Best Practices
Parishes in the Diocese of San Jose
Faith Formation Programs

The following Catechetical Directors are sharing some of their best practices or resources in their programs. Please send us a note or share with us your Best Practices at OfficeFaithFormation@dsj.org

St. Victor Parish

Janine Pascual shared the videos she created and sent to the Catechetical Ministry families at St. Victor Parish.  She says “My goal is for families to encounter God in their daily activities so that their awareness of God’s presence will be strengthened.”

She is happy to share her videos with us! Please enjoy these beautiful and inspiring videos:

St. Lucy Parish

Antonio Ojeda nos dice: “por medio del escuchar cuentos puedes soñar, imaginar y crear.” Antonio invita a los niños y a las familias de la Iglesia de Santa Lucía a escuchar cuentos narrados por él para que reflexionen en como las acciones en nuestras vidas reflejan nuestra fe. Disfruten escuchando estos cuentos y reflexinando con los Podcasts de Antonio.

Escucha los siguientes cuentos en https://anchor.fm/antonio-ojeda4/

Galletitas; un cuento para ¿compartir?

¿Qué tan dispuestos estamos para compartir de nosotros a los demás ?

Un relato sobre el “Amor”

¿Qué es Amar? Buscar el bien del otro.

El sastrecillo valiente (siete de un golpe)

Un humilde sastrecillo que se ganaba la vida con sus hilos y sus costuras pensó que podría llegar a ser más grande e importante.

Los tres pelos de oro de diablo 1a parte

Este cuento de los hermanos Grimm nos invitan a explorar detalles de cómo el resultado de nuestras acciones, serán resueltos de acuerdo al comportamiento en nuestra vida

Tres pelos del diablo segunda parte. E…

El joven con suerte inicia su peregrinación y encuentra personas que le piden su ayuda y el promete asistirlos cuando regrese de su aventura

St. Simon Parish

The Children’s Faith Formation program at St. Simon Parish has been very active since the “Shelter-in-Place” order was implemented. Sr. Mary-Han Nguyen trained her catechists to use Zoom, then prepared the material and called a meeting with the parents.   

In her email communication to the parents, she wrote: “Some of the Catechists planned to have a Zoom CFF session after the general greetings and prayer with everyone begins on Sunday, March 29, from 10:15–11:15 a.m. They will also record the session if some parents and children want to do the session at their own time. Individual catechists will communicate their plan with the parents, or they will continue to send the weekly lesson plan to the parents.”

Please read her entire email and newsletter to parents.   In the FCC Newsletter to parents a mom wrote Sr. Mary-Han about her family’s experience attending online Mass:

 “I wanted to share with you some of our mass pictures from the last few weeks. It’s been so beautiful being able to be present with our Lord spiritually, as well as with all of our priests. We try to set up our home with chairs, a candle, crucifix, our lady and project the mass on our TV for all of us to celebrate. The children are attentive and follow the responses. Thank you for helping to make this all possible ….Another beautiful thing I wanted to share. Last week, I was able to zoom in on my parents and family from Indonesia, my brother in Singapore and cousins in LA to all celebrate Palm Sunday together! First time ever! So much good has come in all that is sadly happening.”

St. Nicholas and St. Williams

Catherine Campbell made a beautiful website using Google Sites. She shared how to create a website using this tool. A website is a very easy way to communicate with parents and children as nowadays it is very easy for parents who don’t have a computer system to see it through a phone!

Please see Catherine’s video on how to create a website and see the website she created from the video.

Catherine’s website for Easter:

https://sites.google.com/view/eastercraftsbeyondtheegg/home

She also shared a diorama site that we can all use, just duplicate it to your drive and then add it in the shared album.

https://sites.google.com/view/holy-week-faith-formation/home

St. Lawrence Parish

Eleanor De Paz, using Catherine’s Google Sites tutorial, created a Holy Week Webpage for St. Lawrence’s families. Please see this wonderful website full of ideas and activities: www.tinyurl.com/SLholyweek

Eleanor also sent a beautiful Easter Card to all her families using Evite.

St. Joseph, Mountain View Parish

Erika Underwood, made short Power Point presentations to share with her families, and posted in her Parish website.

Please see the PP presentation she made for the Saint of the Day on April 1st: Saint Hugh of Grenoble

St. Julie Parish

Yolanda Toulet shared this very well-done video that one of her catechists made for his 6th to 12th-grade catechetical session: Confirmation Video 

St. Martin of Tours Parish

Robert Rodrigues shared these great resources he is using in his parish:

And the first episodes of Joe Paprocky’s Pop-Up catechesis from Loyola Press: