SUGGESTED PROCESS FOR IMPLEMENTING INFUSION

1.        The adult faith formation team along with parish staff makes a commitment to the process.  Leadership takes a proposal to parish pastoral council for discussion and approval.

2.        Determine the potential for “infusion” in your parish.  Start by referring to the parish calendar to make a list of all the commissions, organizations and groups that meet in your parish.  Some examples of parish groups that could do infusion are:

3.        Select Resources and Plan Processes for Use in Parish Groups

Some options for deciding on resources to use:
a.      In collaboration with Pastoral Council, the Parish Staff selects a common resource for all groups to use in the upcoming year.  The chosen topic or material might reflect a need or concern for the life of the parish as a whole.   Some examples of themes:

• “Liturgical renewal” for a parish preparing for a new worship space
• “Stewardship” to support a parish goal for increased ministry involvement and fiscal responsibility
• “Church/community” for parishes dealing with demographic changes or parish clustering/pastor-sharing
• “Evangelization” for parishes working on outreach or renewal

OR

b.      In concert with Parish Staff, the Adult Faith Formation Team works with each parish group to help them identify themes, procure materials and adopt approaches related to the specific skills and goals of the group.

4.        Communicate the concept to all leaders of any groups in the parish.

An AFF team member could meet with each parish group and explains the concept, helps them to select materials, learn the skills of participating in the group.

SUGGESTED RESOURCES and FORMATS FOR INFUSION

Resources
1.         Many parish groups choose to utilize one of the Sunday scripture readings for their infusion experience.

For using the Sunday scriptures a ready tool, Where Two or Three Are Gathered, is available from the Archdiocese of Cincinnati and can be downloaded in pdf format.

Some additional Scriptural Reflection and Sharing resources are:

• Share the Word Seven issues published per year by Paulist National Catholic Evangelization Association contain text of the readings along with commentary and discussion questions. 
• Quest includes prayer, focus, scripture readings, commentary, faith sharing questions and response activity.  Seasonal reflection booklets for fall, spring, summer published by Archdiocese of Hartford, Connecticut.
• Disciples in Prayer: A Resource for Faith Sharing.  Oregon Catholic Press, in collaboration with the Secretariat for Evangelization of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), produces these booklets for each of the 3 liturgical cycles.  They contain the references for the Scripture readings for Sundays and feasts.  There is a selection of appropriate hymns in the back and a music CD is available for each cycle.  www.ocp.org

The Sunday Lectionary Readings for the year enable monthly meeting attendees to prepare ahead for the discussion and, hopefully, to develop on their own, a weekly habit of reflecting on the Sunday Scriptures

2.         Additional Infusion Resources
We can help adults appreciate the value of the Adult Faith Formation experience at meetings by directly targeting the committee or organization’s specific purpose or needs. 

Church Documents.  Some groups prefer to use excerpt from Church documents such as:

• The Catechism of the Catholic Church or its Compendium
• Go and Make Disciples
• National Directory for Catechesis
• The Challenge of Peace (condensed version)
• Economic Justice for All
• The encyclical: Deus Caritas
• Evangelization in the Modern World

Other Print Materials:  The Media Centers of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati contain a wealth of Catholic print materials that can be used in the infusion process.

FORMAT

The right format for each group’s infusion process will depend on the amount of time they have, the background of the members and the kind of resources they are using. 

A simple format that is easy to do with any reading whether it be scripture, church document, or other meditative reading is as follows:

            BEGIN with the Sign of the Cross.

READING: Leader or other member read portion of document aloud. 

SHARED REFLECTION: Members of the group reflect on a word or phrase that they heard in the reading.  [If the group is large you may want to break down into smaller groups of two or three]. 

SHARED PRAYER: A prayer can be shared by the leader or by members of the group.

BLESSING: Close with a blessing such as: “May the Lord bless us, protect us from all evil, and bring us to everlasting life.  Amen.

Office of Evangelization and Catechesis   Archdiocese of Cincinnati   Catholic Schools Office