In presenting the Catechumenal Project, it seems to me convenient to include some events of my own personal and community life that made it possible. Perhaps it may be useful for many people. Paul VI said it: At the end, is there other way to announce the Evangel than to communicate to other the own faith experience? (EN 46). Moreover, it is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises for his name, to proclaim his love in the morning, his faithfulness in the night. [1]
First Steps
Once I sang it and now we sing it: I was called from my mother's womb; I had nothing to do with it … I was born at Aldeaseca de Arévalo in
Old Arenas Seminary |
My mother died of a brain embolism, on February 8, 1956, when she was 40 years old. I was 11. The last time I saw her alive was when she said good-bye to me as I went of to Arenas de San Pedro Seminary in September 17, 1955. It was the worst news that I could receive. When I saw her dead, I had the impression that she was not there, that it was not she. I returned to the Seminary at the end of February. At night, before sleep I prayed to the Lord. I have been fulfilled, but in a different way that I was expecting. [2] And I cannot say that I was disappointed. If the Lord says that the dead rise and that they are like angels [3] , I can say that in many occasions I counted with her mysterious presence. As an angel of the Lord, she was leading my steps.
Since the 1958-59 academic year, I have the Bible in my hands. Something new was coming up in the Church. Testimonies of conversions arrived at the Seminary from the new Christianity courses. Richard Lombardi announced all around that a Better World was necessary. In October 28th, 1958, the radio announced to the
world the election of a new Pope. And they made the right choice:
a man called John who was sent from God. [4]
A Pentecost present
When I reached the age of maturity, I reviewed everything including my education. As
It was the second of June, 1963, the Pentecost feast. I was then 19 years old and I was studying the third year of Philosophy at the Pontifical University of Salamanca. I was living at San Carlos Students Residence. Even with some limits, one could feel there a renovation and free atmosphere that you could not feel in other seminaries. Vatican Council II was in full development. The afternoon of that day one of my college mates, Jose Antonio del
Pontifical University of Salamanca and San Carlos Student Residence |
I returned to the dormitory with the feeling that I was being guided there mysteriously, effectively and significantly. Nothing had happened by chance. Everything made sense. Years later a great professor of the
At night I used to read the Bible. And many times it seemed to me to I had found the right passage. It became to me living Words. I especially remember some phrases: Preaching the Gospel is no reason for me to boast; it is rather an obligation that has been imposed to me. And woe to me if I do not preach it! [7] . And also: Forgetting what lies behind, I run towards what lies ahead, towards the calling of God in Christ Jesus [8] . And finally: I will give them a shepherd who will pasture them [9] .
Teilhard de Chardin |
The fact of evolution
In
It was liberation to be assured that evolution was neither opposed to faith nor, by itself, was a protection to any philosophy. It is a fact that one discovers by science. According to Teilhard, the “Galileo of the Cosmo genesis”, the minimum creed common to all evolutionists is this: there exists a physical bond among all who are alive and, by extension, among all that is real [13] .
Teilhard, an intelligent man and a believer, considers illegitimate the schism that gradually, from the Renaissance, was separating Christianity from the modern world. In 1923, he already said: "I begin to think that there is a certain vision of the real world so narrow to some believers, as the world of Faith is closed to those who are not believers." [14]
Teilhard, as a person and through his work, represents a decisive renovation that permits him to dialogue with the modern world. Religion itself becomes fertilized, enlarged. Teilhard has the merit of returning to Christianity its cosmological sense. But also, he offers to a dynamic world the light of Revelation.
Christ is the center
In a study circle, held in the
Omega is the future that is awaiting an evolution that has become conscious, but has to face the vertiginous and dark step of death. Omega has to be, according to Teilhard, a transcendent and personal reality. Transcendent because it is the other side of everybody and every phenomenon. Personal, because - from the moment that the world has become personal – from then on, nothing can then make sense to him who is not supremely personal, from then on, no reality can be superior, or can attract him if it is not extremely relational, no transcendent point could already hold his attention.
