Friar Preacher as Catechist: If You Remember Only One Thing

Occasionally in my formation as a friar preacher debate has flared over the differences between, on the one hand, preaching and, on the other, teaching.  In my experience, these two obligations of our Order are often set at odds to one another.  It is said that preaching is not teaching––and this is said usually in order to overcome the tendency in some preachers to parrot doctrinal statements without explanation or application, to drone on in monotone, or to attempt to deliver a sophisticated academic lecture.  It is certainly true that none of these has a place in preaching.  Yet, I know more than a few students (myself included) who would say they equally have no place in teaching!

In teaching Confirmation classes to adolescents at a parish during the past two years I have often said to their parents: "I may try to give your children all the knowledge that I have––and they may even be able to remember most of it––but it will be of no value to them if they do not personally encounter Jesus Christ in this class and in the Church."  For me, it has turned out that teaching the faith of the Church is "dangerously" close to preaching the faith of the Church.  On the frontline of a Catholic classroom filled with teenagers, boring is one step away from hopelessness or faithlessness.  Dislike it as we must, nonetheless, culture demands of us that we re-package the faith for consumption again and again.  The parish classroom easily becomes a battlefield of competition for short attention spans.  TV, Music and the internet talk to my students 24/7, I get them for an hour and a half each week.

Catechetical Pyromania

The mother of St. Dominic, Juana de Aza, had a vision of her unborn son as a dog with a torch in its mouth.  With this torch he set the world on fire.  St. Catherine of Siena said, famously: "If you are who you should be, you will set the world on fire."  I use the image of fire in order to explain what I try to do with my students––it is not so much a question of dumping knowledge into their reluctant minds, but sparking faith, hope and love in their hearts, that a fire of their own might begin inside them.  A fire blazing in their hearts would fuel their interest in the Biblical worldview rather than the MTV worldview.  The fire within them would inspire them to know more, to love more, to be more. 

While the distinction between teaching and preaching has been useful to avoid some common pitfalls of preachers, it seems to do violence to the charism of teaching.  On the one hand, some techniques of the classroom are to be avoided in the pulpit––but if the flame of the preacher is tamed into a soft candle for the classroom, what could it ever possibly achieve?  Preaching is essentially this: to set others ablaze with love for Christ and the desire for salvation.  In this sense, preaching involves a kind of modeling, or a demonstration that what is being said––the Gospel––is truly life-giving and possible to be lived.  Perhaps it is from living in the Show-Me State, or from having taken Thomas the Apostle as my patron, that I think the key to preaching is showing that the Gospel is real and can really be a way of life for every person who hears it.  So the preacher on fire, living the Gospel––or Veritas as we Dominicans like to call it––can equally be a teacher on fire.

To some of my more reluctant students I have said, "If you forget everything I say to you, remember only this: it is possible."  This is the spark of hope: it is possible to have a relationship with God, it is truly possible to be a better person, to be loved and to love with your whole self.  The Gospel is possible.  The wisdom of the ages––from Moses to St. Paul, from Polycarp to Blessed John Paul II––all point to this: that life in Christ is possible and that it is our vocation as human persons.  No method, no amount of song and dance, movies, icebreakers or games will succeed in catechesis if they do not show this simple truth. 

A Conflagration

It could be said, I think, that if preaching is meant to spark a flame in the heart and mind of the hearer, then teaching should feed that flame.  If preaching is a sparker to start a flame, then teaching is a bellows to fan it.  The classroom has the opportunity to delve deeper and kindle the source, but it is limited also.  It can only be the beginning.  For Dominicans, the goal of our preaching is the salvation of souls––our preaching should lead others to Penance, and to the Eucharist.  Salvation is based on reconciliation, and our preaching is for conversion.  It is meant to go beyond the pulpit or the street corner and penetrate the whole person.  Catechesis must do the same.  Perhaps this is why I find myself ending classes with "homilies" rather than homework: without continuous fuel and attention, even bonfires burn out.  Each lesson offers fuel, each homily a spark, all to build up a great conflagration to set the world ablaze.

Br. Thomas Schaefgen, O.P. recently professed solemn vows (for life) on May 25, 2011 at the Province of St. Martin DePorres’ annual assembly.