Catechists soldier on to teach students of all ages

Nearly 350 individuals were scheduled to enter the church on Holy Saturday, April 10, at more than 100 parishes across the Archdiocese of New Orleans, but restrictions on the celebration of public Masses in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic has postponed those plans.
    

Archbishop Gregory Aymond has suggested that those who were to be received into the church on Holy Saturday now be welcomed at a future Sunday parish liturgy, perhaps sometime during the Easter season, when the parish’s full congregation could participate.

‘Extraordinary’ times 
    

Dr. Alice Hughes, director of religious education for the archdiocese, said the individuals coming into the church, as well as the parishes’ catechetical leaders, have been very understanding about the challenging situation.
    

“This is an extraordinary time in all of our lives, but it is also a time of recognizing that we have an extraordinary opportunity to develop family catechesis and encourage the domestic church,” Hughes said. “This is new territory. We’re thinking outside the box and just trying to stay in touch with one another. This is God’s time, not our time. With God, it’s always Easter.”
    

Technology has facilitated those relationships, Hughes said. When archdiocesan offices were forced to close on March 17, the Office of Religious Education began holding regular teleconferences with staff and parish religious education leaders.
    

The office also is making tentative plans – if the hiatus extends into May – to offer several certification courses and workshops online through Zoom.
    

Two of those courses include one on church history in April and one on ecclesiology in May. Hughes said she hoped to be able to offer all regularly scheduled summer programs in June at the archdiocesan offices at 7887 Walmsley Ave. in New Orleans. If not, those classes also may be offered through Zoom.
 

Still missing human touch
    

Hughes said while learning is made possible through online means, the human contact is difficult to replicate.
    

“We’re church, and community is so important,” Hughes said. “One of the advantages of 21st century technologies like FaceTime, Zoom and Skype is that we can still see the people and pray with them and encourage them. The Triune God is with us all the time. Jesus is just as present in the Liturgy of the Word as in the Liturgy of the Eucharist, but we also have that longing because we are not receiving the Eucharist in the sense that we do on Sundays. This is a new paradigm.”
    

Hughes said the physical separation from the Eucharist reminds her somewhat of the time she spent in the Diocese of Jackson, where Catholics were so spread out and the number of priests was so limited that “people didn’t have Mass every week.”
    

“Some parishes had Mass twice a month, and the rest of the month there were Communion services,” she said. “People who live in South America or in Third World countries are lucky to have Mass once a year. We’re experiencing what many people have experienced for many years, and that gives us a sense of unity with our brothers and sisters who have not had the experience of daily Mass or weekly Communion. 
    

“This gives us a longing for Jesus, a longing for something still to come. Around my neighborhood, I’ve never seen so many people bicycling and walking. That shows you don’t have to have material things to be happy. I see families coming together, families at home helping kids do schoolwork, families praying together. They don’t have to fight with the kids to get them to go to church.”
 

Parishes mobilize
    

Barbara McAtee, associate director in the religious education office with responsibility for elementary catechesis, said most parish schools of religion are faring well through online means. The celebration of first Communion this year, she said, will be decided on a parish-by-parish basis.
  

“It’s a very fluid situation,” McAtee said. “We really don’t know from three days to the next three days to a week.”
    

Parish catechetical leaders are staying in touch with each other through Zoom, and some, like Andrea Labranche of Our Lady of the Lake Parish in Mandeville, are using the time to take additional online classes.
    

“We know Jesus has the victory, and this is an opportunity for us to be able to verbalize that to the kids,” McAtee said.
    

Hughes suggested that those wanting to feed their faith during these challenging times go to www.nolacatholic.org/ore (click on the Covid-19:Time4Faith banner or navigation button), which has a wealth of resources.
    

Peter Finney Jr. can be reached at [email protected].