The document discusses fostering a sense of mission and spirituality in young people through Catholic social teaching. It explores using experiential learning models of service learning to connect youth to concepts like justice, relationship-building, and social analysis. The document provides frameworks for theological reflection on service experiences to help youth make meaning and see the presence of God in the world around them.

1. ENGAGING FAITH IN THE WORLD: FOSTERING A MISSION SPIRITUALITY IN YOUNG PEOPLE DYYAM Marissa Alspaugh Wayne Hipley Ted Miles Helene Murtha

3. INTRODUCTIONS

4. Goals for our Gathering: To think together about what it means to sent in mission … hold a faith life that is both personal and social (MISSION). To explore a model that can help lead young people to a sense of mission as rooted in our Catholic Social Tradition. To share resources and ideas that enhance service learning models appropriate for Catholic education and youth ministry

7. Find someone in the room with the same item on his/her nametag. Introduce yourself by the significant relationships in your life. Because we are so much more than what we DO .

10. Luke 8: The Story of the Hemorrhaging Woman And a woman afflicted with hemorrhages for twelve years, who (had spent her whole livelihood on doctors and) was unable to be cured by anyone, came up behind him and touched the tassel on his cloak. Immediately her bleeding stopped. Jesus then asked, "Who touched me?" While all were denying it, Peter said, "Master, the crowds are pushing and pressing in upon you.“ But Jesus said, "Someone has touched me; for I know that power has gone out from me.“ When the woman realized that she had not escaped notice, she came forward trembling. Falling down before him, she explained in the presence of all the people why she had touched him and how she had been healed immediately. He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has saved you; go in peace."

11. Relationships that Turned Our World Upside Down Consider a relationship or an experience rooted in relationship . . . a relational moment or chance encounter. . . of someone on the margins or who led you to the margins … a relationship that helped you to see differently

12. Relationships that Turned Our World Upside Down What happened within the experience that changed you? What qualities, characteristics of the person or the relationship fostered an awareness of “the other”? Of the need to commit to a larger vision of justice?

13. Has its origin in our understanding … experience of God Communitarian Involved & Inviting LOVE Engenders a deepening experience of God through our response/commitment to love Fosters a new way of seeing and living that empowers us to cross “boundaries” … a lifelong response & commitment … discipleship

14. Discipleship … Jesus Christ Jesus: Reign of God (letting no one be anonymous) Giving away of self, compassion, & opening of arms - vulnerability Abundant Life

15. Societal norms: Affluence, Economic Success, Self-Interest, Greed, Individualism

16. Justice … Right Relationship

17. What we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to become is who we already are! Thomas Merton God’s mission has us!

18. How do you connect young people with the sense of mission that our Church upholds through service opportunities? What might I need to re-consider that would foster a deeper sense of mission?

19. Look Closely Look Critically

20. Look Closely Read the scenario provided to your group. Scenarios have been distributed randomly, and may or may not be similar to an experience with which someone in your group has been connected Try to refrain from assessing the scenario or “filling in blanks”

21. Look Critically Our next session will allow us to break open the Pastoral Circle. As the components of each stage of the Pastoral Circle are presented, critique the service scenario in light of the particular stage of the Pastoral Circle. Each group should identify one member to record the group’s critique for the four stages of the Pastoral Circle.

22. Why? The value of Experiential Learning is the experience, the doing. Working together allows us to be companions to one another on this particular journey. Working together allows us to share Best Practices. Working together reminds us that none of us is as smart as all of us.

31. Experience

33. Do not conform to the pattern of the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. (Romans 12:2)

39. How does our service opportunity integrate relational experience? What is “missing” from our service projects that could have taken them to the next level? What can I do - or should have done – to make our service opportunity more relational?

40. Experience Social Analysis

41. Caritas in Veritate- Word Cloud

42. STEP TWO: SOCIAL ANALYSIS (REFLECTION) Help the experience to be named! Start with senses … Move to feelings, insights, disturbances, questions that emerge, etc. Include imagination … an important ingredient for reflection Journal … dialogue … prayer

43. Listening Deeply to Experience

44. Analyze Perspectives

45. Identify Power … and Its Uses “ In every community there is work to be done. In every nation there are wounds to heal. In every heart there is the power to do it.” - Marianne Williamson

46. Step Two: Social Analysis Establish the Context & Content The set of circumstances or facts that surround a particular event, situation The who, what, where, when, why and how? Substantive information Develop Critical Thinking Skills Understanding personal assumptions and biases What are the root causes? Where do you see connections? What if…?

47. There still are dreamers, particularly in our Catholic faith tradition and in our lives. Gandhi Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Pope John Paul II Dorothy Day Archbishop Oscar Romero Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

48. How does our service opportunity integrate social analysis? How can social analysis / reflection be better integrated into our service opportunities?

