For Catechists

Each month the Holy Father asks us to pray for a particular intention. In his prayer intention for the month of December, Pope Francis invites everyone to pray for catechists who are called to announce the Word of God, with courage and creativity, with joy and much peace.

“Catechists have an invaluable mission for the transmission and growth of the faith.

The lay ministry of catechist is a vocation; it’s a mission. Being a catechist means that you ‘are a catechist,’ not that you ‘work as a catechist’. It’s an entire way of being, and we need good catechists who are both companions and teachers.

We need creative people who proclaim the Gospel, but who proclaim it neither with a mute nor with a loudspeaker, but rather with their life, with gentleness, with a new language, and opening new ways.

In many dioceses, on many continents, evangelization is fundamentally in the hands of a catechist.

Let us thank catechists for the interior enthusiasm with which they live this mission at the service of the Church.

Let us pray for the catechists, summoned to announce the Word of God: may they be its witnesses, with courage and creativity and in the power of the Holy Spirit, with joy and much peace”.

Earlier this year, with the Apostolic Letter Antiquum Ministerium, issued “Motu Proprio”, Pope Francis formally instituted the lay ministry of catechists. An example of this “new language” for catechesis that the Pope speaks about can been seen in this month’s video as it shows catechists and young people working together on a mural representing the washing of feet.