The aim is for people to use the resource at home.

Archbishop of Melbourne Peter Comensoli says the home remains the prime location within which faith can be formed and nurtured.

This was the case in the early Church. People assembled and passed on the faith in family homes.

"Might not this also be our calling at this time and place?" Comensoli suggested.

Called Journeying Together, the new online resource for sacraments of initiation was created specifically to serve the Catholic Church needs in Australia.

Comensoli says it offers parents an accessible, easy-to-use resource to help them participate in their children's spiritual formation and faith journey.

"Journeying Together facilitates an at-home experience of ‘God-talk' and is designed not to replace but to complement children's sacramental preparation in a Catholic primary school or parish catechetical setting," he says.

The Confirmation and Eucharist modules are currently available, with Penance and Baptism to follow.

Each of the modules is divided into four sessions. The process helps parents and children explore the meaning behind the elements of the sacrament and grow in the Catholic faith through a spiritual encounter with Jesus.

Comensoli says each session has the feel of a home liturgy, teaching the core elements of the sacrament, but always ending in a prayerful processing of the content.

"The audio elements include children reading Scripture, adult voices narrating various sections, and occasional music. Families are encouraged to engage with the resource through interactive quizzes and comparison slides," he says.

Photos and artwork are used to re-enforce key points.

"The wide variety of learning objects cater to a range of learning styles," Comensoli says.

Each weekly session takes approximately 45 minutes.

Journeying Together - the resource can be found at sacraments.melbournecatholic.org.

Source

• Melbourne Archdiocese
• Melbourne Archdiocese

"The draft laws are an important way to help people of faith and the organizations they establish as communities of faith to manifest their religious belief in the service of others," Archbishop Peter Comensoli said. Read more

The document will be given to Pope Francis.

Those preparing the final document include five cardinals, three bishops and four priests who come from or work in Italy, India, Ghana, Ukraine, Mexico, Cuba, Argentina, Brazil and Australia.

One of the five cardinals, Aguiar Retes, says a big challenge to drafting the synod's final report will be staying faithful to the discussions of the participants and what was agreed upon in the language-specific working groups.

Another challenge will be to complete the document quickly. It will be a long document which will need to be completed in a relatively short time-frame.

This is because most working groups indicated they want a new document to be written for the conclusion of the synod, rather than a rework of the synod's working document.

In addition to the synod's concluding document, an English-language group chaired by Cardinal Blase Cupich indicated they would like a separate message directed specifically at young people. This document would be written by two Synod Fathers, with two youth auditors.

This additional document "should be inspirational and missionary in character. It should be scripturally based and start from Christ," Cupich's group says.

Most of the working groups have also said they'd like Francis to follow up the final report with a post-synodal apostolic exhortation.

The 12 chosen to write the final document are:

• Cardinal Rocha, relator general or recording secretary of the synod, who will lead the commission
• Italian Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, who will help Rocha; he is the general secretary of the synod, and one of the synod's two special secretaries
• Italian Jesuit Father Giacomo Costa
• Italian Salesian Father Rossano Sala
• Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson
• Mexican Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes
• Indian Cardinal Oswald Gracias
• Italian Archbishop Bruno Forte
• Australian Archbishop Peter A. Comensoli
• Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church
• Brazilian Father Alexandre Awi Mello
• Argentine Father Eduardo Gonzalo Redondo

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• The Catholic Register
• Image: Crux Now