Book
A Resource for Preaching and Teaching About the Sacraments (2015)
A Resource for Preaching and Teaching About the Sacraments, USCCB Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis, September 2015
“Catechesis both precedes the Liturgy and springs from it. It prepares people for a full, conscious, and active participation in the Liturgy by helping them understand its nature, rites, signs, rituals, and symbols expressed in the Liturgy; to discern the implications of their participation in the Liturgy; and to respond to its missionary summons to bear witness and offer service. And Liturgy itself is inherently catechetical.”
“Liturgical catechesis aims to initiate people into the mystery of Christ . . . by proceeding from the visible to the invisible, from the sign to the thing signified, from the ‘sacraments’ to the ‘mysteries.’” Liturgical catechesis fosters a deeper sense of the meaning of the Liturgy and the sacraments. “In other words, sacramental life is impoverished and very soon turns into hollow ritualism if it is not based on serious knowledge of the meaning of the sacraments, and catechesis becomes intellectualized if it fails to come alive in sacramental practice.”
In service to this important relationship between catechesis and the Liturgy, the USCCB Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis has prepared this resource. It is designed to assist homilists in preparing an evangelizing and catechetically rich homily on all but one of the sacraments. Because the Rite for the Ordination of Priests already has specific homily guidelines for the “Bishop’s Address,” and because no priest or deacon would serve as the homilist for an ordination, no additional resources were provided for this sacrament in this set of resources.