Getting an ageless truth across in modern times

Maynooth College Reflects on the Catechesis in the Life of the Church,

edited by Jeremy Corley, Andrew Meszaros & John-Paul Sheridan, foreword by Bishop Michael Duignan

(Messenger Publications, €14.95 / £12.95)

This book consists of some 18 papers by writers directly associated  for the most part with Maynooth College, and as such it represents the continuing mandate to teach and expound the Chrstians faith for which the college was originally established back at the end of the 18th century.

This represents in the modern world a very long continuity, a world where change is of ever increasing speed, and the “new” rather than “the long cherished” has become the matter of moment to most people.

Contributions fall into three parts. The first part deals with catechesis in its largest scope, considering what is the mission of catechesis.

The second part moves on to what may well be for many of those involved at a parish or community level with catechesis: how does one bring the procedure “alive” for those one is trying to communicate with?

The audience for catechesis after all ranges from small children to mature adults who have perhaps become hardened in the ways they were taught when they were young, but which, in changing times, seems to have lost not just impact, but relevance to the life of society today.

Then, too,  there is the example of Vice-President Vance whose opinions on what the Church teaches derive from a misunderstanding of St Augustine, and lack a sense of what the Gospels say, let alone what the Church teaches.

The third part moves on to what is also a vital matter for many,  discussing those neglected aspects of catechetical teaching” such as the social teaching of the  Church (which perhaps will receive an increased emphasis under the new pontificate of Pope Leo, who choice of title was a deliberate allusion to the importance of  Leo XIII and Rerum Novarum.

“New things” of all kinds demand our attention through the use of theological anthropology, and the treasury of earlier thought, especially in St Augustine.

There is a fourth section on prayer and the scripture in catechesis. This last will perhaps be the most relevant. There is perhaps a sense of  “preaching to the converted”  about catechesis. But before that there is the matter of  actual conversion to the way of the Gospel, to what Jesus told his followers in 33 AD and what might be made of those teachings in 2025.

With a continuing decline of  vocations, the task of  “converting Ireland” would seem to be a daunting one for all Christians.