Religious Education Supplement

Becoming a catechist for the Church is kind of like getting married

By Ken Ogorek

This article is definitely about you. Whether you’re married or not, the theme for this year’s Catechetical Sunday—“Matrimony: Sacrament of Enduring Love”—says a lot about our call to share our Catholic faith.

Although I don’t know if God is calling you to be a catechist in a formal sense, he does expect us all to teach the faith in various ways. Maybe you could serve as a catechetical aide and get a good feel for how this effort in your parish works.

Maybe you could approach your parish administrator of religious education and offer to help out with the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA). You don’t have to be an expert on Catholic doctrine to help out as a team member.

Your parish needs men and women to put in at least a year or two in the religious education effort. Dozens of women and men that I know have made a leap of faith—a bit like getting married—and decided to give catechetical ministry a try, only to fall in love with being a catechist.

On-the-job training is available using great resources like the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults.

Just as we can’t know everything about being married beforehand and must learn as we go, so it is with making the decision—maybe today—to tell your parish administrator of religious education that you would like to help her or him by serving God’s people in a catechetical program at your parish.

I can’t promise you that this role will always be easy or that it won’t require endurance, at least occasionally. Most folks who have been catechists longer than a few months have had this experience: A lesson plan idea sounded great the night before at your dining room table when you were preparing to teach, but the next day when you taught your brilliant lesson it seemed like a total disaster.

Rest assured, though, that even when lessons seem not to go well, catechists have a profound impact on people by God’s grace. The fact that you show up week in and week out, and that your loving preparation is evident, speaks volumes to the faithful in your care. As in marriage, your enduring love combines with God’s grace to bear great fruit.

Jesus loves his Church as though she were his very own bride. He sacrifices for her. Is God calling you to sacrifice for his people by taking the call we all have—to teach the faith—to a new level in your own life by serving in your parish catechetical program?

You may never know unless you give it a whirl by offering to help as an aide or team member.

And maybe after a honeymoon period of a few weeks, a whirlwind romance with the idea of being a catechist will blossom into an enduring relationship—one that will bear great fruit for you, for your parish program and for God’s people in your neck of the woods.

(Ken Ogorek is the archdiocesan director of catechesis.) †