Friday 17 October 2008

The Holy Trinity in Catechesis


The October-December 2008 issue of The Sower came through my letter box today. This is the magazine published by Maryvale Institute, in collaboration with Franciscan University, Steubenville.

One article is entitled "Loss and Retrieval of the Holy Trinity in Catechesis". It is an adaptation of an article that appeared in the September-October 2008 issue of FAITH Magazine, that can be found here.


The General Directory for Catechesis speaks of the necessary internal structure of catechesis as follows:
"every mode of presentation must always be Christocentric-trinitarian: Through Christ to the Father in the Holy Spirit" (cf Ephesians 2:18). If catechesis lacks these three elements or neglects their proper relationship, the Christian message can certainly lose its proper character".

The last parts of the article are an analysis of the reasons for a loss of the sense of the Trinity in our catechesis, and suggestions for correcting those reasons. A couple of the corrections suggested:


... a solution here is for every priest, parent and catechist to be attentive to the books and conference speakers in this regard: to check resources for the occurrence of the terms "Blessed Trinity", "God the Father", Jesus, Son of God" and to take seriously any indication of avoidance of such terms.

Responding to resources and programmes that explicitly decline to refer to God as Father or Son, on the grounds of promoting inclusiveness in language, the article suggests:


The answer, of course, is not to throw out the greatest mystery and revelation of all time, but the method that is designed explicitly to hinder its transmission. One initial way to check a programme is to look for explicit references to Jesus as God, Son of God, Son of the Father, God made man. Priests responsible for catechesis and key catechists who assist them, need to grow in an appreciation of the 'pedagogy of God', a pedagogy by which catechetical methods can be judged as to whether they are a "guarentee of fidelity to content" or not.

These criteria of judgement provide a positive way of evaluating the official resources prepared for celebrating Youth Sunday.

I think you will find that the materials on the website fail these criteria of judgement - almost totally. [We can perhaps see the suggested materials for the Penitential rite affirming the divinity of Christ by referring to "Lord Jesus", but I could find no Trinitarian reference anywhere.] The following prayer is quite typical, and totally lacking in any Christological or Trinitarian expression. The contrast with the Liturgical formulation of addressing prayers to the Father, through the Son in the Holy Spirit could not be clearer.


Brilliant God,we celebrate your wonderful world and we thank you for the gift of your creation.On this National Youth Sunday inspire us, we pray, to Reclaim the Future!Help us to see how our actions today will make a difference tomorrow. And bring us together in faith to make that difference a positive thing. Amen.

How many of our parish priests will apply the catechetical discernment suggested in the Sower article to the Youth Sunday resources? And how many catechists will realise that there is even a discernment to be undertaken?

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