Presentation on how catechists can learn to use colors and symbols of the liturgical seasons, basic symbols, postures and gestures of the Mass to help students develop a liturgical sensibility.

1. How to Become a
Liturgical Catechist
JOYCE DONAHUE
DIOCESE OF JOLIET RELIGIOUS EDUCATION OFFICE

2. What is a Liturgical Catechist?
A Liturgical Catechist
 Connects the classroom to the weekend liturgy
 Uses symbols, colors, gestures, postures and patterns
of speech from the Mass
 Leads prayer in a liturgical way
 Teaches young people to love the liturgy

3. Why become a Liturgical Catechist?
To fulfill what Vatican II documents tell us:
 The Mass is “Source and Summit” of Catholic life
 One of the goals of Christian education is to learn “how
to worship God the Father in Spirit and in Truth”
 To encourage “full, conscious and active participation in
the Mass.”

4. More reasons to be a Liturgical
Catechist
To encourage a fully
Catholic lifestyle:
 Learning about liturgy shouldn’t
stop after First Communion
 Living the Liturgical Year is a
fundamental practice that brings us
closer to Christ and the Saints.

5. No artificial separation between
catechesis and liturgy
Teaching for participation in the
liturgy is one of the fundamental
tasks of catechesis:
“Helping to know, to celebrate and
to contemplate the mystery of
Christ.”
General Directory for Catechesis

6. How to become a Liturgical Catechist?
4 steps
 Observe and study what
happens at Mass
 Start to collect “Props”
 Connect to the Sunday
Lectionary
 Connect to the Sunday
Eucharist

7. What to observe at Mass
What colors and
symbols do you see
during the seasons of
the Liturgical Year?
 What songs are sung in
your parish that reflect
the seasons?

8. What to do in class
 Use seasonal colors for
prayer spaces. Bring in
objects, religious and
natural, that “speak” the
season without words.
 Sing or play recordings
of music of the season

9. Name that season!

10. How many seasonal symbols can you
think of?
 Advent
 Christmas
 Ordinary Time
 Lent
 Easter

11. What to observe at Mass
What looks important in the church?
 Altar
 Ambo (pulpit)
 Book of the Gospels
 Baptismal font
 Paschal candle (Easter candle)

12. What to do in class

13. Why is this important?

14. What to observe at Mass
How do we move and speak?
 Movement with reverence
 Verbal formulas
 Postures – when do we stand and kneel?
 Gestures

15. What to do in class
 Have a procession to prayer area
 Hold the Bible or Lectionary high for all to see
 Begin/end every prayer with the sign of the Cross
 Begin a scripture reading as we do in church “A reading
from....” end with “The Word /Gospel of the Lord”
 Have students respond to Gospel introduction with the
three-fold cross, and end with “Praise to you, Lord Jesus
Christ.”

16. When/why do we do that in church?

17. Discussion:
What have you
observed at Mass
and used in class?
What do you think
you could use?

18. Liturgical props: “smells and bells”
Catholic liturgical prayer is physical
and sensory in nature.
 Seasonal colors
 Sacramental symbols
 The smells of incense and chrism
 The sounds of words and music

19. Prayer table or prayer focus
 Cloth the color of the
liturgical season
 Cross
 Candle
 Bible
 Other seasonal
symbols

20. How to build your liturgical props
collection
 Keep the size in proportion to your space
 Choose things that look “worthy” – not tacky
 Look for items from nature when you are outside

21. Use your prayer table
 Have students process from their regular
seating to come stand or sit around the prayer
table
 Light your candle
 Read from the Bible on your prayer table

22. Connect to the Sunday Lectionary
 Cycle A: Matthew
 Cycle B: Mark
 Cycle C: Luke
 Gospel of John read
every year during Easter
Season

23. Refer to the Sunday Gospel
 During class before on that
Sunday
 Whenever something you are
teaching is related to a gospel
story about to be read or
recently read at Mass

24. Connect to the Sunday Eucharist
 Know and teach the
meaning of the Mass
and the role of the
people in the pews

25. Teach the meal and the sacrifice
 We come to be nourished by word
and Sacrament
 We come to receive the sacrifice of
Jesus Christ again and again – and
to offer ourselves with it to be
changed into a people of sacrificial
love.

26. Help your students develop “Catholic
bones”
Always make classroom connections to
 The liturgical season, its colors and symbols
 Basic symbols of the liturgy
 Postures and gestures of the Mass
 Verbal formulas used at Mass

27. Connect to the family- the “domestic
church”
 Send home seasonal prayer and activity ideas
 Email parents links to good liturgical videos
 Start your own Pinterest board for great ideas – and
share with families
 Always encourage Mass attendance
 Consider sitting as a class group – all your families –
at Sunday Mass

28. Review

29. Resource: TheLiturgicalCatechist
http://theliturgicalcatechist.weebly.com