(Corollary to “From Catechism to Atheism“)
The previous article was just a brief commentary on another person’s testimony, about the gross inadequacy of Sunday School/catechism classes that largely focused on stories about what happened, rather than why things happen. There was repetition but no reasoning, resulting in the inability to have “an answer for one’s faith” (1 Pet 3:15), once one moved out of the comfort zone of school/ family into the “big bad world”.
I recall when I finished Cambridge class in 1965. Our Vice Principal Bro Burke, an Irishman, warned us that the first two years outside school could make or mar us for the rest of our lives. 50 years later those words of wisdom have not been lost on me.
I have noticed that in the Catholic Church the catechism that is taught has a syllabus, followed by exams. It is like any other subject to be memorized. I may have topped my class in catechism, but I learnt nothing of the Christian faith from it. To the contrary, it was a full ten years later, in 1975, that I met the Lord at a Youth Animator’s Training Programme in Allahabad. It changed the course of my life.
It caused me to think. Of the five Catholic boys in my class of 1965, I am perhaps the only one who may be described as a church going or practicing Catholic. Perhaps Bro Burke was right.
Not long after my conversion I got fully involved in youth ministry as the founder Secretary of the U.P. Regional Youth & Vocations Bureau. I conducted about 20 spiritual renewal programmes of 5 days each during my tenure of three years. Initially I was alone, but later others also joined me. I was told that we could not hold the youth’s attention for five days, so I asked them if they could spare 5 days for a cricket test match, then why not for the match of life? The logic worked.
Now I find that with tightening school curricula, there are no more catechism/ moral science classes. Normally “catechism” in parishes ends with the preparation for Confirmation. At that point they may not even have entered their teens or attained puberty. They are still children. The next level of catechism, for want of a better word, is the so-called Marriage Preparation Course, usually conducted by unmarried people! Here too the emphasis is more on propagating Natural Family Planning and the canonical form of a sacramental marriage rather than any solid preparation for married life.
This yawning gap is now sought to be bridged by youth programmes like biblical quizzes, dramas, songs and dances. These are exactly what the testimony in the earlier article referred to. Youngsters are taught to act or memorize. They are not having a real faith experience or encountering Jesus. It is more like academic interest or dissecting a cockroach in a laboratory. The real challenge is to lead young people to an encounter with Jesus, as on the road to Emmaus, when their hearts burned and the disciples recognized the Lord (cf Lk 24:32).
I draw from the wisdom of Rev Ed Daly SJ of Navjyotiniketan, Patna. He talks of a progression of faith – infantile, imitative, adult aand apostolic. I have added one of my own – critical awareness.
Infantile faith is spoon feeding. Place the bottle of milk and it sucks. It responds intuitively, without thinking. It’s a reflex action. This is what toddlers do in church, bowing or kneeling without knowing what they are doing. Then there is childlike imitative faith. Sit, stand, kneel, recite. This is exactly how we train a dog. It is just obeying orders, devoid of comprehension. This is what Jesus equates with sowing the seed in shallow ground (cf Mat 13:21).
The third stage is the “make or break” one. It is often not addressed. This is when a child is growing into an adult. It begins to reason, think for itself and ask questions. It is also becoming aware of its own sexuality and the old answers don’t suffice. It is developing a critical awareness that is often mistaken for rebellion. It’s not; it’s seeking, seeking for meaning, seeking for love, seeking for answers while looking at an uncertain and fluid future.
I have two illustrations to describe this state of flux. The first is that of an earthen pot. It has been molded by the potter but not yet baked in the intense heat of the kiln. Parents and educators feel that they have “formed” the children. They have, but it is not enough. If we pour water into an unbaked pot, no matter how well formed, it will disintegrate. It needs to go through the “furnace of suffering”. This may not necessarily be physical. It could be emotional, psychological, financial or intellectual uncertainty.
We cannot abandon young adults at this critical stage. We must lead them to a mature, enlightened faith. That is what I did in my years of youth ministry. I do not see this happening today. As a consequence, once young people leave home and parish for college or career, they lose their social support system and become “lapsed Catholics”. I would not call them atheists. It’s just that nobody provided them with the cogent answers that they were looking for.
This brings me to my second illustration, of a mango or other fruit sapling. Its foliage outgrows its stem, that is not yet strong enough to hold its weight. Hence it could collapse and fall into the dust. .That is why, in this intermediate stage, a support rod is affixed to the stem. Youth ministry should be like that external support system, to nurture a young person through that critical juncture of life. This is like the seed sown among thorns and rocks that could possibly stifle its growth (cf Mat 13: 22).
Both Sts Peter and Paul exhort us to grow in faith. Pater says, “Support your faith with goodness, goodness with understanding” (2 Pet 1:5). Understanding would here mean knowledge, reason and comprehension.
Paul is even more explicit. He says, “On this subject we have many things to say and they are difficult to explain because you have grown so slow at understanding. Indeed when you should by this time have become masters, you need someone to teach you all over again … you have gone back to needing milk and not solid food. Truly no one who is still living on milk can digest the doctrine of saving justice, being still a baby. Solid food is for adults with minds trained by practice to distinguish between good and bad” (Heb 5:11-14).
Writing to the Corinthians Paul says, “I was not able to talk to you as spiritual people; I had to talk to you as people still living by your natural instincts, still infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, and not solid food, for you were not yet ready to take it” (I Cor 3:1-2). Nevertheless he expresses the hope that “When I was a child, I used to talk like a child, and see things as a child; but now that I have an adult I have finished with all childish ways” (I Cor 13:11).
Daly goes on to say that an adult faith is one that has reason with it. It has answers to the WHY, not just the WHAT. This is catechesis, as distinct from catechism. Priests, pastors, parents have a duty to catechize those in their care.
Daly’s highest level of faith is Apostolic. The kind displayed by martyrs, giving their lives for Jesus, the poor and suffering. Even today we have many such role models, from Mother Teresa to Graham Staines, Srs Rani Maria and Valsa and Fr Stan Swamy. All of us can be living martyrs as well through our service to others without counting the cost.
- These thoughts have been expounded at greater length in the writer’s book “Beyond 2000 – The Other Side”.
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