Catechetical Checkup, and Why Knowing the Faith Matters

Week 6

As parents of our Confirmation students are aware, this Sunday all Confirmation students in grades 9 and 10 will be taking what we are calling a "Catechetical Checkup."  This checkup will consist of 31 questions on the basics of the Catholic faith and is intended to help us ensure that every young person who is preparing for the Sacrament of Confirmation understands at least the bare minimum of the Church's teaching.  This of course raises an important question for all of us: why does it matter whether we understand or know the beliefs and teachings of our faith?  There are at least three basic reasons.

First and perhaps most obvious, there is a responsibility that we have towards the Church as a community that we wish to belong to.  We might call this an organizational responsibility, and it's by no means unique to the Church.  Virtually every organization that we might wish to belong to expects us to have some sense of what the organization stands for and how the organization works, and to have the knowledge to be able to represent it well.  This is true of the companies we work for, the schools we attend, and even the country we live in, which famously requires those seeking citizenship to pass a very thorough and challenging test.  How much more should the Church — which is concerned with eternal realities that don't merely go away when we clock out, graduate, or even die — ask us to know what it believes and teaches.  Simply put, if we want to belong to the Church, we should have at least a basic understanding of what it is and stands for.

Less obviously, but much more importantly, we have a familial responsibility towards God — Who loves us perfectly and totally, teaches us to call Him "Father," and even died for us in the person of Jesus Christ.  Scott Hahn, a prominent Catholic author and theologian, is fond of pointing out that while God does forgive our sins like a judge, no judge invites the acquitted home to join the family.  The Church is not simply symbolically, but truly the family of God, and we have a responsibility towards God to know Him and to listen to what He has to say to us just as we should any member of our family.  Imagine spending years of your life giving everything you had emotionally, physically, spiritually, financially, and in any other way possible simply to love and help a family member — while all the while they ignore you and make no effort to even know you.  We don't want to do this to God.  He gave us everything — even His very life — out of love for us.  The least we can do is pay attention to what He says!

Finally, it's important to know what the Church believes and teaches because we have a right to.  Pope St. John Paul II wrote about this right in a document called Catechesi Tradendae, saying that "the person who becomes a disciple of Christ has the right to receive 'the word of faith' not in mutilated, falsified or diminished form but whole and entire, in all its rigor and vigor." Pope Francis has recently made similar statements.  Jesus spoke about those seeking God's teachings as "sheep without a shepherd," and of course was born on Christmas day precisely to be our Good Shepherd.  The Lord loves us, created us to be happy, and established the Church in order to ensure that we would always have access to that happiness and to all that He has taught.  If God Himself offered a teaching that He intends us to hear, then we should certainly make sure to hear it!  Moreover, we can be certain that a teaching from God is an important teaching: nothing should get in the way of our hearing it.

Thus far this year, the kids of our Faith Formation program have had many opportunities to work with our catechists to make sure that they know what the Church believes and teaches - that is, what Jesus Christ wants us to know.  I hope that they are very well prepared for this checkup, and would encourage you to do your best this weekend to make sure that they do any last minute preparations that may be necessary.  More importantly, I would encourage you to consider the example of these kids who have in many cases gone above and beyond what was asked of them, asking question after question in an effort to truly understand their faith — basics and beyond.  May we all do the best that we can to take advantage of our right, and fulfill our responsibility, to hear all that God has to speak to us.