Why Catholic? Connecting Faith-Sharing With Life

SISTER TERRY RICKARD, OP, Commentary

Published: August 19, 2004

This past Lenten season, I worked with a small parish outside New York City that was using RENEW’s PrayerTime, a lectionary-based faith-sharing program for Lent. Almost half the parish participated.

During Easter, we gathered to celebrate the blessings of the faith-sharing groups. A young woman named Kristin said she had been invited by another young adult to be part of a small community for Lent. Kristin told us that she had been away from the church for three years.

Kristin declared, “I have recommitted myself to God and my Catholic faith.” She told us that she had received the sacrament of reconciliation in Lent and Communion on Easter Sunday. The group of largely older adults spontaneously applauded. Kristin came to a new understanding and appreciation of why she was Catholic.

“Why Catholic?” isn’t a question that we would have asked a generation ago. If you were born Catholic then, you accepted Catholic beliefs, rituals and traditions.

Today, with the bewildering plurality of religions, increasing intermarriage of people from different faiths, the popularity of self-help and non-Christian spiritualities and the recent church scandal, this question is being asked in a serious way.

Often organized religions are portrayed as outmoded and restrictive. Christianity today does not have the same cultural and political supports that it had even in our parents’ generation. These realities challenge an automatic Christianity or a “cradle” Catholic.

The good news is we all need to choose or re-choose to be Catholic Christians today. Catholics are not born but formed into the community of disciples. Being Catholic is an ongoing process of conversion to the person and way of Jesus Christ. This process is guided and nourished through the teachings of Christ and the sacramental life of the church.

Recently, I was giving a presentation on Catholicism and one young parent asked, “How do we pass on our faith if we don’t know it?” There seems to be a growing number of Catholic seekers who never received a solid grounding in core Catholic beliefs and desire to know the faith they profess, want to profess or at least can’t fully renounce.

If there is anything that distinguishes us as Catholic Christians, it is our sacramental view of life.

For us, the created world is holy, sacred and graced. We find God in the ordinary. We believe the risen Christ chose to give Himself to us in seven special ways – the sacraments.

Water immerses us in the newness of life in Christ. The ordinary elements of bread and wine bring Christ’s real presence to us. The symbol of oil becomes an instrument of strength and healing. When we participate in the sacrament of reconciliation, we experience the personal presence of God freeing us from sin and empowering us to forgive others.

RENEW International is responding to the need to deepen Catholic identity, foster ongoing conversion and provide solid catechesis through small Christian communities with a new adult faith-formation program titled, “Why Catholic? A Journey through the Catechism.”

This program provides an opportunity for people of faith to engage in critical conversation about things that matter. It breaks open the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Scriptures and connects their treasures with daily life, with family life and with the public sphere. The program focuses particularly on the areas of Catholic identity, doctrine and discipleship through leader training, parishioner workshops, retreats and faith-sharing sessions.

We are all invited to profess, celebrate and live our faith more authentically. Through “Why Catholic?” we hope to recapture the richness of our faith and pass it on to the next generation of Catholics.

Sister Terry Rickard, OP, a Blauvelt Dominican, is coordinator of RENEW International’s “Why Catholic?” adult faith formation program. This article is reprinted with the permission of The Catholic Advocate, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Newark, N.J.