Catechized While Catechizing

Posted By on April 27, 2010

For our parish, the formal Catechetical year is over.  Our Catecumen has been initiated, our students have had their final exams and classes are over until September.  I guess that means it’s time to reflect on the past year.  Teaching others is always a work in progress, no matter what it is that you are teaching.  Religious Education is, of course, no different.

As I think back, I tried some new things this year with mixed results.  Additionally, I tried some very successful strategies from last year, surprisingly also with mixed results.  But through the great discussions, the disciplinary issues and everything in between, something struck me; I think that as a Catechist, I’m learning more about the faith then I did when I was being catechized myself.

That statement I just made has a lot of meaning in it.  Some people would say that the catechesis my generation received as children was sub par, while others would say that my memory is slipping and I just don’t remember (Sr. Martina would be very upset about that), and yet others would say that I was just a kid and didn’t really care back then, which isn’t true at all.  I’d like to think that it is something totally different.  I’ve progressed in my faith journey since my days back at Our Lady of Fatima School in Jackson Heights, NY and I’ve experienced a lot more at this stage of my life.

I now have the opportunity, capacity and maturity level to delve deeper into what it is that Christ was trying to tell us 2000 year ago, and continues to tell us today through His Church.  I have a different prospective today then it did when my biggest worries were around lying to my parents about something silly or how I treated my friends or my little brother.  Today, as I prepare to guide the children charged to me, I have begun to understand how it all fits together and what the end goal really is — to love all unconditionally. That’s the big picture!  That’s what the message boils down to.  A one work summary of the Good News — Love.

By no means am I saying that I understand everything, after all, our faith is full of mysteries; nor am I saying that I even know how to put it all into practice in my own life, but all the preparation for my lessons has broadened my own understanding and has propelled my own faith journey further than I ever realized it could go.

Who could have imagined that my efforts to help with the Church’s mission to make disciples of all nations would have helped my own discipleship?  I thought I’d be sharing my own knowledge with my students and the Holy Spirit has used that to throw me a curve ball, to my own benefit no less.  He’s a sneaky one; or better put, He works in mysterious ways!

Until next time, keep sharing the faith!

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About the author

My name is Carlos Torres, and for better or for worse, I am a Catechist. As a Catechist, I help supplement the religious education that parents give at home with focused and detailed lessons around Scripture and Tradition as taught by the Church. Now, I have no background in teaching, much less in dealing with a group of tweens and teens who don’t want to be with me, in a classroom, on a weeknight, learning about faith; yet week after week, I and many other Catechists do just that by letting the Holy Spirit guide us in planting those seeds and helping fulfill the Church’s mission to “go and make disciples”.

Comments

  • http://platytera.blogspot.com/ Christian

    “as a Catechist, I’m learning more about the faith then I did when I was being catechized myself.”

    Scary isn’t it? I just finished my 6th year of teaching the same basic material, and once again, I probably learned as much as the kids. But being adults, we have a much larger frame of knowledge on which to put new information.

    If you want to learn something, teach it.

  • http://platytera.blogspot.com/ Christian

    “as a Catechist, I’m learning more about the faith then I did when I was being catechized myself.”

    Scary isn’t it? I just finished my 6th year of teaching the same basic material, and once again, I probably learned as much as the kids. But being adults, we have a much larger frame of knowledge on which to put new information.

    If you want to learn something, teach it.

  • http://www.catechesisinthethirdmillennium.wordpress.com William O’Leary

    Thanks for sharing. What are your end of the year exams like? We do end of the year assessments in our program.

    God Bless,
    William

    • http://www.catechistcorner.com Carlos

      Our exams are put together by our CRE and are standardized based on the material and concepts we are expected to cover throughout the year. They pretty much come from the textbook. By assessment, do you mean the catechists assess each student or is there something else that you do?

      Thanks!
      Carlos

  • http://www.catechesisinthethirdmillennium.wordpress.com William O’Leary

    Thanks for sharing. What are your end of the year exams like? We do end of the year assessments in our program.

    God Bless,
    William

    • http://www.catechistcorner.com Carlos

      Our exams are put together by our CRE and are standardized based on the material and concepts we are expected to cover throughout the year. They pretty much come from the textbook. By assessment, do you mean the catechists assess each student or is there something else that you do?

      Thanks!
      Carlos

  • Marc Cardaronella

    Just ran across your blog. Great post!

    I just wanted to say that I feel the same way. In fact, sometimes I'll come to a deeper understanding of the material as I'm presenting it. I think that somehow expressing our faith in ministry is an essential part of our growth as Christians, and everyone needs to do some type of outreach/service/public witness to grow. Mine is being a catechist and my faith increases the more I teach.

    God bless!

«     »

About the author

My name is Carlos Torres, and for better or for worse, I am a Catechist. As a Catechist, I help supplement the religious education that parents give at home with focused and detailed lessons around Scripture and Tradition as taught by the Church. Now, I have no background in teaching, much less in dealing with a group of tweens and teens who don’t want to be with me, in a classroom, on a weeknight, learning about faith; yet week after week, I and many other Catechists do just that by letting the Holy Spirit guide us in planting those seeds and helping fulfill the Church’s mission to “go and make disciples”.