Permeation of Faith in a Catholic Classroom www.faithandreason.ca/permeation @ fakeley

1. What it is and how we do it. Permeation of Faith in a Catholic Classroomwww.faithandreason.ca/permeation@fakeley

2. What about academics? • Academic excellence is a given

3. Permeation…what is it? • to diffuse through or penetrate something • to spread or diffuse through <a room permeated with tobacco smoke> • to pass through the pores of

4. What ‘faith’ do we permeate? • Your faith? • My Faith? • Spiritual • God • Jesus Christ • Jesus Christ as revealed by the Church that he himself established 2000 years ago. • “You are Peter and on this rock I will build my church..” (Matthew 16:18)

5. What ‘faith’ do we permeate? • In Catholic Schools we permeate the Catholic Faith. • As Catholics, we enter into the Faith of the Church “The Church's faith precedes the faith of the believer who is invited to adhere to it. When the Church celebrates the sacraments, she confesses the faith received from the apostles” CCC 1124

6. What makes Catholic, Catholic? • We believe that Jesus Christ is God incarnate • We believe that Jesus Christ, who is God, established the Catholic Church as the vehicle to bring all humanity back into the family of God • We believe that this Church was founded on the rock of Peter, the first pope and his successors including Pope Benedict XVI • We venerate Jesus’ mother Holy Mary • We believe in the infallibility of Sacred Scripture • In worship, we believe that we live out Christ’s command to eat his flesh and drink his blood. (See Dominus Iesus and Lumen Gentium for specifics on this)

7. The Catholic Schools “From the first moment that a student sets foot in a Catholic school, he or she ought to have the impression of entering a new environment, one illumined by the light of faith…” (RDECS ,25) “It is a place of evangelization…” (RDECS, 33) “finds its true justification in the mission of the Church” (RDECS, 34) through Catholic schools, “the local Church evangelizes, educates, and contributes to the formation of a healthy and morally sound life-style among its members.” (RDECS, 34)

8. The Catholic Schools “The activity of a Catholic School is, above all else, an activity that shares in the evangelizing mission of the Church.” (RDECS, 101.a)

9. “I am not here to evangelize, I am here to teach”

10. Meet Mr. Watson

11. Integration • to form, coordinate, or blend into a functioning or unified whole • to unite with something else • to incorporate into a larger unit

12. Practical Examples of Integration James Sellers Professor of Mathematics (Penn State University) • How does a mathematician view his latest result? • When he proves a theorem is he creating this result or discovering it? • We can’t change Pi just because we want to • Author’s rights (authourity) • Moral Law

13. Integration through logic

14. Integration through logic

15. Integration through logic • Abortion • It is a question of science, not religion • When do we have the right to take the life of another human being? • “Before conception we have the potential for human life. After conception we have human life with potential” Margaret Sommerville.

16. Practical Integration • Abortion/world population/resources • Volume of water to cover the earth to the top of Mount Ararat (Genesis 7,8) • Create scale models of the various things that are given measurements throughout Scripture • Noah’s Ark (Genesis 6) • Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 25-28 & 36-38) • Solomon’s Temple (I Kings 7) • The Holy City (Revelations 21) • Pascal’s Wager

17. Practical Integration • Pascal’s Wager

18. Share examples of faith integration

19. Integration/Permeation • Integration can essentially be done by anyone who puts a lesson together • Permeation comes from the heart of the teacher • Students can tell the difference

20. The Catholic School Teacher “a Catholic teacher should always be alert for opportunities to initiate the appropriate dialogue between culture and faith - two things which are intimately related - in order to bring the interior synthesis of the student to this deeper level. It is, of course, a synthesis which should already exist in the teacher. Lay Catholics” (Lay Catholics In Schools, 29)

21. The Catholic School Teacher “Conduct is always much more important than speech; this fact becomes especially important in the formation period of students. The more completely an educator can give concrete witness to the model of the ideal person that is being presented to the students, the more this ideal will be believed and imitated. For it will then be seen as something reasonable and worthy of being lived, something concrete and realizable.” (Lay Catholics in Schools, 32)

22. The Catholic School Teacher “Students will share in [the sacramental] life more readily when they have concrete examples: when they see the importance that this life has for believers. In today's secularized world, students will see many lay people who call themselves Catholics, but who never take part in liturgy or sacraments. It is very important that they also have the example of lay adults who take such things seriously, who find in them a source and nourishment for Christian living.” (Lay Catholics in Schools, 40)

23. True Permeation of Faith “The integration of culture and faith is mediated by the other integration of faith and life in the person of the teacher. The nobility of the task to which teachers are called demands that, in imitation of Christ, the only Teacher, they reveal the Christian message not only by word but also by every gesture of their behaviour.This is what makes the difference between a school whose education is permeated by the Christian spirit and one in which religion is only regarded as an academic subject like any other.” (The Catholic School, 43)

24. True Permeation of Faith “It isn’t about living the Faith, it is about loving living the Faith”

25. True Permeation of Faith “The Faith must first permeate the teacher before it will ever permeate the classroom” “You can’t give what you don’t have”

26. True Permeation of Faith Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses. (EvangeliiNuntiandi 41)

27. How can we be Witnesses? The great Catholic copout • Preach the Gospel always …if necessary, use words (St. Francis) • “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence…” I Peter 3:15 • Pope Benedict’s New Evangelization calls people to share their stories of faith with others

28. True Permeation of Faith Let your actions speak louder than your words; but make sure your words are loud too.

29. Share a story of faith • A funny experience at church • Angelic intervention • Faith experience

30. True Permeation of Faith “You never had to force in the occasional bit of ‘Biblical integration,’ because your faith permeated everything you did.” (Student of James Sellers)

31. True Permeation of Faith www.faithandreason.ca/permeation @fakeley