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Catechetics Office

Catechesis

        The definition of the term catechesis involves passing something along or “echoing it down” to another.  This implies several things: a subject who is communicating, a subject who is receiving, and an objective content or message that is being passed along.  More specifically, catechesis is the Church’s communication of divine revelation to all throughout every age.  Jesus Christ is the source of all catechesis because he is the totality of divine revelation, the very Word of God himself (John 1:1-14).  Jesus entrusted the ministry of proclaiming and handing on revelation, the deposit of faith, to the Church he founded with his apostles.  St. Paul describes this transmission in a letter to Timothy, a man whom he commissioned for this very task:  “What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you” (2 Tim 1:13-14).
       
        As Christ, in his very person, is the totality of divine revelation the ultimate goal of catechesis is increasing knowledge and adherence to Christ.  This goal, more specifically put, is to foster a living, conscious, and active faith.  "The definitive aim of catechesis is to put people not only in touch, but also in communion and intimacy, with Jesus Christ" (GDC 80).  Catechesis takes a person who has already come into initial contact with Christ and inserts him more fully, indeed completely, into the mystery of Christ.  This involves a continuing and ever deepening conversion because the more a person comes into contact with God, who is all holy, the more they consequently realize their own sinfulness and need of change.  Experiencing salvation and growing in intimacy with Christ means full incorporation into his body the Church; following Christ, thinking, acting, and judging as Christ does.