Leonard's Enroute

Thoughts on Catechism

They say that insanity is doing the same thing twice and expecting different results. I’ve lose track of the number of times someone has pointed out the fact that out of the thousands youths who get confirmed each year, only an handful continue to serve and contribute actively to the church. Yet year after year we continue to see the same agonizing results

If the Holy Trinity is one of the greatest mysteries of the church, why our catechesis seem to bearing so little lasting fruit probably comes as a close second.

The emphasis I find in today’s catechism, (having also been through the system) is to present the reasonableness of the faith. Somehow, Catholicism has been reduced to a system of propositional truths.

In my opinion, it seems like orthodoxy is the chief end of catechism. So at the end of the whole system, you have an entire generation of young people who know the right things but don’t care a thing about them. If they did, we will see many more young people directing their time, energy and creativity into building the church. But the fact is – many don’t. Its merely a result of reaping what we sow. Don’t expect apples trees if you planted durian seeds.

I would know. I went through the same system myself. I stood on my confirmation day like proud graduates, waiting for it to finish so I could have my Saturdays back to do the things I cared for – like shopping, clubbing and hanging out with friends. So here I was, with the ability to recite the 7 sacraments, the ten commandments, the corporal works of mercy and the names of the 12 apostles and all I could think about was visiting the latest club in town. Did I know the faith? Sure. Did I care?

Nope.
I was a believer alright. The same way I believed that hydrogen exist because someone taught me that it exist and that’s part of how we get water and air. But whether it has any real implication on my life and how I lived it – nothing.

Simply put. I didn’t care. Most of our young people are bored with Catholicism.

Sometimes it is more important to change what people care about than what they believe. We have many young people who believe all the right things but don’t care a thing about it. But you can’t care for something without believing in it.


The question I think that needs to be asked at the core of catechisis is this:

“Is God a belief to be remembered or
a Person to be experienced?”

The answer given to this question I believe will profoundly impact the paradigm on which the entire catechsis of our young people is build upon.

One’s faith, one’s concern and expression of it is directly proportional to the position Jesus takes in one’s life. Let me state it every clearly: There is a difference between knowing about God and knowing God.

Much of my experience in going for catechism is like the experience of the poet E.T Elliot who one day walks past a bakery and sees a sign hanging outside that says “Fresh hot loafs for $1.00” He excitedly walks in hoping to be greeted with the aroma and warmth of freshly baked bread only to find the entire shop selling shelves and shelves of the exact copies of the sign outside that says “fresh hot loafs for $1.00’.

Sadly, my own experience of catechism and church resemble that bakery too much. We hang our signs outside of church saying that God can be found yet most of the time young people leave unfulfilled. Something is not altogether right or we are missing something.
Why are we so reluctant to grow young souls takes deep breaths of God’s goodness or to let people savor the person of Christ? Why do we hold God away at arms length when Jesus himself said, “suffer the children come to me?” Why are afraid to allow people to intimately experience Him?

While it is important that truths (orthodoxy) be communicated, we have to remember that the Holy Spirit who reveals himself as Fire is both light (Truth) and warmth (Affections). Truth without emotion produces dead orthodoxy and a church full of indifferent Christians. Emotion without truth produces empty frenzy and cultivates flaky people who reject the discipline of rigorous thought. True Religion comes from people who are deeply emotional about God and who love deep and sound doctrine. I feel this should be the aim of religious formation.

Truth is not an idea. It is a Person.
These are just my random thoughts, what do you think?

Leo


P.s : I would like to thank all my Catechism Teachers especially Joseph Tan and Jerry Kasiler (from OLPS) who more than taught me the faith, incarnated it for me. You planted the seeds and laid the conduits for the Holy Spirit to touch me in a very deep way some years later. Thank you for putting up the noisy and rebellious student I was. Thank you for not giving up.