Many of the ideas and resources shared are detailed below.

RESOURCES SHARED:

Note: we collate all the resources shared on our resource page.

Prayer and connecting
God is the giver of youth and he is at work in the life of each young person. Youth is a blessed time for the young and a grace for the Church and for the world. It is joy, a song of hope and a blessing … Youth cannot remain on hold. It is the age of choices and herein lies its fascination and its greatest responsibility…

Opposed to these hopes and dreams that generate decisions, there is always the temptation to complain or give up. “We can leave that to those who worship the ‘goddess of lament’… She is a false goddess: she makes you take the wrong road. When everything seems to be standing still and stagnant, when our personal issues trouble us, and social problems do not meet with the right responses, it does no good to give up.

Jesus is the way: welcome him into your ‘boat’ and put out into the deep! He is the Lord! He changes the way we see life. Faith in Jesus leads to greater hope, to a certainty based … on the word of God, on the invitation that comes from him. Without making too many human calculations, and without worrying about things that challenge your security, put out into the deep. Go out of yourselves”. Christus Vivit 135, 140-141

For Catechists:
Catholic spirituality: https://aleteia.org/
Children’s Liturgy online: https://www.facebook.com/colourandshapeonline/?hc_location=group
E-book on how churches are going digital at this time: https://oaktrust.library.tamu.edu/bitstream/handle/1969.1/187891/Distanced%20Church-PDF-landscape-FINAL%20version.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
Ten Ten: https://www.tentenresources.co.uk/
Alpha Youth: https://www.alpha.org/youth/
Be Attitude Life from SVP: https://B-Attitudelifeonline.org
Use Kahoot to engage the young in quizzes etc: https://kahoot.com/

For families:
Our Lady of the Rosary in Staines: https://www.facebook.com/groups/OLORchurchstaines - Fr Philip Dyer-Perry creatively engages with the young through play equipment with a message to the children on the second Sunday of Easter.
Social action activities: http://www.justicefaithfamily.org/
“I want to make my home in you” - A useful resource book for younger children

Some ideas shared:
Baking as a form of connection with the young - use hashtags to see what people are creating on Twitter
Hold a virtual assembly - include bidding prayers
Carry on with the Faith in Action Awards but do it virtually/the kids can scrapbook from home- ask your young people what they want to be doing during this time
Engage the young with the 2.6 challenge, get them to choose a charity of choice and an activity they want to commit to: https://www.twopointsixchallenge.co.uk/

Activities participants say they will develop post COVID include:
Building that sense of community - hosting pizza nights after school has finished for example
Parent and child confirmation classes - ask questions that work well round the dinner table or in the living room (more details to come on this soon)
Brentwood Youth Masses: https://bcys.net/
Online zoom retreats
Online mass - has provided churches with the availability to expand their reach and engage with those who haven’t previously
Use of social media platforms
In the future = engage in more participation, and if possible young people lead online thing as much as possible
A focus on ‘engaging not consuming’

Comments from participants (from our online Chat function):
Q: How do we maintain a sense of a local parish when we are all looking to great but centrally produced resources (e.g. big live-streamed masses, CAFOD children’s liturgy, word on fire etc)? Do we need to? A: We do need to retain the local, or at least a sense of community at a manageable scale. Perhaps not everything has to be online. Advantage of parish church is that it's embedded in the geographic local area. Why not create a prayer garden or some other physical thing that people can see in their neighbourhood?

Q: Benefits of YouthAlpha - hearing a ‘different’ theology is a perfect way to start a debate, discover and learn, right? A: Could really help getting young people to engage and get curious about why ‘we’ might say something different.

Closing & Appreciation
Are you aware of anyone enabling young people to contribute to the current crisis or help shape the new context post COVID-19? - Please let us know.

For more details on our next conversations and to register please visit: millionminutes.org/conversations