Lester Antonio Zapata OMI 12-9-2016

Evangelization and faith formation

1-A brief summary of what you understood about and had experienced in the ministry of catechesis

before you came to this course.

Before this course, I understood the ministry of catechesis as the transmission of the teachings of the

church. Not necessarily in a boring way, but I had a strong emphasis on sharing knowledge or contents

to people. I liked the phrase of Saint Agustine that says "I believe, in order to understand; and I

understand, the better to believe" . I still like it, but know I am aware that catechesis is not just about

sharing concepts or ideas.

2- Before this course what was your general understanding of “evangelization”?

As I said before in my catechetical story Evangelization today means for me showing people that God

loves them, and invited them to have a relationship with Jesus. My experiences shaped my understanding

of evangelization with the youth group in Nicaragua was I was a teenager. Also, by the group of the

young adult when I was in my early twenties in California and later by seminary years.
3. State the aim/goal of catechesis and name and give examples (not descriptions) of the six tasks of

catechesis.

On his apostolic exhortation, Catechesi Tradendae(Catechesis in Our Time)Saint Pope John II said that

“the definitive aim of Catechesis is to put people not only in touch but in communion , in intimacy , with

Jesus Christ …”1

1-Catechesis promotes knowledge of faith: A revival Retreats where the Kerygma is preach

2- Catechesis promotes knowledge of the meaning of the Liturgy: A Lenten parish mission where is

explaining the meaning of Easter Vigil and reconciliation is offer to parishioners.

3- Catechesis promotes moral formation in Jesus Christ: A marriage retreat for young couples by the local

marriage encounter group.

4- Catechesis teaches the Christian how to pray with Christ: An evening Taize prayer, where they teach

people to meditate

5- Catechesis prepares the Christian to live in community and to participate actively in the life and

mission of the Church: The parish can organize groups that visit at least once a month the local Catholic

Charities, they can do shopping together and buy no perishables groceries to donate to the needy.

6- Catechesis promotes a missionary spirit that prepares the faithful to be present as Christian in society.

The parish can become a Sister Parish to another Parish in South America and can organize mission trips

every one or two years asking people who have some special training or want to serve to go to his place

and share the love of Christ with them think about a project like painting that Church that they are going

to visit or just be open to learning from the culture they are going to visit. 2

1
Nick Wagner , The way of faith : A field guide for the RCIA process(New London, Twenty Third Publications, 2015), 89.
2
The task can be find at USCCB, National Directory for Catechesis (Washington, USCCB Publications, 2005), 60-62.
4. Name some of the contemporary challenges in catechetical ministry

According to the NDC we live in a culture with a strong religious indifference. Most people especially the

young people, expect learning experiences to be entertaining and tend to judge the effectiveness of those

experiences on the superficial level of how entertaining they are rather than how humanly enriching they

are. What I have observed is that parents have two jobs and are not able to be part of the catechetical

formation of their children. Lack of lay leadership, they few catechist that volunteer do not have great

skills and diversity of cultures. It is not easy to overcome those challenges; I do not have all the answers.

For the first one, strong religious indifference I will suggest local parishes should have a plan to get

involve in their communities and have a positive impact. That way, when people see their witness, they

will approach to them and ask them about their faith and why they do that. For the second one about

young people that want to be entertain, I think that it important to have as a youth minister someone that is

close to their ages, that way won't be a big generational gap, and he or she will understand what they like.

Faith does not to be boring; It can be enriching and entertaining. For the problem with parent

involvement Is difficult when they have other responsibilities, but I will be available always for whenever

they want to talk with me, probably will be a good idea to have a social media group where I can share

small reflections for the parents and they can comment about that. A lot of people use a lot of their little

free time in social media. Also, I will ask them to agree to ask for their vacations the same time, that way

we can have a mini retreat. For the lack of lay leadership or lack of skills of the catechist, I will contact

my dioceses to see what they offer for people eager to learn more. If they do not provide anything , we

can star having lectures with videos and later inviting those people to our parish. For the one about

involvement in the community, I will try to partner with local community advocacy work to see what

programs they have and we can support them. I don’t need to reinvent the wheel.
5. How does Sherry Weddell’s discussion of thresholds of conversion

Those stages(1-Initial trust, 2-Spiritual curiosity, 3-Spiritual openness, 4-Spiritual seeking, 5-Intentional

discipleship), were very informing. I will organize a different kind of groups to shepherd or to do

spiritual coaching to those people. For example for the people who are in the first stage Initial Trust, I will

have a team of kind people that have a gift to relate to people. For the people who are in the second stage

Spiritual Curiosity, I will have a team of extroverted people that know many people in the parish and like

to celebrate their faith. Those people might invite them to have dinner and talk. And so on with the

different groups. I have been going for an RCIA group for about four months now. When we have the

sharing they are divided into groups, in one group there are the baptized Catholics, in other groups the

ones that were baptized in other denomination and in other groups the non-baptized. I have realized that

not all people are in the same stage. One person that was baptized catholic might be in initial trust as the

person that was is not baptized and someone that was baptized in the Methodist Church might be in the

stage of Spiritual openness. The thresholds of conversion gave me a different way to arrange the sharing

groups and put people that are in the same stage together.

