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Dear Faith Formation, Pastoral Assistants and Catechists,
Today it seems important to me to highlight the vocation of the catechist, his spirituality and your work as a pastoral agent. Catechesis, which means "echo", consists of the formal and progressive education of the faith that has a beginning, a development and never ends, being of a permanent nature.
This implies that it is Jesus and His Church who call, and a positive response is required from the one who receives the invitation. This call involves:
1) Fidelity to the Risen Jesus, to his Word (CCC 75.100), both written (Sacred Scripture) and oral (Living Tradition through the Apostolic Succession of Bishops, which goes back to the Apostolic Community formed by Jesus and the Apostles).
The understanding of this Word grows when the faithful read it, study it and contemplate it prayerfully, and when it is proclaimed by the bishops, who by Apostolic Succession possess the charism of truth (CCC 94).
2) Fidelity to the human being. That is, to assume and purify the values of culture, of popular religiosity (CCC 1674-1676.1679). We must know how to discover the absence or presence of God in the daily life of our lives: work, study, family, etc.
3) Conversion and growth. It is the process of following Jesus, imitating him, and growing in personal holiness. Christianity is a Person, and that Person is Jesus.
4) Catechesis must be comprehensive and wholistic. That is, to know the Word of God and to know how to proclaim it, to celebrate it in the liturgy, especially in the Eucharist, the other sacraments, and the Liturgy of the Hours, and to bear witness to it in daily life and in today's culture.
6) And all this within an orderly methodology (Puebla 1009).
At present, the use of the Internet is the new forum (place) of evangelization, from whose virtual pages the adorable face of Jesus must also appear, knowing how to search and navigate pages of Christian edification, and also knowing how to make contributions to them. (According to St. John Paul II).
This vocation reminds us that formation in the faith is permanent, that is, it begins in childhood until old age, since the growth and process of union with God is unlimited.
For this reason, in our archdiocese we have adopted the name of Lifelong Formation. Let us live our vocation and bring more people into a personal encounter with Jesus, our Lord and Savior.
Carlos Carrillo
Director of Lifelong Formation Department
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