By The Revd Nicholas Henshall
Facts are, of course, imparted in catechesis but sometimes the imparting of information is given too much prominence. Formation needs to cultivate a listening heart Benedictine novice mistress told me recently that her community had stopped sending novices to study at university – not on the grounds of cost, or lack of intellectual capacity. They had come to realise that university education now, compared with 30 years ago, was at war with monastic formation – and what the novices need is a totally different kind of learning altogether.
It was exactly 30 years ago that my own tutor asked me seriously if I thought that the university could actually teach without daily prayer at the heart of its common life – the kind of daily prayer that had been practised in that university from the eleventh to the nineteenth centuries. Today such a question, even if it could be asked, would be greeted with incomprehension.
For faith communities, there is a painful and puzzling mismatch between the clearly articulated aims of contemporary education, and formation in the way of faith. That is not simply an issue for faith schools, faith colleges, faith universities, but for each local church. If the models our children and young people experience day by day are genuinely at war with formation in a way of faith, then parishes need to model something different.
The other day, a very bright A level student explained to me carefully and without irony that the important thing about A level history was not wider reading but knowing the mark scheme for each individual question. When I pointed out to him that two of my most intellectually able contemporaries at Oxford got in on an A and two Es, he looked utterly mystified.
And that is a real challenge. Churches have the wonderfully broad vision of the catechumenate, and the liberating freedom of lectionary-based catechesis. But, again and again, when it comes to a confirmation group for young people or a nurture group for adults, it is far too easy for the busy priest or catechist to reach for the book or DVD containing the curriculum – closing down the questions before they have even been asked, imparting a body of knowledge rather than forming people in a way of life, and treating the journey of faith as if it were getting a GCSE in divinity.
Information and formation are not completely at war. But it is essential to get them the right way round. For a person or group on a genuine journey of faith, a deeper knowledge of the four gospels and the complexity of their overlapping narratives can be a wonderful handmaid to a deeper encounter with Christ. But a series of lectures on the synoptic problem, however excellent, is going to feed the head and leave the heart quite untouched.
Information is always and only the handmaid of formation. It is never just about intellectual capacity. One of my first catechumenate groups contained a senior medical physicist from the local teaching hospital, and someone whose mental capacity had been seriously compromised after an accident. But both participated in the group as equals. As Richard Foster says at the beginning of his classic Celebration of Discipline: “Superficiality is the curse of our age … the desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people.” Jane and Alan, whatever different worlds they came from, were launching out into the deep together.
Recent figures tor England suggest that 34 per cent of people over 16 have absolutely no direct experience of Christianity or the life of the Church. A common assumption is that all enquirers need is a six-week course and then they are launched. This assumption is seriously misplaced.
Here, I insist on a minimum 15- to 18-month catechumenate process for young people and adults (which also helpfully subverts the ticking boxes for faith-school entry). But that is only the start. The pattern from the outset is permissive, open – seeking to help people reflect on their genuine experience and ask their real questions, however far out. Themes are explored together and brought into relationship with the gospels. Gradually the groups move into a stable pattern of lectionarybased catechesis in which they feel both challenged and at home.
A lot of research on the catechumenate in the 1980s suggested real disappointment by many in the period after initiation, when groups began to break up, and the assumption seemed to be that you now just had to make your own way. That is why it is crucial at this point to offer people a range of possibilities.
Here the current offering includes a monthly, church-based, in-depth session introducing people to the regular practice of lectionary-based reflection, as both groups and individuals; five lectionary-based house groups meeting at different locations; and the weekly provision of both lectionary-based preaching as a key resource, and study notes each week on the Sunday gospel reading. We have found the most helpful resource for this has been the wonderfully accessible material developed by Chris Haslam of the Anglican Diocese of Montreal (montreal.anglican.org/comments). These relate directly to the Sunday lectionary used by both Catholics and Anglicans.
Crucially, all this leads to not simply an inward journey, but also an apostolic ministry. You journey with God in depth and part of the outcome is you begin to own the task God has given you – a volunteer in the charity shop, a lifechanging vocation, opportunities to grow in discipleship and service. Churches need to be more proud of their traditions of formation. There is a better word to say on this, a bigger vision, where – in the words of Dom Jean Leclercq’s great study of Benedictine culture – the “love of learning and the desire for God” always go together.
Churches, certainly, and maybe church schools, are called to model a different set of values. This involves, not a lack of intellectual rigour, but a recognition that in the Christian tradition the purpose of study is ultimately to equip the heart to love. In west Newcastle in the late 1990s, the manager of our local sheltered-housing project would only have students on work experience from the local faith schools. She had learned the hard way that, regardless of their own personal faith, but because of their formation, there was a difference in the quality of care they provided. They “knew” about compassion, the highest accolade she could give. They had genuinely been novices in what Benedict calls a “school of the Lord’s service”.
The Revd Nicholas Henshall is vicar of Christ Church on the Stray, Harrogate, North Yorkshire.
Reproduced with permission from THE TABLET. 17 March 2012