6. Describe at least three significant ideas in the Rebuilt book that could possibly help you to renew

a parish community.

1-At the beginning of his books the talks about the unfortunate tragedy of the Titanic. He explains that

only 2 of 18 boats went back again to save people, by the time they arrive it was too late. Using this

analogy, he remind us that we must never forget we do the Church exist and what is its purpose. It exists

to evangelize. He did not say that, but will be a good idea what a movie like that with the parishioners or

catechist and after the movie talk about that. This will be a creative way to engage with them and

probably will remember it better.

2-It is necessary to involve the lay people in the mission of evangelization, and we need to remember to

them that they are missionary disciples and they can also be witnesses of the gospel. If lay people take

that duty seriously , things won’t be the same. It’s necessary to empower lay people. –

3-Chapter 5 is an amazing chapter. It is full of ideas about how to renovate the parish laying strong new

foundations. There are 10 new ways of laying good foundations: 1-Giving priority to the Weekend, 2-

Hospitality , 3-Uplifting Music 4-Better homilies , 5-Meaningful community , 6-Clear expectations 7-

Strenth –based ministry 8-Formation of Small Communities 9-Experiecning the Holy Spirit , 10-

Becoming an inviting Church. All of them can by summarize in being a committed community , that has

a real sense of community. They are not individuals working as lone rangers, this community wants to

excel in what they do and want to be welcoming church for everyone. I would like to transmit that spirit to

the community where I will minister

7. Describe how education theories enhance evangelization and faith formation:

What is Dale’s Cone of Learning? Is a theory of learning about the percentage of knowledge we retain of

what we have learned by doing different activities. According to that theory, we just retain 10 % of what

we read, we retain 50 % of what we read and hear and we retain 90 % of what we do.

Briefly summarize Gardner’s theories. All human beings have different way of processing information

and learning. There are eight types of intelligences; people learned better when you are using the method

their intelligences is accustomed to. There is Verbal-linguistic intelligence, Logical-mathematical

intelligence, Visual-spatial intelligence, Musical intelligence, Naturalistic intelligence , Bodily-

kinesthetic intelligence , Interpersonal intelligence and Intrapersonal intelligence.

What is Fowler’s contribution to faith formation?

He developed a theory of stages of development of faith that are according to the stage of human

development. It goes from 1-Primal Faith, 2-Intuitive-Projective Faith, 3-Mythic-Literal Faith., 4-

Synthetic-Conventional Faith., 5-Individuative-Reflective Faith, 6-Conjunctive Faith, 7-Universalizing

Faith. That study if not conclusive, but help us to have an idea of the kind of development of faith that is

expected in people of certain age.

Explain how each theorist above contributes to enhancing the efficacy of a catechetical session.

Dale’s Cone of Learning, it is important in our catechesis we do activities that reinforce the learning we

are doing, for example, make people to write about their experience and what after share that out loud will

help the person to remember more about that experience. That is why in our class we do reports and

planning about what we have discussed in class.

Gardner’s theories, it is important that we use different methods in our catechesis. We cannot be bound

just to one method, despite that method being our favorite. We must begin with the experience of the

learner, so it is good I know that kind of learner do I have. Probably they don’t know that kind of learner

they are, so we can help them.

We can implement some Fowler’s expectations of faith development to our goals according to their ages ,

and evaluate if they are where they are supposed to be. But we cannot assume things; we must know each

person and talk to them and find out where they are and why they are there. But having a framework like

that help us to have a pint of reference.

8. Has your understanding of the ministry of evangelization and catechesis changed since you began this

course? Explain.

Yes, it has changed. I have learned more about the six task of Catechesis. All of them are important to be

a disciple of Jesus. It is very difficult to make disciples of Jesus if I only teach them doctrine but not teach

them to pray. The same can say about when people know the doctrine and how to pray but do not have a

community involvement or when people are very involve with the community don’t think it is important

to receive the sacraments and Church become a social club. All of them are important and I should

promote them.

9. What in this course has been most helpful in your ministry?

All the homework I did will be helpful for my ministry as well understanding better the RCIA process. I

have learned a lot from all the anecdotes and learning why RCIA is a process. I have learned to being with

the experience of the learner, and I have a received a lot of suggestions of how to do it better. The best

way to learn about that is not reading but putting it into practice. So the more I put into practice what I

have learned in this class, the better it will be.

10. Other comments.

There is always the need to be updated, because the techniques we use today we don’t know if will be as

effective as are today. There are also new challenges. But at the end is not about us, it is about Jesus and

the way we communicate to other our relationship with him. It is very difficult to convince other people if

I am not convince of what I am preaching. Being an Evangelizer is not about being able to remember

doctrine or high theological concepts , it is about being a witness.