Volume 26, Number 1    April 2004

Women Witnesses touch young and old

Inspired by parents, godparents and high school teachers who are using the FutureChurch/CTA Celebrating Women Witnesses packets for confirmation gifts, home prayer services and classroom activities, we created a special edition geared to high school teachers, campus ministers and parish youth ministers. The new version is now available.

Janet Kohler Claussen, a former Catholic high school teacher and a founding member of the Voices Project, has designed special study guides containing creative and fun activities for independent study as well as cooperative learning. The Voices Project addresses the spirituality of adolescent girls. Claussen has also written a number of books including Biblical Women: Exploring Their Stories with Girls and Seeking: Doing Theology with Girls (both from St. Mary’s Press).

Here are several samples of Claussen’s creative teaching strategies:

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  1.View the movie “Mulan”. Write a brief paragraph about what Mulan and Joan of Arc have in common.
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  2.Write an imaginary letter from Perpetua or Felicity to their infant children that the children will open when they are teenagers.  How would these women have explained to their children their choice to suffer martyrdom?
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  3.  Using facts from the essay, draw a picture that depicts the kind of building where Prisca and her family worked, lived and shared Eucharist.
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  4. Listen to a recording of Hildegard of Bingen’s music.  Write a review about what you hear and how her music might be appreciated today.
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  5. Clare made a radical choice when she gave up her wealthy lifestyle for a life of simplicity.  Write an imaginary dialogue between a talk show host and a famous celebrity who has decided to work as a lay missionary in a poor country or to enter a religious order today.

The project was funded by a grant to FutureChurch from the Cleveland Congregation of St. Joseph, whose sisters have taught Cleveland high school girls for decades.  If you would like to order this special resource ($10 plus $2 shipping and handling)  visit www.futurechurch.org or call 216-228-0869.

In the meantime, hundreds of women and men are benefitting from monthly celebrations of each woman witness. A recent CTA Indianapolis program celebrated the life of Dorothy Day. The service included song, prayer, and an empowering baptismal ritual. CTA organizer Lyn Herold said it attracted a great variety of peace and justice people including state legislator John Day, who “is a Dorothy Day-type voice in the Indiana legislature.”