Omega is the key point of the Teilhard hypothesis. If Omega exists, then all can be explained. Also the death. Death is, then, a step forward to where one reaches the plenitude of Omega. [17]
Advancing from below to above, that is, in the light of reason, one reaches only a hypothetical "unknown god" who is Omega. But changing the perspective and considering things from above to below, that is, at the light of Revelation, Omega is Christ [18] , who fulfils, holds, sums up and reconciles all creation. [19]
In this way, Resurrected Christ has for Teilhard cosmic dimensions: "You have the right of Resurrection occupying the key point of the total Center where everything is concentrated. [20] " And also, "The star that the world is waiting for, not knowing yet how to pronounce his name, not understanding exactly his true transcendence, without being able to distinguish his most spiritual and divine rays, is without doubt the Christ himself who we are waiting for. [21] And finally: "Christ is loved as a person and imposed as a world". [22]
Victory against death
In a certain way, all Teilhard work is a great meditation about death. [23] Death is "the sum and the consummation of all our limitations", [24] but it is also a divine milieu that leads to the plenitude of resurrection. [25] Resurrection is not, for Teilhard, a restoration of the present order of the world, a kind of paradise on earth. [26] In his work a new concept of resurrection emerges, fruit of his dynamic vision of the world. [27] Let us see:
- With death, something irreversible happens. There is something essential and something transient. Death, in order not to be such a death, should leave "the most precious essence of our beings" [28] to filter through.
- Death step forwards, puts the world and the man in a transcendent state. It is "a natural condition of ecstasies beyond the sizes and frames of the visible universe". [29]
- One understands the resurrection as a fulfillment of our own personality in a transcending situation. This fulfillment is given to us through Christ, in whom we are made divine: a consummation of the Christ genesis, mystery and destiny of history, transfiguration of the man and the world.
"The organic complex will be constituted like this: God and the World, the Fulfillment, mysterious reality that we cannot say to be more beautiful than God alone, since God can leave aside the world, but neither can we think of it as absolutely secondary, because it will make creation incomprehensible, the Passion absurd and our efforts useless. And then the end will come. As an immense tide, the Being shall have dominated the trembling of the beings. In the bosom of a quieted Ocean, but in which every drop will be conscious of being itself, the extraordinary adventure of the world will end. The dream of every mystic will be realized with full and legitimate satisfaction. God will be all in everyone". [30]
Teilhard died in
Shortly before his death, on March 15th, during a dinner with his nephews in the French Consulate in
On his last day, in the morning, he attended a solemn Mass at St. Patrick Cathedral. In the afternoon he went to a concert. Afterwards, in a friends´ house, he showed satisfied of the "wonderful day" he had spent. While he was having tea, suddenly, he fell to the floor. They called a doctor, but he couldn’t do anything. He died right there: on Passover of Resurrection! [31]
His prayer was fulfilled: “My great prayer (also say it for all those to whom I love) is to be able “to end well”; it is to say, `to seal´ with my death in one or another way, that for which I have always lived” (letter dated in
I am here to do your will
I became a priest on St. Joseph’s day, 1969, at the Spanish School of Rome, from the hands of the bishop of Tarazona , at that time (later archbishop of Granada) Mr. José Méndez, accompanied by many priests. [32] The card of my priesthood said this: through the imposition of hands for the service of the Church. And also: Sacrifices and offerings you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me. [33]
My model of priesthood was the one of Christ, not Leviticus but according to Melchisedek. By then big seminaries that had just been built remained almost empty. The sociological image of the priest had fallen and a new one was necessary.
As for me, I put myself at the service of the Church, of a renovated one, that couldn’t be other than a community. In the audience for the new priests, Pope Paul VI, gave us as a present a copy of the Acts of the Apostles. This was a significant detail: It was necessary to return to the beginning, to the Church of the Acts of the Apostles. But the difficulties were enormous. One had to proceed step-by-step. And for many people, it was not yet the right moment. [34]
Before this, I had studied Humanities at the Pontifical University of Salamanca (1960-65) and Theology at the
In the first half of the year 1973, I considered the possibility of coming back to Avila, where I had started to collaborate with Groups of Doctrinal Training of the Theological Institute at the Seminary, and then in Permanent Education for Clergy. But diverse circumstances would take me to change my plans.
