Handing down the faith

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

A good story or message deserves more than a single telling. St Luke recognises that others have beaten him to write “accounts of the events that have taken place,” specifically accounts surrounding the life and ministry of the Lord and that of the Church and her early mission. But these other accounts have not deterred him from writing a fresh account, not a fictional make-believe story, but one based on real events and real persons, stories and sayings handed down “by those who from the outset were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word.” He specifically addresses this account to Theophilus for an expressed reason, so that Theophilus “may learn how well founded the teaching is that [he has] received.” Some people may find it strange and even offensive that we are reading a private message from one person to another. But Theophilus, which means “lover of God,” could be a pseudonym addressed to every Christian. For is not every Christian meant to be a “lover of God”?

It is interesting that St Luke uses the Greek word “paredosan,” which comes from the root “paradosis” which is translated here as “handed down.” This is essentially what “tradition” is about - the handing down of the sayings and deeds of the Lord through the witness of the Apostles. Though hand-me-downs are often considered a humiliating badge of poverty, for Catholics the Sacred Tradition that has been faithfully handed down from the Apostles to our present age, are anything but a sign of our impoverishment. In fact, Sacred Tradition together with Sacred Scripture are the greatest treasures of our Church, treasures to be valued, flaunted and displayed for the world to see.

Again, another Greek word that is lost in translation when rendered in English is a word familiar to many of us - “Katechetes” - translated here simply as “teaching.” Sounds familiar? It should – we have the English word “catechesis.” And immediately the gospel takes a leap from the first chapter to the fourth chapter and presents our Lord as the Teacher par excellence. And what is interesting is that the example cited by St Luke is not some innovative new teaching, but our Lord reading from the scroll of the Book of Isaiah. Many would find it ironic that the Eternal Logos, the Word made Flesh, could have chosen to speak on any topic, and teaching something fresh, but instead He delves into the depths of the Old Testament and shows us that His revelation is in continuation to what has already been revealed to, and through the prophets. At the end of the reading, the Lord tells His audience that the text is being fulfilled even as they are listening to Him because He is the One whom the prophecy is pointing to.

For this reason, the first and most important thing that we must remember about handing on the faith is this: everything begins and ends with Jesus Christ. He is the source, the fulfilment and the ultimate climax of revelation, and by extension, of all catecheses. For us Catholics, the Word of God is not just a book to be kept on the shelf nor a text to be merely studied. The Word of God is first and foremost a person - Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. Pope Francis said, “Christian doctrine is . . . living, is able to unsettle, is able to enliven. It has a face that is supple, a body that moves and develops, flesh that is tender: Christian doctrine is called Jesus Christ.”

For this reason, we cannot and we should not claim to be People of the Book but People of the Living Word of God. We do not worship a book. We worship the One who is the source of divine revelation, the record of which is found in a book we call the Bible but also preserved in the oral tradition of the Church. No one can really claim that they understand the nature of catechesis without realising that its form, its content, and its ultimate goal is Jesus Christ.

The word catechesis, in Greek—katékhéo—comes from the two words kata-ekheo. But kata-ekheo means to “echo down” or, you might say, to “echo precisely.” St. Paul and St. Luke used this word (see, e.g., Lk 1:4 and 1 Cor 14:19) to explain what we are doing when we teach the Christian faith. They are telling us that a catechist and his teaching are supposed to be an echo, a precise echo, of what has been given for instruction. If we are only an echo, then the original voice is someone else’s. The voice of the Master is supposed to resound in our teaching.

This is so humbling for a teacher of the faith. I constantly have to tell myself, “I’m not the real teacher here. Jesus is,” and I have to let the words of John the Baptist be a mantra on my lips: “He must increase. I must decrease” (Jn 3:30). Some of the great thinkers of the patristic era, like Augustine, took this so seriously that they claimed we could not learn anything, except through the illumination of our minds by the light of Christ. But what we can say for sure is that, in catechesis, we are attempting to communicate something that surpasses what the human mind could know by its own efforts. And, if that is the case, then we should take Jesus seriously when He says, “You have One Teacher,” (Mt 23:8), and we should make His words our own when He claims, “My teaching is not mine but his who sent me” (Jn 7:16).

In the 4th century, St John Chrysostom, reflected upon this echoing nature of teaching the faith, wrote that this teaching is not just an echo of the Master, but this teaching is supposed to resound within the heart of our hearers, so much so, that you can see it bear fruit in their lives. St. John Paul II, puts it like this: “Catechesis takes the seed of faith sown by evangelisation and nourishes it so that the “whole of a person’s humanity is impregnated by that word”; it continues to nourish that seed until Christ is born again in that person’s flesh, that he or she might learn to “think like Him, to judge like Him, to act in conformity with His commandments”.” So, my dear parents, catechists and RCIA facilitators, always remember that your job is to echo our Lord. Our Catholic faith is one of imitation, not of innovation - we are called to imitate the Lord in word and deed, not to replace Him with our own ideas, words or deeds. Let Him be the Teacher, the content, and the end of your labours. Catechesis will always begin and end with Him, and He will be the entire way through.

Finally, catechesis is impossible without the Church, without the community. The second reading tells us that though there may be a variety of gifts and ministries, there is only one Body. That is why in today’s Mass we celebrate the commissioning of our catechists - parents, Sunday School teachers and RCIA facilitators - within the context of the Church - the Church carrying on the mission of Christ, sends out disciples who seek to make disciples of others.

Think of this: the task of a catechist is an impossible one, when left to our own powers. We are powerless to convert hearts, and to make the Word of God grow inside of people. We can only plant and water, but He must give the increase (1 Cor 3:6). Conversion is the work of the Holy Spirit. Unless we are anointed and commissioned by the Lord through His Church, our work will be in vain. This should drive us to constantly come back to the only place where we can find refuge and solace for such an arduous task: Holy Mother Church and her bridegroom, the Blessed Lord Jesus Christ.