Catechists love hearing about how other catechists or other parishes ‘do things’. In fact, although I’ve never done it, I would love, one day, just to sit in on another parish’s Confirmation programme as an observer.
So, I thought I’d tell you about one of the sessions we did recently. Each week follows roughly the same structure. This was the fifth session of the year (following the evangelisation retreat). The sequence of sessions so far has gone like this:
Made for God; The Dignity of the Human Person; Sin and Mercy; The Forgiveness of Sins (Baptism)
This session was the Forgiveness of Sins (Reconciliation). All of our candidates were prepared for making a good Confession on retreat; many of them had gone again since then. This session was designed to go more deeply into some of the themes. Here’s what we did…
We opened, as we always do, by creating the atmosphere of prayer with one or two songs of praise leading into a Liturgy of the Word (First Reading – Ezekiel 36, about receiving a new heart and a new spirit – followed by the Gospel – John 8, the woman caught in the act of adultery – proclaimed by the priest).
After the Liturgy of the Word, we have a proclamation (more on the proclamation can be seen here), summing up the main message of today’s session: Confession is one of the greatest graces we can receive again and again in our life. It renews the soul, completely unburdens it, and renews it with strength. God is merciful, and he wants us to claim his mercy. (See YouCat 226). We then showed the video clip from the Passion of the Christ (don’t worry, none of the gory bits) of Jesus saving Mary Magdalene from being stoned to death and offering her new life.
Then comes the ten-minute teaching, the unpacking bit. Here (continuing from the previous week’s session on Baptism) we looked at why we continue to sin (the candidates learned the word ‘concupiscence’, the inclination to sin), seen in this woman (probably Mary Magdalene) who was caught committing adultery and brought before Jesus. To demonstrate this, we used a clean glass of water (again, this continued from the previous week’s session). This is what our soul is like after Baptism. But what happens? We sin. The candidates named some sins, and with each one, poured ketchup, tabasco sauce, and numerous other sauces into the water to make rather a disgusting concoction. This is what happens to our souls through sin – they become murky. The candidates looked up YouCat 226, which was followed by an evangelistic teaching of what happens in Confession – Jesus knows all of the mess in our souls, he knows what we’ve done. When we go to Confession, we meet him personally, tell him all of this, and tell him that we are sorry. It is like we are ‘un-nailing’ Christ from the Cross and receiving the love and mercy he wants to pour out on us.
A Crucifix in our church
Next, the candidates were invited to share with the person next to them what they thought teenagers found the hardest about going to Confession. We went through each of these one by one – telling your sins to someone is embarrassing; some sins are too bad to say; what if he recognises my voice?
This was followed by a young catechist giving his testimony about how he slipped into not going to Confession for years while he was a student, and the amazing experience of coming back to Jesus through this sacrament.
Then, we went into a practical small group activity where the candidates had to put pieces of paper into two lists: one relating to mortal sins, and one relating to venial sins. We talked about the kinds of sin which come under each category. Our emphasis here was on saying everything in Confession, even venial sins. But being aware that serious sins, knowingly and willingly committed, cut us off completely from God.
Finally, another young catechist performed a role play of Confession with the priest, giving examples of sins that a young person might confess, and demonstrating the words of the prayers that the candidates might not be too sure of.
We finished up with a time of prayer in the church: music, an examination of conscience, a Scripture reading, and an opportunity for the candidates to go to Confession.
This is a pretty typical session: we like to break it up with a variety of different activities and it takes one and a half hours.
