Franciscan at Home

Experience repeatedly shows us that those who live through a crisis without losing faith are often the best able to bear hope to those who are suffering. This is true whether the suffering one endures is of body or of spirit. Perhaps we all know someone who has survived cancer and becomes an extraordinary advocate and helper for those who receive that frightening diagnosis. The cancer survivor is deeply attuned to the emotions that come with that diagnosis, to the difficult path of surgery and chemotherapy, and to the immense joy that comes if at last remission is declared. All of the Twelve Step programs, a time-proven gift for those who struggle with addictions, are rooted in the compassionate understanding of those who have faced the same challenges. The one who has fought the constant battle to overcome addiction to alcohol, drugs, or other means of seeking to cope with painful realities can be a life-changing support to another who wakes up to the devastating effects of addiction.

En efecto, el cristiano no es un profeta de desventura... La esencia de su anuncio es lo opuesto, lo opuesto a la desventura: es Jesús, muerto por amor y que Dios resucitó la mañana de Pascua. Y este es el núcleo de la fe cristiana.

The Christian is not a prophet of misfortune. …The essence of the Christian proclamation is the opposite, the opposite of misfortune: it is Jesus who died for love and whom God raised on Easter morning. And this is the nucleus of Christian faith. If the Gospels had ended at Jesus’ burial, the story of this prophet would have been added to the many biographies of heroic figures who expended their lives for an ideal. The Gospel would then be an edifying book, and also a comforting one, but it would not be a proclamation of hope.

But the Gospels do not end on Good Friday. They go beyond it; and indeed, it is this additional fragment which transforms our lives. Jesus’ disciples felt dejected on the Saturday after the Crucifixion. The stone that was rolled against the door to the sepulchre had also sealed the three thrilling years they had lived with the Teacher of Nazareth.

“It would make no difference to my faith,” someone once assured me, “if they found the bones of Jesus.” He spoke only of his faith not being shaken and did not claim anything about the faith of others. About the same time, I received the results of a questionnaire on the resurrection presented to several hundred college students. Almost 90% agreed that they could not believe in the risen Jesus unless his tomb was found empty. They accepted the underlying argument of the graffito one sees on walls in the springtime: “There will be no Easter this year. They have found the body.”

What is the historical evidence that underpins accepting the empty tomb? And how does the empty tomb center Christian faith in Jesus risen from the dead?

Evidence of the Resurrection
The New Testament offers at least three strands of evidence that support the historicity of the empty tomb story: the testimony of Mark 16 (followed by Matthew 28 and Luke 24) that three women discovered Jesus’ tomb to be open and empty on the first Easter Sunday; the probably independent witness of John 20 that Mary Magdalene made that discovery (immediately confirmed by Peter and “the beloved disciple”); and the implications of Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 15.

In this final installment, we reflect on the most essential characteristic of an effective catechist for the new evangelization: allowing Christ to transform us through holiness of life. Among all of the words spoken during the pontificate of Blessed Paul VI, there is one phrase most often repeated today that came to prominence in one of his last letters, Evangelli Nuntiandi. It was his observation that “modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses” (41).

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When I was a full-time parish youth minister many years ago, Brian, who had been recently initiated into the Church, invited his younger sister Erin to our parish youth program. She was unbaptized and knew a little about Jesus through her family, who did not actively attend a church. Brian began by bringing her to our social events, where she was welcomed and began to meet “nice” teens, as well as fun, safe, and holiness-striving adults. As these relationships began to grow, Erin soon attended our youth group meetings and eventually our retreats. It was during these retreats that the love of Christ and his call became clear to her. Of her own free will, Erin decided to attend our weeknight prayer group. Little did she realize that this meeting was really a full, complete, and systematic unveiling of the teachings of the Church done in an attractive youth-ministry manner. We did not pressure her to attend; we simply invited her to our events and welcomed her when she participated. At all our gatherings, Erin heard us say that if any teen was ever interested in becoming Catholic, we would be happy to talk to him or her about it. For months, even though she was a regular participant at our social events, youth group meetings, retreats, and prayer group, Erin never said she wanted to become Catholic. Eventually, one day she came to us with the firm conviction to enter the Church. Since then, not only was she initiated into the sacramental life of the Church, she served the youth program as a young adult, did mission work, and is now a devoted young wife and mother. Watching Erin grow in faith was not only a joy, but was a living testimony of the Church’s wisdom as seen in the stages of conversion in the catechumen ate. If you are a coordinator of youth ministry, you are probably saying to yourself, “Oh no, this article is giving me another thing to do.” If that’s what you’re thinking, you are correct! However, what I want to discuss here is not another program to add to your workload but a process that will shape and define your ministry. In short, developing a teen initiation process has the potential of directing the entirety of our youth ministry to evangelization and conversion. To do so, we need to make initiation the heart of our programming for teenagers. In this article, I will first show how the parish youth program can be used as the foundation for a vibrant and solid teen initiation process, then demonstrate how the stages of the catechumenate can be the foundation for parish youth programming. I will also discuss how parishes without youth programs can serve teenagers who want to be initiated into the life of the Church. Second, I will highlight key components of an initiation process for adolescents, including important moments in the process and the issue of parent involvement.

In her book Forming Intentional Disciples, Sherry Weddell remarks that “Pew researchers found that attending CCD, youth groups and even Catholic high schools made little or no difference in whether or not an American Catholic teen ended up staying Catholic, becoming Protestant or leaving to become unaffiliated. The best predictor of adult attendance at religious service is strong adult faith.”[i] Without detracting from our efforts with children, the Catholic Church has always intended that adult faith formation receive priority in parish life. Pope St. John Paul II remarks in Catechesi Tradendae (43) that adult catechesis is “the principal form of catechesis, because it is addressed to persons who have the greatest responsibilities and the capacity to live the Christian message in its fully developed form.” Adult catechesis is centered on a lifelong deepening of faith in Christ, thus serving as the point of reference for catechesis in other age groups. Whether you are involved in religious education, youth ministry, or pastoral care at your parish, all parish staff are ministers of and to the adults of the parish. Strong catechesis of youth and young adults has its foundation in adult catechesis and we need to orient parish life to the centrality of adult faith formation.

Although the word "evangelization" has gained greater notoriety among Catholics in recent years, it still gets confused pejoratively with its ugly step-cousin “proselytization.” To proselytize is to apply undue pressure on someone to convert, using unethical means like bribery, threats, or deception. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith offered this comment: “More recently, however, the term has taken on a negative connotation, to mean the promotion of a religion by using means, and for motives, contrary to the spirit of the Gospel; that is, which do not safeguard the freedom and dignity of the human person.”[1]

A good example of this happened during the Irish famine, when Catholics were starving. English landlords would prepare a huge stewpot for all the poor of the estate or village. There was only one catch: in order to get the stew, the person had to renounce the Catholic faith. You can imagine how great a temptation that was, especially during those years of famine and starvation. Pope Benedict XVI said, “The Church does not engage in proselytism. Instead, she grows by ‘attraction.’”[2]

There are a number of legitimate means of evangelization that are sometimes confused with proselytism: going door-to-door, standing atop the proverbial "soap box," or handing out tracts. Not everyone is comfortable with this kind of evangelization because it involves initiating spiritual conversations with strangers, something most of us don’t excel at. However, some people are really good at it!

But the Catholic vision of evangelization involves much more.

Los católicos en los Estados Unidos hemos comenzado un proceso de cuatro años de reflexión, evangelización y consulta llamado el Quinto Encuentro Nacional de Pastoral Hispana/Latina (desde el 2017 hasta el 2020). Al centro de este proceso se halla un modelo catequético que parte de la convicción de que la evangelización y la catequesis son dinámicas íntimamente relacionadas.

El proceso del V Encuentro involucrará, directa e indirectamente, a varios millones de católicos en cerca de 5.000 parroquias en la mayoría de las diócesis católicas de los Estados Unidos. El proceso es una oportunidad perfecta para evaluar de qué manera el marco conceptual de la Nueva Evangelización, aplicado a la catequesis, puede conducir a una apreciación renovada de esta importante actividad eclesial en comunidades de fe católicas. Al mismo tiempo, el proceso es una ocasión para sacar a la catequesis de la “esquina programática” en donde parece residir en muchas comunidades de fe (ej. programas pre-sacramentales, “escuela dominical”) y reposicionarla para que tenga un papel más integrado en los esfuerzos evangelizadores de la Iglesia, una meta que muchos de los documentos eclesiales sobre la catequesis han formulado pero que no siempre logra.

En este ensayo parto de siguiente premisa: la manera como una comunidad entiende la evangelización influencia de manera significativa el cómo se concibe la catequesis al igual que los compromisos pedagógicos y curriculares asociados con ella.