Liturgies

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Attendance: Mary Barringer (Music at Oak Hill, St. Louis); Donna Mauer (Campus Minister at Oak Hill, St. Louis); Bobby Tonnies (Theology Teacher at Academy of the Sacred Heat, New Orleans); Tammy Strother (5th grade Social Studies and Religion at Academy of the Sacred Heart, St. Charles); Ninette Reis (3rd grade teacher at Stone Hill in Bethesda); Jeannie Steenberge (Theology Teacher at Villa Duchesne, St. Louis) Mary Barringer said a parent at her school who is a yoga teacher wanted the school to do a service for the International Day of Peace. All the “specials” participated. It was outdoors; art created a big dove, liturgical music did “Be the Change” – a rap song; 6th grader did a report on Gandhi. Each grade was responsible for the letters “PEACE” – the entire grade thought up words that related to peace beginning with their “letter.” STUCO reps brought up the poster and explained the words to the assembly. Villa students played drums; French teacher had students make flags with “peace” in various languages. Art teacher had school make pinwheels and the students processed around the pinwheels while singing “Let There be Peace on Earth.” Yoga teacher comes into PE classrooms and teaches them Yoga – as a spiritual as well as physical exercise. Yoga was suggested as a possible way of centering yourself during “espacio” – 5 minute break during Lent and Advent when the entire campus goes silent. Silence is an important part of what it means to Sacred Heart. You can build up to 5 minutes if that is too long – with young children, you can start with 30 seconds and keep building up every week until you reach 5 minutes. It tends to be easier with girls than with boys. Book called “Centering Prayer” by James Keating can have pretty good techniques for concentrating on a “word” that can bring you back to the center if you begin to get distracted. One of the challenges with interfaith liturgies is figuring out how to do it with primarily Catholic populations. At Stone Hill, they have 3 all school masses: Holy Spirit, Philippine, and Madeleine Sophie. Otherwise most of the other masses are on feast days and various classes are responsible for planning it. At Oak Hill, the All Saints mass is put on by the 4th grade class. They each pick a saint that they want to learn more about and research him or her. They make a representation of the saint with a bowling pin (by clothing the pin). These are used to decorate the sanctuary. The students also dress in outfits that represent the various saints. At the homily the students go up and talk about the life of the saint (only about 6 do this). Then the parents come and do a “gallery walk through” – the students are positioned around the church and parents can come up to them and they “come to life” and tell the parents about their saint. At academy in St. Charles, they do a “prayer meeting” once amonth in addition to a First Friday mass. Each grade is responsible for organizing them. One thing that needs to be kept in balance is considering that many parents send their children to our schools so that they CAN attend mass rather than more culturally diverse situations. So we have to be very pragmatic and diplomatic in figuring out a way to hold both of these in balance. At Academy in New Orleans, they have 2X weekly prayer services for 20 minutes that are HIGHLY diverse - one of the best aspects of this program is that it is usually student led and this is great because the students are most effective when ministering face to face. High school girls tend to think that mass is boring at New Orleans (typical at the other high schools too) – what can we do to make the girls more engaged in mass? One thing you need to do is try to make it more meaningful ~ but you have to have a balance between worship and entertainment. Tradition can play a part in that ~ you may not realize the impact you are having and it will come back to them later. We are “planting seeds.” Bobby is looking for “bridges” that are built so that we have good traditions that keep the attitude toward mass very positive so that later they will come back. Tammy agrees that we need to bridge – sometimes they are not getting the religious background they need at home. One of the challenges is to find time in the schedule to have regular time for interesting, but short prayer services. Some schools use survey monkey to get feedback on what people are thinking about the prayers services and they can see what students are thinking about honestly. New Orleans has 7:15 AM mass and people who come to it are the only ones who can eat the donuts. This tends to make people want to come! Each one has a special theme, and then various classes take control of the theme and this increases attendance. Stone Ridge also has a once a month before school mass. Eucharistic adoration – most schools do this. Some times religion classes come down. Bethesda 4X a year. Classes sign up to cover various times. At St. Charles, various classes go down for 15 minutes on the First Friday. Oak Hill and Villa are going to do this again – so they are going to do on First Fridays – parents are going to make sure it is covered for the whole time. At Stone Hill, the freshman students in campus ministry went forward to take a pledge ~ they were blessed by the congregation in front of the entire school and it was a powerful moment for all. Apostolic works are hard at the lower level. It's all about scaffolding. Begin in the lower grades with helping the kids imaginatively experience the lives of children in other countries. Also, instead of collecting money, sometimes it is good to have them buy specific things like socks, t-shirts (that makes it become more real when you imagine a child receiving it). At New Orleans girls make "hearty meals" and send them off to the homeless shelter. They sit with the men and eat with them. Every summer there is a service trip to Nicaragua. An amazing experience. They did chapel service over it and then 80 people wanted to go! During season of Lent, you can have students give alms over the course of the month - but sometimes the parents just send in $20 and it does not have the same effect as spreading it out over the course of Lent and giving it a little bit at a time. Helpful to bring in a real person who works with the poor to come in and talk about how much their money is helping schools and children in other countries. Repetition is helpful with young children - you can even tie in when children throw food away at lunch - how does that effect students in Uganda, etc.