How To Use Discover Your Neighbor

Welcome to Maryknoll’s Discover Your Neighbor!

Our resources, designed by and for teachers and catechists, provide supplemental material to engage your students with a culture of Missionary Discipleship. We publish four Educator Guides each year, following the liturgical calendar. The four themes come from Pope Francis. Each Educator Guide uses the See-Judge-Act methodology and has four step-by-step sub-sections to help guide you. You can follow exactly or present this material in your own creative way.

OBJECTIVE   

This section will give you, the educator, an overview of the content. It provides a blueprint for what you hope to achieve.This will assist you in your introductory discussion of the topic.

STEP ONE: PRAYER 

This introduces the theme to your class. You can be as creative as you want with this prayer prompt. For example, you can have one or two students read the prayer aloud or split the class into two sections and have each side read a stanza at a time. Symbols, images, pictures, incense, etc. are encouraged to help prepare the students spiritually.

STEP TWO: MAKE PERSONAL CONNECTIONS (SEE) 

The missionary stories of Maryknoll priests, brothers, sisters and lay people offered here give a global perspective and also highlight local solutions related to each theme: Care of Creation, Migration, Economic Justice and Going Forth. The goal is for students to understand why the topics are relevant to their lives and to empathize with how these topics affect people around the world.

STEP THREE: EXPLORE SCRIPTURE AND TRADITION (JUDGE) 

This section helps students develop the practice of looking at current issues through the lens of Scripture and ChurchTeachings, which have been aligned to school and catechetical standards. It is an opportunity for students to see that Scripture is relevant to the challenges facing our world today.

STEP FOUR: TAKE ACTION (ACT) 

This section suggests ways that students can put their faith into practice and engage with our global neighbors on a practical and personal level. Empowering our youth to take action in their families, schools, neighborhoods, and the larger world is what Pope Francis is calling us to do when he tells us to “Go Forth.”NOTE: We have designed the web material so that you can project a portion of the guide onto a screen for classroom use without having make copies. However, if you want to make copies, you will need to download a pdf from the website by going to the bottom section of the page and providing us with your name and email, Then choose the pdf for either middle school or K-5.