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It is, moreover, of fundamental importance that the service carried out by the associations is stimulated by full participation in the pastoral activity of the Church. The Episcopal Conferences and their continental versions are entrusted with the role of promoting the development of the specificities of each association, favouring and encouraging more coordinated work in the educational sector.
The Catholic school, characterized mainly as an educating community, is a school for the person and of persons. In fact, it aims at forming the person in the integral unity of his being, using the tools of teaching and learning where «criteria of judgement, determining values, points of interest, lines of thought, sources of inspiration and models of life» [16] are formed. Above all, they are involved in the dynamics of interpersonal relations that form and vivify the school community. Dr. Gerard O’Shea, is a Professor of Religious Education at the University of Notre Dame in Sydney, Australia.He is alsoAssistant Director for Catholic Education for the Diocese of Wilcannia-Forbes.He and his wife Anne have five children, and seven grandchildren. If you regard the objective of religious education as the formation of a Catholic heart, memory, intellect, and imagination, then you will consider Educating in Christan indispensable text.Drawing on ideas from Maria Montessori and Sofia Cavalletti, it explains how to hand on the faith at different stages of a child’s development. Every Catholic teacher should read and apply it.” By giving witness of communion, the Catholic educational community is able to educate for communion, which, as a gift that comes from above, animates the project of formation for living together in harmony and being welcoming. Not only does it cultivate in the students the cultural values that derive from the Christian vision of reality, but it also involves each one of them in the life of the community, where values are mediated by authentic interpersonal relationships among the various members that form it, and by the individual and community acceptance of them. In this way, the life of communion of the educational community assumes the value of an educational principle, of a paradigm that directs its formational action as a service for the achievement of a culture of communion. Education in the Catholic school, therefore, through the tools of teaching and learning, «is not given for the purpose of gaining power but as an aid towards a fuller understanding of, and communion with man, events and things» [44]. This principle affects every scholastic activity, the teaching and even all the after-school activities such as sport, theatre and commitment in social work, which promote the creative contribution of the students and their socialization. If lived authentically and profoundly, the ecclesial dimension of the educational community of the Catholic school cannot be limited to a relationship with the local Christian community. Almost by natural extension, it tends to open onto the horizons of the universal Church. In this sense, the international dimension of many religious families offers consecrated persons the enrichment of communion with those who share the same mission in various parts of the world. At the same time, it offers a witness to the living strength of a charism that unites, over and above all, differences. The richness of this communion in the universal Church can and must be shared, for example, through regional or world level formational occasions and meetings. These should also involve lay persons (educators and parents) who, because of their state of life, share the educational mission of the relative charisms.In this context it becomes especially urgent to offer young people a course of scholastic formation which is not reduced to a simple individualistic and instrumental fruition of service with a view to obtaining a qualification. As well as gaining knowledge, students must also have a strong experience of sharing with their educators. For this experience to be happily accomplished, educators must be welcoming and well-prepared interlocutors, able to awaken and direct the best energies of students towards the search for truth and the meaning of existence, a positive construction of themselves and of life in view of an overall formation. In the end, «real education is not possible without the light of truth » [1]. Another pillar of open communion is formed by the relationship between the Catholic school and the families that choose it for the education of their children. This relationship appears as full participation of the parents in the life of the educational community, not only because of their primary responsibility in the education of their children, but also by virtue of their sharing in the identity and project that characterize the Catholic school and which they must know and share with a readiness that comes from within. It is precisely because of this that the educational community identifies the decisive space for cooperation between school and family in the educational project, to be made known and implemented with a spirit of communion, through the contribution of everyone, discerning responsibilities, roles and competences. Parents in particular are required to enrich the communion around this project, making the family climate that must characterize the educating community more alive and explicit. For this reason, in willingly welcoming parents’ cooperation, Catholic schools consider essential to their mission the service of permanent formation offered to families, to support them in their educating task and to develop an increasingly closer bond between the values proposed by the school and those proposed by the family. Then, that antique rang! For a brief instant, the third man’s hand flashed through the small circle of light, seizing the receiver. This perspective regards all scholastic institutions, but even more directly the Catholic school, which is constantly concerned with the formational requirements of society, because “the problem of instruction has always been closely linked to the Church’s mission” [2]. The Catholic school participates in this mission like a true ecclesial subject, with its educational service that is enlivened by the truth of the Gospel. In fact, faithful to its vocation, it appears “as a place of integral education of the human person through a clear educational project of which Christ is the foundation” [3], directed at creating a synthesis between faith, culture and life.
This wonderful book, written by a professor of education from Notre Dame University, Sydney, Australia, has the answers and much more besides. Balancing the natural and the supernatural, the theoretical and the practical, and combining the best of traditional methods with modern educational theory and psychology (with great prudence), Gerard O'Shea describes how a mystagogical catechesis, rooted in the study of scripture and the actual worship of God is at the heart of every Catholic education. Then he describes how teaching methods and curricula should reflect these principles for children of different ages. Dr. Gerard O’Shea, is a Professor of Religious Education at the University of Notre Dame in Sydney, Australia. He is also Assistant Director for Catholic Education for the Diocese of Wilcannia-Forbes.He and his wife Anne have five children, and seven grandchildren.Gerard O’Shea has written an extraordinary book that will serve catechists well in these challenging times. In language both insightful and accessible, Educating in Christ engages the question of how today’s religious education can lead people into communion with God. O’Shea answers by bringing the movement towards God in religious education into harmony with a reverence for the capacities and potentialities of those we teach.” If you Regard the objective of religious education as the formation of a Catholic heart, memory, intellect, and imagination, then you will consider Educating in Christ an indispensable text. Drawing on ideas from Maria Montessori and Sofia Cavalletti, it explains how to hand on the faith at different stages of a child's development. every Catholic teacher should read and apply it." --TRACEY ROWLAND, University of Notre Dame, Australia It is also through their formational journey that educators are called on to build relationships at professional, personal and spiritual levels, according to the logic of communion. For each one this involves being open, welcoming, disposed to a deep exchange of ideas, convivial and living a fraternal life within the educational community itself. The parable of the talents ( Matt. 25:14-30) helps us to understand how each one is called to make his or her gifts bear fruit and to welcome the riches of others within the shared educational mission. Educating in Christ covers the essential practical and theoreticalelements of religious education and catechetics for parents, catechists, teachers, and Catholic school administrators. The first part of the book responds to contemporary calls from the popesfor a religious education based upon authentic Christian anthropology. It provides a comprehensive outline of religious developmental stages, indicating activities appropriate for each of these from age three years to adolescence. It also takes into account the call of recent Church documents to approach this task from a “mystagogical” angle, linking the sacraments with the scriptures.In the second part, thebest of contemporary teachingpractices are linked with sound Montessori principles and the Catholic understanding of a pedagogy of God. BusyCatholic school administrators willfind the provided summary of Catholic teaching on education since Vatican II a very usefulreference tool. Teachersand home-schooling parents will find the sections on classroom methods, and thecurriculum outline based on the liturgical year, especially helpful.
If you regard the objective of religious education as the formation of a Catholic heart, memory, intellect, and imagination, then you will consider Educating in Christ an indispensable text. Drawing on ideas from Maria Montessori and Sofia Cavalletti, it explains how to hand on the faith at different stages of a child’s development. Every Catholic teacher should read and apply it.” Challenges like these might incline us to roll up into a ball, turning inwards to avoid further trouble. Such defensive strategies risk long-term depression and paralysis. Antidotes include: returning to the sources of our faith and receiving again the Holy Spirit, i.e. re-sourcing and re-inspiring; stepping outside ourselves towards others, not just our current friends, and sharing the Gospel with them – evangelising and catechising; working with others, sharing gifts and challenges with them, i.e. collaborating and communing; and pondering strategies for action, with great confidence we have a future under divine grace – planning and acting.The shared mission, besides, is enriched by the differences that the lay faithful and consecrated persons bring when they come together in different expressions of charism. These charisms are none other than different gifts with which the same Spirit enriches the Church and the world [37]. In the Catholic school, therefore, «by avoiding both confrontation and homologation, the reciprocity of vocations seems to be a particularly fertile prospect for enriching the ecclesial value of educational communities. In them the various vocations […] are correlative, different and mutual paths that converge to bring to fulfilment the charism of charisms: love» [38].
Balancing the natural and the supernatural, the theoretical and the practical, and combining the best of traditional methods with modern educational theory and psychology (with great prudence), Gerard O’Shea describes how a mystagogical catechesis, rooted in the study of scripture and the actual worship of God, lies at the heart of Catholic education.” The Holy Father, during the Audience granted to the undersigned Prefect, approved this document and authorized its publication. This is a must have book for DREs, principals and all involved in faith formation of children. This book has a wealth of knowledge and insights. It offers a vision for catechesis essential for today." --William. Like the Big Mac, Catholic education has undergone changes since 1968, some good, some not so good. It has educated many, at low fees, and raised the Catholic community from the bottom of the social pile. It has transmitted faith and values to many, which partly explains why Australia is not as thoroughly secularised as Britain and northern Europe. The scale and infrastructure makes our school system the envy of much of the Catholic world. But with such scale come challenges if we aspire to high standards of learning and catechesis. It occasions envy and resentment, making our school system the target of anti-Catholic politics. And where do we find and how do we form and support the people we need to lead and staff so many schools? How do we avoid over-risks bureaucratised systems, increasing disconnection from the local church, and apostacy at the peripheries? How do we ensure Catholic schools stayed focused on their mission?
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What makes this testimony really effective is the promotion, especially within the educational community of the Catholic school, of that spirituality of communion that has been indicated as the great prospect awaiting the Church of the Third Millennium. Spirituality of communion means «an ability to think of our brothers and sisters in the faith within the profound unity of the Mystical Body, and therefore as “those who are a part of me”» [21], and «the Christian community’s ability to make room for all the gifts of the Spirit» [22] in a relationship of reciprocity between the various ecclesial vocations. Even in that special expression of the Church that is the Catholic school, spirituality of communion must become the living breath of the educational community, the criterion for the full ecclesial development of its members and the fundamental point of reference for the implementation of a truly shared mission. The communion experienced in the educational community, animated and sustained by lay and consecrated persons joined together in the same mission, makes the Catholic school a community environment filled with the spirit of the Gospel. Now, this community environment appears as a privileged place for the formation of young people in the construction of a world based on dialogue and the search for communion, rather than in contrast; on the mutual acceptance of differences rather than on their opposition. In this way, with its educational project taking inspiration from ecclesial communion and the civilization of love, the Catholic school can contribute considerably to illuminating the minds of many, so that «there will arise a generation of new persons, the moulders of a new humanity» [58]. Though God is our ultimate teacher, he chooses to work through humans to educate his people. God has always appointed religious leaders in the community to teach his people. In the Old Testament, the Levites were assigned the task of teaching Israel the ways of Yahweh (Nehemiah 8:9; 2 Chronicles 35:3). In our day, God has given us pastor-elders to teach the church. Both men appeared in their mid-sixties, as they were in the 1930s, when they spearheaded a Catholic revival in England.
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