Jason at the PPK blog has started a new meme: What I wish they had taught me in CCD. His offerings are more highbrow than mine. He must have had better CCD teachers.
I went through CCD mainly in the late 70s and the first couple years of the 80s so my experience was the very worst of what religious educators were experimenting with then. So here’s what I wish I had learned:
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That there is more to Jesus than that He is my friend.
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That there is more to being a Christian than just being nice to others.
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Prayers: I didn’t learn the Act of Contrition until I was an adult.
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That the Church has a cultural heritage of amazing art and music.
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That the Church has an amazing history of saints, heroes and villains, bravery, courage, and sacrifice.
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Any systematic understanding of Catholicism and Catholic teaching.
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The Rosary, the Baltimore Catechism, how to read the Bible.
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The assume true nature of the Eucharist.
The embarrassing reality is that I didn’t know diddly about my faith until I started reading on my own when I was 21 or so. I’m really embarrassed to reveal how pathetic my knowledge of my own faith was when I began studying theology at Franciscan University. The first year was an accelerated course to make up for what I should have learned in Grades K-8.
So, what do you wish you had been taught in CCD? (Maybe you should include the time period you were in religious education so we can get an idea of what that era’s CCD was like.)
