Jesus Valued Children, But...

Jesus Valued Children, But...

This year at Sunday Masses we hear primarily from the Gospel according to St. Luke, the author of the two-volume work of the books of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. St.
Luke is believed to have been a physician who later joined St. Paul in his efforts to spread the faith to peoples of many lands. One of the things his writings are known for is how
he highlights Jesus’ concern for those who were on the margins of society in his day, including the sick and lonely, as well as women and children. In a beautiful reading often
proclaimed at infant Baptisms, Jesus got upset when people were trying to keep the children from disturbing him: “Let the children come to me and do not prevent them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” (Lk 18:16) Jesus made a point of respecting children (who were often treated with less dignity than adults), and he even held children up as examples of faith for us, God’s “adult children.”

But...

Did you ever notice that Jesus did most of his teaching with adults, not children? What does that have to say about how we hand on and grow in our faith today? Faith for-
mation for children and youth have long been and will continue to be a critical part of how our parishes support families, assisting parents who have the primary role of educat-
ing and helping their children to grow in the faith. The reading and training our councils and pastoral team have participated in helps us to see that faith formation is a life-
long process. Our collaborative parishes are committed to providing multiple options for Adult Faith Formation so that parents, and all of us, can continue to learn and grow in
living our faith. We are all called to help hand on the faith to others (young and old), and as the adage goes, “You cannot give what you do not have!” We need more than an ad-
olescent understanding of our faith to be able to assist others in addressing their questions and doubts, yet for many Catholic adults, that age was the last time we did any serious reading or learning about our faith. This is at the heart of what we mean when we talk about “Catholic evangelization”: continuing to learn and grow in our own faith and
helping others to do the same.

Last weekend, parishioners shared their experiences of Adult Faith formation at Mass. On February 26, we will launch into our wildly popular ChristLife program with the first series, “Discovering Christ.” All three series in this program were run over the past year at St. Martha church hall on Thursday nights, so to reach people whose schedule is not free on that night we moved it to Tuesday nights.  This year ChristLife will be held at St. Mary Wrentham church hall, (another advantage to being a Collaborative: shared ministry space).

Please take an invitation card from the pews this weekend, and if you want more information, you will find it in a pamphlet by the doors and on our Collaborative website
( pwc.church ).  Please share this invitation with others, whether they rarely go to church or are deeply involved in our Catholic faith, where we can let Jesus teach us together!