Our thanks to a subscriber who emailed me, asking for information about where to buy the Art’s book. What poor marketing we have done thus far! To purchase the book, click here.
Rhoda ended last week’s blog with Arthur Just’s words about good pastoral ministry in the context of and oriented toward the Eucharist, which is always for him and for all of us a Return to Emmaus, an act of remembrance. Section two of the memoir, entitled “Jesus and Mary,” remembers Just’s teaching of the “Gospels as Kerygmatic Memoirs,” especially the Gospel of Luke and enunciates an incipient Lukan (and Lutheran) theology of Mary, who in the church’s remembrance on the basis of Luke’s Gospel is arguably the second most important person in Luke’s narrative. The book is worth reading for innumerable reasons, not the least of which is Just’s provision of a much-needed Lutheran theology of Mary.
In chapter 6, “Returning to Emmaus,” Just returns to the “blick,” the hermeneutical insight of seeing clearly the high Christology and high sacramentology of the Scriptures, that weaves as the thread through all of his teaching of the Gospel of Luke. That Scriptural hermeneutic is not only read and interpreted, but experience through the catechumenal life as our camino, our journey. As Just writes,
Emmaus captures the entire paschal mystery, and the two Emmaus disciples embody the confusion, denial, and conversion of everyone who struggles with the mystery of Christ’s incarnation and passion, and how in the Eucharist we proclaim his death until he comes (113).
The act of remembrance is thus always a matter of kerygmatic/sacramental interpretation for the sake of catechesis. In that context Just remembers his teaching of the Lukan narrative through the question of whether the Emmaus account is eucharistic. He retells his negotiating—not explicitly identifying it as the Eucharist— through that with both one of his doctoral readers and with other CTS faculty during the Babylonian Captivity at CTS. In this memoir, in the freedom of the Gospel, he can remember in ways that are congruous with his teaching all along:
The reason it is important to understand Emmaus as the first post-resurrection Eucharist is that the eyes of the Emmaus disciples are opened in the breaking of the bread. . . . the climax of Luke’s Gospel, for it is the first time a human being recognizes Jesus as the crucified and risen Lord. . . . Jesus is in the center. And this is the moment of conversion for the Emmaus disciples. . . . Emmaus teaches us that Word (teaching on the road) and Sacrament (the breaking of the bread) must go together. In that order. The teaching prepares for the opening of the eyes. Word prepares for Sacrament (119-120).
It is the catechumenate! And the catechumenate drives toward the certainty of faith: “Catechesis in the catechumenate precedes baptism, and the climax of a full conversion is the Lord’s Supper, which comes immediately following washing at the font, for after you are reborn, the church feeds you holy food” (125). The catechumenate discloses to us living by faith in all of life through the paschal mystery.
Chapter 7, “A Lukan (and Lutheran) Theology of Mary,” is a much needed tour-de-force of Luke’s remembrance of Mary. Just notes the need for a robust theology of Mary in relating to fellow Christians who hold her in the highest respect and honor, even if Mary is placed in untenable theological positions. Just places her in the right position of honor in accord with Luke’s gospel by recounting four things: “Mary as the New Israel, the Temple, and the Ark of the Covenant; Mary’s Hermeneutic of Humility—Breaking What is Whole and Making Whole What is Broken; The Memoirs of Mary as She Ponders the Meaning of Jesus’ Birth and Suffering; and Mary as the New Eve and Mother of the Family of God” (139). While there is much that could be highlighted, for the sake of this blog Just’s observation about the Annunciation and the catechumenate is revealing:
The annunciation is a first glimpse of the pattern of incorporation into the church that will be followed throughout Luke-Acts: catechesis, baptism, and Lord’s Supper—the pattern continued by the post-apostolic church. Mary prefigures this as she receives catechesis from the angel, the Holy Spirit comes upon her, and she receives the flesh of Christ (146).
Mary’s importance for the church’s life, often understated in Lutheran circles, should not be. As Just emphatically concludes,
She knew her home was no longer in Nazareth or in Ephesus but where her Son was, and that, of course, is at font, pulpit, and table. She became an evangelist by telling her story to others, and finally telling it to Luke, who canonized it in his infancy narrative. But most of all, she was a mother, first to Jesus and then to his church. . . . So as Lutherans, we honor Mary, for her Son did. He had her blood, and it was her blood in him that washed away our sins. For this we owe her our utmost devotion (161-2).
