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2007 Back to School
One "Amen" Is Not Enough! Liturgy and the Mentally Disabled
The Family Table: A Primary Source of Christian Formation
Ideas for Praying with Children in the Liturgies of Fall
Gospel Talk with Children: Let Us Go Rejoicing

Vivian E. Williams

The television show CSI: Crime Scene Investigation begins with the refrain “Who are you? Who? Who? Who? Who?” (a song by The Who). This is the perfect question for those of us who are parish catechists and school religion teachers. As a young Catholic school teacher I planned the religion class the same way I planned science class until a great catechist, Kate Ristow, gave me a new understanding of my role. She said we were all “echoes of the Word,” i.e., catechists. The word “catechist” has its roots in a Greek word that means “to sound” or to echo like whales and dolphins. This came to mean “teaching by word of mouth” and implies dialoging and sharing.

Echo the Word
The National Directory for Catechesis (NDC) affirms this by reminding us that in the religion session we are engaged in one of the Church’s ministries of the Word that has as its purpose to “bring about in the believer an ever more mature faith in Jesus Christ” (19A). This work is part of everyone’s baptismal call to share in Christ’s prophetic work, and the Church’s evangelizing mission (54 B8), but we choose to do it in a specific way. So who are we in the religion session? How do we echo the Word?
The first thing we do is take off the teacher’s hat and don the catechist’s hat. “Catechist” plays an ancient role in the Church and is directly associated with helping people know Jesus Christ. The chart below contrasts (what I call) the classroom model with the catechetical model and will illustrate and exaggerate the differences.

	Classroom Model	Catechetical Model
Goal	Imparting and gaining knowledge	Initiating and/or deepening faith
Leader	Teacher, an expert, who imparts information	Mentor and learner shares the tradition and participates in the Church’s life
Individual	Learner, discrete from group	Member of faith community
Method	Teaching, studying and testing for mastery of content	Witness and learning through Scripture stories, discussion, prayer and liturgy
Set-up	Desks in rows facing teacher	Desks in a circle, catechist part of it
Implication	There’s an end to learning, graduating to the next level	Growing more and more deeply in faith and understanding

Both models need a leader who is competent, but the competency of the catechist begins with a willingness to share faith. The adult is the wisdom figure, the shaman or storyteller of the tribe, the mentor for the younger people. This is a different role from teacher. The first requirement for the adult is a commitment to our Eucharist and to the mission of service (54B8). Because we lead a group of our fellow community members, we sometimes rearrange the room so participants can see and easily talk to one another. The adult is part of the group, inviting opinions and questions and allowing the group’s wisdom to surface.

Knowledge of the Heart and Spirit
The goal for the religion session is very different from academic classes. It is about being Catholic and imparting knowledge of the heart and spirit. So the method differs, too, and it is not strictly content oriented. For example, we might concentrate on Mary and the rosary in October when the Memorial of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary is celebrated (October 7). It falls on a Sunday this year and that takes precedence. In our catechetical approach to Mary we not only memorize the Hail Mary but we talk about the meaning of the words and contemplate the Bible stories of the Annunciation and Visitation (Luke 1:26–56), the sources of the words. We look at the purpose and history of the rosary. This is appropriate content but it does not end here.

We also pray the rosary (perhaps only a decade at a time) and write out instructions to take home. We explore and draw the mysteries: Glorious, Luminous, Sorrowful and Joyful. The children bring in their beautiful rosaries or make a rosary. Information on how to make a rosary can be found at: beadsforprayer.com/Rosary/making_rosary.htm.

We ask important questions: why do we pray this rosary? What does it do for us? What does it demand of us? This is about being Catholic and knowledge of the heart.

This year, resolve to use all of the appendix material in your resources that contain those essentially Catholic things such as holy days, liturgical seasons and rituals. Resolve to stop and pray as your text might suggest, for it is Catholic prayer, liturgy and Catholic works that form us. Who are you? You are a catechist, an echo of the Word of God and mentor to the young Church entrusted to you for a little while in their faith journey.

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Vivian E. Williams is a workshop facilitator and speaker for the Archdiocese of Chicago and nationally. She also has experience as a Catholic schoolteacher, catechist and parish cantor. She is the author of Classroom Prayer Basics published by OCP/Pastoral Press.