CET Staff learn 'how to grow in faith'
On Monday 24 April staff from 26 schools, along with staff from the Tasmanian Catholic Education Office joined together for a System Day: How to Grow in Faith. The day invited attendees at St Mary’s College, and via Zoom at several locations across the state, to participate in a number of faith-enriching experiences. This included listening to presentations and readings from key members of staff from the Catholic Identity and Evangelisation team at Catholic Education Tasmania.
Attendees were also blessed to have Father Michael Remery present keynote presentations based around his ‘Growing in Faith’ program, which has been developed to help grow the faith of students and teachers. Fr Remery hails from the Netherlands, and has a wealth of knowledge and experience around engaging young adults and students, helping answer questions about God, Church, and life.
Staff at the 26 participating schools across the state were given a booklet to help facilitate and ask questions of themselves to not only renew their faith with God, but also to understand themselves better. Throughout the day, there were group discussions held about the ‘Tweeting with God’ resource and there were opportunities for staff to use this resource to research questions they had about faith. This was a practical way for staff to learn how the resources developed by Fr Remery can help answer some of the harder questions that are asked of faith in the secular world that exists in today’s society.
In three separate presentations, and a Q&A session with staff, Fr Remery provided members of the Catholic Education Tasmania community with some inspiration for their teaching, and helped give them a greater understanding of how influential they are in their student’s journey through religious education.
As part of his visit to Hobart, Fr Remery also visited three different schools from around different parts of Southern Tasmania, speaking to students who had some very tough questions about religion and how it can help guide them through their life. Speaking from his experience engaging with students from across the world Fr Remery said, “I think that in teaching students about faith, we really need to involve the whole class. It's not so important for the teacher to know all the facts about faith. It’s okay to not have all the answers.” Said Fr Remery, “The young people here are asking exactly the same questions that they are asking in Holland, but also the same questions that I had in Vietnam or in Africa or in any continent.”
Fr Remery also spoke to the St Thomas Aquinas Teaching School cadets during their weekly insight sessions about what it means to teach religion in a school, and helped enlighten them on some of their own questions about their faith. Fr Remery explained, “I wish for teachers and students to see how a relationship with God can help them be an even better teacher, be better versions of themselves and get to know themselves in a new light, see themselves in the light and eyes of God.”
Fr Remery was grateful to members of the CET community for being so willing to consume and engage with his teaching. “I felt very humbled that people want to listen to what we developed. I try to take a step back and say, this is not about me or what we develop, but this is about the message of God.” Said Fr Remery, “These people in the end want to learn about God and they hope that this method that we develop will help them to do so.”
We would like to thank Fr Remery for visiting Hobart, and thank the staff across Catholic Education Tasmania who were involved in organising this great opportunity to renew our faith.