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March 10, 2005
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Greetings and welcome
to Faith Formation Update,
a free monthly e-newsletter for catechetical leaders with a focus
on parish catechesis beyond textbooks and classrooms. I'm Judith
Dunlap. In each issue I offer a brief starter
and my "Every Family" column.
My co-worker and fellow religious educator Joan
McKamey offers video resources and ideas in her "Seen
and Heard" column. Our co-worker Chuck
Blankenship suggests other faith formation resources for adults
from St. Anthony Messenger Press in his column, "Sowing
Sampler." Finally, we encourage YOU to share views and
program ideas about this month's topic on our online bulletin
board, "Faith Formation Forum."
Blessings on your work! —Judith
Dunlap p.s. You're receiving
this either because you signed up, or because you're a loyal customer
of St. Anthony Messenger Press. We will never send you unwanted
e-mail. There is an unsubscribe link at the bottom of this page.
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The second Sunday of Easter is Divine Mercy Sunday. At first I wondered why the Sunday immediately after Easter was chosen for this feast. After I read the Gospel reading for that day (John 20:19-31), I understood.
When the risen Christ shows his disciples his hands and side, we are given an important insight: The risen Christ still carries the wounds of a broken world. In the glorified Christ we find all those who suffer or are estranged, even the unrepentant sinner. In this wounded Christ we find ourselves with all our own hurts and failings.
What Jesus does after he presents himself to his followers is even more significant. After he shows his disciples his wounds, Jesus breathes the Spirit into them. He sends them out as he was sent, to offer healing, forgiveness and love. This is our mission, too.
We are asked to forgive those who hurt us—to mirror Jesus’ mercy and to love the beggar and the sinner as much as we love the self-reliant and the saint. The key is to remember that love is not just a feeling of attraction. It is a sense of attachment and acceptance—a bonding. It is realizing in heart and head that all of us—sinners and saints—are one in the risen Christ.
Perhaps a good way to spend these last few weeks of Lent (and prepare for Divine Mercy Sunday) is to help people deal with the often difficult task of forgiving those who have seriously hurt them. You might send home to parents, or give your catechists, a short article on the topic. (Feel free to use the paragraphs above as an introduction and the material below in your content.)
Folks who have difficulty or refuse to forgive may have false notions of what forgiveness is about. John Monbourquette, author of How To Forgive: A Step-by-Step Guide (published by SAMP), has a chapter on that topic. He tells us that forgiveness is not forgetting. It is not denial. Forgiveness takes more than willpower and cannot be given on command. Forgiveness does not mean giving up our rights or excusing the offender. Finally, forgiveness does not demonstrate moral superiority, and it certainly doesn’t mean just leaving it up to God (as in “Only God can forgive”). The chapter develops each of the above incorrect ideas and is appropriately titled, “Unmasking False Notions of Forgiveness.”
After exploring the nature of forgiveness in Part One of the book, Monbourquette offers “Twelve Steps To True Forgiveness.” (Click here to see his list.) Each chapter that follows explains one of the steps. The book ends with a chapter on celebrating forgiveness.
Offer your parishioners an opportunity to greet this Easter with a heart set free from the burden of resentment and to celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday by mirroring the master.
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This Lent, think about planning a family reconciliation service. Talk about “Circles of Hurt” and “Ripples of Sin.” (Click here for Together Time Activity from the book Spirit With Us, part of our God Is Calling series.) Give individuals time to complete the activity; then have family members talk to each other about what they wrote. Tell them to take some quiet time to think of one thing they would like to say they are sorry for—either to a family member or to the entire family.
Gather participants in church. Ask them to form a circle with their family around the altar. Play quiet music while they say their “I’m sorries” to each other. After a few minutes, ask parents to bless their children; then have children bless their parents.
If you would like to have a sacramental reconciliation service, continue by reading Micah 6:8. “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (NRSV; personally, I prefer the way it reads from my Jerusalem Bible.)
Split into three groups. One group comes up with ways folks do not act justly; the second, the way folks do not love kindly; and the third, the way folks do not walk humbly with God. Ask them to please print out their answers as legibly as possible. After they have time to come up with their lists, take a short break.
During the break, distribute all three lists for each participant. Re-gather in church. Have a large candle lit in front of the altar. Next to the candle have a brazier with a lit fire. Give each participant a lit candle, a piece of paper and pencil, and the lists.