With this post, Kent and I begin a series reviewing a new book, Ever to Emmaus: A Theological Memoir, by our friend Arthur Just, Professor of New Testament at Concordia Theological Seminary, Ft. Wayne, Indiana. Since Art graciously wrote one of the forewords to our book, Journey to Jesus, we’re delighted to be able to thank him by featuring this newly published work.
The opening words of the Prologue – “The room was large and the sherry was dry” – immediately drew me into Art’s story. The Prologue, the story of his doctoral dissertation (Luke’s Gospel through the lens of the Emmaus account), sets the stage for the theme of the book. His dissertation advisor declared, “Emmaus is a story that will serve you until you close your eyes in death. You will always be ‘Ever to Emmaus’” (xxiv).
Part I is titled “A Story of Pilgrimage,” and each of the five chapters has a pilgrimage theme. In the opening chapter Art joins his story to that of all Christians, declaring that “we are always on pilgrimage to Emmaus for hearts to burn and eyes to be opened in the breaking of the bread” (12). Although autobiographical and conversational in tone, he closes the first chapter as a good academic, stating that he “will argue that a postmodern church will look like a premodern church, and that means that ‘tradition’ must be either reinvented or restored as a way forward for the generation of my children and grandchildren” (14).
Chapter 2, cleverly titled “A Just Conversion,” chronicles his early years through the lens of his spiritual “pilgrimage” that led to embracing his calling to pastoral ministry. Art claims that a key to this “conversion” for him was an inner dialogue akin to Mary’s “pondering” after the Annunciation and what Paul likely experienced for the three days in Damacus before Annanias restored his sight. His musing – “One wonders how, in the process of evangelization, we could be more intentional in directing the inner conversation of those who are bit by the Gospel and are seeking His face always” (37) – struck a chord with me, because, like Art, I am deeply immersed in such questions relating to the adult catechumenate.
In Chapter 3, “The Camino,” Art recounts walking the full 500-mile medieval pilgrimage route through France and Spain at age 55 with his 19-year-old son (who often trekked ahead of his father to secure prime space at the pilgrimage hostel and to scope out dinner options). He concludes the chapter not at the end point, Santiago de Compostela, but at a stop only a third of the way on the route, with a description of the Mass (and details of the priest’s homily) in the small but beautiful church in San Juan de Ortega attended by locals and pilgrims alike. He writes:
As a priest in the parish for twenty-five years, he had seen countless pilgrims walking the Camino for all kinds of reasons. But he believed, deep down, that we were all walking this road for one reason and one reason alone—we were searching for our home, and perhaps, perhaps, on these paths we would find it in Christ, and that when we arrived in Santiago, we might know where our true home is (61).
With “Novel Theology,” Art uses his knowledge of literature (his undergraduate major was a History-English) to expound on “the Lutheran distinction between law and gospel that is … fundamental to the biblical narrative” and is present, according to Just, in two novels, The Great Gatsby and A Prayer for Owen Meany. I commend this chapter to English majors and lovers of literature.
The final chapter in part one, “Old School: Hemingway and the Prodigal,” reveals Art as simultaneously a literary critic and caring pastor whose empathetic listening to parishioners is informed by the suffering of the literary characters he has analyzed. I close with these words (next to which I made a large star in the margin):
The circumstances of life can overwhelm the saints in our congregations, but with good pastoral care, good preaching, our people will come back to Christ by a pastor who connects their sufferings to the sufferings of Christ, especially through the Eucharist, so that they may say with Paul, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil 1:21). (103, emphasis added.)
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Banner image: Jesus and the two disciples On the Road to Emmaus, by Duccio di Buoninsegna (1255-1319); Altarpiece of Siena Cathedral, reverse side, main register with scenes from the Passion of Christ; scenes: Christ appears to two pilgrim apostles at Emmaus.
Yesterday we celebrated the Presentation of the Augsburg Confession in which the various Lutheran territorial leaders confessed their “pastors’ and preachers’ teachings” as well as their faith on the basis of Holy Scripture. This commemoration—in many ways the most important commemoration for the evangelical-catholic reformatory movement of the church—calls us to think about how we teach and form people to believe and live as those “justified as a gift on account of Christ” (AC 4, 2). What better time to think about our adult formation practices than in these northern hemisphere middling days of summer, a waning time before the “restart” of adult formation in the fall.
