Why use a homily–not a sermon–format for homeschooling?

The Contemplative Homeschool helps children see all subjects as part of God's self-revelation.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote briefly about my faith-based method of homeschooling. To recap: I see methods such as Catholic Heritage Curricula, which bring the faith to individual subjects, as using a sermon format. In contrast, our Contemplative Homeschool starts with a Bible passage. I look for the themes in that passage, and add as many subjects as I can into the discussion of those themes. As my kids get older, I hope to make writings of the Church Fathers and official documents and creeds a starting place for our curriculum as well.

Here are some advantages to using the homily format.

1. Homilies promote meditation on Sacred Scripture. The Contemplative Homeschool is all about teaching our children to put prayer at the top of their priorities. It encourages a prayerful attitude and teaches methods of prayer, especially Christian meditation. As one blog commenter said, meditating on Scripture is like preaching a homily to oneself. My boys are forming the habit of looking for ways to connect Bible passages with their lives. I believe this will make it easier for them to create their own meditations as they grow older.

Read my other 4 reasons.

When you're too worn out to pray

Christ as Savior by El Greco. You can pray, even when you're too tired to think.

Prayer takes energy. When you are stressed, you may find you can’t use your imagination to meditate. You may be too worn out to converse with God. This was the case with me last year, when homeschooling three kids with a baby overwhelmed me.

Several times when I went to pray, I had too little strength to picture a scene from the Gospels. I could barely muster the energy to think the words, “Jesus, I love you.”

But I knew I had to pray. And I knew Jesus was there. I knew His love was constant. That meant He was loving me at that moment. So I decided just to soak in God’s love, like I might soak in the sunlight. I sat silent, reminding myself briefly every few minutes that God’s love was surrounding me. I let Him love me, and that was my prayer for half an hour.

I’ll never forget one trip to the confessional at this period of my life. I don’t remember what I said to the priest–certainly no specifics about my prayer method–but his advice astonished me. He said I should just sit and let God love me–the very thing I had felt inspired to do.

If you are too emotionally drained to pray, try this method.

Last Call for Catholic Bloggers Directory!

…Still compiling the big Catholic Bloggers Directory with linked blogs, descriptions, facebook page, pinterest and twitter! Still accepting entries…but please join soon as once it goes live!…the Directory will be updated very infrequently…because it’s so darn time-consuming!Thanks to all those participating!

Please fill out this little questionnaire so that we can set up a directory of our Catholic Blogs!
I know we have over 480 Catholic Blogs linked up at the Catholic Bloggers Network!
Please spread the word and encourage all your Catholic Blogger friends 
to register here so that we can promote their blogs!
Hey! This initiative is alot of work,
but I think it will be a great venue to promote all of our Catholic Blogs!
I also have a couple more events or features planned for the Catholic Bloggers Network!
If you would consider taking a look at my personal blog Equipping Catholic Families
…and possibly even SUBSCRIBE to my blog, I would appre ciate it!





Monica is a wife, Mom of 5+ kids, a designer, an architecture school survivor, an author and a crafter who thinks it’s cool to be Catholic! Check out the Arma Dei Shoppe for solid Catholic, fun teaching tools and gifts to celebrate and teach the Catholic Faith and subscribe to Equipping Catholic Families for family-building and Faith-centered crafts!

3 reasons I love Catholicism: Truth, goodness, and beauty

 Micaela at California to Korea is hosting a link-up called “3 Reasons I love Catholicism.” You can submit your link all month. There are lots of good submissions, so check them out and join up. My reasons (in this post, anyway) are the triumvirate of truth, goodness, and beauty. I will show you how truth, goodness, and beauty are essential to the Contemplative Homeschool and to seeking God.

Fr. Benedict Groeschel, in Spiritual Passages: The Psychology of Spiritual Development “for those who seek”, uses the categories of truth, beauty, goodness, and oneness in a similar way to learning styles or temperaments. They signify to him four ways of relating to God. We can use these categories to help ourselves and our students/children grow spiritually.

Truth satisfies the intellect  The Catholic Church speaks the truth, no matter how few listen. She does not shy away from controversy. Countless Catholics have been martyrs for the truth. Unlike our relativistic culture, and some other religions and philosophies, Catholics believe the truth is objective and knowable. Humans have minds that desire satisfaction. By upholding objective truth, the Church upholds man’s dignity.

Continue reading

An Interview With Christopher West

I recently finished reading and posted my review of Christopher West’s recent book Fill These Hearts. That review can be found here. This was the first book of Christopher’s I have read, but I have known about his work for some time now and was very excited when he agreed to an interview on the book and his ministry on the Theology of the Body. Thanks Christopher for taking time out of your certainly busy schedule and sharing some answers with my readers! Continue Reading

REACHING OUT TO ONE SOUL AT A TIME
I always wear mu crucifix on my outer garment, trolling for those who might want to discuss issues about their faith.  Last week at the gym Mike commented on the crucifix and them informed me he was a Baptized Catholic, had received a Catholic education and the Sacraments.  He recently began reading Darwin’s theories and other books on evolutioon and was now an atheist.
The gym is not the best setting for evangelizing.  We exchanged some viewpoints and beliefs, the only thing we agreed on was that he could not prove there was no God and I could not scientifically prove there was.  I left him with this thought.  Believing Makes this life better.  You believe you are nothing more than a very intelligent animal, there are no eternal rewards for doing good or punishment for evil.  After some perhaps ninety years you will slip into an eternity of nothingness.  I believe I am created in the image and likeness of my creator, there is an aspect of my being that will never die.  My struggle for holiness can merit an eternity of joy in the presence of a loving God.  Whether that is true or not it makes this life so much better believing it.
Yours in Christ
John Moreno
Catholic Lay Preachers
www.thelaypreacher.com    

Is your homeschool faith-based?

