Catechetical Sunday

Again this weekend, as usually happens about this time of year, the American bishops have asked that parishes all across the country devote the homily time to a few minutes of reflection on the second most important thing we do as a parish.

The first most important thing we do as a parish is easy enough to underline. It is the celebration of the sacraments. In fact, that is what makes us a parish. As long as we continue to come together around those seven signs, and sources, of the reality of God in our lives, whether we do so out of love, out of faith, out of need, or even just out of a sense of duty, as long as we continue to do so, this community of believers, the church in Kindred, will continue. Because that is what the church is, simply enough. A community of believers, who express that belief in a common worship. Our grasp of the value of the sacraments, and the place of importance we give them in our lives, is the measure, and the font, of everything else that we do as Catholics, as Christians. If each of them is rightly understood, and rightly practiced, then that sensitivity to one another's welfare, to the presence of God in our neighbor that is the heart of Christian morality begins to flow just a little more readily, if not always easily, through our lives. Morality begins to become no longer a series of demands, but rather a series of opportunities. If each of the sacraments is rightly understood, and rightly practiced, then that awareness of the immanent nearness of God that spurs us to prayer becomes cleaner, and our personal prayer begins to become not just something else we gotta do, but rather time spent in the company of a friend, a brother, a lover.

So, as I say, the heart of our life as a parish, and the clearest sign of our own Catholicism is a faithful, conscious celebration of the sacraments. The problem is, that that just doesn't come very naturally to us. The fact is that no one of us is ever born a believer. The place of importance in our lives that the sacraments should occupy must be built. Our own personal style of life, the quality of our movement through the world that flows out of those mysteries, that too must be built. The fact is that if God's people are to come to a truly sacramental faith, they must be called to it, they must be led to it by other believers. They must be given the understanding, the standards, the customs that will enable them to choose to believe. And so that is the second most important thing we do. We teach.

And that is worth repeating, WE teach. All of us, every single one of us. It is simply true that every person here, and every person not here as well, has today taught something to someone about faith, about the reality of it, the importance or unimportance of it, about what faith means, or doesn't mean in his or her life. Each one of us has today helped someone strengthen or weaken their faith, their grasp of the reality of God. And we shall do so again tomorrow. We may teach well, or we may teach poorly. But we will teach.

Now, we may very well be completely unaware just how and when all that happens. But it does. That was borne home to me again just a few weeks ago. I had spent a fair amount of time with a young man who professed at least to have no faith at all. As it happened, he had just been helped, in a very difficult time, by a friend. And his comment to me was something like, “If every Christian was like that woman, I might even began to believe it myself.”

And the point is, I know that that woman herself really had no idea just how much of a help she had been. There were no heroics involved, no drama, really nothing more than sample kindness, offered for God's sake. Maybe someday that young man will himself begin to believe. Maybe he won't. There is no blueprint for that. But there certainly is a blueprint for the invitation to faith, the teaching that believers give to one another, to their children, their families, their friends, to perfect strangers.

So before we can expect people to begin to live a sacramental faith, we must teach them how. And so we shall. Again this year, this parish will answer that call to teach, and do so in an impressively and well-prepared way. Again as before, the bulk of the formal, classroom sort of teaching will be the mission of the CCD program. I attended a meeting of the CCD staff a few evenings ago, and I assure you all, you are being well-served indeed by these people whom you will shortly commission in that service. It is a good program, staffed by good people. Saint Maurice's is very fortunate to have them. I certainly hope that each of you will over the next few days express your own gratitude to these people for the gift that they are giving to this parish.

But these teachers will accomplish in their classes only that kind of teaching that is appropriate to a classroom. Information, practice. We cannot teach faith in a classroom. We learn that in a parish, in a community, in a school, the home, on the street. The point is that not even a hundred years of CCD classes will ever make a Christian out of a child. The most that that can ever do is invite him to be one. And if there is a conflict between what is learned in the class, and what is experienced in the home, I promise you the home will win every time. And if that sounds harsh, it is only as harsh as the fact that the sky is blue and the grass is green. That's just the way it is. So if the CCD program is to work, there must be a constant flow of communication, cooperation between the teachers and the home. In lots of little, but effective ways. Just attendance first of all. Parents should see to it that their children are at the classes, at the place and time they are supposed to be.

And sometime during the week, how wonderful it would be, how powerful it would be, if the parents, both parents, not just the mother, were to sit down with the child and talk about the material that has been covered in class, build it in to the life of the family.

So a thousand and one opportunities to teach faith, every day. What sort of an effort is made in the family to build in to the course of the day a place of importance for prayer, family prayer, that others in the place can see and hear, and learn from? What about meal prayers, every meal, not just Sundays and Christmas. It is always a little bit shocking to me to see that in some families, meal prayer has virtually disappeared. A family morning prayer, or evening, just a brief one, before everybody scatters.

The way in which a family prepares for Mass is a powerful teaching opportunity, one which children will remember for the course of their lives. The observance of the fast for an hour before Mass. Some extra care taken in clothing and grooming, reasonably so, just enough to show those around you that what you propose to do is important, something more than just another routine activity. What about 15 or 20 minutes of quiet reflection at home before coming to Mass? Time to gather one's thoughts, to clarify the intention for which you plan to offer the Mass, to share those intentions with family members, and ask for their prayers. That is catechetics, those are powerful teaching opportunities. Really, almost anything that we do that lifts our experience of the sacraments, of faith, out of the ordinary, is a way of teaching that in fact it is something special, something important.

But in the final analysis, we teach not nearly so much by what we say, but rather by what we are. Our own personal spiritual life, our own life of grace is the best, in a sense really the only tool that we have in living out our vocation to teach others the path of grace. If we are compassionate, we teach compassion, if we are just, we teach justice. If we are reverent, we teach reverence. If we are a people of principle, who act on those principles, then we teach the importance of a strength of conscience, the courage of conviction. But if we are none of those, if we are the sort of people who are swayed, drawn in by every feeling, every fad, every pressure that comes along, then that is what we teach.

So. Again this year, in the skill and generosity of this CCD staff, as they call on and draw together the efforts, the dedication of students, of parents, of every member of the parish, we here will begin again to give clear voice to our response to the question directed at us by Christ in the Gospel reading this afternoon. "Who do you say I am?" We will tell one another what we believe, invite one another to share in that belief. And we will do so gladly, confidently, because He has first told us Who He is. We have been charged with the truth as God knows it to be. The truth about Himself, about ourselves, about the world. We must share that truth. We must teach it, and we must teach it well. We must lead those around us to a truly sacramental experience of their lives, a life lived in the light of God's Word. In our worships, in our classes, in our school, in our families, on the street... with books, with words, with example, we must always and all of us teach clearly and unmistakably who we say Christ is.

Readings: Isaiah 50:5-9, James 2:14-18, Mark 8:27-35. The homily was preached on September 15, 1985, the Twenty-forth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B.