Author: Deacon Nick

Nick Senger, founder and editor of Catholic School Chronicle, is an award-winning Catholic school teacher, vice principal and technology coordinator. He is a deacon for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane.
Posted on

Free Catholic Study Guide for Responding to Genocide

Not On Our Watch Catholic Study Guide
Not On Our Watch Catholic Study Guide

If your faculty has a book group, or if you teach high school, you might want to check out the free Catholic study guide (4.8mb pdf) for Not On Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond. Not On Our Watch was written to help people take action against genocide, and the 47-page study guide provides a Catholic context for the material it contains.

The study guide moves chapter by chapter through the book and contains relevant scripture passages, papal statements, prayers, reflection questions, and web resources to help readers fully understand and apply the book’s message within the framework of Catholic social teaching.

For instance, Chapter Two of the study guide includes this prayer written by Jane Deren:

Lift the confusion from my eyes, Lord of sight and insight,
And enable me to see clearly how your children are suffering,
But also to see how your grace is working in the world.
Open the path before me, so I can recognize
The dignity of your people being crushed in Darfur;
Their suffering is terrible to gaze upon.
But your servants keep watch and call out for justice.
Help me comprehend what is happening in our global community
And help me begin to see the part I can play in solidarity.
I am here, Lord, give me vision, give me hope.

The study guide is divided into nine chapters, and could be covered in nine weeks or nine months of a school year. The end of the guide features six specific action steps that can be taken:

  1. Learn more about Darfur.
  2. Get involved and act.
  3. Teach others.
  4. Tell Congress to act.
  5. Support Catholic Relief Services.
  6. Pray for all parties involved.

Having just finished the Rwandan memoir Left to Tell by Immaculée Ilibagiza, I want to learn more myself about how to respond to the tragedy of genocide. This looks like an excellent next step for me. Perhaps someone is interested in starting an online book club for Catholic teachers using this book as a beginning.

Tip of the hat to the CNS Blog.

Posted on

Evangelizing the Privileged

Catholic Teacher Musings
Catholic Teacher Musings

A common myth about Catholic schools is that they cater to the elite and wealthy. While this is not true, there are in fact many Catholic schools whose students come from privileged families. If you happen to teach in such a school, be sure to read Laura’s post at Catholic Teacher Musings, “Signs That I Might Be Doing Something Right.”

The Catholic Church has always taught about a preferential option for the poor, but that doesn’t mean the fortunate don’t need evangelizing as well. As Laura’s friend prophetically said, “Who is going to teach the fortunate to care for the less fortunate?”

Posted on

A Catholic Prayer for Economic Hardship

Here’s a prayer from the back of a holy card that you might wish to share with your school community:

Holy CardHeavenly Father,
it is symptomatic of our life today
that economics play a large part in it.
People labor zealously for a wage
so that they can acquire the needs of life.

They also work for
the so-called luxuries of life,
for the opportunity to have more leisure
to develop themselves in ways,
and to keep up with
their particular state of life.

Right now,
I find myself in a bad economic condition.
I just cannot seem to make enough money
to meet my obligations.
Please help me in this dangerous situation.

Teach me to live within my means
while at the same time
striving to increase those means.
Let me never lose heart
but continue to press on.

Most of all, inspire me
to seek first Your kingdom
in the knowledge that everything else
will be given me together with it.
In Jesus Christ’s name I pray,
who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit
One God
forever and ever.

You can purchase the holy card from Aquinas & More.

Posted on

101 Practical Fasting Ideas for Lent

Bread for Lenten Soup Night

Jesus

[Note: I’ve updated this list with 10 more ideas at One Catholic Life – February 17, 2010]

Fasting, praying and almsgiving are the three penitential practices that we are asked to engage in during Lent. In addition to fasting and abstaining with the rest of the Church on Ash Wednesday and the Fridays of Lent, we are also challenged to make individual sacrifices appropriate to our own spiritual condition. However, before we choose something to give up for Lent, it’s important to assess our current spiritual state:

  • What habits do I engage in that are destructive to my spiritual health?
  • To what material things am I too attached?
  • What areas in my life are unbalanced?
  • To what do I devote too much or not enough time?

Only after asking questions like these are we are ready to decide what to give up or what to add to our lives during Lent. The following list is meant to be an aid in this process. Use it as you need based on your current circumstances.

“Through fasting and praying, we allow Him to come and satisfy the deepest hunger that we experience in the depths of our being: the hunger and thirst for God.”

–Pope Benedict, Lenten message, 2009

1-10: The Usuals:

  1. Give up candy/sweets.
  2. Give up television time.
  3. Give up eating snacks between meals.
  4. Give up or limit soda or coffee.
  5. Give up or limit video games.
  6. Spend more time with family.
  7. Give to the poor.
  8. Do an extra chore each day.
  9. Perform a random act of kindness.
  10. Spend more time in prayer.

11-20: Prayer

  1. Pray a book of scripture using lectio divina.
  2. Attend Mass on a weekday (every day if possible).
  3. Pray the rosary each day, alone or with your family.
  4. Prayerfully read Abandonment to Divine Providence.
  5. Make a special prayer notebook and list all the people in your life who need prayers; pray for them each day. Add someone new every day.
  6. Learn to pray the Liturgy of the Hours.
  7. Make a commitment to attend Eucharistic Adoration regularly.
  8. Commit to examining your conscience each evening.
  9. Pray the Jesus Prayer throughout the day.
  10. Pray the Angelus each day at noon.

