At the heart of WYD activities lies the daily catechesis sessions held throughout the city. The word catechesis comes from a Greek word meaning “to echo” and the early Christian community adopted it to describe the process of passing on the Christian faith. In our Catholic tradiition, the chief catechists are supposed to be the bishops. Unfortunately, in day-to-day activities most bishops have very little time to spend in that kind of direct teching and faith formation. So, it was with great excitement that I looked forward to these catechetical sessions that are led by the bishops themselves.
Catechesis was held every morning from Wednesday through Friday. The schedule was the same each day: songs and prayers to open the day for about a half hour, a half hour of teaching by the bishop, forty-five minutes for questions and answers with the bishop, a short break, and daily mass presided over by the bishop. There were themes selected for each day, taken from the overall theme of this WYD, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses.” Wednesday the focus was on life in the Holy Spirit, Thursday was centered on the belief that the Holy Spirit is the Soul of the Church. Finally, Friday was to conclude with the topic of the Holy Spirit as the principal agent of mission.
These catechesis sessions took place in dozens of locations throughout the city in multiple languages. It happened that the parish church on the complex where we were staying was an English site, so we did not have far to go in the morning! All of the people staying at the two schools were there, as were many other people – a total of about 800 pilgrims. The three bishops that were assigned to our center were an auxiliary bishop from Detroit, the bishop of Canberra (the capital city of Australia), and an American cardinal now working in Rome at the Apostolic Penitentiary (the Vatican office that deals with issues of penance and indulgences).
The first bishop was fine, but not overly exciting. The tone he took was a little bit off, more suited for a talk to middle school students that the age group actually in front of him. The best part of the time with him was certainly the Q&A. Most people our age do not get a lot of face time with bishops. They generally come out to parishes once a year for Confirmation, and that is about it. So it was really a special opporunity for many of the pilgrims to get to ask their questions face to face and get an answer. Some of the questions came in relation to the talk, but some clearly were questions that had been bothering people for some time, so it was nice for them to get a chance to ask them.
The Australian bishop the second day was absolutely marvelous. He showed great command of the format, giving an exemplary talk modeling a wonderful understanding of catechesis. He did not resort to mere moral exhortations or pious platitudes. He took some real substantial parts of the faith and began to break them open. Speaking on the relationship between the Holy Spirit and the Church he used a powerful image. He said that those who look at the Church from the outside as non-believers see in the church only a corpse. That is because they see the body (made up of people) but not the soul – and a body without a soul is only a corspe. The soul of the Church is the Holy Spirit, and to see its enlivening power you have to look with eyes of faith. His homily during mass was also a model homily, taking our lives as we were experiencing them on this pilgrimage and breaking them open in light of the liturgy. It was wonderful.
Given that, the bishop on Friday was a bit of a dissapointment. He did not really directly address the topic he was supposed to. He spoke very slowly and quietly, without much seeming energy or passion. He tended to ramble, and his homily was nearly indistinguishable from his catechesis – both in length and content.
Overall, however, I felt the catechesis sessions to be very postive encounters. The overall organization of them seemed well thought out. I am grateful for them.
