My entire presbyterate recently gathered for an annual convocation. The Topic this year: Restoring the Order of the Sacraments of Initiation. It was amazing to watch these pastors suddenly also become theologians. So often it seems that in pastoral work the connection to theology is not obvious. However, these priests, when given the opportunity, were happy to dust off their theological vocabulary and resume the debates in which they had engaged as seminarians. Unlike seminarians, though, they approached the debate with the added wealth of experiential knowledge that gave weight to their opinions. It was a glorious dispute; words and phrases like mystagogia, source and summit, spiritual maturity, and praxis were flying all over the place. The priests quoted Law, Tradition, Scripture, and Documents. It was amazing. Theology, it would seem, is highly practical, but I suspect that many of us often fail to see the theological skeleton when it is enfleshed in pastoral practice.
Friday, October 13, 2006
Theology in Practice
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3 comments:
So, being that now as a DRE I have reason to be interested in such topics as the restoration of the order of the sacraments of initiation... was there any kind of agreement on reasons for or against? Personally, I think it makes perfect sense to restore the order, as Confirmation, no matter how hard we try, only ends up being thought of as the "graduation" sacrament. Theologically, I think we can apply Agustine's observation regarding the need for the grace of baptism for infants to Confirmation for younger ages - our youth need the grace of this sacrament BEFORE they hit high school as much as they do during it! Anyway - can you tell us more on the actual topic of the discussion and the outcome?
The entire debate took place with knowledge that our diocese is moving toward an intergenerational model of catechesis. So, a time is coming when parents will be better prepared to educate their own children in the faith. As a result, there seemed, more or less, to be consensus that the order of the sacraments should be restored. This was attributed to the need for the sacramental grace before reaching adolescence, the fact that only a fraction of the baptized have been confirmed, and the fact that confirmation should not be understood as a "graduation" from religious education. However, there were a few priests convinced that parents are unprepared to get kids ready for confirmation while others argued that young children are not of sufficient spiritual maturity to be fully initiated into the Church. Still others argued that the change in order was a legitimate development in our practice.
There was strong agreement that should such a change occur, there would also be a need to try to prompt greater conversion in the hearts of the children at a younger age, as there would no longer be the sacramental "carrot on a stick" to keep the youth coming to Mass.
For us, though, the debate has not ended. We haven't really even begun talking to catechists yet, so we really don't know where they stand on the matter. At this point, we are still in the middle of the debate, so who knows what might happen.
Fascinating.
As you can, please keep us updated. I'm just a lay person, but I recently began teaching RCIA. (I use the term "teaching" very loosly in relation to myself).
I was raised with very poor formal catechesis, and as a result, indeed, confirmation was a "graduation" sacrament. While they did lipservice to the idea that "this is not graduation", there was NOTHING in place for young adults...there was nothing to keep our attention. Parish leadership...all about the adults. A huge void gaped before us and this remained.
It's better now, with Frassati, but I do think more needs to be done. Confirmation at a younger age might make a difference. At least at that point, the person in question still has time under the parent's roof and with better programs in place, perhaps there will be another way to draw in the youth before they become high school graduates.
For myself, with the RCIA stuff, I have to say that I hope to help the new converts and others to understand all the great programs our parish has, and for those who are closer to my age..I hope to recruit them into Frassati. :-)
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