Teaching the Word
The bishop of
Meanwhile, in several summer courses organized by the National Secretary for Catechesis, José Manuel Sanchez Cano figured as a theologian. He was then Director of the Theological Institute of Avila and, afterwards, Rector of the Pontifical University of Salamanca. In the end, José Manuel could not participate, and he proposed my name and, in this way, I began to collaborate with the Secretariat.
The first course was in
At the beginning of the course 1973-74, the National Secretariat for Catechesis called me. They needed a theologian for the team in charge of writing the catechism that afterwards would be named He is with you (for youngsters from 11 to 14 years old).
The catechism broke some old patterns and we had to make, at the same time, a Doctrinal Guide, something like a protector shield. One morning, as I was preparing a subject for the Guide, I found a text of the Bible that caught very much my attention: Have I not written for you thirty chapters with counsels and knowledge, to teach you truly how to give a dependable report to the one to whom I send you? [38] I counted the subjects just written until that moment. Thirty as a total. I did not do the doctoral thesis as I had planned, but instead I did a synthesis of faith.
The approval and publication of the catechism He is with you was an event in the
Afterwards, some other catechisms were written. Really, there is no method, no pedagogy, no catechistic instrument that could resolve the substantial problem of a catechesis for the consumer, to be available as a pastoral for the consumer; of a catechesis without a living and effective Word, without announcement, without a process, without commitment; in short, a catechism without a profound renewal of the Church. [42]
The renewal implies an evangelization of the baptized, a new evangelization. [43] Only like this, through the service of the Gospel, this open wound can be cured in the flank of the Church, a wound that can not be superficially cured. This was denounced by the prophets: You treat the wounds of my people only on the surface. [44]
After finishing the catechism (with their guides) and presented everywhere, in the 1977-1978 academic course I was transferred to the Department of Adult Catechesis. They gave me this commitment on September 3, 1978. I stayed there just for eight years, promoting an adult catechism of catechumenal inspiration. [45]
In the first quarter of 1979, I published
As the person responsible for Adult Catechism from 1978 to 1986, I was part of the Catechesis European Team. The final fruit of this collaboration it was the European book of catechesis that contains 25 years of catechistical experience in
From April 1975 we used the Doctrinal Guide at the service of the catechesis. Later on, with some updating, we published the Catechumenal Project in the National Secretariat of Catechesis. [48] . We are now updating it in the Association.
In 1981, the Board of the IV Theresa Centennial asked me to prepare several catechesis about St. Theresa. [49] The same thing happened in 1991 with
For many years (1985-2006) I have collaborated with the Pastoral Department of Health of the Episcopal Commission of Pastoral in the publication of catechesis that, in commemoration of the Sick´s Day, serve for the discovering of the mission of healing that has the Christian community. [51]
In 1985 the Episcopal Commission of Teaching and Catechesis published the document The catechist and his training, to which I contributed. [52] Rooted in the mission of Jesus and the Twelve, and connected to the living tradition of the Church, the catechist will produce abundant fruit in a world that is in need of God. [53] The oldest definition of catechist is recuperated: the one who instructs in the Word. [54] Later on, in the Congress of Catechists (April 7-13, 1986), I was asked to give a speech on Vocation and mission of today’s catechist. [55]
In October 1985, after personal and community discernment, I published in the Journal Vida Nueva, an article about John Paul I´s death. In the National Secretariat of Catechesis I was told not to say one word more about this matter if I wanted to remain there. I answered that I had written this, following my conscience and I would continue – in one way or another – with this subject, although they would dismiss me, as they did the following summer. At the end of 1990, I published the book Se pedirá cuenta, about the death and figure of John Paul I. [56] In 2002 the private edition and in 2005 the public edition of the The day of reckoning. John Paul II under scrutinity, came to light. In 2006 we published Historic memory, crusade or madness?, that carries out a revision of the Church´s position before the Civil War.
Ayala’s community
In the first half of 1973, I started to collaborate with the parish of the Cristo de
It was evident that everywhere there was an dissatisfaction about conventional Christianity. Just after arriving, I presented to the parish priest, Fr. Ignacio Zulueta, the need of a catechumenate, a community. He told me that it could be possible for the next year. For the moment, he was thinking about meetings about the Bible and the Vatican Council II: it could be the first step. I accepted. I was in charge of the Bible’s meetings (fortnightly). From there, the initial nucleus of the community was born.
