Further Up, Further In: Catechetical Reflections for Springtime

Abstract

Holy Week, 2022 Greetings colleagues and friends! I am very pleased to present this spring issue of theChristian Education Journal, now in its forty-second year of publication. Commendations to all of our contributing authors! Thank you to every member of our editorial team who makes this work possible! One of the greatest responsibilities and privileges of being a teacher is the vocational ethic of continually learning. In my experience, one of the sublimemeans of leaning into this ethic is by actively receiving thewisdomof the studentswithwhomGodhas gathered me. They certainly have plenty to share and much with which to shape and sharpen me. I’d like to share with you a case in point. Early in my course, “Theological Anthropology for Christian Ministry,” I guide students to discover the connections between the basic anthropological questions of identity (“Who am I?”) and personhood (“What is man?”), and the Church’s most historic ministerial framework for educational ministry, catechesis. But before we unpack Augustine’s Enchiridion (1961) or read Packer and Parrett’s Grounded in the Gospel (2010), I have students compose a response to a given life scenario: