I love the scene in the movie “Second Hand Lions”, when the three main characters go out to their garden and inspect the growth of their newly planted produce. As they looked more closely they realized that despite the description on the packages for various types of vegetables, they only planted corn. They realized that they had been deceived!
Every parish must examine the fruit of their efforts and see whether they are producing what they had worked for.
Like the wonderful characters in the movie, many parish staff are shaking their heads in disbelief. They cannot figure out why their parishioners are not responding to their requests for help and participate more in the life of the parish. Staff members are working very hard to produce great programs that few are attending. Many parishioners seem uninterested in going any further than what they have already done. Why?
For years we have been making the Sacraments the focus of our catechesis.
The simple answer is because this is what we (Parish Staff) have sown in their lives. Instead of attaining and growing in intimate knowledge of Jesus, our catechesis has taught them how to “look” Catholic, not be Catholic! Our adult education classes should be filled with hungry Catholic Disciples who want to learn more about Jesus because they have encountered him.
When you step back and look at your proverbial garden, you will see that sole purpose of catechesis is to attain the Sacraments. Is that not why many of your parents and their teens see Confirmation as the end rather than the beginning?
We have been catechizing with a great false assumption:
Everyone who is baptized has encountered Jesus!
The truth is that we have done little to no evangelization in our religious education programs. Catechesis has effectively replaced evangelization although the General Directory of Catechesis (GDC) clearly says that catechesis must be at the service of evangelization.
The local church is going to go into the New Evangelization kicking and screaming because they do not want to change.
Many parishes and dioceses will simply try to add an evangelization initiative to their other programs, hoping that this will solve their problems. Until we transform our parishes such that evangelization undergirds all other programs, we will struggle to gain traction in the New Evangelization.
If you want to keep producing the same fruits, do not change anything.
The kind of change that I am suggesting is to re-tool the entire parish. Every ministry must be focused on leading their people into an intimate relationship with Jesus (Evangelization) and equipping them to make new disciples (Discipleship Training).
Deacon Ralph,
Amen to that, Brother!
I spent 30 years of my life as an Evangelical before I entered the Catholic Church. In my experience before RCIA I was focused on my relationship with Jesus, and sharing the Gospel with others. If we had all the sacraments in our evangelical churches I suspect we would have treated them as enhancements to our relationship with Jesus,
A Franciscan priest told me several times in several different ways until a person has an encounter with Jesus Christ and deals with his or her relationship with him, making it personal, all the catechesis in the world is not going to change a thing.
I find one of the greatest aspects of our faith is conversion, conversion in the sense of we are new creatures in Christ, “old things are passed away, all things become new.” We should see radical change in a person once they encounter Christ.
A committee for Evangelization could be the core . Outreach from there to all ministries. Love is the center of all efforts in evangelization. You must be a
disciple in order to influence others to be disciples of Jesus. The catechesis
program needs revising. I recommend Matthew Kelly’s “DECISION POINT” as an
addition to the Confirmation Program. Dynamic Catholic offers it free of charge.
It’s about choices and our Mission as Catholics. It’s good for adults too. Prayer is
the center of change. If nothing changes – nothing will change.
Right on, Deacon Ralph! Many Catholics are sacramentalized, but they aren’t evangelized. If they only get the sacramental training they may deluded quite easily by the evil one that they got their ticket to heaven through participating in the sacraments and that’s all they have to do. One holy priest I know told parishioners that many of them sitting in the pews that day may be going to hell because they might know about God, but they didn’t know God! That’s pretty radical, but it should be a normal understanding for us Catholics. Keep up your good work.
Our parish uses Decision Point, but I think it still depends on the goals of the parish leadership whether or not emphasis is made on leading the youth to this life changing encounter with Jesus. The job of the catechists would be a lot easier if they did Evangelization until they kids had ratified their baptisms and surrendered to Jesus’ plan.