Ayala´s community
|
It was a small group (8-10 persons), but it was open to renovation and change. And as that was not enough, we soon started meetings in Julian and Pilar home We were looking into the lost Community of the Acts of the Apostles. From there the deep renovation of the Church - being old and sterile as Sara [57] - was possible and it could be again fertile [58] .
The next course we decided to start a catechumenate, right after a meeting with the pastoral parish team (which was joined by a new priest, Lorenzo Sanchez). The catechumenate followed, at first, the neo catechumenal approach [59] . After the first catechesis was done, the community was founded, December 8. We were a total of 42 persons. At first it was a positive experience. It was a step forward. Although with some reservations, it was necessary to advance further. In November, D. Ignacio went to the old St. Peter’s Hospital for a prostate’s operation. "As soon as I get better I will go to the community" , he said to me. He came, but he did it in a different dimension, in that new dimension in which the Resurrected Lord lives . He died, January 25, 1974.
In the first three months of 1975, we began to see the need of doing a revision of the adopted system: a total rejection of the neocatechumnenal approach by the new parish priest, who was counselor of the Christianity courses; dioceses aspiration to an autonomous catechumate; some inconveniences derived from an external and inadequate direction of the catechumenal group; a systematic closeness that suffocated the group; progressive diminution of members; no possibility of incorporation to the group of new members who had initiated a vivid relationship with the group; a debatable interpretation of the catechumenate and it’s phases (among them, the pre-catechumenate); lack of adequate catechetical tools; an offer to open a catechumenal center at Tagaste Residence for university students… The revision was accepted by a majority, first within the responsible team, and then in the community.
From April 8th, after a month of tension and some breaks, compensated by the arrival of new people [60] , we started a new phase, following our own approach. The revision was going to be done, the community would stay open to new members and the pastoral orientation of the community would be defined within it. We were 30 people. From there on, the community started to grow.
At the same time, the new parish priest was establishing in his church a position that, in fact, excluded any kind of catechumenate. With this narrow horizon, the community was separated from the parish church, and linked to the vicarage as an autonomous community. For three months, we had our meetings in the Tagaste residence. At the end, while keeping the autonomy from the parish church, its priest gave us a place for meetings in the church basement. The mentioned autonomy allowed us to follow the catechumenal and community experience with total freedom, without any problem.
Since then, the direction of the community has been defining itself by an assiduous listening to the Word of God in the bottom of personal, social and ecclesiastical events. The actual faith experience of those who lead the catechumenate has been fundamental in developing it, little by little, into a community. It also has been the continuous revision of the path to follow, as well as the contact with other groups. We already had the synthesis of faith, which later on would lead to the catechumenal’ project, as well as other instruments [61] .
On November 13th,
In 1987 we constituted ourselves as an association, with ecclesiastical [62] and civil approval, the Community of Ayala Association (
All process of evangelization must verify the difference that exists between those who are called and those who, by their answer, are finally chosen. In fact, there are many who do not answer the call. Jesus said this: many are invited but few are chosen [64] .
Now, we are leading in
On December 30, 1994, the Betesda Foundation was created for the integral development of the handicapped, with the support of the Community [65] , as a fruit of the social dimension of the Gospel. The Foundation promoted the construction of a residence for mentally handicapped, not gravely affected, (48 rooms), and also an occupational center (
The residence began to function in march 1999. The Foundation has also oponed two guarded floors and another supervise done, with room for 17 people.
Catechumenal Project
During these years, we have been reviewing the Catechumenal Project. We have deleted some catechesis and we have added some others. Thus this second edition is issued with accumulated experience and checked in many groups and communities.
Belisana center |
This second version is published for the use of the Association, but not exclusively. The synthesis of faith is a work of the Church. Now as well as before, I have joined my efforts to those of many others. In fact, I was going to water my plants, my flower bed I will drench: And suddenly this stream of mine became a river, then this river of mine, a sea [66] .