D goes back to school. (Just kidding! We took this photo to sell as stock.) 
I’ve read at least a dozen books on homeschool philosophy and gleaned something from every one. But none exactly met my vision of what I wanted our homeschool to be. Some were literature-based (Charlotte Mason/Real Learning). Others were history-based (Neo-Classical/The Well-Trained Mind). Others were classics-based (The Latin-Centered Curriculum). The faith-based methods fell into two general categories of Protestant, Bible-based (Ruth Beechick) and either Protestant or Catholic textbooks that incorporated the faith into each subject (Seton Homeschool and Catholic Heritage Curricula). I decided to create a Catholic Bible-based homeschool method.

 Teaching with homilies, not sermons 

One way in which the Contemplative Homeschool is different from other faith-based methods is that I spread religion across the curriculum in a homily, not sermon, format. A sermon, common in Protestant churches, starts with an idea. The preacher finds Bible passages to support his idea. A homily, on the other hand, begins with the Church’s Scripture readings for the day, and pulls ideas out of them. Both can teach the same subject, but from the opposite direction. A homily, ideally, should give a greater insight into a particular Bible passage, while a sermon might show how a particular idea is taught throughout the Bible.
Catholic Heritage Curricula (and those like it) takes a subject and brings the faith into it. For example, The Catholic Speller includes words such as “Mass” in the appropriate units. This method is common, even used in some Catholic schools. I see this as a sermon approach. The faith is added on to a subject, but the subject is central.
In contrast, I am going through the Bible with my boys from start to finish. I take a Bible story–Jacob and Esau, for example–and create a union to connect as many subjects as I can to the themes found in the story. The central focus is the Bible, not the subject. I see this as a homily approach.
I see many advantages to the homily approach, which I will detail in a future post.

Read More: Here’s a pared-down example of a unit on Manna in the Wilderness
Share with us: How do you incorporate the faith into your homeschool?

Calling ALL Catholic Bloggers Network Contributors!

 

In an effort to streamline the Catholic Bloggers Network, we
are currently reviewing our roster of contributors and would like to invite new Catholic Bloggers  to consider this wonderful venue. 
By posting on one of our FOUR Contributor
pages, you will have the opportunity to reach other interested Catholics in a
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way and  hopefully lure them to your
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Scripture, Readings and Reflections

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The Liturgical Calendar and Homeschooling

Catholic Family Journal

All current and potential Contributors:
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These are our guidelines:

 

 

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Monica is a wife, Mom of 5+ kids, a designer, an architecture school survivor, an author and a crafter who thinks it’s cool to be Catholic! Check out the Arma Dei Shoppe for solid Catholic, fun teaching tools and gifts to celebrate and teach the Catholic Faith and subscribe to Equipping Catholic Families for family-building and Faith-centered crafts!



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Big News at The Catholic Book Blogger

It has been a VERY busy and exciting two weeks for me. Immediately after the Mike Aquilina interview (read it here), site traffic went through the roof! That resulted in new publishers coming on board that I will be working with. These are all listed on the column to the right. Every one of the publishers on that list are fantastic and each offers great books for your spiritual enrichment. I encourage you to support as many of them as you can by visiting their websites, checking out their selections and making a purchase. Simply click on the publishers logo to be redirected there. I am currently reading Rebuilt by Fr. Michael White and Tom Corcoran.  Continue Reading

What is Carmelite spirituality?

File:Caiobadner - mount carmel.JPG

What is Carmelite spirituality? A couple of readers have asked me this question, and I assume several more have wondered and not asked. So I’m going to write this as a post (for maximum visibility and readership), then make it a permanent page soon.

Carmelite spirituality stems from the teaching and lifestyle of one of the oldest surviving religious orders in the Catholic Church. Like the Franciscans, Jesuits, Dominicans, and others, the Carmelites have a particular way of living out the faith, which has been approved by the Church. St. Therese of Lisieux, one of the best-beloved saints of our age, was a Carmelite nun.

From ancient Mt. Carmel to medieval EuropeIn the 12th century, a group of Christian hermits settled on Mt. Carmel,  where the prophet Elijah had once lived in a cave. St. Albert of Jerusalem wrote a rule of life for them to follow. They built a monastery and came together for prayer, but each lived in his own cell. They dedicated their oratory to Mary, becoming known as the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mt. Carmel.

As always, tensions were high in the Middle East at this time. Soon the Carmelite brothers left the Holy Land for Europe. There they assumed an active life–that is, living and working in the world. Blessed John Soreth established the Carmelite nuns in 1452. The Third Order, for seculars, began two centuries later.

Continue reading.