Monday, October 03, 2016

Looking to Start Conversations or Enrich Catechesis? Check Out These Quotation Sheets

Have you ever wanted a two-page handout with great quotations on various liturgical “hot topics”? Something you could use at a youth group or Juventutem gathering, an RCIA meeting or adult formation, parish council meetings, theology classes, or just to hand out to friends and acquaintances? Today, in spite of (or perhaps because of) an enormous glut of online information, people are surprisingly ignorant of fundamental points.

Enter the 1- or 2-page Quotation Sheet. As a teacher, I often need a simple, effective way to introduce important questions in settings where Catholics come together to learn more about their faith, in a way that is not excessively time-consuming. When quotations on key subjects are chosen well, they can serve as the sparks needed to get the fire kindled.

Having created several such teaching resources, I would like to share them now with readers of NLM. I will make them available in several formats below: as plain Word documents; as the PDFs of those Word documents; and as ready-made double-sided trifold brochures with graphics (you just fold the sheet until it looks like a proper brochure with a cover on top). The last option will only work if you are using American Letter-sized paper (8.5 x 11 inches). For those who wish to adapt to other size paper, I recommend downloading the Word documents. Feel free to use these in any way you wish; there is nothing proprietary about them.

The ones completed so far are:

Liturgical Tradition and the New Evangelization

1. Word doc
2. PDF
3. Trifold brochure

On the Traditional Latin Mass

1. Word doc
2. PDF
3. Trifold brochure

On Worship and the Transcendent

1. Word doc
2. PDF
[3. Brochure not available]

On Gregorian Chant

1. Word doc
2. PDF
3. Trifold brochure

On Musical Instruments and Styles

1. Word doc
2. PDF
3. Trifold brochure

I believe that many more such Quotation Sheets need to be created — e.g., on veiling, on ad orientem, on the importance of High Mass — but I’ll start with what I have. If anyone has any topics or texts to suggest, please add a comment below or write to me directly.

I am convinced we should be offering a whole range of such brochures, which could even be put into pamphlet racks in foyers or parish centers. We supporters and promoters of a "new liturgical movement" do not always do such a great job explaining the Catholic tradition to curious newcomers or hard-boiled skeptics, and part of the reason for this, at least in my experience, is the lack of adequate handy materials to serve as a basis for conversation.

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