Give the following instructions: “Have someone from your group slowly read aloud the statements that surfaced in your group. Please frame the statements in the following sentence: “Every time someone _____ a light goes out in the world.” After each statement is read, a person/persons from your group should blow out his/their candle. All of the group’s candles should be extinguished by the time all the statements have been read. Take time now to decide who will do the reading, and at which statement each person will blow out his or her candle.
Begin the service after groups have had enough time to make their decisions. When everyone’s candle is extinguished, ask participants to take some time to consider what they would like to change about their own behavior. They can use the statements from the groups as their examination of conscience. Have them write their sin on the piece of paper they were given. Parents of young children or those who choose not to receive the sacrament can just write, “Bless me” on the paper.
Re-gather and say a communal act of contrition. (Tell God we are sorry for our sins and we will do our best not to commit them again. Ask for his help to change our behavior.) Have your parish priest stand next to the brazier. Participants give him their papers. He reads them, burns them and gives them absolution. He then re-lights their candles from the large candle and hands it back to them.
End with a prayer or song and then a party—potluck, pizza or just ice cream. Pace e bene.
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St. Faustina is a young woman whose name I’ve been hearing a lot in recent years. Her beatification in 1993 and canonization in 2000 and then the addition of Divine Mercy Sunday to our liturgical calendar have kept her name in the Catholic press for over a decade. And that’s good, because the message of God’s mercy is one we need to hear over and over again.
“The Lord is kind and merciful. The Lord is kind and merciful” is a psalm response we sing at Mass on Sundays in my parish. I love that we repeat it because it bears repeating. We need to acknowledge and praise God for being kind and merciful. We also need to be more kind and merciful ourselves.
I have had several conversations recently with parents and grandparents who are concerned about their adult children and grandchildren who have either left the Catholic Church or fallen out of practice of their Catholic faith. I know that this is a very real concern and painful situation for so many families in our faith community, my own included. We become discouraged because none of our efforts to convince our loved ones of the importance of the Church get through to them. We begin to despair about their life choices and their chances for eternal salvation.
Remember: “The Lord is kind and merciful.”
Being kind is different than being nice. I’ve been told that the word “nice” doesn’t even appear in the Bible, but the words “kind” and “kindness” are there repeatedly. Being kind to another includes behaviors that don’t always look or feel very “nice.” Being kind means being honest—even when the truth is painful, holding another to his or her responsibilities, challenging another to change and grow.
Being merciful is having a compassionate attitude toward another. This attitude of compassion often leads to or is related to the action of forgiveness.
“The Lord is kind…” God has expectations of us. God wants us to be our best, to make the best choices, to be responsible and honest, to seek the truth.
“…and merciful.” God has compassion for us when we are weak, when we fail to meet his and our own expectations.
Kind and merciful—that’s what God wants us to be as well. It would be most unkind to give up on our family members, friends, coworkers, etc., who have fallen away from the practice of Catholicism. Today’s culture is such a huge force in people’s lives today. The message of the Church is just one of many voices vying for their attention.
We must reach out with a combination of love, kindness and mercy using the media of the culture. Here are some electronic media resources that all parishioners may find enriching but which might be used as creative ways to connect to those who don’t find their way to the parish’s pews on Sundays.
Whatever you do, do it with kindness and mercy!
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Divine Mercy Sunday was proclaimed for the universal Church by Pope John Paul II on April 30, 2000, on the occasion of the canonization of Faustina Kowalska, the visionary to whom the popular Divine Mercy devotion was revealed. Servant Books offers three books that will help you come to know more about this remarkably humble mystic and her message.
Meet Saint Faustina is a compelling introduction to her life and work. Excerpts from her legendary diary can be found throughout this short volume, along with details concerning the beginning of her mission, her visions and her canonization. Especially noteworthy is how much her life and mission influenced another famous Polish Catholic—Pope John Paul II.
If you want to learn more about St. Faustina, you might want to turn to the “authorized biography” by Sister Sophia Michalenko, The Life of Faustina Kowalska. This more detailed biography includes many excerpts from Faustina’s famous diary and can serve as an inspiring and reliable introduction to this remarkable 20th-century saint.
If you’d like to spend more time studying the message of the revelations of St. Faustina, you might pick up Revelations of Divine Mercy: Daily Readings from the Diary of Blessed Faustina Kowalska. With 366 daily readings drawn from the original diary of St. Faustina, the compiler of this collection focuses each month on a particular theme from the diary: love, trust, humility, glory. In addition, the book provides historical background, including biographical information about St. Faustina and an explanation of various facets of the Divine Mercy devotion.
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