Editor's Notes: Renewing Catechist Formation at the Sources

With the promulgation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church Pope John Paul was able to celebrate the opportunity for a catechesis ‘renewed at the living sources of the faith’. The Catechism is permeated through and through with these sources of the Faith, so that catechetical sessions can be occasions for a deepening attachment to Christ who is revealed and handed on to us in the Church’s Tradition, Sacred Scriptures and Liturgy. We can sum up the goal of catechetical formation by saying that it, too, aims to place people in relationship with the sources of the faith. Catechetical formation mirrors catechetical activity; there is a necessary coherence between the ways in which we catechise and the ways in which we form catechists. ‘It would be very difficult for the catechist in his activity to improvise a style and a sensibility to which he had not been introduced during his own formation’ (General Directory for Catechesis 237).