Neither Salvation, nor I, have had any "formal" religious education. We may have received catechesis as part of our catholic school education but, at that time, we were not paying attention. Let me share a true story with you.
Several years ago, the pastor of my parish, approached and asked me to set up a Religious Education Program in the parish. Moi? Me? I had no formal training in catechesis. But he had picked up on something ... a deep and abiding love for Christ ... and sincerely believed that I could do this. (BTW - very small parish with less than 100 families). After reflecting on my confirmation calling to be a "soldier of Christ" and much prayer, I set about developing a program for the children. It began small with only a handful of kids but tripled in size over the next few years.
One year, a relatively new visitor approached to enroll her 13 year old in the program. She explained that her daughter was baptized in the hospital shortly after birth because of a major birth defect. She survived. As she grew older, her mother enrolled her in the RE program of another parish where her daughter made First Communion - before - First Penance. There was no further religious education, until that day.
The situation posed a conundrum. At age 13, the young girl had had only one year of religious education. She had never made her First Penance. How to place her? The solution was quite simple, yet historical: the Baltimore Catechism.
Steve,
I haven’t been asked to set up a program for children like NYer was. (Thank you, God!)
But I have set up a program for adults during Lent to read, reflect, meditate, bring into action in their lives all the Sunday readings during Lent.
I have also taught Bible study classes for:
Acts of the Apostles
Matthew
Mark
John and the letters of John
Exodus
Genisis
Isaiah
Romans
Paul’s prison letters
Women of the Old Testament
Women of the New Testament
Revalation
James
the letters of Peter
And we are now doing Psalms.