The witness of Christian life given by parents in the family comes to children with tenderness and parental respect. Children thus perceive and joyously live the closeness of God and of Jesus made manifest by their parents in such a way that this first Christian experience frequently leaves decisive traces which last throughout life. This childhood religious awakening which takes place in the family is irreplaceable. It is consolidated when, on the occasion of certain family events and festivities, “care is taken to explain in the home the Christian or religious content of these events”. It is deepened all the more when parents comment on the more methodical catechesis which their children later receive in the Christian community and help them to appropriate it. Indeed, “family catechesis precedes…accompanies and enriches all forms of catechesis”.

- General Directory for Catechesis, n. 226.

Photo by Joshua Ommen/flickrCC

A few weeks ago I was flipping through the Confraternity Teacher’s Guide: A Textbook for the Training of Teachers in CCD Schools of Religion (written by the Very Rev. Joseph B. Collins, SS, in 1960) and came across this quote in a section on audio-visual aids:

The catechist will find that catechetical material in filmstrips, both black and white and in color, is steadily increasing in volume. He will find satisfactory filmstrips which correlate with courses of study and with the catechism. The entire field of Christian doctrine, Bible and Church history, life of Christ, and the lives of the saints are adequately covered in a large number of catechetical filmstrips. The number of catechetical subjects available on sound motion-picture film is comparatively limited. The teaching value of the silent movie is greatly reduced by the fact that today pupils are accustomed to sound movies. (emphasis mine)

This got me thinking: what technologies are youth in our catechetical programs accustomed to today? And what technologies or methods are we using that may turn them off as quaint and antiquated?

This video may be one clue:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXV-yaFmQNk

I have been told that most of you come from Catholic high schools. For this reason I would like to say something about Catholic education, to tell you why the Church considers it so important and expends so much energy in order to provide you and millions of other young people with a Catholic education. The answer can be summarized in one word, in one person, Jesus Christ. The Church wants to communicate Christ to you.

This is what education is all about, this is the meaning of life: to know Christ. To know Christ as a friend: as someone who cares about you and the person next to you, and all the people here and everywhere—no matter what language they speak, or what clothes they wear, or what color their skin is.

And so the purpose of Catholic education is to communicate Christ to you, so that your attitude toward others will be that of Christ. You are approaching that stage in your life when you must take personal responsibility for your own destiny. Soon you will be making major decisions which will affect the whole course of your life. If these decisions reflect Christ’s attitude, then your education will be a success. We have to learn to meet challenges and even crises in the light of Christ’s Cross and Resurrection. Part of our Catholic education is to learn to see the needs of others, to have the courage to practice what we believe in. With the support of a Catholic education we try to meet every circumstance of life with the attitude of Christ. Yes, the Church wants to communicate Christ to you so that you will come to full maturity in him who is the perfect human being, and, at the same time, the Son of God.

- Pope John Paul II, Address to High School Students at Madison Square Gardens (October , 1979)

For all my love of technology, I’m still a stick-in-the-mud when it comes to e-books. I’m simply not convinced that the convenience of being able to carry around a library in your backpack offsets what I see as some very real and core problems with the technology.

As I’ve refined my thoughts on the subject I continue to have two problems with e-books: one philosophical, one technological.

My philosophical problem stems from the fact that, as highly editable constructs, e-books enable the kind of post-publication tinkering that now plagues movie-making. Imagine if J.R.R. Tolkien or Aldous Huxley had been able to go back and “re-edit” their greatest works (ala George Lucas and the Star Wars special editions) and instantly propagate those changes to every copy in the world. Or imagine if others could make those changes on behalf of authors long dead, ala the colorization of black and white films that was popular not so long ago. That’s the type of skulduggery that electronic publishing makes possible.

Even more ominously, imagine if a special interest group or government action convinced a publisher to make edits to a text. It’s not too hard to imagine edits made to such traditionally controversial texts such as Huckleberry Finn or Catcher in the Rye. If all that is available are electronic texts, who will preserve the original words of the authors? Who will be able to oppose such censorship when it is built into the underlying technology itself?

(And if you think it isn’t possible, remember that Amazon was able to pull copies of 1984 from Kindles not so long ago; it’s a short step to selectively editing copies on the same devices.)

