RATIONALE

Formation program for Parish Workers and Volunteer Catechists of the Archdiocese of Manila

The Institute of Catechetics of the Archdiocese of Manila [ICAM] in Coordination with the Catechetical Foundation of the Archdiocese of Manila – Commission on Volunteer Catechist designed a formation program intended for the Parish Workers and Volunteer Catechists of the Archdiocese of Manila. ICAM as the Catechetical Institute of Manila will credit the courses taken in their respective areas provided it was given by the trained Catechetical Coordinators or one of the members of ICAM Faculty.

ICAM is one with the VATICAN II Council Fathers (cf. Mission 17) and Pope John Paul II (cf. CT 66, RM 73) in gratefully acknowledging the lowly and hidden but noble and eminent work of our Volunteer Catechists.  The formation of Volunteer Catechists is vital to continue the religious education among our public schools, parishes and communities.  The purpose of formation, therefore, is to make the catechists capable of communicating: “The summit and centre of catechetical formation lies in an attitude and ability to communicate the Gospel message.” DCG 111, [1971]; GDC 235.

In the Apostolic Letter, Porta Fidei, written to open the Year of Faith, Benedict XVI wrote about the task of arousing in each believer “the aspiration to profess the faith in fullness and with renewed conviction, with confidence and with hope” (#9). Catechists play a critical role in this process as they seek to teach and form children, youth, and adults so as to help “all believers in Christ to acquire a more conscious and vigorous adherence to the Gospel” (#8).

As we seek to teach the truth of the Church and to impart knowledge about our faith, we also are called to form the heart. The wonderful image in St. John’s Gospel of the Samaritan woman at the well and her encounter with Christ compels us, as catechists, to respond to the thirst for God among the people we serve and to communicate how that thirst is addressed through a relationship with Jesus Christ in and through the Church. In the words of Benedict XVI: “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction” (Deus Caritas Est #1).