A tool that can help you to think through your approach to adult formation and instruction are the “Ideas, Questions, and Reflections for Getting Started with the Catechumenate in Your Parish” that compose Appendix 2 of Paul Hoffman’s Faith Forming Faith. I commend all the appendix to you to stimulate your thinking about your adult catechumenal practices. But I am going to draw attention to the section entitled “Even with Just One Inquirer.” As Paul observes,
Often the idea of the catechumenate sounds very appealing, but especially in smaller parishes, the objection often arises that there are simply no new people to lead to the waters of baptism and life in Christ….Even if you have just one person who is inquiring about life as a disciple of Jesus, this process could be ideal for both parish and newcomer. Moreover, it places a structure in motion that makes your congregation more visitor-friendly and inquirer-ready (94).
Hoffman’s questions encourage reconsideration of your current process and the possibilities for adopting faith-formation practices:
Are there persons in your community who might be more open to exploring a life of discipleship with Christ if they heard that there was a process of study, mentorship, and prayer in place in your congregation to support them in their time of inquiry and preparation for baptism?
Are there spouses in your congregation who attend worship or other parish activities occasionally but have never been baptized?
Could a single parent or a couple coming to inquire about the baptism of their child be your first catechumenal candidate(s)?
Can you imagine people in your parish’s service area who are baptized but still seeking adult renewal of their faith?
Can you envision two persons in your parish who could sit with one or two persons inquiring into the faith and, with pastoral supervision, offer them Bible study and mentorship in the basics of Christian faith: worship, the Scriptures, prayer, and ministry in daily life? (95)
Hoffman’s questions convey that the steps toward revitalized adult formation don’t need to be gargantuan. One small step can lead to much greater things for inquirers and for the parish. I encourage you to consider the other questions he asks in order to give thought to your adult formation practices during these mid-Summer days before the time is nigh.
Rhoda’s First Adventure at a Lutheran Camp – Part 3
This will be my final installment of my first experience at a Lutheran camp (as the keynote speaker at the LCMS Northwest District Youth and Family Ministry Conference, held at Camp Lutherhaven, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho). My apologies to CAMP LUTHERHAVEN! I have been using the wrong name for the camp, but corrections have been made on the previous blog posts.
The video, below, is a quick look at the Dexterity Competition, another event at the “Name the Gift Olympics.” This Olympic event was based on chapter 7 of Journey to Jesus, “The Path to Conversion: Belonging, Believing, Behaving.” For the Dexterity Olympic event, participants had to flip the two upside down cups upright and then fill both with water (another baptismal allusion). One of the two cups had the words (from top to bottom) “belonging, behaving, believing” written on the side (see the featured image, above). The “inversion” indicates one of the major research findings Kent and I discussed in chapter 7. Here’s the relevant excerpt from our book:
[Diana Butler] Bass asserts [in Christianity after Religion] that, at least since the Reformation, Western Christianity has followed this sequence: belief, then behavior, “and finally belonging, . . . [a] pattern [that Protestants and Catholics] turned into rituals of catechism, character formation, and Confirmation.” Her assessment rings true to us, based on the historical evidence and on our personal experiences as “cradle Lutherans” in the LCMS, where full membership was attained through the rite of confirmation, which was also the gateway to the Lord’s Supper (when one truly “belonged”) and the point at which the newly confirmed received contribution envelopes. Based on our research, we find compelling Bass’s assessment that our contemporary context calls for a reshuffling of the BEs, one that moves belonging to earlier stages of the process, for in three of our four case studies belonging is the dominant theme in participant interviews.
Worth repeating here is the wisdom of Pastor Bruzek: “When I was young, we used to ask people what they thought [or perhaps, believed]; now people ask, ‘How do you feel?’” In answer to that question, people today respond that they feel “empty, lost, broken, listless, betrayed, miserable, angry, loveless, afraid, victimized, alienated, oppressed, in despair”—all of which can be compressed into the statement “I feel alone and unloved.” … That so many of those interviewed in our research used language of belonging persuades us that social disconnection and loneliness are the spiritual crises of today that the church is called to address (Journey to Jesus, 124-25).
Just as it was a challenge to invert the cups in this event, it’s challenging to think about reordering what we have done for scores of years. We do point out that it’s less about reordering—each of the three BEs is essential to the process of faith formation—and more about a matter of emphasis.