On the technological end, the science fiction nut in me just keeps picturing a post-apocalyptic world in which access to technology is limited and only those people in possession of real physical books will have access to the world’s knowledge. Good examples of what I’m talking about are A Canticle for Leibowitz, the underrated The Book of Eli, or the classic Twilight Zone episode “Time Enough at Last”:

In a modern retelling, we can well imagine Burgess Meredith dropping his iPad and unable to access all the books he ever wanted to read.

Of course, part of me is playing the curmudgeon. Point in fact, I think e-books are well suited for students, for whom lugging around backpacks filled with heavy textbooks poses real logistical and, potentially, health problems. And I think e-books may be an ideal solution for smaller niche publications which are not economically feasible under a print economy. But even then I think a print-on-demand solution should be offered, so that a physical, non-editable copy can be kept for posterity. Print is not dead, no matter how much our technological overlords may wish it to be so, and physical books still represent a lasting way to preserve what we hope to pass on to future generations.

This Year of Faith has been called to commemorate both the 50th anniversary of the start of the Second Vatican Council and the 20th anniversary of the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

The round-table was hosted as an open invitation Google+Hangout. I was very happy to be joined by

• Joyce Donahue, catechetical associate with the Diocese of Joliet
• Lisa Hendey, blogger and host of CatholicMom.com
• Russell Peterson, associate director of religious education with the Diocese of Belleville
• Wendy Scherbart, director of catechetical ministry at the Diocese of San jose
• Matt Smith, Faith Formation Director at Sacred Heart Catholic Church (Princeton, West Virginia)

We discussed both the pope’s apostolic letter, Porta Fidei, which announced the Year of Faith; and theCongregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s Note with pastoral recommendations for the Year of Faith.

You can listen to the whole episode at the Catechetical Leader website.

We cannot accept that salt should become tasteless or the light be kept hidden (cf. Mt 5:13-16). The people of today can still experience the need to go to the well, like the Samaritan woman, in order to hear Jesus, who invites us to believe in him and to draw upon the source of living water welling up within him (cf. Jn 4:14). We must rediscover a taste for feeding ourselves on the word of God, faithfully handed down by the Church, and on the bread of life, offered as sustenance for his disciples (cf. Jn 6:51). Indeed, the teaching of Jesus still resounds in our day with the same power: ‘Do not labour for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life’ (Jn 6:27). The question posed by his listeners is the same that we ask today: ‘What must we do, to be doing the works of God?’ (Jn 6:28). We know Jesus’ reply: ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent’ (Jn 6:29). Belief in Jesus Christ, then, is the way to arrive definitively at salvation.

- Pope Benedict XVI, Porta Fidei

This is the fourth post in a series on the theological connections between the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults and catechesis in the Catholic Church. Previous posts gave an overview of the series, explored the characteristics of the RCIA, and addressed the precatechumenate.

Theological Underpinnings

The second period of the RCIA is the catechumenate. This is the period most familiar to the average Catholic, due to the dismissal of catechumens that occurs after the Liturgy of the Word during Mass. Like the precatechumenate, there is no definite time frame for this period. While bishops can establish the duration of the catechumenate, it “should be long enough — several years if necessary — for the conversaion and faith of the catechumens to become strong.” (n. 77)

The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults states that the catechumenate “is an extended period during which the candidates are given suitable pastoral formation and guidance, aimed at training them in the Christian life.” (n. 75) This formation has four components:

1. Catechumens should receive ”a suitable catechesis… planned to be gradual and complete… accomodated to the liturgical year, and solidly supported by celebrations of the word.”
2. “[T]he catechumens learn to turn more readily to God in prayer, to bear witness to the faith… to follow supernatural inspiration in their deeds, and to practice love of neighbor.”
3. The Church provides “suitable liturgical rites” to “help the catechumens on their journey.”
4. “[C]atechumens should also learn how to work actively with others to spread the Gospel and build up the Church.”

Practical Applications

This period has the most direct implications for the Church’s catechetical ministry and there is a lot to unpack from these few paragraphs.

First, it is important to note that catechesis is not a “quick fix”; it takes time to be formed in the faith. There maybe circumstances in which children or adults need to be “brought up to speed” (for instance, when a child is brought forth for First Communion without adequate catechetical preparation), but it should be understood that, once the need for expediency is passed, that the individual will enter a process of formation that will complete what is lacking. There are no shortcuts to the faith that leads to conversion.

