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Just Coffee

Christmas Morning I was at my parents house. I was the first one up so I started the pot of coffee; my fahter bought the Jingle Bell blend from Mystic Monk Coffee just for the occasion. As I stared out the window at the white snow that fell the night before it conjured up memories of my first cup of coffee: Folgers, black from the family coffee maker in the kitchen when I was in 6th grade and starting to help my father early Sunday mornings with CCD classes. I very rarely go for the creamer or sugar, I like my coffee nice and black. Why bother with the extra calories when I can just taste the bitterness anyway? I love coffee. When I am at my desk drinking my first cup of coffee at the office this week I discovered January is Human Trafficking Awareness Month and today January 11 is Human Trafficking Awareness Day. Here is some quick facts about Human Trafficking: Human trafficking   is the modern form of   slavery , with illegal smuggling and trading of people, for forced labor or s
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Winter Workshop

Merry Christmas Everyone!! I hope you an yours had a very merry Christmas and are keeping warm in this cold burst we are experiencing. I saw in the Indy Star yesterday that it was warmer at the South Pole than in Indy. Brr! We have good number of people signed up for the workshop already!! This is very exciting! I am looking forward to this very much as is the rest of board. I want to take this time to answer a few questions and explain a bit more of what is going to happen to clear a few things up. The day will have 4 sessions broken up into about 45 min blocks to discuss various topics that are listed at the discussion tables. (to see topics click here .) These are just the topics and there will be no set format for discussion. Our vision for this is peer led, and to discuss what is important to you; think of this question: what do you do well and what do you need help with? The topics listed are the ones you and the APCL community wanted to discuss. I sent out a survey a few mo
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Happy Thanksgiving!!

I wanted to take this time to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving.  During this time of year, I like to reflect on the meaning of the origins of the word “Eucharist" – in Greek, ευχαριστία, or in English- thanksgiving. Every time we gather around the altar and offer up the Body and Blood of our Lord and ourselves, we offer it up in thanksgiving to the one who created us and saved us from sin. I find this to be amazing every Sunday.  When I was younger, I always thought Thanksgiving was an amazing time of year. The leaves were yellow, red, and brown; they also needed to be raked up. We played football in the yard with our cousins. We ate turkey, my mom's sweet potato casserole, kielbasa and coffee bread from Malczewski's Catering. There were green beans and other healthy food like that, but I do not recall them with as much fondness. It brings to mind happy times with family which always included watching the Detroit Lions. At Thanksgiving everything felt right and p
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What's been happening

I must apologize for the long absence. My wife and I took a new foster child into our care in October; we now have two toddlers in the house so needless to say, things have been quite busy for me. I will catch you up on all you need to know right now. First off, let me say, if you have a story you would like to share, whether it is of an event you attended for the archdiocese or a fun ministry activity you did; please contact us in the comment section or email us at  apclindianapolis@gmail.com  and we will be happy to share it with the rest of the community.  This is a place for sharing ideas and our ministries. For example, you are a youth minister and you go to NCYC and have a great time, or you are a chaperone on that trip, and want to share a short story about your experience. We would LOVE to hear from you and have you post here.   The APCL Board met again last week. You can see the minutes  here . We discussed a number of things that are coming your way. One major discus
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Facebook Conversation

"As followers of Christ, we must be very clear about what we teach our children: Racism is evil. It’s a sin and it must be condemned. It divides rather than unites. It defies Jesus’ command to “love your neighbor as yourself,” and it denies every person’s God-given human dignity.     Bishop Kettler of St. Cloud, MN I have gone back and forth on if I should comment on Charlottesville and if it is the place of APCL to discuss it on an open forum like this. I came to the decision that it is our responsibility to discuss it and be informed on how to help our parishioners look at this tragedy with a Catholic lens. I know this is late in regards to the news cycle but I wanted a well thought out response that can help us think this through. I am going to start this post with a comparison of the two groups that made the news, the neo-nazi/white supremacists and the Antifa group. They have two very distinct goals I believe that need to be addressed so we can be informed when we h
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Hello APCL Community!!

Hello friends. First let me introduce myself, my name is Zach and I am a pastoral and catechetical minster in the archdiocese of Indianapolis. I am on the leadership team of APCL, the wonderful professional organization for the pastoral and catechetical ministers for Arch Indy. I have been married for five years and we have one foster child at this time that we are hoping to adopt. I am starting this blog to help spread the APCL message and to create a forum for the all of us who are “co-workers in the vineyard” (USCCB) in Arch Indy to collaborate.  This collaboration will be a mixture of sharing ideas, struggles, and best practices. The Office of Catechesis offers a lot of cool resources and aid to us, but maybe we all are not able to make it to those events. This is a place where some of those events will be posted. This blog will expand from this starting point and I look forward to sharing and discussing these topics with you.            Why am I calling this blog Mystagogia? Mysta
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