Our research reveals a predominance of “belonging” language from those interviewed at St. Mary’s, Redeemer, and St. John; at Living Faith, “believing” was the dominant theme. A deeper analysis of the data uncovers the presence of all three BEs in all four congregations in varying degrees and emphases. But rather than a clear succession of formation and incorporation into the life of the church one B-word at a time, the interviews disclose a simultaneity of belonging, believing, and behaving within the stages of the formation process. By exploring this simultaneity along with the “dominant” BE-language in each congregation, we hope to awaken readers to the creative possibilities inherent in an adult faith formation process in their contexts (Journey to Jesus, 126).
Rhoda’s First Adventure at a Lutheran Camp – Part 2
Yes, my first experience at a Lutheran camp (as the keynote speaker at the LCMS Northwest District Youth and Family Ministry Conference, held at Camp Lutherhaven, Idaho) was so enriching that I’m sharing a second installment. The opening worship included a rite of thanksgiving for baptism, spoken as water was poured from a pitcher into the font (a large salad bowl borrowed from the camp kitchen, as was the pitcher). In my first address the next morning, I spoke of the process of baptismal living as the primary way in which we as Christians are “formed” to be Christ for others in ministry, linking the ritual we had experienced in worship to our transformation through baptism. I had also provided a pithy definition of ritual as actions that are repeated, communal, and symbolic, assigning “homework” to the group that asked them to reflect on ritual in family or civic life that met the definition.
Lest all this talking of talks makes the conference sound too heady and boring, the planning committee had carefully scheduled a series of “Get Connected” activities. From my perspective as the keynote speaker, the loveliest aspect of Name the Gift Olympics was the way in which the planning committee tied the individual events into the program theme of “Formed.”
On the second full day of the conference, one of those activities was called “Name the Gift Olympics.” The conference attendees were divided into teams, and individual members of each team competed in events based on different gifts and skills. The baptismal theme was clear in the “Strongest” competition (photo, right). Each team member held a pitcher of water with arm outstretched for as long as possible. Gradually, one guy after another set his pitcher on the floor until Cody and Matt were the final two. Cody (left) stared down Matt until his arm failed.
When it was time for the “Smartest” competition, the “smartest” member of each team was given a piece of paper and instructed to unscramble three words—with a clue that they had heard these words in one of my keynote addresses. The winner was Jackie Druckhammer, who may have had an edge over the others, since she was a former student who had heard me lecture on the components of a ritual in an Honors class. Jackie (left in the photo, CSP ’14) is holding the scrambled letters; Alanna Davis (another former CSP student, ’16) was the team member who delivered the correct words to the judge. See the photos, below for details.
What a joy it was to experience the ways that the planning committee reinforced the conference theme and important content from my keynote addresses through the frivolity of the “Get Connected” fun. Thanks be to God for these faithful servants of Christ, formed for ministry among God’s people!
Last month I (Rhoda) had the privilege and joy of serving as the keynote speaker at the LCMS Northwest District Youth and Family Ministry Conference, held at Camp Lutherhaven in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. The theme of the conference, “Formed,” was a great opportunity to introduce some of the resources Kent and I have promoted through this website and our book, Journey to Jesus. For two of the sessions, the whole group (about 50 people) practiced the African Scripture Reflection Method and Luther’s Four-Strand Garland Scripture Reflection. I also facilitated a breakout session for those interested in the Visualization Method. Three people attended: DCE Scott Thurman (St. John Lutheran Church, Vancouver, WA), Deaconess Amanda Mumm (Immanuel Lutheran Church, Twin Falls, ID), and DCE Ethan Mirly (St. John Lutheran Church, Palmer, AK).
At our next plenary gathering, the three reported to the whole group what the process was like and presented their end “product,” a haiku poem based on the biblical text they had heard and discussed. Scott kindly wrote this narrative of their creative process.
