With God’s patience

“The considerable effort put into the act of Christian initiation and catechesis cannot achieve its objective if it is not supported and accompanied by the community”, said Bishop CESARE NOSIGLIA of Vicenza and CCEE delegate for catechesis in Europe, in his concluding remarks to the meeting of bishops and national directors for catechesis in Europe, held in Rome in recent days on the theme “Christian initiation as process of becoming Christian”, on the initiative of the Italian Bishops’ Conference and the CCEE (Council of the European Bishops’ Conferences). Promoting permanent catechesis in a “catechumenal” perspective, proposing “differentiated, more personal and less uniform itineraries”, and rediscovering the figure of “guarantor” of the faith for neophytes: just some of the pastoral proposals that emerged from the meeting, which was attended by some 80 delegates from 28 countries. As regards catechists and “accompaniers” of the faith, Nosiglia stressed the need to “overcome the model of the specialist and accept that of the adult baptised in the faith who is called and sent, in the name of the community, to flank the journey of the catechumen or initiate”. This gave rise to the proposal of a “small community of support” which would accompany the person approaching the Christian faith for the first time, even after the celebration of the sacraments, to introduce him/her to the wider liturgical and pastoral community of the parish. FORMING AN “ADULT” FAITH. “Many baptised adults do not drop out of the Church because they have some grudge against us: they no longer come because they do not feel up to it. They feel insecure in their faith and don’t know very well what was the use of their having been baptised”, says Father CLEMENS ARMBRUSTER, parish priest in Freiburg (Germany). Describing his own experience, he presented the project known as “Weg” (“Ways of adult faith”), and run by “teams” formed within the parishes. The project begins with some “events of an informative kind” at the parish level, aimed at “persons who live according to the faith and wish to transmit the faith”. Once formed, in this way, the team organises “seminars on the faith” at which the participants receive a kind of “spiritual diary” in which to annotate their personal reactions to meetings. The seminars are characterized by spontaneous interventions, group discussions, liturgical celebrations and listening to the Word. After the seminars, adults who wish to do so can attend, for roughly a year, the regular parish meetings as part of smaller groups, thus acquiring the consciousness that “the real experience of Christian faith means seeking community life”, explained Father Clemens. THE RICHNESS OF “DIFFERENCES. Christophe, 35 years old, a university lecturer, and Laurence, an illiterate girl from a disadvantaged background, “found themselves in the same catechumenal team. Both mutually enriched each other in reflection on Gospel texts. When they became neophytes, Laurence became the godmother of Christophe’s baby son”. Their story was recounted by BÉATRICE BLAZY, diocesan delegate for catechumenate in France, according to whom “no catechumenal process can be produced without taking into account the cultural factors that influence each catechumen”. In France, for example, the majority of adults who ask to be baptised are of French origin and have no religious background at all: “Often – explains Béatrice – they know little or nothing about the Christian faith. Some have had contacts with the sects or with movements like New Age. Immigrants are less than they were in the past: many are from the Maghreb, but we also receive requests from people from sub-Saharan Africa or from Asia, ever more numerous Japanese and Chinese”. A growing number of requests also comes from divorced persons who have remarried or from unmarried couples living together: “it is through the experience of the failure of a relationship that some people turn to God and ask to be initiated into the Church”. Sonia, 22 years old, an art-school student, is interested in Buddhism and regularly attends a Buddhist monastery; she also wants to know what Christianity is, in order to be able afterwards to choose her own religion. Mohamed, 21 years old, a shop assistant, is engaged to Isabelle who is Christian: his family is of Algerian origin, but he was born in France, has never practised the Moslem religion, and wants to be baptised to be able to change his name and “feel more French”. Maurice, 74 years old, is now a great-grandfather: a former Communist, he has long sought religious faith, and his search has been passionate. “The younger catechumens asked him several times to tell his life story”, reports Béatrice: “They found, in what he said, a moving testimony of God’s patience towards each of us”.