1. Habit-Forming: Liturgies of Education Video lecture delivered by Peter J Leithart with reflective questions for classrooms teachers

2. Synopsis Peter Leithart offers a reflection on the liturgical nature of human beings as made in the image of the “Divine Liturgist”, explaining the importance of ritual in our lives and in our formation. He concludes by applying his findings to the education of young people. The lecture lasts about 45 minutes and it is expected that the reflection questions will take 30-45 minutes to complete.

3. Intended for classroom teachers, a series of reflective questions is offered to explore the vocational and religious nature of education. This has three aspects: 1.The teacher’s own sense of being in a ‘liturgical dialogue’ with God. 2.Reflection on the rituals that shape us – and our students - and influence our classroom practice. 3.The presence of prayer in our classroom. CLPL Audit Companions on the Journey : Full Registration/CLPL/ Vocation of the Teacher/Catholic School. Developing in Faith :Honouring Jesus as the Way, the Truth and the Life; Developing as a community of faith and learning; Celebrating and worshipping.

4. A reflection on ‘Habit- Forming: Liturgies of Education’ for Teachers

5. Click on ‘Habit Forming – Teacher’s Reflection Booklet’ button on website to download a sheet on which to record your reflections. This can be sent to the RE Office – Christine.Burke@rcag.org.uk – and a certificate of completion will be sent to you for your records. Your answers will not be in any way assessed or evaluated, this is simply a means to recognise that you have completed this CLPL exercise.Christine.Burke@rcag.org.uk Click to watch the lecture

6. Peter Leithart begins his lecture by explaining what he means when speaking of both God and human beings as liturgical beings. He uses the word in the double sense of acting in a ritualistic, repetitive, habitual way, and of being a partner in a dialogue. God is the ‘Divine Liturgist’ and being made in his image human beings are liturgical. Looking at the second dimension of this, we see that God creates a world that responds to Him: He says and it happens – and so the world gives praise to Him. 1. My liturgical dialogue with God

7. On the third day of the creation week something interesting begins to happen, and that is that God begins to have a liturgical partner that responds to his word … He speaks to the earth and says, ‘May the earth bring forth grasses producing seed, trees producing fruit’, and the earth responds and does it … it does something in response to God’s speech … God creates a respondent. (1.30)

8. In this liturgical partnership between the Creator and creation, humanity plays a special part. People, Liethart tells us, are the ‘priests of the whole creation’, because they are made in the image of the Divine Liturgist. God has created us to be priests, Leithart claims. By this he means that “Our whole life is a response to God”, but also that we have a unique liturgical role in that it is humanity that brings the whole of creation to God and offers it to him in praise.

9. We’re liturgical creatures … we are always responding to the word of God … God has created us to be priests, priests of the whole creation, priests who bring the entire creation to God; it is in and through us that the world begins to praise God. (4.00)

10. Points for Reflection  What does it mean to you to say that human beings are God’s liturgical partners?  What does this idea say to you about the nature of faith?  Our whole life is a response to God – is a liturgy, a praise of God. In what ways would you consider teaching to be your way of praising God, to be a liturgical act?  How do you think that understanding teaching as a ‘priestly act’ can/does have an effect on your teaching?

11. 2. Our Rituals Peter Leithart presents teaching as a liturgical action, a dialogue between ‘distemporaries’ in which the student engages with tradition through the teacher and the teacher reaches into the future through the students. The teacher speaks and the student replies in a way that shows the fruits of that teaching moment. The teacher engages the student in the tradition with the expectation that the student will take that tradition into the future. More than simply passing on information, however, this is a formative dialogue between ‘old and young, the past and the future’.

12. The classroom becomes a liturgical space where past generations look forward to a future that they’re not going to see and younger generations reach back to receive the tradition that they need to move on into the future. (36.50)

13. Leithart’s understanding of education as a ‘liturgical dialogue’ means that it is a challenge to many of the rituals that have formed young people today: celebrity culture; commercialism; immediate gratification and relativism.

14. Embedded in a traditional education are already practices and habits, or liturgies that inform practices and habits, that resist the dominate culture around us … What you’re doing in the classroom is not simply imparting information, but your training the students in certain habits of life … That’s as important to the students as the information they’re getting, learning those habits through the liturgy of the classroom. (39:50)

15. Points for Reflection  Identify your daily rituals: the time you waken, your morning routine, your eating habits, things that must be done, etc.  Reflect on these: how do they impact on you? Could they change, even in a small way? If so, what impact would this have on you?  To what extent are you aware of your students rituals beyond the classroom? What impact do they have on what happens in the classroom?  Identify and reflect on the rituals that unfold in your classroom? How do they impact on you and your students? Do they liberate students to better engage in their learning? Could they change? If so, what impact would this have on you and your students?  What do understand by Leithart’s claim that “the classroom becomes a liturgical space” (36.40)

16. 3. My Liturgical Rituals Leithart argues that Christian schools should be explicit in their religious dimension and their goal in forming disciples of Jesus Christ. The Liturgy – the worship of God – is at the same time a formative part of this and the expression of it. The ritual of prayer is a counter to the liturgies of the world and should be part of the life of not just the wider school, but of every class within it.

17. The Liturgy is the best liturgy to shape students in the school, that is, Christian worship, that is chapel … There should be a liturgical, a chapel like, structure to the classroom: each class beginning in prayer, beginning in song. (43.55)

18. Character formation and appeals to students are based on the fact that they belong to Jesus Christ and they are claimed by Jesus in Baptism (43:30) The goal of Christian education is to form students who love Jesus Christ and His Father in the Spirit (45:35)

19. Points for Reflection  Do you consider your role as part of a bigger ‘liturgical dialogue’ in which you help young people to discover God speaking to them in creation, in divine Revelation and in their life, and respond to Him in praise?  Do your classrooms rituals include a moment of formal prayer, reflection and praise? How could you introduce/enhance this experience?  What contribution do/could you offer to the wider liturgical and prayer life of the school?