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Adult Formation Opportunities Help Us Grow in Faith
Our faith formation doesn’t — and shouldn’t — end when we complete our religious education classes in high school. We can continue to learn more about our faith well into adulthood because that learning never ends.
“There is always more to learn,” says Deacon Michael Tateishi. “What we say to our RCIA candidates is that ‘now you begin your real journey — you are becoming a Catholic all your life.’ This is what we are called to be. And you can realize this calling through classes and also through involvement in ministries.”
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Our parish has abundant means for adults to continue to grow into their Catholic faith. And even though there have been restrictions on our gatherings with COVID, we have many opportunities available online.
Logging onto the parish website at www.olaparish.net will provide links to many such opportunities. If you go to the Formation menu and click on “Resources,” you will find a variety of general faith formation resources, as well as resources for the domestic church and families.
One such program is Living the Word that is available through Zoom. “Each Thursday at 7 p.m. we talk up the upcoming readings and discuss them, and give the background,” Deacon Michael says. “These are open to everyone. Before COVID, we held them in the conference room. But with COVID, we use Zoom as the method to meet.”
Living the Word meets via the Zoom conferencing app. Zoom links with the dates and times are provided in advance to everyone registered with Flocknote. Flocknote is available by signing up for an account through the parish website.
On the fourth Thursday of each month, the regular meeting is replaced with a Taizé prayer service and Lectio Divina Scripture meditation.
“We have about 50 percent of our parishioners signed up for Flocknote,” he says. “We send out announcements and important information whenever we can. We usually send out notices about Mass or the Living the Word meetings.”
We also offer Flocknote Engage, which provides free access to Bishop Barron’s Word on Fire ENGAGE video library.
“Last year, we used the Word on Fire site that includes access to the complete Catholicism series,” Deacon Michael says. “This was very nice so we were able to participate in a lot of programs.”
One observation that Deacon Michael has made is that Catholics who have dropped away from the Church return with a desire for more knowledge about their faith when they go through instructions for the Sacraments of Marriage or Baptism.
“You won’t see folks, and they want to get married and they’re dealing with matrimony and a lot of issues, and this lights a spark and they want more,” he says. “We use marriage preparation as an evangelization tool, and also through baptismal preparation. They haven’t talked about the sacraments in a while, and this sparks their interest. They come back, and that’s why we offer it. I find hope in the people who come back through these Sacraments, and we should offer more. It’s very important to help others and there will be moments when they come back.”
Planning is underway for adult faith formation opportunities to return to face-to-face sessions in September.
“We hope that in September and October we can begin offering programs in person,” Deacon Michael says.
