Animate, the Catholic youth ministry team for the Archdiocese of Liverpool, recently used CAFOD resources with great success!
During a confirmation session with Christ the King pastoral area, our aim was to gain a better understanding of the gifts of the Holy Spirit with a group of twelve and thirteen year-olds.
To try to explain the gifts of awe and wonder and reverence, we used CAFOD’s activity ‘Sometimes, always, never’. As these gifts of the Holy Spirit are to do with caring for our environment and having respect for God and his creation, this activity fitted in really well. We’re called to be stewards of creation, because if we don’t look after the world, then who will?
The game was able to show the young people what we can do to care for God’s creation, that simple efforts like turning a tap off can save so much water and help others in the world, that giving loose change to charity can help those less fortunate then ourselves and that recycling is a way we can help to care for our environment.
A brightly-coloured Romero cross
When exploring the gifts of wisdom, right judgement and courage, we used CAFOD’s outline of the Salvadorian cross. To explain these three gifts of the Holy Spirit, we looked at the story of Archbishop Oscar Romero, how he stood away from the crowd, spoke up for the poor and was murdered for it. We explained to the young people that where Archbishop Romero was from, you can get Salvadorian crosses and explained to them what they were. We then got the young people to design their own Salvadorian cross, using CAFOD’s template, showing the three gifts; wisdom, right judgement and courage in their lives.
CAFOD resources were again used in small group work sessions with different year groups, during mission week at St Augustine’s School in St Helens.
With year 9 pupils, we used CAFOD’s ‘World Heroes’ to show the young people that you don’t have to be Batman or Spiderman to be a hero. All of us have the ability to do great things, all of us have hero qualities. The class was split into smaller groups and they were given a world hero.
Within their group, the young people had to look at their hero and discuss what qualities made them a hero. The groups had to then come up with a campaign (drama/ advert/poster etc) to prove to the rest of their class that their hero was the best.
During group work with just ten pupils from year 10, we played the activity ‘World Values Auction’. It was a fun activity which demonstrated the unfairness and inequality which takes place in our world.
At an altar server’s day with St Philomena’s altar servers in Liverpool, we used the ‘World Hero’ activity. The focus for the day was ‘some definite service’. It was a day to give the young people a chance to ask and reflect on the question ‘what does God want to do with me?’ During the day, the young people looked at what a vocation is and how it applied to them; that God has a plan for each and every one of them. The activity demonstrated the type of work which God had called some people to do; to work for good within their communities around the world.
We really enjoyed working with the resources and so did the young people. Have a go at using them yourself at cafod.org.uk/resources/youth-leaders
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