October 3, 2009
Live God’s word in the world, speaker urges
By Denise MacLachlan
Herald staff
Jesuit Father Allan Figueroa Deck speaks to hundreds of catechists during his keynote address at Catechist Ministry Day Sept. 26. Luis Gris/Herald photo
The word of God, in the sense of the teaching of God, becomes flesh when
people take action to make it real in the world, Jesuit Father Allen Figueroa
Deck told more than 900 catechists, Catholic school educators, parish coordinators
of religious education, youth ministers and others gathered Sept. 26 at
Catechist Ministry Day.
Quoting Pope Benedict XVI in his keynote address, Father Deck noted that God’s word is “informative, formative and performative.”
If the word of God is “to be lived in the reality of the world, it must take form in charity for those in need, social justice for those being oppressed, housing for those who don’t have it, and food for those who don’t have it,” Father Deck said.
The theme of the event at St. Francis High School in Sacramento was “Catechesis and the Proclamation of the Word.” Attendees took part in dozens of workshops in Spanish and English on a range of topics including catechesis, youth ministry, the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, vocations and liturgy.
In an engaging speech delivered in English in the morning and in Spanish in the afternoon, Father Deck, executive director of the Secretariat of Cultural Diversity in the Church for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington D.C., addressed catechists from parishes across the diocese on the ways that people actually learn about God.
People learn about love in relationships, Father Deck noted, describing his early experiences praying with his grandmother. Similarly, people learn about God in relationships in families, friendships and communities, as they observe one another trying to live God’s teaching.
Father Deck said that religious education is about “how the reality of God enters our lives, and how that reality creates experiences that make us who we are.” The way to teach religion is “not primarily in a classroom,” he said, adding that classroom instruction is important, but stressing that “religious education takes place in a context of care and concern and love and beauty,” so that it engages the whole person, intellect and emotions.
Illustrating this “integral, organic embodied” approach to religious education, Father Deck noted that the original meaning of “word” intended speech rather than print, so that the word of God was experienced in the context of a relationship with a speaker, carrying emotional as well as intellectual meaning. Since the advent of printing, however, the word of God is thought of as printed language in the Bible, so that people experience it primarily intellectually, losing the emotional or “embodied” message.
Hearing God’s teaching in community, in the communal liturgy of the Mass or among others studying and praying, places religious education in the context of relationships and helps people to more fully understand the word of God, Father Deck said, because such experience engages the spiritual sense as well as the intellect.
Father Deck concluded his talk with step-by-step instruction in “lectio divina,” or prayerful reading of the Scriptures, what he called a traditional method of “recovering the integrative spiritual sense of Scripture.”
Editor’s note: The outline of Father Deck’s instruction is posted on the Diocese of Sacramento’s Web site on the Department of Evangelization and Catechesis' page at www.diocese-sacramento.org/evangelization_catechesis/cmd.html. A lengthier interview with Father Deck will be published in Oct. 17 edition of The Herald.