21-30: For Those Addicted to Popular Culture

  1. Switch from regular radio to Christian music radio or Catholic talk radio.
  2. Avoid shows with gratuitous sex or violence.
  3. Give up or limit watching sports on television.
  4. Listen to only classical music for the next 40 days.
  5. Drive to work in silence each day.
  6. Read a work of classic literature.
  7. Read a Catholic classic.
  8. Read a story to a child.
  9. Sit in fifteen minutes of silence each day.
  10. Write a letter to God each day.

31-40: For Internet Users/Bloggers

  1. Set time limits on overall online time.
  2. Limit Facebook time.
  3. Limit Myspace time.
  4. Resist making or adding to lists that rank people.
  5. Share one spiritual video with your online network once a week.
  6. Blog about the poor once a week.
  7. Add a spiritual blog to your blog reader.
  8. Subscribe to a prayer podcast like Pray As You Go or Pray Station Portable.
  9. Leave an encouraging or positive comment on a different blog each day.
  10. Help a new blogger by sending traffic their way.

41-50: For Those Who Need to Be More Grateful

  1. Each week, write a letter of thanks to a different member of the clergy, beginning with your bishop and parish priest.
  2. Each week write a thank-you note to your parents.
  3. Write a poem of praise for each person in your family.
  4. Get a stack of sticky-notes and write one sentence of thanks each day and stick it to the bedroom door of each person in your family so that by Easter they each have 40 sticky-notes.
  5. Find the psalms of thanksgiving or praise in the Bible and pray them.
  6. Write a list of the ways God has blessed you and add to it each day. This could be done in a notebook or on a big poster hanging on your wall.
  7. At dinner each evening ask your family to share one thing for which they are grateful.
  8. Make a CD or iPod playlist of praise and worship music and listen to it each day.
  9. Make a point of saying “Thank You” a certain number of times per day.
  10. Help your children write thank you letters to their teachers.

51-60: For Those With Lives Out of Balance

  1. Go for a walk each day with a loved one and talk about life and faith.
  2. Take the kids to the park each week for some carefree time.
  3. Give up fast food and give the money to charity.
  4. Exercise each day.
  5. Spend at least half an hour each day in meaningful conversation with your spouse.
  6. Go on a Lenten retreat.
  7. Pray with Sacred Space each day.
  8. Commit to a daily 3 Minute Retreat.
  9. Begin the online 34-week Retreat for Everyday Life.
  10. Give up your most unhealthy habit.

61-70: For Those Who Need Spiritual Nourishment

  1. Read the documents of Vatican II, especially Gaudium et Spes.
  2. Read The Cathechism of the Catholic Church or The United States Catholic Catechism for Adults.
  3. Sign up for adult formation classes at a local parish.
  4. Join a Bible study.
  5. Attend Stations of the Cross at a local parish.
  6. Find a spiritual director.
  7. Read The Imitation of Christ.
  8. Listen to a free Catholic audio book from Maria Lectrix.
  9. Read Introduction to the Devout Life.
  10. Read a spiritual autobiography (i.e., Augustine’s Confessions, Story of a Soul, Journal of a Soul, Witness to Hope)

71-80: For Those Who Need to Increase Their Service to the Needy

  1. Volunteer at soup kitchen or other food program.
  2. Coordinate a food drive at your parish, school or place of employment.
  3. Find out who in your parish is sick and offer to visit them or bring them food.
  4. Call your local Catholic Charities office and volunteer.
  5. Begin making visits to a nursing home.
  6. Help an elderly or disabled person in your neighborhood with yard work or other difficult chores.
  7. Become a hospital volunteer.
  8. Become part of a prison ministry team.
  9. Coordinate a clothing drive.
  10. Make rosaries and give them away.

81-90: For Those Who Need to Be More Active in Their Parish

  1. Become a lector.
  2. Volunteer to become an Extraordinary Minister of the Eucharist
  3. Volunteer to help with the parish youth group.
  4. After each Mass stay awhile and introduce yourself to someone you don’t know.
  5. Join the Knights of Columbus.
  6. Offer to be a Confirmation sponsor.
  7. Volunteer to be an usher.
  8. Offer to help with funeral dinners.
  9. Help with the RCIA program.
  10. Volunteer to do lawn work, cleaning or other needed maintenance for the parish.

90-101: Potpourri

  1. Begin to receive the Sacrament of Penance weekly.
  2. Give up foul language.
  3. Give up gossiping.
  4. Read and study Healing the Culture.
  5. Study the life of a different saint each day.
  6. Cook dinner each night for your family if someone else normally does.
  7. Pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy.
  8. Carry extra food in your car, purse or backpack to give to street corner beggars.
  9. Begin practicing socially conscious investing.
  10. Spend a week meditating on each of the seven principles of Catholic social teaching.
  11. Make breakfast each morning for your family.

Conclusion

Lent is a tremendous opportunity for spiritual growth. I hope these suggestions re-energize you on your spiritual journey. If you try one or more of these ideas, or if you’d like to share your own Lenten practices, please leave a comment.