Second, while it make be tempting to focus solely on doctrine, the teachings of the faith are only a quarter of the content of catechesis. Equally important are formation in prayer, liturgy, and the apostolic work of the Church. (This idea is not limited to the RCIA; consider the four pillars of the Catechism.) Ideally these four should not be mutually exclusive but should be approached in such as a way as to highlight the integral nature of the faith, for they cannot be understood independently of each other.

Finally, this period reminds us that catechesis is not an end unto itself; it is an ongoing process of preparation for our ultimate destiny, communion with God. While memorizing the Church’s doctrine or mastering the Catechism is laudable, if it doesn’t lead us to faith the words are nothing more than “a loud gong or a clashing cymbal.” (1 Cor 13:1)

Original photo by PiLoTiTo/flickrCC

All Catholic bloggers are invited to write on a common theme on the same day. By speaking with many voices on a common aspect of the faith, we can help evangelize the digital continent and demonstrate the powerful presence of Catholics online.

The theme for February 22 is: penance. Possible points of departure for writing your blog post include the three traditional methods of penance (prayer, fasting, and almsgiving); a memorable experience in the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation; or how accepting the call to repentance has made a difference in your life.

My hope is that Catholic Blog Day will occur two or three times each year; much will depend on the feedback I get from other bloggers, so if you have a comment please leave one here!

You can get more information and sign up for updates at www.CatholicBlogDay.org.

The ancient muses, it was thought, helped create works of art and literature. But the God in whom I believe is about creating certain kinds of people, shaping them into men and women who believe, hope, and love. While I do think God cares about the works we create, I believe that God is more interested in the process and its effect upon us. God is in the dying – the struggle and the wounds and the agony, just as much as he is in the rising – the gleaming product at the end. Out of the chaos of the writing life, God is forming us to be people who are humbled, disciplined, persevering, surprised, grateful. And if, through the writing process, we allow ourselves to be shaped into new kinds of people, then perhaps writers will come to be known for more than just being crazy.

- Adam McHugh, author of Introverts in the Church

Susan Cain’s Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking (which I reviewed on Monday) got me thinking about how we accommodate introverts in our catechetical programs. Many school activities and pedagogical methods, such as group work or presentations, are designed for extroverts. This is also true for many catechetical and faith formation programs. (Think of the typical small faith community or Bible study, which expects conversation, interaction, and the sharing of one’s personal faith.) With so many youth religious education programs working off a school model, we need to be careful that we allow room for introverts (who make up roughly 30% of the population) to explore and learn through their own particular gifts as well.

Cain includes a whole chapter in her book for parents and educators on cultivating the particular gifts of introverted children; many of her suggestions are easily applicable to catechesis of children or adults.

• Don’t force introverts to act like extroverts. Just because the “shy” child in your class keeps his head in the book and rarely answers questions aloud doesn’t mean he isn’t learning or absorbing the material. Allow introverted students to interact and talk at their own comfort level; forcing them may only increase their anxiety. If you do group work, try to keep the groups small (pairs or threes is good).
• Try to seat introverts in low-distraction areas. This may mean keeping them away from the talkative kids or the class clown, who will only serve to distract introverts.
• Be sensitive when taking students into unfamiliar situations. Be attentive to your students’ comfort levels when taking them on field trips or mission activities; some may feel awkward or nervous in new or overstimulating situations. As Cain writes, “The key is to expose [him] gradually to new situations and people — taking care to respect his limits, even when they seem extreme. This produces more-confident kids than either overprotection or pushing too hard. Let him know that his feelings are normal and natural, but, also that there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
• Use introverts’ interests to make a connection. Many introverts are passionate about a few things. It may be music or science fiction or dancing, but it’s their thing. Praise them for these interests and try to use them in your curriculum to help your students make connections with the material. For instance, if you have an introvert who plays an instrument, have them play a hymn connected to Sunday’s readings.
• Allow space for introverts to explore spirituality from their perspective. In the book Cain talks about going to a weekend designed for introverts — no expectation of chit-chat at dinner, lots of time for reflection and journaling, and minimal personal sharing with others. How many parishes do you know that offer a silent retreat or personal retreat experience? I’ll bet not many! Yet introverts may not be comfortable in the group participation/small group model that many retreats work from. Similarly, introverted teens may not be comfortable in a LifeTeen or similar setting. Don’t assume that everyone belongs in a “one size fits all” ministry; remember the particular needs of introverts when planning retreats and other formation experiences.

Have you ever had to respond to an introvert’s needs in your catechetical program? How did you handle it?