About Whole Community Catechesis (a.k.a. "Generations of Faith)
Whole community catechesis is an approach to parish religious education through which adults, youth and children alike are invited to participate in faith formation programs throughout the year as an intergenerational community. The entire community thus becomes the focus of all we do in catechesis. It is only one of many strategies that can enliven ones commitment to a vision of lifelong faith formation.
In whole community catechesis, what happens in the Sunday Assembly for Mass is tightly connected to what happens in the religious education session. The Liturgy of the Word from Sunday is either the starting point for the community’s learning, or the center-piece.
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.
What is “Generations of Faith”?
Generations of Faith is a specific methodology for whole community catechesis and intergenerational learning. Developed under the direction of the Center for Ministry Development, Naugatuck, CT, through a Lilly Grant, Generations of Faith has been implemented in the Diocese of Buffalo since 2004. Under this grant, The Center has been able to create, implement, and study this innovative model for catechesis, thus providing an on-going, and ever-growing body of knowledge to assist practitioners in its implementation. This learning strategy continues to be studied in order to create the best possible learning environments in our parishes. Over 30 parishes have participated in the training and use varying models for implementation. Visit www.generationsoffaith.org to learn more. For a listing of parishes iin the Diocese of Buffalo using the principles of Generations of Faith, click here.
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 General Directory for Catechesis (1997) 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 GDC itself has been nothing other than revolutionary. And fourth, there is simply an emerging consensus in the catechetical community that we must adjust the way we approach religious education due to significant cultural and religious changes in society. Our current “school house” framework is just not enough to support the on-going formation of Catholics of every age.
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. Plainly stated, whole community catechesis/intergenerational methodology must be comprehensive and systematic.
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.
What to learn more?
Visit:
www.usccb.org to access the following relevant Church documents:
· General Directory for Catechesis (1997)
· National Directory for Catechesis (2005)