49. Experience Social Analysis Theological Reflection

50. Theological Reflection “ And the Grinch with his Grinch feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling: ‘How could it be so? ’…And he puzzled three hours till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before.

51. Reflection Good life skill Significant when an experience cannot be explained using previous “frameworks” Experience Cognitive Dissonance Know Cognitive Dissonance creates a need, and an opportunity for assistance and encouragement with the reflection process Often too easy to avoid the dissonance, for all

52. Critical Reflection “ Critical Reflection is a process specifically structured to help examine the frameworks that we use to interpret experience; critical reflection pushes us to step outside of the old and familiar and to reframe our questions and our conclusions in innovative and more effective ways.” A Practioner’s Guide to Reflection in Service Learning Student Voices and Reflections Janet Eyler, Dwight E. Giles Jr. , Angela Schmiede

53. Theological Reflection Basic Premise … desire to make meaning in one’s life Theological reflection … placing into dialogue life experiences with a religious tradition to produce new insights, deeper meaning and action.

54. “ Theological reflection is the discipline of exploring individual and corporate experience in conversation with the wisdom of a religious heritage . The conversation is a genuine dialogue that seeks to hear from our own beliefs, actions and perspectives, as well as those of the tradition . It respects the integrity of both. Theological reflection therefore may confirm, challenge, clarify, and expand how we understand our own experience and how we understand religious tradition . The outcome is new truth and meaning for living .” The Art of Theological Reflection; Patricia O’Connell Killen; John de Beer

55. Framework for Theological Reflection

56. Suggested Steps for Theological Reflection Identify root elements of experience Pray Develop specific questions connecting experience with a Christian Community response Explore scripture, church documents relevant to the theme of reflection After prayerful reading of scripture, church documents, ask questions about situation (this can be done in many ways, as a group, through journaling) What reinforces gospel values, social teachings What undercuts, destroys, these values and/or teachings Where is Jesus present here What is grace in this situation as an opening up to God

57. Suggested Steps for Theological Reflection Include questions about scripture, church teachings ,or other relevant documents In the real world is it possible to put Christian teaching into practice? What more do I need to know about scripture and church teachings? Include questions about church structure and practice What is the role of the church here; the role of the laity? What is the place of sacraments? What “spirituality” is appropriate here?

58. Suggested Steps for Theological Reflection Prayerfully discern or identify some of the significant sharings and or learnings Pray for strength to move into the decisions and actions which are called for by the social analysis and theological reflection of the experience Joe Holland Peter Henriot, S.J. Social Analysis Linking Faith and Justice

59. Four C’s of Critical Reflection Continuous …ongoing part of student’s learning and service involvement Connected …to the intellectual, academic( and spiritual) pursuits of students Challenging …engage students in a critical manner, ask the hard, unfamiliar, uncomfortable questions Contextualized …appropriate for the setting and context of experience. Eyler, Giles, Schmiede

60. How does our service opportunity integrate theological reflection? How can theological reflection be better integrated into our service opportunities?

64. "If the present situation can be attributed to difficulties of various kinds, it is not out of place to speak of ‘structures of sin,’ which... are rooted in personal sin and thus always linked to the concrete acts of individuals who introduce these structures, consolidate them, and make them difficult to remove. And thus they grow stronger, spread, and become the source of other sins, and so influence people's behavior." (Pope John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 36)

67. Experience Social Analysis Theological Reflection Response

69. “ Charity calls forth a generous response from individuals; justice requires concerted communal action to transform institutional policies, societal laws, or unjust social situations... Transformative action gets at the root causes; it does not stop at alleviating the symptoms.” (In the Footsteps of Jesus: Catholic Social Teaching at Work Today, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops)

70. “ To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.” (1 Peter 2:21)

71. In the context of the service project we already do, how can we make our response one that is meaningful and addresses the root cause of problems in our society? What makes our responses uniquely Catholic?

72. “ Transformers, more than meets the eye!”

73. We’ve formed . . . God has transformed . . . Now what?

74. Fan the Flame

75. “ The role of education is much more profound than merely the process of imparting facts, broadening knowledge, or developing skills needed for functioning in the world. At the heart of education, what we really do is awaken in [others] an awareness of God’s presence within them and around them so that through the exercise of their God-given gifts and talents , they may become the persons they are intended to be for the benefit of the wider world . There is no higher calling.” Katherine Feely SND “ Engaging Faith in the World: Exploring Catholic Social Teaching and Global Solidarity”

76. We need Teen Servant Disciples who: - Share their experience! - Live their experience! - Intentionally Serve! “ . . . they may become the persons they are intended to be for the benefit of the wider world.”

77. Language At Home At the Parish Taking the message where we can’t go . . . What can we do to help our young people SHARE their experience?