I was so amazed by the workshop breakout session entitled Visualizing Scripture. I worked with two other individuals, Amanda and Ethan, and we confronted the text involving Jesus washing the feet of the disciples. After reading it several times we shared important takeaways from this story. Each of us was experiencing the passage from different angles, and I was so impressed with the way our group shared things that stood out; images that caught our attention. After we shared and listened to each other, we began to imagine how we might present discoveries and excitement. At first, we were reaching far and wide, making connections with Old Testament and New Testament passages. But Dr. Schuler gently encouraged us to narrow our focus and to pay attention to strong motifs. Hands, feet, towel, water, baptism. After some struggle to distill our thoughts, we fashioned our ideas into a haiku. From 45 minutes of great discussion and shared insights, three short lines, a handful of words and syllables, emerged. In a haiku every word counts, and we took some time shaping and clarifying our poem. The learning from each of us felt meaningful, and we had grown closer through the process.
Here’s their haiku. Click on the image to watch it; Scott is in the middle.
By reflecting on the process, he named the strengths of this method. First, it deepens the meaning of the particular Scripture passage for the participants, forming their faith in Christ; and second, it forms the participates into community. Scott wrote:
Although the presentation of the poem took just seconds to share, we all felt that the time spent would last for a very long time. In this process the audience takes in a “product or presentation” that they did not have a hand in shaping. They may receive it and it does not have nearly the impact it had on each of us who created it. Their reaction, somewhat subdued, was not a measure of the experience we had as a team. In debriefing the presentation afterwards, it became clear to my colleagues and me that we had gained so much more from the process, and that the learning was much deeper and more significant for us. We realized that regardless of how seemingly simple our creation of a haiku was, what we created had a lasting impact. The joy and blessing in our discussion and the listening to one another had built friendships.
This past week brought this 7 week catechumenate course to a close. With some regret for me personally, because I can no longer, as I tell me students, be the apostolate for the catechumenate—at least to them in the course. But I can in this blog post toward you. In this last reflection I’ll highlight a number of things from the last week of class that I believe brought light and life to the students, and, of course, to me.
Family Discipleship Initiative
One of the aims of the catechumenate is forming disciples for life. That means that discipleship formation continues after the catechumenate ends, including in the home. My colleague, Dr. Mart Thompson, spoke to the class about extending discipleship formation in the home through the LCMS Family Discipleship Initiative. It’s goal is to shape the discipled life of parents so that they might disciple their children.
Fostering a Missional Habitus
These and similar efforts aim to foster a mission habitus upon which we reflect in chapter 6 of Journey to Jesus. In the words of Alan Hirsch, the catechumenate shapes a congregation that lives as “people of the Way,” or as one of our catechumens put it, living the “forever walk.” We have embraced the vision of the “forever walk” through the course’s rhythm.
A congregation that journeys as people of the Way is Redeemer Lutheran Church, The Bronx, New York. Rev. Dr. Dien Ashley Taylor and Deaconess Raquel Rojas spoke to the class about this “praying community of service that receives, teaches, celebrates and shares Christ Jesus” (Redeemer’s mission statement). Seeing the catechumenate “in the flesh” of Redeemer’s life through the ministry of these two servants of God was enlivening and emboldening.
Catechumenal Resources
Interacting with Pastor Taylor and Deaconess Rojas provided the students with resources for shaping a catechumenate in their calls. That has been one of the primary aims of the course, to resource the students. I bring some of those resources to you now:
Images of Baptismby Maxwell Johnson, an excellent resource for study of baptism
The Baptismal River by Richard Davenport, another excellent resource for baptismal study
Sacramental Streams by Richard Davenport for informing preaching and teaching on baptism
Living Under Waterby Kevin Adams a Reformed pastor’s baptismal reflections
Resilience
This resourcing aims to strengthen resilience in catechumenal practice and in congregational life. As we demonstrate in the Epilogue to Journey to Jesus all the congregations we explored manifested a hearty resilience throughout the Covid pandemic, a significant amount of that resilience attributable to their catechumenates. And as we observe at the very end, while we make no claim that the catechumenate is “the answer” to the 21st century malaise of the church, we commend these congregations’ “deep wisdom, infectious joy, and confidence in the power of the gospel that permeates their reflections. We, too, believe that Jesus knows his way out of a grace, and so does his bride, the church” (175). And so, by the grace of God, do all of us who journeyed in the catechumenate course together.
