1st CICM Christian Formation Congress by The MARIAN

Gamboa: Target evangelization to Millenials, ‘a great challenge’ With the emergence of the era of the so-called “Millenials,”, the former geographic problems experienced by Fr. Theophile Verbist when he started his evangelical mission has turned into a greater challenge and that is to be able to evangelize millenial students. In line with this, different Religious Education (RE) instructors from the CICM schools gathered at San Pedro Calungsod to discuss the present challenges of evangelization in the modern times– the Millennial last May 6. The session entitled “Creative Approaches to Campus Evangelization” which was spearheaded by Ms. Benita Gamboa, religious education teacher and the coordinator of Saint Paul University (SPU), Quezon City aimed to tackle the problems in teaching RE among millenial students. During the said session,

Gamboa shared her experiences about campus ministry and evangelization. According to her, religious education is the very core of the curriculum of the CICM schools and all private catholic schools and universities in the Philippines. However, she gave emphasis about the challenge of evangelizing and teaching religious education to millennial students who have shown little interest for campus ministry. On the latter parts of the session, the 20 delegates of the session shared their own experiences on handing different kind of students like the atheists, non-Catholics, and nonbelievers. Vanessa Bandola, a student of SPU shared her experiences as a volunteer animator. According to Gamboa, she was challenged by her task as a speaker since she was new to speaking on conferences like this; however, she reiterated that “God sometimes asks

1ST CICM CHRISTIAN FORMATION

us to do something, we sometimes refuse it but He always finds a way” After the session, Ms. Thelma C. Baricaua, University of Saint LouisTuguegarao RE instructor shared that she enjoyed the seminar since it is very beneficial on her part as a

religious education instructor and that the speaker has a lot of new ideas to share about campus ministry. The session was concluded by a unity dance, a prayer and a group photo taking with the speaker, the delegates and the organizers. CFC

“The spirit enabled them to proclaim” - Acts 2:3

CONGRESS SMU hosts 1 CICM CFC st

Through the initiative of Rev. Fr. Renillo Sta. Ana, chairperson of the CICM Provincial Committee on Education (PCE) and the able direction of SMU Vice President for Mission and Identity, Rev. Fr. Earl Alan Cura, CICM, religious education teachers and representatives from five CICM schools gathered for the first ever Christian Formation Congress on May 4-7 at Saint Mary’s University, Bayombong,

Nueva Vizcaya. Inspired by the theme “The spirit enabled them to proclaim” from Acts 2:3, the congress provides Christian formators of the CICM schools an avenue to joyfully gather, pray, and reflect in the education ministry of the congregation. Rev. Fr. Renato de Guzman, SDB, a Salesian priest and the present parish priest of Don Bosco Parish, Makati, served as the keynote speaker and talked about the three dimensions of

Benchmarking, key to Christian formation For more photos visit CICM Christian Formation Congress Group Page on Facebook

the

MariaN official student publication of saint mary’s university

In order to address the lack of Christian formation in the context of learning in schools, Saint Paul University – Quezon City Campus Minister Sr. Veneranda del Rosario, SP, benchmarked how Paulinians religious education instructors integrate Christian Formation into their students, on the session entitled “Doing Christian Formation: The Gift of Mission” held at the RT Conference Room 3, RT Building, May 6. Sr. Veneranda focused on the issues of continue to page 3

faith. According to de Guzman, the first dimension of faith is the Holy Spirit which is the primary agent of Evangelization. Secondly, personal and pastoral conversion dimension means getting out of ‘da’ box. “Getting out of the box is being ready to shift our principles, beliefs, and concepts in understading the present context,” he said. The third dimension is recapturing the spirit of

evangelization which entails that as apostles and the first christian community there is a need to go back to Jesus. The second plenary sharing was by Fr. Renillo Sta. Ana on how Christian animation can be done even in routinary activities. The four day gathering included various activities like eucharistic celebrations, talks, workshops, group presentations, and socialization. CFC

