{"id":3262,"date":"2015-12-02T09:40:26","date_gmt":"2015-12-02T14:40:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sfdslg.org\/?p=3262"},"modified":"2016-01-05T11:20:42","modified_gmt":"2016-01-05T16:20:42","slug":"faith-with-a-face-geri-braun-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sfdslg.org\/?p=3262","title":{"rendered":"Faith with a Face &#8211; Geri Braun"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_3261\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3261\" style=\"width: 295px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfdslg.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Geri-Braun.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-3261 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sfdslg.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Geri-Braun-e1449067214342.jpg\" alt=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA\" width=\"295\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3261\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>St. Francis de Sales parish has been fortunate to have Geri Braun as our RCIA\u00a0coordinator for many years. An abbreviation for \u201cRite of Christian Initiation for Adults\u201d,\u00a0this group meets on a weekly basis where candidates study and convert to the Catholic\u00a0faith. \u201cThe reason that people to come to us varies. Sometimes it\u2019s because they are\u00a0marrying a Catholic and want to learn all about it, sometimes they have tried other\u00a0religions and are searching, and sometimes they were born Catholic but for whatever\u00a0reason never received the sacraments and want to come back.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>During these classes they\u00a0study the Catholic views of the Bible, religious history, each of the sacraments, and the<br \/>\nmeaning of the liturgy and Eucharist.\u00a0Geri has been teaching about the Catholic faith most of her life. Graduating from\u00a0Loyola University at the Master\u2019s level with a minor in Religious Studies, she started her\u00a0career teaching junior high, but shortly thereafter became the Director of Religious\u00a0Education at St. Joseph\u2019s in Harvard, Illinois. \u201cAt that time, I taught all of the religious programs&#8230;from cradle to\u00a0grave&#8230;and so that included everything from teaching baptism classes to RCIA.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She also trained catechists for the\u00a0Rockford diocese.\u00a020 years ago she started teaching RCIA at St. Francis de Sales. The program runs on Tuesday evenings from\u00a0September until the Easter Vigil, when the candidates receive the sacraments and are welcomed into the Church. \u201cWe\u2019ve\u00a0had groups as big as 11, and as small as 2 or 3\u201d, said Geri. \u201cThe people coming into the program have a different way of\u00a0looking at being a Catholic. They study and learn more about it to help them fit their faith into their lives. They don\u2019t\u00a0take it for granted.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Geri works tirelessly in this position strictly as a volunteer. Why? \u201cThe most rewarding part is getting to know the<br \/>\npeople. They actually help me learn more about MY faith. They think I\u2019m teaching them, but in fact&#8230;they\u2019re teaching<br \/>\nme!\u201d Geri, thank you for sharing your knowledge and faith with so many people over the years. You are a blessing!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>St. Francis de Sales parish has been fortunate to have Geri Braun as our RCIA\u00a0coordinator for many years. An abbreviation for \u201cRite of Christian Initiation for Adults\u201d,\u00a0this group meets on a weekly basis where candidates study and convert to the Catholic\u00a0faith. \u201cThe reason that people to come to us varies. Sometimes it\u2019s because they are\u00a0marrying [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith-with-a-face","category-new-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sfdslg.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sfdslg.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sfdslg.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfdslg.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfdslg.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3262"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfdslg.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3263,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfdslg.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3262\/revisions\/3263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sfdslg.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfdslg.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfdslg.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}