Teaching our children at Christmastime and throughout the years

BISHOP KEVIN J. SWEENEY

As of Jan. 1, our Diocese will have a new Director of the Office of Faith Formation and Catechesis, Father Yojaneider Garcia. He was ordained a priest for our Diocese in 2014 and he has just completed two years of post-graduate study at Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio, achieving a master’s degree in Catechesis. We are grateful to Father Paul Manning, our Vicar for Evangeli­za­tion and his team at St. Paul Inside the Walls, as they have been “filling in” and covering the responsibilities of the Office of Faith Formation for the past year and a half, when there was no full time Director.

On Dec. 7, I had the opportunity to visit one of our Catholic schools, St. Gerard Majella in Paterson, and I had an experience that is very familiar for priests and catechists when, after celebrating a school Mass, I visited some of the classrooms, spending some time with the students and teachers. I spoke with the students about the Season of Advent and asked about their preparations for Christmas. I asked them some questions about the “Christ­mas Story” of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, discussing what we know from Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels, as well as some of what we see and hear in Christmas pageants, shows, concerts, and Nativity scenes.

My visit to St. Gerard’s was a reminder of the vital importance and great responsibility that each of us has to pass on and teach the faith, especially to our children and younger generations. It was also a reminder of how grateful we should be to our Catholic schools, the principals, administrators, pastors, and all who support the mission of our Catholic schools. While we must do all we can to support our Catholic schools, we also remember that “Catholic education” is multi-faceted and includes so much that happens in our parishes, especially in our Religious Education and Faith Formation programs.

I am grateful to Father Garcia for his enthusiasm and generosity in saying “yes” to this new responsibility of leading our Office of Faith Formation and Catechesis. I know that he has been dedicated to his studies over these past two years, which has prepared him well for this new role. I have learned how blessed our Diocese is by the priests, religious, deacons, and other faith formation leaders, who ensure that there are strong catechetical programs in each of our parishes. We should all be grateful for literally thousands of women and men of all ages who volunteer as catechists for our children as well as those who teach in RCIA, marriage preparation, and countless adult lay formation programs.

We usually honor our catechists in September each year, on Catechetical Sunday, and we often recognize catechists in May or June at the end of the academic year. I am encouraged by the knowledge that, under Father Garcia’s leadership, we will be able to offer more support, training, and resources, including retreats and conferences, to our Catechetical leaders and catechists throughout the year.

I also wanted to write about the importance of catechists in this Season of Advent. Preparing for and celebrating Christmas can be a powerful reminder to all of us, as St. Pope John Paul II taught so beautifully, that “parents are the first catechists of their children” and that the family has a crucial role in passing on and teaching the gift and truths of Faith. As John Paul II wrote:

Education in the faith by parents, which should begin from the children’s tenderest age, is already being given when the members of a family help each other to grow in faith through the witness of their Christian lives”
(Catechesi Tradendae, 68).

Living faith is shared within the “domestic church,” that each family, each home is called to be. John Paul II described the family as a “little church” (see Familiaris Consortio, 49; 51–54). The domestic church leads to the parish as a “family of families,” where priests, religious, deacons, and parish ministries support parents in their role as the “first catechists” of their children. The Directory for Catechists (124) tells us, “Parents, with their daily example of life, have the most effective capacity to transmit the beauty of the Christian Faith to their children.”

Can you remember when, where, and how you first learned the “Christmas story”? Maybe it was when you helped your parents decorate the Christmas tree or with a “manger” or Nativity scene, or as you helped put lights or other decorations outside the house? Perhaps you were Mary or Joseph, a shepherd, angel, or one of the Wise Men in a Christmas pageant or play at your school or parish? Was it when you sang in a choir and performed in a Christ­mas Concert? Did you grow up with Christmas traditions, customs, learned from parents or grandparents, perhaps from another country or culture where your ancestors were born and raised?

Have we lost some of the beauty and spiritual magic of Christmas and getting ready for Christmas? Has our modern world and culture taken away from the innocence, in the best sense of the word, that many of us knew as children or our ancestors and previous generations experienced? Have we (our families, culture, and/or our Church) forgotten or lost some of our appreciation for the “true meaning of Christ­mas?” How are we teaching our children in these days to get ready for and celebrate Christmas? We can each ask ourselves these questions and maybe we can discuss them as families. We still have time, but Christmas draws closer each day.