Furthermore, the mission overflows the limits of place and time. And, it is true, we like very much to share such a perspective: Thus do I send my teachings for the shining like dawn, to become known afar off. Thus do I pour out instruction like prophecy and bestow it on generation to come. Look not only for myself I became fatigued but also for those who have searched for it [67] . It has been said beautifully: In one of the old Egyptian pharaoh’s tombs a bunch of wheat grains was found. Someone took them up, planted and watered them. And, to the surprise of everybody, grains sprouted five thousand years later [68] . We do not know how far the seed can reach or when it will sprout. We have to seed, to water, to harvest, and to weed.
Like the first edition, this second one is open for comments, especially for those who can be considered as columns, to whom we again present the Gospel that we preach. [69]
As then, we preach a Word that is fulfilled: Christ is with us (1) and he displays for us the mystery of God (2), the mystery of man (3), the mystery of the world (4). As
To talk about the catechumenal project is to talk about stages, objectives, and means or instruments (subjects or catechesis, clues for meetings).
The first stage is the first evangelization or pre-catechumenate. One attempts to achieve the first communication of the experience of faith, a living communication done by present witnesses. Faith experience is like a seed ready to grow. First it is sown, then it grows and finally produces fruit. The parable of the sewer says it to us in a formidable and summarized manner [72] . The sewer needs two things: the seed and the county. The seed is the Word of God, and the country is the world. As in the new- born Church, despite the diversity of circumstances and people, there are some constants that are repeated, and happen, in a germinal stage, in the first evangelization [73] .
The second stage is the catechumenal process itself or catechumenate. The catechumenate is an evangelization process. It is growth and development of the sowing carried out during the first evangelization. One tries a basic initiation into the Gospel’s experience. For that, the catechumenal process takes on life itself in depth, in the light of the Word of God [74] .
El proyecto catecumenal lo utilizamos con libertad, según se ve necesario o conveniente y en la medida en que sirve a lo fundamental, haciendo como el dueño de la casa que saca de sus arcas lo nuevo y lo viejo [77] .
The third stage is the end of the catechumenate. The Gospel talks to us about sowing and growth, but also about fruits, harvest and weeding [75] . The catechumenal process concludes with the maturity of faith’s experience, which includes - among other things - these constants: present recognition of Jesus as the Lord, and conversion (fundamental) to the Gospel’s values [76] . All of this is a matter of time, longer or shorter depending on each case.
We use the catechumenal project with freedom, depending on what we see as necessary or convenient and how it serves the fundamental purposes, doing as the head of a household who brings out from his storeroom both the new and the old [77] .
Jesús López Sáez Madrid, 11 de julio de 2007 |
[1] Psalm 92,2
[2] See Jn 11, 22 - 26
[3] Lk 20. 36
[4] Jn 1, 6
[5] 1 Co 13, 11
[6] Renè Latourelle
[7] 1 Co 9, 16
[8] Phil 3, 13 - 14
[9] Ez 34, 23
[10] French Jesuit Peter Teilhard de Chardin was born in Sarcenot, near
[11] See H. DE LUBAC. Teilhard de Chardin religious thought, Taurus,
[12] I wrote may minor thesis about the world’s vision
[13] See THEILARD DE CHARDIN, “Vision of the past”, Taurus,
[14] THEILARD DE CHARDIN, “Travel letters”, Taurus,
[15] See Rev 1, 8
[16] See JESUS LOPEZ SAEZ, Death’s evolutionary concept in Teilhard de Chardin, Verdad y Vida num. 26 (1968), 475 – 505.
[17] See TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, Human phenomenon, Taurus,
[18] About this, Teilhard says: “In the world there is no place for two summits; like in a circle two centres are not possible”. See The divine means, Taurus,
[19] See
[20] TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, The Hymn of the Universe, Taurus,
[21] Ib. 146
[22] Ib., 162
[23] See H DE LUBAC, mentioned work, 76
[24] See The divine means, 76
[25] Ib., 68
[26] See 1 Co 15, 44; 7, 31; 2 Co 5, 1.
[27] See my article about the evolutionary concept of the death in Teilhard de Chardin, already mentioned 497-499.
