The CARFLEO Conference was held at Queen of Apostles Retreat Centre on March 26 and 27. It was a great success. The gathering began with Anne Jamieson and Jan Bentham reporting on the upcoming Pearson program for Religious Education, Growing in Faith, Growing in Christ. At our Annual General Meeting, CARFLEO heard from many of our partners. Some highlights include:

• Growing in Faith, Growing in Christ for Grade One will be published over the next few weeks.
• An Adult Faith resource is being developed to accompany this program
• The Institute for Catholic Education is developing three writing teams to create materials to support the Catholic dimension of the new Health and Physical Education curriculum
• The anticipated completion date of the revised Secondary Religious Education Policy document is March 2016, subject to approval by Ontario Bishops.
• Completion of the Criteria for Catechesis from the Canadian Bishops is anticipated over next few months.
• When Faith Meets Pedagogy will be held on October 22, 23, & 24. It will feature David Wells.
• The EOCCC Conference wil be held on April 9: Exploring Paths of Joy Through Body, Mind and Soul

Michael Way Skinner was given the Fr. Angus MacDougall Award for outstanding contributions for Family Life Education. Mark Siolek was given the Archbishop Philip Pocock Award for outstanding contributions to Religious Education.

Fr.Jack Costello SJ was our keynote speaker. His inspirational words encouraged participants to use and nurture their storytelling capacities in opening up the scriptures. He left us with two inspirational quotations:

A New Creed

We are not alone,
we live in God’s world.

We believe in God:
who has created and is creating,
who has come in Jesus,
the Word made flesh,
to reconcile and make new,
who works in us and others
by the Spirit.

We trust in God.

We are called to be the Church:
to celebrate God’s presence,
to live with respect in Creation,
to love and serve others,
to seek justice and resist evil,
to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen,
our judge and our hope.

In life, in death, in life beyond death,
God is with us.
We are not alone.

Thanks be to God.

Prayer of a Dead Child at Ravensbrück Concentration Camp

This prayer was originally found in the clothing of a dead child at Ravensbrück concentration camp.

O Lord,
remember not only the men and woman of good will,
but also those of ill will.
but do not remember all of the suffering they have inflicted upon us:
instead remember the fruits we bought, thanks to this suffering –
our fellowship, our loyalty to one another, our humility,
the courage, the generosity, the greatness of heart
that has grown from this trouble.
When our persecutors come to be judged by you,
let all of these fruits that we have borne
be their forgiveness. Amen.

 

Bishop Wayne Kirkpatrick celebrated Mass with the CARFLEO conference on the morning of March 27. The conference concluded with a session where we assessed where we had come from, analyzed the implications, and looked forward to where CARFLEO can go in the future.