"We're going to pray two rosaries..."

Today was the first day of Christian Formation classes at St. James. I came in early and helped out with managing the traffic, greeting families, and answering the phone. Today was actually the first day I answered the phone: "Christian Formation Office, this is Isaac". It was awesome. But the big part was that it was the first time as a catechist, well, in a narrow sense.

I have a 10th grade class of youth who are willing to learn and who are good kids. I think that it'll be a really good year. I look forward to our future meetings together.

Some of the highlights include opening with prayer by saying, "We're going to pray two rosaries and the follow it up with another prayer service at the end of class." The look on their faces was hilarious. Of course, after I told them that this was not going to be the case, they seemed a little more relaxed. But we did start class with a prayer. I want to try and show them different icons/crosses/holy cards, so today was St. Francis' cross, which I don't know the name, but I'm sure one of you awesome people know it off the top of your head. So I led the prayer of St. Francis' prayer before the crucifix. It's a very good and simple prayer. Just like St. Francis.

Que mas? Oh, a big thanks to JP for icebreakers. I used beach ball interrogation which everyone seemed to enjoy. That went over well. Did the human knot. And asked the epic question "if your faith were an animal, what kind of animal would it be and why?" Thank you ND Vision for helping me with that one. [aside/shameless plug (especially for you Midwest folks): I highly recommend you to look at the Vision stuff and talk to your youth minister about potentially getting a group out there. Contact Lenny for more info].

Overall, a good experience and I hope that many more good things will come from it. Class was pretty short today and we were also competing with the Packers vs. Cowboys game (which the 'Boys won, get it, get it). I have 2nd grade on Tuesday and then RCIA starts up next week. I also went to training for SVdP society. It was amazing. If any of you are still looking for things to do in your parish, I would recommend checking out your local conference. A lot of good work is done through St. Vincent de Paul.

Anything else? Oh yea, Golden Tate = ridiculous. He cannot be stopped. If only he played offensive line, defensive line, and and receiver...

Oh yea, Jerry is visiting Monday. Get jealous. Just kidding. No, but seriously, it should be cool.

You're in my prayers Echo Cinco. Enjoy your week.