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Fr. Degz is a Salesian priest who holds a doctorate in Catechetics. For many years, he was a Dean of Don Bosco Center of Studies in Parañaque, and has taken many initiatives in professionalizing youth ministry through the academic courses in catechetics and youth ministry for lay people and religous. He spearheads the annual John Paul II conference on Catechetics and Youth Ministry which provides ongoing formation and training the catechists, youth ministers and pastoral workers all over the Philippines and even abroad. He has accompanied the FABC-OLF-Youth Desk in many of its programs since the beginning. At present, he is the parish priest of the Don Bosco Parish, Makati. Rev. Fr. Renato de Guzman

Estalani and Nicolas speak on classroom integration “That is part of who we are. Yung SPC schools, yung mga Paulinians, ang core idealism ng Paulinians is that, first, to instruct the faith, second, to heal those who are sick, third is for pastoral.” These are the words of Marlon Estalani when asked about the importance of reaching out to the community, one of the speakers on the topic Classroom Integration of Religious Education, Campus Ministry and Community Extension Services at RT Conference 2, May 6. “If we will not go pastoral then we are not faithful to our charisms then we are not Paulinians, otherwise we could be hypocrites, ganun lang kasimple, we work because that is who we are, if we will not go out and we stay in the classroom, then we are useless,” said Estalani, NSTP Scope Coordinator at St. Paul University of Quezon City (SPUQC). Together with Estalani is Marvin Nicolas, a Religious Education teacher at SPU-QC. The highlights of the session are proper assessment of students on

Teaching and learning the Faith in the digital age

religious education, the sacrament of matrimony and the importance of reaching and helping out to the community. As the session explores concrete ways to join together these key dimensions for deeper faith encounters of students (Christians and non-christians) with God in the classroom setting, the speakers imparted programs and activities in their university in connection with Religious Education. Further, Estalani specified programs covered in each year level. The Introduction to Paulinian Culture and Tradition (INPAC), Paulinian Volunteers for Social Transformation (PAVOST), Paulisian Leaders in Community Integrations/; and Development (PLACID) and Responsible Paulinian for National Development (RESPOND) from first year to fourth year respectively. The session concluded with an interactive discussion. CFC

Marvin Nicolas

Marlon Estalani

“They were in one place together, they were filled with the Holy Spirit as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.” (Acts 2:1-3) This was the theme to this year’s CICM Catholic Formation Congress held at Saint Mary’s University, Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya, May 4-7, 2016. On the third day, May 6, 2016, 8:30-10:30a.m., there were different concurrent sessions held at different venues and one of those sessions was Teaching and Learning the Faith in the Digital Age, held at the Aula Maria, Apo Pilo Building. The first speaker was Ms. Lolita Andres, a Religious Education instructor at Saint Paul University, Quezon City. She opened the session with a solemn prayer before discussing the topic on what Digital Age is and other subtopics like Social Sites/Media and the Internet. In her discussion, she showed a percentage outline about Technology use among Catholics; 1% - innovators, 9% - early adapters, 20% early majority, 30% - late majority, and, 40% - laggards. She also showed a photo of Pope Francis using Instagram to spread his message to the 27 million

followers on his nine accounts. The second speaker was Mrs. Mercedes Remegio. Just like Ms. Andres, Mrs. Remegio is also a Religious Education instructor in Saint Paul University for almost 15 years. She is a graduate of Saint Louis, San Fernando. Mrs. Remegio also discussed about Digital Age and Social Media. She also added a subtopic about Catechism and Freedom, and that there are four phases of Freedom in Religious Education. The first phase is Freedom: Presentation, where the students experience freedom in the form of games. The second phase is Freedom: Exposition, where the students learn the Sacred Scriptures and the Church Teachings. The third phase is Freedom: Integration, where they distribute hand outs and each group will be able to share their learning in all dimensions of faith. They will then summarize what transpired on their paper and present it to the other groups. The fourth and last phase of freedom is Freedom: Application, where the students pick a statement and send it to either at least 3 contacts or post it to their social media sites

Pedagogical approaches

3 Paulinian mentors speak on modern religion, faith Benchmarking, key to... In fulfilment of the goal to address the ways on how religion and faith may be taught in modern times, three Paulinian Religious Education mentors tackled the session on Pedagogical approaches in Religious Instruction (RI) held at the Saint Therese Hall, JVD Building, May 6. “As religion teachers, we see ourselves as shepherds to our students. We have to innovate because we need to adapt to them,” said Teresita Castillo, one of the speakers.