[28] TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, Human energy, Taurus,
[29] Ib., 168
[30] TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, Man’s development, Taurus,
[31] He died due to the split of a coronary artery. Seer C.CUENOT, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. The large stages of his evolution, Taurus,
[32] See 1 Tm 4, 14
[33] Hb 10, 5
[34] Ag 1, 2. See J.LOPEZ SAEZ, Ecclesiastic renovation: genesis, difficulties, developments, in the book The Council of the XXI century. Reflections about the Vatican II, PPC,
[35] See VATICAN COUNCIL II,
[36] Mt 8, 13
[37] During the course in
[38] Pr 22, 20
[39] See Catechetical Actuality, 81-82 (1977); also ib., 79-80 (1976), 7-8.
[40] Ib., 110 (1982), 34.
[41] See L.RESINES, Catechesis History in
[42] See J. LOPEZ SAEZ, Catechesis for adults and Catechesi tradendae, ten years later, in Sinite, 92 (1989), 490.
[43] OUTSTANDING SYNODE (1985), final chronic.
[44] Jr 6,14.
[45] See J.LOPEZ SAEZ, To day’s global panoramic of adults catechesis in
[46] Sal 106. See
[47] See CATECHUMENAL EUROPEAN CONFERENCE, The faith starting. To day Europe’s Catechumenal Pastoral, Ed. Paulinas,
[48] CATECHESIS NATIONAL SECRETARIAT, Catechumenal Project I and II,
[49] See The yes of Santa Theresa, the restless nun, woman in the Church,
[50] The catechesis (This light and guide, noisy solitude, Without shape and figure) were published in the book titled The meeting with
[51] See SPANISH EPISCOPAL CONFERENCE, The 10 days of the sick in the
[52] With Ricardo Lázaro, under the direction of D. Antonio Palenzuela, Segovia’s Bishop and Commission member
[53] See TEACHING AND CATECHESIS EPISCOPAL COMISSION, The catechist and his education,
[54] Ga 6, 6. See my article To listen the Word, a catechumenal objective, in Theology and Catechesis 3(1983), 399-430.
[55] See CATECHESIS NATIONAL SECRETARIAT, Catechists Congress. Communications,
[56] See The unknown John Paul I, in Vida Nueva 1497(1985), 23-30 and Account shall be requested, Ed.
[57] Rm 4,19.
[58] See CATECHESIS DIOCESAN DELEGATION, Plural communities in the Church, Ed. Paulinas, Madrid, 1981, 114-118; also EUROPEAN CATECHUMENAL CONFERENCE, Starting in the faith. Catechumenal Pastoral in Europe today, Ed. Paulinas, Madrid, 1990, 160-162 and J. LOPEZ SAEZ, An adults catechesis in Ayala´s community, in Sinite, 106 (1994), 433-447.
[59] See my work Catechumenal pastoral and analogue pastorals, in the book Starting in the faith, already mentioned, 138-145. Also see R.BLAZQUEZ, The Neo catechumenal Communities DDB,
[60] Hch 2,47.
[61] For instance, these: The catechumenate, by C.FLORISTAN (PPC, Madrid, 1972), The catechesis in the first centuries by DANIELOU-DU CHARLAT (Studium, Madrid, 1975) and the Social catechesis from the EPISCOPAL SOCILA APOSTOLATE.
[62] We thank Mr. Agustín García-Gasco, by that time
[63] See JOHN PAUL II, Christifideles laici, 26 y 29.
[64] Mt 22,14.
[65] In collaboration with the Asociación Los Olivos (parents or tutors), constituted on this matter.
[66] Eclo 24,31.
[67] Ib., 24,32-34.
[68] See A. DE MELLO, The singing of the bird, Sal Terrae,
[69] Ga 2,2.
[70] Col 1,25.
[71] Mt 28,19.
[72] Mk 4,1-20.
[73] See catechesis 2: He is with you.
[74] See catechesis nm. 1: When you meet
[75] Mk 4,3-9 y 26-29; 3,12; Jn 4,35s; Lc 22,31.
[76] About the catechumenate and its stages see the word catechumenate in New dictionary about Spirituality, Ed. Paulinas,
[77] Mt 13,52.