Faith Formation

Although many of us still think about Christian Formation in terms of religious instruction and some still call it "CCD" we are stuck in a school framework. Faith formation is a lifelong process and takes place within the context of a community.

What we do on Sunday mornings or whenever we gather is far more inclusive than meeting in school classrooms, following an academic year calendar, using textbooks and having teachers. Our framework is that of becoming lifelong disciples and learners rather than "graduating" after a sacrament or even eighth grade. The program, while it is one component, is not the most important part of our formation.

Some of Characteristics of Whole Community Catechesis:

Sunday Mass is the most important gathering of the Christian community.
The total parish is involved in learning and sharing about the faith. Every age in the parish is involved, not just children and youth.
Christian home-making is very important. It is where faith happens on a continuing basis. Families are the domestic church.

Christian Formation is not an optional parish program with a beginning and an end. Continual faith formation is part of being Christian. We are called to Disciples in Mission and Disciples in Prayer.

Christian Formation happens in many ways:

Most especially during Liturgy
During the homily at Mass
In preparing for sacraments
During more structured sessions
In everyday household life
Faith sharing in small groups
Bible Study and Reflection
While doing service for others, whether as an individual or group, a parish setting or in the family
In discussions with others

Whole community catechesis/Christian Formation cannot be evaluated or measured by the usual standards. It is an ongoing process that consists of conversion rather than achievement. Its aim is stated in the General Directory for Catechesis #80: "…the definitive aim of catechesis is to put people …in communion and intimacy with Jesus Christ."

About Whole Community Catechesis

Whole community catechesis is an approach to parish or school religious education through which youth and adults as well as children are invited to participate in faith formation programs throughout the year. The entire community thus becomes the focus of all we do in catechesis.

In whole community catechesis, what happens in the Sunday Assembly for Mass is tightly connected to what happens in the religious education classroom. The liturgy of the Word from Sunday is the starting point. Catechesis or religious instruction must flow from that Word and each student is invited to “break open the Word,” to share their faith about what they believe.

Also in whole community catechesis, parents play a vital role alongside all the other members of the community. Catechesis is not just for children! It’s for everyone. Every Catholic is invited to know and love the church, to walk with Christ in his or her daily life, and to gather faithfully together on Sunday for the parish Mass.

Added to that, whole community catechesis places great emphasis on developing households of faith. It’s certainly true for a child, but it’s also true for everyone, that no matter how effective our experience of faith might be at the parish, what really counts is how we live that in our every day lives at home! If our homes are not places where the faith is shared and lived, then the work of catechesis is like sowing seed on rocky ground.

Questions about Whole Community Catechesis

Where did the idea for “whole community catechesis” come from?

The whole movement toward an approach to catechesis which involves the entire parish community comes from four main sources. First, catechetical leaders have given careful consideration to the way Jesus taught, as the GDC suggests we should. Second, we have all done serious reflections on the teachings of Vatican II for more than forty years. Third, the direction provided by the General Directory for Catechesis itself has been nothing other than revolutionary. And fourth, there is simply an emerging consensus in the catechetical community that the present way we do our work, in what’s known as the “school house” framework, just isn’t working as well as we’d like it to.

Where did the name itself come from?

The name, whole community catechesis, comes directly from article #254 of the GDC where it says that The Christian community is the origin, locus, and goal of catechesis. Proclamation of the Gospel always begins with the Christian community and invites [people] to conversion and the following of Christ. It is the same whole community that welcomes those who wish to know the Lord better and permeate themselves with a new life. The whole Christian community accompanies catechumens and those being catechized, and with maternal solicitude makes them participate in her own experience of the faith and incorporates them into herself.

What’s wrong with how we do catechesis now?

It isn’t so much that there’s something “wrong” with what we do now as that our experience tells us we can do so much better! In most parishes, we deal mainly with the children. The church asks us to make adult catechesis the norm. How do we do that under our present framework? And it makes sense to all of us that we get the adults of the church involved. Catechesis, as Pope John Paul II has pointed out, is for everyone in the church, not just for kids!

So we know we need to do better and the GDC directs us here, toward the whole community. It just makes good sense.

But don’t we need to instruct the children in the faith?

Yes indeed, there is a need for outright religious instructions in order for Christian children to grow up and mature in their faith. Understanding the Sacred Scriptures, the church’s liturgies, its history, devotions, and doctrines is essential. This is true for Christians of all age groups. Our present school house framework does provide a structure within which this outright religious education happens very well. The textbooks are complete and beautiful. The students do seem to come away with a pretty good working knowledge of the church.

But… what’s missing?

Well, first of all, for us Catholics, nothing can happen in the Church that doesn’t have it’s origin in the Sunday Mass. For us, the liturgy is the “source and summit” of our faith. It’s what makes us truly Catholic. So we must say that a real connection to the Sunday liturgy is missing in most parishes. How do we add that? whole community catechesis makes several suggestions:

faith sharing based on the Sunday readings
some form of liturgical catechesis to help us understand the rites
using a spiral scope and sequence in our textbook series

What is a “spiral scope and sequence?”

Well, first of all, a scope and sequence is the organized framework, the system under which we present the teachings of the faith to a learner. This framework follows a certain sequence of ideas, one after the other. And it stays within a certain scope of topics and themes. By giving it this order, a learner has a better chance of getting it all right!

A spiral scope and sequence is one in which the learner returns to each topic each year, in spiral fashion: always in evermore age appropriate language and teaching methods. By using a spiral, all the students in a single parish or school - or both! - can be studying the same theme at the same time, making teacher prep, parent involvement, intergenerational groupings, and cross cultural teaching much more possible!

What else does whole community catechesis recommend?

Every single church document in the past forty five years that deals with Christian education and catechesis has insisted that parents and entire households be involved in catechesis, not just the children. Without the rest of the household, no matter how good the religious education might be, the child has little chance of developing deep faith roots and living by Catholic customs and morality.

In whole community catechesis, parishes plan for the involvement of the entire community, based on that spiral scope and sequence mentioned earlier. This doesn’t mean merely that parents are present when their children are formed in the faith. Much more radically, it means that households are being formed as Christian homes.

How do households get involved?

First, parishes invite every single household in the parish to take part in the faith-sharing mentioned above, based on the readings from the Sunday Assembly. It’s this faith sharing that gives rise to the possibility of deeper and ongoing conversion to Christ. And it’s the presence of Christ in the homes that is the first step. That will lead naturally to more prayer, to interpreting the events of the culture or world through Christian eyes, and to a desire for more catechesis.

Households might receive a kit of some kind, or suggestions about how to form a real home, sharing meals and supporting one another as a family.

Why all this emphasis on conversion?

For many Catholics growing up in the 1950s (and even for those who can’t remember the 1950s) “conversion” was what we thought every Protestant should do. We even called them “converts” when they joined the Catholic Church. But today we take a wider view and we see that each Catholic also needs to turn his or her heart to Christ over and over again throughout their lives. This turning is what we call “conversion.” The word comes from Latin, meaning literally, to turn.

And here’s the reason we emphasize it so much. The GDC teaches us that conversion, the turning of one’s heart to Christ, precedes catechesis. Adults, like their kids, might sit through instructional classes, but until they turn their hearts to Christ and share that with others, we haven’t really done our job of announcing the good news of Christ.

Resources for Faith Formation