Don't worry, you can't catch catechesis

By Jeff Graham

Some people are about as eager to receive catechesis as they are to get psoriasis, says Bill Huebsch, a pastoral planner with a masters degree in theological studies from the Catholic Theological Union of Chicago.

Jeff Graham / The B.C. Catholic Bill Huebsch told congress participants that becoming more Christ-centred is key to renewal in the Church.

"For many Catholics, catechesis is a new word, and some people think it sounds like a disease of the skin," he joked, pointing out that there is lots of work to be done in educating people on lifelong faith formation and catechesis. Huebsch's sessions at the archdiocesan Office of Religious Education's Congress, held Saturday Oct. 27 at St. Mary's Church in Vancouver, addressed church participation, pastoral planning, catechesis, and lifelong faith formation, and in his sessions the Minnesota resident went into detail about how Vancouverites can get on board with the Archdiocesan Synod by taking catechesis and faith formation more seriously.

"Almost all of the top 20 recommendations of your synod point toward lifelong faith formation," he said, explaining that catechesis and faith formation need to be taken out into the world.

"When we talk about catechesis and lifelong faith formation we are talking about all dimensions of the parish. When volunteers go to visit the sick in the hospital and bring them Communion, what they are doing is helping that sick person make sense of their illness and understand the mystery of sickness. It helps people peer into life and find elements of faith, and that is catechesis."

The title of Huebsch's talk was Dreams and Visions: Lifelong Faith Formation in Your Parish, and the overarching theme was the importance of catechesis and its role in transforming parishes into active Christian communities. He said these communities and their members need to have Christ as their foundation.

"Those in the parish who have had an encounter with Christ tend to be the most active people," he said. "We need to help people have an encounter with Christ. Pope John Paul II had the same message across the board: he told the youth to come to Christ, education faculties to come to Christ, and his message at the new millennium was to open the doors to Christ."

Huebsch is an expert on Vatican Council II, having spent countless hours reviewing transcripts from

Huebsch's dreams and visions shared at Congress

the council and having written a dozen authoritative books on the topic. He explained that the council put a strong emphasis on Catholics being Christ-centred, and living lives of ongoing conversion with a strong emphasis on receiving Catechesis while Catechizing others.

"What makes us Christian is a deep encounter with Christ, and out of that flows Catholicism. Since the council, our top goal as a Church is to have a relationship with Christ, and to have a deeper communion with Christ. In the last 50 years, this has been the huge goal of the Catholic Church."

While a relationship with Christ is the foundation upon which Christian communities are built, Huebsch emphasized that it is our duty to act on that love and try to build up the Church by giving others the opportunity to encounter Christ by setting up opportunities for the Holy Spirit to act.

He explained that from that initial encounter, believers in Christ must deepen that relationship with prayer and by faithfully partaking in the sacraments, until they are catechized to the point they are actively evangelizing.

Huebsch also explained that catechesis needs to be an integral part of every Catholic home, and that Catholic schools and other religious education programs generally are not as effective as growing up in a faithful Catholic family.

"Most adults are Catholic because they grew up in a Catholic home, and so our goal is to reach the world through the home. The Church lives in apartments, the condos, and the double-wides, and so our actual goal is to reach these households and the world. How could we have a good parish if the households aren't holy?"

"A major problem with faith formation has been that we have assumed children have had strong formation in the home, but what generally has happened is that parents have assumed that because they have sent their children to religious education, or sent them to Catholic school, that they have been taught all they need to know.

"They think they have done their duty by just paying tuition, but when Gallup studied us, they learned that the actual teacher is the parent. Gallup also found that most active adult Catholics are practising because they grew up in a strong Catholic home, so now we are really shifting from having a focus on children to a focus on adults with children included.

"We are not going away from educating our children, but focusing on catechizing our adults, who in turn, will pass that on to their children in the home."

Msgr. Gregory Smith, who also spoke at Congress, also addressed a critical element of the Archdiocesan Synod by talking about prayer. The pastor of Christ the Redeemer Parish, stressed the importance of praying for others.

"Prayer for others is a must," he said. "St. Paul prayed non stop for his co-workers and his apostles, but of course he only followed the example that Jesus set for His disciples."

"We need prayer," he said. "We are called to be transformed, and how can this happen if not in prayer? St. Paul tells us that the veil that hides God from our sight is removed when we pray, and so with unveiled faces we see God like a reflection in the mirror, and we are become transformed into God's image."

"We need prayer to be healed, and we need it to give us the inner peace we are longing for, consciously or unconsciously."

Congress gave virtually everyone who attended a new way to grow in their faith and get on board with the Archdiocesan Synod, whether it was by learning about being transformed through prayer or being transformed through faith formation.