Posted on 10/23/2015 11:48:42 AM PDT by NYer
When it comes to teenagers, you expect a certain amount of eye rolling and apathy, but put those same kids in a faith formation class for an hour and fifteen minutes at the end of a long school day and right at the dinner hour and you’ll see a level of teenage disinterest that could make you wither on the spot. That’s what my husband and I faced when we stood before the 21 high school sophomores we teach at our upstate New York parish.
The scene was nothing new and nothing unexpected. We taught most of the same kids last year since they’re in a two-year program that will culminate in confirmation this spring. However, I’m willing to wager that their apathy isn’t necessarily related to a surge of teenage surliness but rather to a lack of foundational catechesis, and I say that while having taught many of these kids in fourth and fifth grade. I have used every trick in the book—from group activities to stump-the-teacher sessions to outright bribery through baked ziti and brownies—to get these kids to hear me when I talk about the Mass, about the Gospel, about our beautiful Catholic teachings and traditions. Yet every year, when they reluctantly return to class, I find I’m grateful if even half of them remember the Our Father.
When I look out at these kids—regardless of age, regardless of whether they’ve gone to Catholic or public elementary school—I assume I am seeing 75 percent as future ex-Catholics.
The blame falls squarely in the lap of the Church, which has, for decades, let the parents of these children go spiritually hungry, through misguided catechesis in their youth and preaching that failed to challenge and engage them as adults. As Pope Francis told priests at ordination this year: “May your homilies not be boring; may your homilies touch the heart of the people because they come from your heart …”
Some might say that even with unchallenging preaching the Holy Eucharist should be enough to draw people in, but how can that be if people have no grasp of the power and wonder of the Sacrament because no one has taught them—not in a classroom and not from the pulpit?
People are hungry, yes, but before they can run to Jesus in the Eucharist, they must walk into a parish on any given Sunday and hear the words that feed their flagging spirits and find fellowship that reminds them they are not alone. As a speaker and retreat leader I can tell you, from both personal experience and from encounters with other Catholics around the country that neither of those things exist in abundance in US parishes. Some communities are getting it right, but these lucky few are the sad exceptions, not the happy norm.
And so people go elsewhere. Perhaps to the nondenominational church up the street where the preaching is riveting and relevant and the community is fully engaged and made up predominantly of former Catholics. They don’t have Eucharist, but people are feeling fed, and returning, week after week. When you sit in Mass this Sunday, try to experience it as a newcomer, and ask yourself: If this was your first and only experience of Catholicism, would you ever return?
Back when I wrote my Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Catholic Catechism, I heard the same refrain time and again from adult Catholics disconnected from the faith: “Why didn’t I learn any of this when I was growing up?” Many of them were raised, as I was, in what I call the “Era of the Collage,” with lots of cutting and pasting of happy Jesus, but little basic information about the things that sustain you for a lifetime, the beauty of a living, breathing faith. I credit my mother with bridging the wide chasm that grew between my official religious education and my actual faith, and that’s why I know we first and foremost need our families to turn our Church around.
Catechesis must begin by drawing families in, by making them feel welcome, by giving them something more than registration deadlines and weekly envelopes. Only when they feel as though they belong in this Church—to this Church—will they be open to retracing the spiritual steps of their childhood and embracing the path of faith as an adult. When they do that, they will bring their children with them, and faith formation will no longer be seen as a ticket that must be stamped in order to receive a sacrament and then “graduate” from religion, but rather as a first step on a lifelong journey.
Of course teens will be teens, and they will still roll their eyes and answer questions with stony silence, but beneath that will be a foundation of real faith, and the powerful, life-giving knowledge that they are loved beyond measure by a God who created them, and saved them, and waits for them.
I believe the kids sitting in our class acting like they couldn’t care less about religion desperately want and need a God like that, as do their parents. Unless we find a way to make God real and relevant to their lives, he will always remain an abstract idea to be sat through, rather than engaged, which is a loss not just for them but for all of us.
I am not playing. I don/t consider discussions of this nature to be either amusing or entertaining in any way.
I think he knows I hold no ill will toward him.
This is certainly news to me. While the moderator appears not to, I consider comments such as these as personal attacks:You value the secular word over God's Word.
Duly noted for future reference.
You said you wanted secular sources instead of the Bible.
There is no other way to understand what you're saying.
You won't accept the Biblical references already provided yet you will accept secular sources.
It's you playing the word games. Sorry God's Word is not acceptable to you as being historically reliable and free of the bias of man.
I choose my words very carefully and rarely shoot from the lip. Your comments are a complete misrepresentation or my exact words.
I said the Bible is not a history book, even though it does contain historical truths. If it was a history book you would find in located in the library with history books or for sale with history books in book stores. You don't. It has it's own separate location. When you engage in a historical discussion you quote historical sources, just as when you in engage in a Biblical discussion you quote either the Bible or Bible commentaries.
We were having a HISTORICAL discussion.
Your inability/ unwillingness to site historical sources and misrepresentation of my words have made me decide to no longer engage you in serious discussion.
Have a good day
Then we’re back to you’re in checkmate as you prefer the secular sources over the inspired Words of God. You cannot cite from the Word what you claim.
Thank you for proving my point by failing to read/ comprehend what I wrote.
As someone probably closer to Evangelical youth groups, I think you are over estimating the success.
What typically happens is they graduate high school, and realize the church has no idea of what to do with them. They are no longer “youth” (and can’t be treated as such) but if they don’t have a family, they don’t fit in with the rest of the older church. That and to often they don’t really have much of a foundation to go back on. They views often mirror that of society at large, and not of the church. So these people typically drift out of church attendance till they get married and start having kids. Many don’t return even then.
Youth ministries need to be changed. Instead of “Lets keep this fun!” it needs to be “Let’s build a foundation!” To much milk means the kids are not ready for growth.
I saw it personally. After college, when I had my first job, most of the churches I went to didn’t know what to do with a 20 something single man. Many made it quite clear that I was not a “desired” group, and to go “elsewhere”.
The Church as a whole needs to be there for the entire life of the Christian. Not just as Youth and families with kids. However, that means dealing with a lot of things that pastors and priests don’t want to deal with. Things like young adults dating and breaking up (which was a reason one church I went to suburban Chicago did not do young adult groups), older single adults who have either lost their spouse or had a divorce, and the elderly in some parishes who might not fit the growth plan.
The Church is supposed to be a hospital of sinners, but to often it is viewed as an entertainment business.
The Protestant denomination I belong to [Christian Church (Disciples of Christ}] has a “Young Adults Group” that is for 18 - 30 year olds. Thus our young people who go off to college can continue friendships and religious activities. These are no only in local congregations, but regionally linked through meetings. Christian service and continued study are the major focus of these groups.
This has worked to keep them active in our congregations, but we still “loose” youth who are now post high school. Thus this is a somewhat working method of keeping from “loosing” your now young adults, but it isn’t a guarantee of keeping them.
Well since you posted the same old cut and paste objections to the SSPX faculties, I’ll again post my thoughts...
If Jesus were to appear suddenly just as I was to walk into an SSPX (traditional) confessional, do you really believe He would interrupt me and say: “Stop, my child, this priest is missing jurisdiction due to some technicality in canon law. Please receive My Body from him, but DO NOT first confess your sins to him”.
Huh?
It would be a false appearance, and you are already on a false trail.
So, since the Society continues without alteration the path of The Church prior to the recent innovations, your position is that The Catholic Church was on a “false trail” prior to about 1960???
No, you are on a false trail now by abandoning the Catholic Church, which is still on its pilgrim journey in this world. I hope you come back.
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