Franciscan at Home

It is not a secret that knowledge of the faith continues to decline. It is tempting to insist simply upon teaching more doctrine, but this overlooks a more fundamental problem. What is catechesis really about? It is not simply knowledge of the faith but knowledge of the living God, a knowledge that includes and goes beyond simply the intellect, as it must include a complete transformation of life. We are not simply missing knowledge of the faith but the entire structure of life and culture that should undergird and support this knowledge.

The Cultural Foundation for Catechesis

Grace builds upon nature, according to the scholastic adage. By “nature,” we mean the natural foundation of human life—our ability to think, make free choices, and order our lives through good habits. Even more foundationally, nature refers the basic soil of human potential that God uses to draw forth his divine fruit. But how would we describe the “state of nature” today? It is not a stretch to say that the soil of human life has worn thin through the saturation of technology and a fundamental change in the way we understand and relate to one another, mediated by a screen with less interpersonal contact. Catechesis has to compensate for these challenges, seeking to build up a more robust community to provide a stronger cultural context to receive the faith.

Just as grace builds upon nature, so faith builds upon culture. In fact, Pope St. John Paul II declared faith to be “incomplete” without a culture to live it out faithfully.[i] Culture is a shared way of life, one that is necessary because Christians need to live out their faith in communion with others. As we know from our own experience, it can be quite difficult to live the Christian life when you are pushing against the cultural currents. Perhaps our religious education has fallen short because we have not attended closely enough to the cultural dynamics of faith. Right thinking, healthy living, rightly ordered work, and robust community all contribute to building up the soil needed to support the Christian life.

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The 1997 General Directory of Catechesis contained a statement about catechizing youth that I found to be both profound and prophetic:

It must be emphasized, however, that frequently contemporary evangelization of young people must adopt a missionary dimension rather than a strictly catechumenal dimension. Indeed, the situation often demands that the apostolate amongst young people be an animation of a missionary or humanitarian nature, as a necessary first step to bringing to maturity the dispositions favorable to the strictly catechetical moment.[1]

As a formator for people who minister to young people, I had often quoted the above to emphasize the missionary attitude that we must have in order to effectively pass the faith on to the young. I was eager to see if the new Directory for Catechesis would continue that focus.

The answer is yes, and then some. The advice given for ministering to youth over twenty years ago now applies to the entirety of catechetical ministry for people of all ages. “In this renewed awareness of her vocation, the Church is also re-envisioning catechesis as one of her works in a missionary going forth” (DC 50). This means we must proclaim Christ to a foreign culture by looking for the presence of Christ within that culture, echoing the advice from Ad Gentes, “let them gladly and reverently lay bare the seeds of the Word which lie hidden among their fellows.”[2]

Though young people live near adults physically, culturally they can be worlds apart. One of the great divides occurs through the use of technology. The Directory states, “Particular attention should be given to the condition of being digital natives that characterizes many children throughout the world” (DC 237). Social media is more than a new technology. It has become a new language that the Church must learn to speak if it is to successfully proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the young.

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For many young people, the “domestic church” is like Plato’s world of ideas: a great concept that doesn’t necessarily have a corresponding reality. Marriage and family life have an innate beauty that young people are naturally drawn to because of the heroic love, sacrifice, virtue, and holiness involved in them. But why does the ideal seem so hard to transfer into reality? How do we teach the domestic church to young people in a culture that seems antagonistic to marriage and family life?

Authenticity

Young people crave authenticity. When we teach the hard truths, the high ideals, the demanding precepts, it always helps when they are supplemented with real witness and testimony. Theology and philosophy don’t occur in a vacuum; they need to be tested by reality to verify the truth of their claims. Unfortunately, the experience of a lot of our young people is that the idea of the domestic church is a failed philosophy.

The problem, however, does not lie in the domestic church as a concept or idea, but rather in the human heart. Breakdown in marriages and families are not the result of “structural” or “institutional” conditions, they are the result of the human condition; we are fallen beings and it is alright to acknowledge that. When assessing the credibility or idealism of the domestic church, we have to acknowledge the whole reality; the domestic church doesn’t exist purely as an idea, but is lived out by human beings who are fallen. The splendor and grace of marriage is in a tussle with the fallen nature and vices of man.

Part of being “real” with young people is telling them the whole story—the good, the bad and the ugly. In particular, we need to inform how the bad (sin) can corrupt the good with devastating consequences.

Domestic Church Founded on a Sacrament

All sacraments are salvific encounters with Jesus Christ. They are where we experience the kerygma in a tangible way: “In Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, who died and rose from the dead, salvation is offered to all, as a gift of God’s grace and mercy.”[1] Or as Pope Francis puts it: “Jesus Christ loves you; he gave his life to save you; and now he is living at your side every day to enlighten, strengthen and free you.”[2]

This is the good news of the domestic church: it is founded on the Sacrament of Marriage and, therefore, is permeated with the grace of Christ, who is devoted to redeeming the love of the spouses, healing its wounds, and coming to its aid when it is subject to falling.[3] As Gaudium et spes affirms, “authentic conjugal love is caught up into divine love and is directed and enriched by the redemptive power of Christ and the salvific action of the Church.”[4] Jesus does not leave us orphans; he is irrevocably invested in aiding our marriages and families.

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Do you want to know the most common questions a youth minister gets asked? “How many kids came to youth group last night?” or “How many kids signed up for the retreat?” Throughout my 10+ years of working as a parish youth minister, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked these questions as a way to evaluate the success of the parish youth program. Now, typically a youth minister responds to the most popular question with the most popular answer, which is “Youth ministry isn’t about numbers; if we change one heart it’s worth it.”

Unfortunately, “nickels and noses” (money and numbers), as Gil Rendle puts it in his book Doing the Math of Mission, are two of the quickest and simplest ways to evaluate ministry. Rendle, however, makes the distinction between counting and measuring, saying that counting is “more about resources and activities than about outcomes,” whereas measuring is about “change… it is more about call, purpose, and possibility.”[1] Whether clearly articulated or not, I don’t think anyone would argue that “change” is what ministry is all about. Conversion, growth, holiness: these are about change, not numbers. Isn’t this what we want to see happening in the lives of our teens?

As our culture degenerates into a post-Christian, secular humanist society, youth ministry becomes more difficult. Some studies show that Gen Z is the “least religious” generation in our country today. Youth ministers have to work harder and be more creative than ever before to connect to students. Students are busier than ever. No longer are Wednesday nights and Sundays reserved for “families and faith”; school and club teams schedule events during these previously hallowed times. Because students are more connected through social media and the internet, why go to youth group when they can watch a well-edited YouTube video or do a simple Google search to find their answers about God?

The Treasure We Give

With the smell of Domino’s pepperoni pizza in the air and the sound of girly giggles that had not quite settled down, a group of 50 or so high school students crowded in small groups on the carpet floor of the parish center on a Sunday night, ready for another catechetical lesson in the St. Gertrude youth ministry program. As a Freshman in high school, I would carpool with friends 40 minutes across town just to be a part of this group. It wasn’t my home parish, but the faith was alive and well at St. Gertrude, and a friend invited me to come and see.

On this particular night, after tummies were filled and icebreakers were done, we sat down for the weekly teaching from our youth minister and the conversation made its way to the topic of sin. The floor was opened for questions, and I raised my hand: “I don’t understand how the original sin of Adam and Eve could be passed down to all of us. It wasn’t our sin.” The youth minister gave an explanation that I’m sure was catechetically sound and thorough, but it didn’t stick. One, then another adult leader chimed in, hoping to explain in a way that would resonate. I felt bad. I knew I was asking a difficult question, and I really didn’t want to embarrass these nice people who welcomed me every week with pizza and side hugs and gave their Sunday nights to help me grow closer to God. Worse, I didn’t want to seem uncool in front of my youth group friends and draw attention to myself. I was starting to say it wasn’t a big deal and I didn’t need any more examples, when someone else spoke up.

It was Fr. Stephen, a Dominican friar who was assigned to the youth group as our chaplain. He had a quiet, kind demeanor; so when he spoke, I listened. He told me that God created humanity perfectly, like a priceless painting. Through sin, that painting was damaged. Parts of it were marred and torn, even missing. That same human nature was passed on to each of us, and while we did not commit the original sin of Adam and Eve, we are the heirs of that broken humanity. He finished explaining that it is Christ who redeems and restores us, once and for all through his death and resurrection, and in our daily living through the sacraments and grace.

It clicked. I understood.

“Parenting was so much easier when I raised my non-existent children hypothetically”.

A friend shared this meme with me a few months ago, and it resonated. Before I became a mom, I had lofty ideas about how much screen time and fresh fruit children should consume. My parent-self, on the other hand, decided screen time doesn’t count if it’s Veggie Tales or Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood; and if this pouch of applesauce says it’s 100% real fruit, then who am I to judge?

Nowhere, however, was my hypothetical parenting more exercised than during my interactions with the parents of my students in sacramental preparation and youth ministry. My twenty-something single-self couldn’t understand why parents didn’t seem to read my clever emails, attend all my parent meetings, and (most importantly) get their children to Mass on Sunday or the Saturday vigil. My thirty-something newly-married-self had animated conversations with my husband after a night of youth ministry about how our kids would be different.

Then we became parents, and every prayer for humility I had ever uttered was answered. Perhaps it was a more unusual adjustment than most, since we became parents through fostering children whose exposure to faith in general, and Catholicism in particular, was limited or even erroneous. However, the more I listen to other parents, the more I learn that, with the task of raising tiny humans (whether they are biological children, step children, grandchildren, adopted children, or foster children), there is a constant sense of inadequacy that creeps into everything we do: the food we serve, the educational methods we select, and the extracurriculars we elect.

However, as a professional lay minister—whose resume includes years of work as a youth minister and as a catechist at a mission in Central America and at parishes in both South Carolina and Florida—I was unprepared for the thoughts that buffeted me when I went from being a catechist “on staff” to being the primary catechist of the children in my home. Over the years, I’ve come to recognize these thoughts for what they are: lies. Sometimes the truth of how God sees us and how the Holy Spirit is moving can be hardest to discern in our own life and in the lives of those closest to us.

Here are some of the negative thoughts that bombard me, especially at frustrating moments when attempting to share the faith within my own home. Perhaps you can relate.