The importance of catechesis for children
The first principles of catechesis begin in early childhood, and this is the parents’ responsibility. It may be nothing more than a simple opening to the good heavenly Father, the lover of mankind, toward whom the child learns to turn his heart.
The short prayers a child learns from his parents are the beginning of a loving conversation with God, whom he cannot see; later he gets used to praying, getting to know him better and loving him through reading the Gospel and going to church. Here the need for and importance of the parents’ role becomes clear: they must teach their children the faith early on. “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (Deuteronomy 6:6-9). This requires attention to giving parents a thorough Christian formation so they can pass on the principles of the Christian faith to their children. Programmes that prepare newlyweds for sound parenting and the faith formation they owe their children are an essential pastoral need.
Next comes the role of the Church, where the ministry of catechesis is the first and most important of the Church’s basic ministries, especially in Western societies where religious education has been removed from schools, as in Quebec and elsewhere… So it has become the duty of every lay person committed to the Church to help form and teach children, because this is the command of the Lord Jesus: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19).
Without it, the believer cannot live his Christian life. In church, the child should be taught the faith in a regular and orderly way that prepares him to celebrate the sacraments in preparation for Communion.
Teaching should be basic but not fragmented, opening up all the important mysteries of the faith and showing their effect on children’s moral and religious lives. This is where it matters to encourage children to discover and discuss the truths of the faith and to put the mysteries of the faith into practice. Living the sacraments also gives children many graces, along with momentum and joy that make them witnesses to Christ in their everyday surroundings.
Then come puberty and adolescence, the stage when a person discovers himself and his inner world, when great aspirations take shape and feelings of love and natural sexual urges appear. It is a time of great changes.
It is also the age of delicate questions, and sometimes of first failures and bitter disappointments. Catechesis cannot ignore these fast-changing states during this difficult period of life.
Catechesis can also play a decisive role in leading the adolescent to rethink his own life and to enter a dialogue that does not ignore the serious questions he asks himself: self-giving, trust, love and sexuality; presenting Jesus Christ as a friend and a guide on the way, and revealing his message, which answers these fundamental questions.
That is why catechesis programmes should encourage the formation of small groups that meet each person’s needs for attention, participation, care, discipleship and training.
In small groups, everyone expresses himself, becomes aware of himself, talks about himself, his gifts, his problems and his social relationships, and can take on various services until he discovers his gifts. Here the leader needs to be competent and to set a good example, more by actions than by words: the group feels his love when he serves them, for practical service to people is the truest outward expression of love for them.
As for young adulthood, the young person begins to rely on himself and to make major decisions and take on major responsibilities. The struggle within him intensifies between good and evil, grace and sin, life and death, as basic principles of life that he must accept or reject with full awareness and a sense of responsibility.
At this stage of life, catechesis takes on great importance, because this is when the Gospel can be presented, understood and embraced so that it gives life its meaning and inspires feelings and attitudes that cannot be explained without it, such as self-giving, detachment, gentleness, justice, commitment, reconciliation, a sense of the absolute and the invisible, and so on. All these traits allow the young person to stand out among his peers as a disciple of Jesus Christ.
Catechesis programmes for young people need to rebuild the young person’s identity around Jesus Christ and give him an identity marked by steadiness in a fast-changing world, in a social and cultural environment that is always shifting, leaving its mark on him and pushing him hard to adapt; an identity able to give reasons to believe in life to those who are anxiously searching for them. This calls for adopting a new approach to evangelization and launching a serious new mission on the widest scale, to move forward and face the challenges with steadfastness and trust in God and in oneself.
