Resource Publications, Inc. 160 E. Virginia St. Suite #290 San Jose, CA 95112-5876 ph: 408-286-8505 fx: 408-287-8748

For Immediate Release Contact: Janet Bondi 408-286-8505

The biggest revolution since 
the Second Vatican Council is underway. 
Are your catechists prepared?

Dear Director,

I grew up in the wake of the liturgical and catechetical reforms that came from the Second Vatican Council. I am part of what some consider to be a "lost generation" catechetically. My Catholic school teachers knew they were no longer supposed to teach the Baltimore Catechism, but they had no tool to replace it.

We are approaching a similar, if not quite as dramatic, shift in our catechetical priorities. We have long said good catechesis leads people to the liturgy and flows from the liturgy. However, we have only recently grasped what that process might look like. Our catechetical materials for the last 30 years have reflected a good pedagogical process, but they have not fully understood that catechesis is first of all mystagogical.

What the church means when is says that catechesis is primarily mystagogical was summed up by Pope John Paul II: "The definitive aim of catechesis is to put people not only in touch but in communion, in intimacy with Jesus Christ" (On Catechesis in Our Time 5).

Shake your head. Rub your eyes. Read that statement again. The goal of catechesis is not to teach facts about the faith. The goal is to give people an intimate experience of Jesus. Think for a moment about where you have had your most intimate encounters with Jesus. If you are like 99 percent of the Catholics I’ve met, those intimate encounters did not happen in the class room.

If you buy what the pope is saying, parish catechists will have a choice to make. The first inclination might be to do what they are already doing better. That is, they will strive to make their activities more interesting, their text books more colorful, their teaching style more engaging. All those things will certainly make for better religious education.

But the difficulty is that education is not the first goal of catechesis. The first goal is to provide an intimate experience of Jesus. The first goal is not to teach religion, but to teach faith.

Some people are fond of saying faith is caught, not taught. What they mean by this is that faith is "taught" in the same way we are taught to play. We are first "evangelized" to play. We see someone playing, and we like what we see. Then we are "converted." We become convinced that we too want to be players. Once we are converted, we mimic the things we see. Those who are better give us feedback. "Good shot." "Nice swing." "Yes! That’s it!" We "learn" from our mistakes and from the praising we get when we do well. We ask for help. "How do you get it to spin like that?" Pretty soon we’ve mastered enough basic techniques that we can "teach" someone else how to play.

We join a team, we get a coach, we practice. These are the ways we learn to play. Much later, after we have become pretty good players, we might take a class on the fundamentals of the game or about the history of the sport. But most of us never do that. Most of us learned to play from those we saw playing, and we continue to learn by playing with those who are better than we are. We also learn by teaching other newcomers to play.

Faith happens the same way. The General Directory on Catechesis emphasizes that very insight. The document recognizes that newcomers are not going to go to school to learn about faith. They are not going to come to a class; they are not going to read a book; they are not going to come to an after_Mass "Know Your Faith" session. The only way people come to faith is when they see other people living their faith. People come to faith by having intimate, daily encounters with us. People encounter us at our best, of course, in the liturgy. Catechesis flows from and to the liturgy. Our faith is most fully expressed in the celebration of the paschal mystery in the liturgy.

Good liturgy is the most effective form of catechesis we have.

We have too long held liturgy and catechesis apart from each other as though they were equally talented siblings who couldn’t get along. We cannot afford to do that any longer. Our society is changing rapidly, and those who have faith in Jesus are being increasingly discounted and invalidated. The church is urging us, you and me, to act now to stem the tide. "Now is the acceptable time" to begin a new evangelization and a revitalization of our faith in Jesus.

I want to invite you to come help with that effort. I have been talking for several years with catechetical and liturgical leaders about how to have a significant impact on the way bring people into communion and intimacy with Jesus. As a result of some of those conversations, I assembled two different teams of people. These teams created two vital training processes to help parish volunteers and staff explore liturgy and catechesis in their communities. The first is ML’s Liturgical Arts Adventure. The second is ML’s Liturgical Catechesis Experience. These retreat-like events have been taking place around the country for several years now.

Last summer I invited both teams to come together to brainstorm about how we could bring the sister ministries of liturgy and catechesis together in a large-group, hands-on, actual experience of liturgical catechesis. Somehow it seemed counter to the very spirit of what liturgical catechesis is to simply lecture people about it. However, the idea of doing liturgical catechesis with 500+ people seemed daunting. Nevertheless, most of our parishes are many times larger. It seemed that if we couldn’t do some kind of a process with 500 people, we couldn’t very well ask parish staff and volunteers to do it in their communities.

So we have done just that. We have created a two-day process that will immerse your catechists in the very guts of liturgical catechesis. They will learn how liturgical catechesis works by actually doing it. Let me be clear. We are not going to do liturgical catechesis to them. The participants in the weekend will be responsible for creating both the liturgy and the mystagogical process that catechizes about our experience of the liturgy. There is no other training process like this.

I would very much appreciate your help in getting out the word about this inaugural event. In fact, I’d even like to ask you to consider making this event the training effort for your diocese this year. If you are not able to commit to that, I’d like to ask if you would please advertise this one-of-a-kind experience in your diocesan newspaper, office newsletter, web site, and other distribution methods. If you would like brochures or more information, let me know and I’ll get some in your hands.

Let’s not lose this opportunity. Let’s work together to make effective liturgical catechesis a reality in every parish in every diocese.

Sincerely,

Nick Wagner, Editorial Director

P.S. I’ll even give you a free registration if you will arrange to send at least five other people from your diocese.

P.P.S. Your response to these ideas, even if you cannot attend, would be helpful in shaping the process. You can send your comments to me at MLeditor@rpinet.com.

The full convention brochure is available now, both on-line and in printed form. Also, spot announcements and ads are available for parishes and diocesan offices that are interested in making their constituencies aware of the convention and its details.

What:     The First Ever Liturgical Catechesis Convention
Where:    Kansas City, Missouri at the Downtown Marriott Hotel
When:     October 19 - 21, 2001
Theme:    “The art of making justice”
Sponsor:  ML Events in collaboration with the Kansas City (MO) Office of Worship
Endorsed by: Thirteen offices of education and/or worship from dioceses around the country.
Contact:  Sue Espinosa, Event Coordinator, 925-449-1261 or sespinosa@msn.com
Mailing Address:  ML Events
                           134 Coleen Street
                           Livermore, CA 94550

ML Events are an outreach of Ministry & Liturgy magazine. Ministry & Liturgy is published by Resource Publications, Inc. Resource Publications, Inc. (RPI) strives to help people reach their fullest potential on both personal and professional levels, primarily by providing leadership resources for use by leaders in ministry and education. Current ministry resources include: The Liturgical Catechesis Convention, The Liturgical Catechesis Experience Workshop Series, Celebrating the Lectionary (a liturgical catechesis curriculum), software ministry resources such as Sacramental Register and Certificate Maker 3.0, and many other books and music collections. Visit the RPI website at www.rpinet.com.