Lately I have been noticing blog posts and videos sounding the death knell of the university lecture. Often the discussion centers around how the pandemic has just about broken an already stressed system of learning where  the professor holds forth in the lecture hall with students in attendance. I have a chuckle since the lecture has really been on life support  ever since the printing press made mass-produced texts possible. In fact, widespread literacy itself challenges any system of education that relies on knowledge gate-keepers. Why in the world do we need to pay people to read to us what we can read ourselves?

I may be going out on a limb in this university town, challenging the need for lectures or even schools themselves. I simply want folks to reflect a bit on the process of gaining knowledge. A university is much more than a calendar of lectures. Most of us learn best by joining a community of learners. Access to mutual support and personal accountability are essential components of personal growth. The school is one of the great expressions of human solidarity. 

Being Catholics, we recognize that faith itself is not a private, individual affair. Christ founded the Church to be the means of passing grace from one generation to the next. Faith is of course personal. We are individually called by name to be God’s adopted sons and daughters, but our baptism is into the family of God, brothers and sisters in the Lord. In communion and in community is where faith is found, nourished, and shared. That is why faith formation necessarily requires a group component.

That the Church values the small group is nowhere clearer than  in the reformation of the Catechumenate in the past sixty years. The model of faith formation for those who want to know Christ presumes a community of pilgrims who are journeying together toward faith. The Instruction class has been replaced by an order of ritual, reflection, and discernment. Faith is shared, not as simply a deposit of knowledge, but a treasury of grace-filled stories. If this is the model of catechesis for those who are called to become Christian, then it is equally valid for those who need renewal in their own lives:  and that is all of us.
 
Here are the themes of the six Lenten sessions of Grateful Living:

1. Seeing with New Sight:  The story of the blind man Bartimaeus demonstrates that encounters with Christ call forth a response. Christ not only desires our faith, Christ wants us to be his disciples: collaborators in the mission of evangelization. Stewardship is one of the consequences of the new sight Christ bestows upon us.

2. Open Your Mind, Heart, and Hands:  Created in the image and likeness of God, we have been given a share of the holiness of God. Having been given this gift, how are we called to nurture this gift and share it with others? God’s holiness is best defined as self-giving love; therefore to be holy as the Lord is holy, we too must share in love.

3. Jesus Calls. Will you Answer? The fundamental realization of faith is that there is a God who created each of us out of love. In that act of creation God places his Word in our hearts. The Word speaks to us and we respond to that call. Stewardship teaches us how to answer the call of discipleship.

4. Discover Your Unique Call. All of us have been called to be disciples by virtue of our baptism. Yet each of us lives the life of discipleship in a unique way. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians contains a magnificent hymn to the variety of gifts that have been given to the community. Stewardship is the way the Church identifies the unique talents, gifts, and abilities of its members and fosters the building up of the Body of Christ.

5. Go and Bear Good Fruit:   God wishes human beings to be his collaborators in the work of creation, redemption, and sanctification and such collaboration implies stewardship in its most profound sense. 

6. Live the Mystery:  We cannot reflect on any aspect of our faith life without reference to the Eucharist. The very word Eucharist is an expression of stewardship:  the steward begins with receiving God’s gifts and giving thanks to God. The Eucharist is the source of salvation, enfolding us in the eternal offering of the Son to the Father. The Eucharist is the summit of our faith:  we celebrate the Mystery in the sacrament and we live the sacrament in our daily lives of service.

On the weekend of February 19-20, all parishioners will have an opportunity to express their commitment to participating in our Lenten faith formation groups exploring the themes of stewardship in the Scripture, the Tradition, and in the lives of God’s people. Please take this week to prayerfully reflect on your own journey of faith. Where has God led you?  Where is God leading you? How can your story be shared so that others may grow in their own faith?