She added that teachers should know their students not just by their names but also with the state they are into, with their family, friends, the people around them and with their own selves, because with this, the teachers can adjust to where their students can be led to the very heart of the lesson and from there, they will be able to penetrate into their hearts. As the session furthered, Annie Faustino, the second speaker, talked on the process they underwent to decrease the lessons

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of every topic of their Religious Education subject without losing the main point of the lessons. This was to help identify the big idea that will help enhance the attitudes a Paulinian should exemplify: catholic faith, witnessing, social awareness and responsibility, spiritually, and morality. “Religious Education is not just for academics but it is also [a tool] to strengthen the faith [of the students],” Faustino added. Maribel Andrade, on the last part of the session, showed examples on how they make their students connect to the community through practices that involves the

students’ ideas and concepts which showcases their points of interests. Andrade stated that they let the students interact with the people, allocate properly their budget for the events they had in the nearby community, do most of the work, and be able to work in groups. According to her, students will learn more if they get engaged more to real-life encounters. During the workshops, teachers from different schools shared tips on how they could encourage their students to get themselves involved more to self-catechism and to Christian formation. CFC

Religious Education (RE) being turned into a fully-academic subject without rooting deep into its main purpose – Christian Formation, alongside the issues of RE and its responsibilities not only to its students but also to its surrounding partner communities. In Sr. Veneranda’s concurrent session they were able to tackle how students face the problem of seeing RE as a mere subject to pass without actually serving its purpose of forming students grounded on the moral Christian values that the university instils. The session was also able to uncover how RE is being

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institutionalized – that it has become yet a subject where a student has to pass just to be able to graduate. Sr. Veneranda highlighted that a student’s measure of Christian Formation is and will never be determined through numerical standings, that even if a student passes all his/her RE subjects but still possesses a character of bad morals, he/she cannot be called as a formed Christian; finally underscoring that if ever students reach to such, RE has then not served its true purpose. Through an interactive session among the RE instructors from different CICM schools, Sr. Veneranda was able to single out that

and then wait for their reaction. When asked about their accomplishments in Religious Education, Ms. Andres answered, “We were able to contribute articles, as I said research articles, empirical articles, in the journal of research work.” “We do research. I make research output, empirical research. And of course we do our best in our ministry of catechizing. We prepare our lessons well; we share our lessons to others, that I think is contribution in the

community composed of religious educators. We do collaborative work, and that itself is contribution that I can offer. What they can offer, we offer. We do workshops where we review curriculum, we revise the curriculum and we evaluate the curriculum. Program planning, that’s part of our work.” She added. After the discussions, they answered some of the participant’s queries and shared some of their learning and experiences. CFC

most students after graduating, face the crisis of identifying themselves as graduate of a Catholic institution. Cross-institutional sharing also helped the session arrive to its point as different RE instructors shared how their respective institutions try to integrate Christian Formation in their RE classes, citing the different activities such as recollections and retreats, outreach service programs, among others. To be able to further define the norms of their Christian Formation, Sr. Veneranda further elaborated that Christian Formation has three components: Religious Education, which is the foundation

of its academic principles; Campus Ministry, which is the translation of the learnings in the classroom applied to an institutional level; and, Community Extension Services, which is the application of the very purpose of the other two components. In the Paulinian sense of Christian Formation, Sr. Veneranda suggested that schools should be more active, approachable, and dedicated when it comes to implementing Christian Formation though various religious institutional activities. CFC

Congregatio Immaculati Cordis Mariae (CICM)

Christian Formation Congress