Throughout the 7 week catechumenate course—which comes to a close next Thursday— I have tried to expose students to primary ritual experiences and the methods of Bible study that introduce catechumens to the biblical metanarrative centered in the Lord Christ Jesus. We have experienced the rites of acceptance, election, and baptismal thanksgiving, the latter this past Thursday. We gathered around the font in the Chapel of St. Timothy and St. Titus, gave thanks for the Word and waters of baptism and of all the waters that pour over us, affirmed the Lord’s baptism of us into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and prayed that God might lead us into the baptismal way of truth and life. [If you are interested in this rite of baptismal thanksgiving, send me an email, burresonk@csl.edu. Some of the texts are copyrighted and so I can’t provide them here, but I’ll aim to make an outline of the service available on my Substack site (https://substack.com/@kentjburreson).] The students asked questions about how and when to incorporate this rite into the Sunday liturgy, and all recognized how it could be formational toward a baptismally oriented life.
We have also experienced three primary Bible study methods often employed in the catechumenate: The African (Lambeth) method, the Luther 4-Strand Garland method, and the Visualization method, the latter on Monday. The Visualization method entails:
The Gospel text is read two times.
Each team collaborates creatively to visualize the story in some way. They may choose to
Act it out
In a very literal way; or
By setting it in a new context
Draw it out, using
A cartoon format or
Artistic rendering
Write a song. Could be a simple, memorable refrain, or a metered hymn employing imagery conveying the text. Perhaps …
To the tune of a familiar hymn or
To the tune of a secular, popular song
Write a poem or haiku.
Once the groups have completed their visualization each in turn conveys the piece to the entire group in a manner appropriate to the genre they chose: acting it out; discussing the drawing; singing it; reading it.
As is always the case my students were creative in reflection on the gospel reading for the 6th Sunday of Easter, John 14:15-21. Centering things on Jesus’ words, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you,” they composed a hymn set to Luther’s “Lord, Keep Us Steadfast in Your Word,” an AI-generated contemporary image of Jesus welcoming an orphan through the baptismal waters, a poem, and a haiku. Summarizing what students said regarding the strengths of this approach, “It incorporated them into probing the text and developing something that represented that encounter. Since this was done in small groups, everyone contributed and each of their lives of faith were valued by their incorporation into the body of Christ through this creative process.” It’s as though the Visualization method is deepening the baptismal life reflected in the rite of baptismal thanksgiving. What the students did in class had a formative power upon their baptismal lives, and certainly on the baptismal life of this unworthy professor.
The last two weeks of my catechumenate class we have focused on the history of conversion and the catechumenate in the church and conversion from the divine side. Alan Kreider’s The Change of Conversion and the Origin of Christendom has facilitated the exploration of this history emphasizing the intertwining elements of believing, belonging, and behaving for the early church’s process of conversion. If you haven’t ever read Kreider’s book, it was an eye-opening experience the first time I read it. I think it was similarly revelatory for my students. Kreider decidedly focuses on the human elements of conversion manifest within the writings of the ante-Nicene and post-Nicene church fathers. He indicates how the Christian community attended to those who were attracted to the Christian community’s way of life as exemplified in what they believed, how they engaged community life, and how they behaved in ways that were at odds with cultural manners and ways. Believing—belonging—behaving all intertwined to create the crucible for a profound experience of conversion. The church today needs to give attention to the balance of those human experiences in conversion. I am convinced that the catechumenate facilitates that balance of experience in the church’s witness and life.
Focusing on the human elements in the history of conversion led to consideration of a Lutheran theology of conversion. Lutherans, perhaps surprisingly to my students, recognize the dual realities in conversion, the divine side and the human side (Francis Pieper uses the terms transitive and intransitive). Unsurprisingly, Lutherans navigate a tension in these two sides to conversion and don’t resolve them. On the divine side, God is entirely the agent of conversion through the Word and God’s means of grace (divine monergism). But, as the Lutheran Confessions indicate, people are not blocks of wood or stone in conversion. God is not working on inanimate objects, but upon God’s creatures. Working on us to bring us to trust in God, the Father employs his spoken and visible Word upon our creaturely facilities: minds, hearts, and bodies. While we humans contribute nothing to our own conversion, nonetheless we are actively involved in our conversion through God’s working upon us through these decidedly creaturely channels. As I indicated to the students, this is one of the most important elements of the course theologically. In facilitating conversion through the catechumenate, the church must give attention to both dimensions in conversion. God converts us to himself, but we humans perceive the effect of God’s working through creaturely and tangible means: our thinking, feeling, behaving, repenting, sense of belonging and relationship, etc… God alone converts US through our very creatureliness. Next week we’ll begin to explore the various dimensions of that human side of conversion.
