This weekend we once again begin our parish's Religious Education Program for students in grades K-8. (Read more about the program at www.standrew.org/re.) Parallel to our parish school, more than 130 students (the number keeps growing) will meet with volunteer catechists in the classroom and work with their parents at home to learn about God's love for them.

Sharing the knowledge of God's love and teaching about our faith are our primary ministries at Saint Andrew. As many of you know, I do not subscribe to a philosophy of antagonism between secular society and religious tradition. There is too much good and too much God in the world for us to condemn it. Even so, within our largely secular world, the mission to extend knowledge of God's love is extremely critical. By the very marketplaces we have established, people are reduced to products and valued either for their monetary contribution or monetary yield. In the Church, people are dignified, living reflections of God's love, and beyond worth. The ministry to illuminate this deeper, more precious knowledge, especially with our children, is of crucial importance in a world that does its best to reduce our meaning to a ledger line.

While we focus on children, it is probably a good reminder to point out that religious education is different form other academic subjects by its nature. When you learn the order of the alphabet, there is no reason to go back and relearn how to order them later in life. When you learn the basics of arithmetic, you won't have new input later in life that changes the nature of addition or subtraction or the meaning of an equal sign. Not so with religion. For the better, we are constantly receiving new input, new experiences, and new insights that shape our faith in God. For the worse, we are constantly being challenged by pernicious forces to abandon the echoing of God's love in our hearts. We need to continue our religious education as a lifelong process.

This is not a new phenomenon.

The First Reading at Mass this weekend tells the story of the Israelites who were in the desert after being freed from slavery in Egypt. They had seen wonders that extend past my imagination and yet had abandoned their memory to the thrill of the moment. It is abit incomprehensible to me. I still harbor the trauma of kids making fun of me in grade school which is nothing compared to being chased down by Egyptian armies on a perilous escape with walls of water to my right and left. One would think the Israelites had immediate and steadfast knowledge of God's love in their life. It should have been something they would never forget.

But they did forget.

The new experiences, new challenges, and new threats that they faced stirred doubt within their hearts. It made them question God, and they began to worship other gods, melting gold in order to make a statue of a calf which they began to worship. For such forgetfulness, God called them a "stiff-necked people."

In the chaos and confusion, Moses was the catechist to meet the moment. He echoed back to God, even in the midst of the Israelite's sinfulness, that God's love was more abundant that His wrath.

We are all like the Israelites. Even though we've had our basic religious education and received our sacraments, the fear and trepidation of new experiences, new knowledge, and new insights shake our beliefs. We too are a "stiff-necked people" who reduce our worth to the false worship our own self-fabrications.

Where are we finding our own catechist of the moment? Our own Moses to remind us of our worth and call us back to a relationship with God? Another way of asking this is to say, "How are we continuing our own religious education?"

As our children start or continue their own religious education whether in our school or our in our Sunday program, it is beneficial to remind ourselves that discipleship is life-long. We haven't learned everything and what we have already learned about God is prelude to what we still have to learn. It may come in the form of a commitment to reading from the Bible on a daily or weekly basis, seeking out a Spiritual Director, or participating in an adult faith formation group. There are many ways to continue the journey. The important part is that we stay on the path to know and love God more fully every day.

Are you interested in a Catholic Education for your child? We have limited seats still available for the 2022/23 School Year! The first tour of the school year will be held on Tuesday, October 11 at 9am. Sign up here: tour sign up

Please contact Anne Japsen in Admissions at annejapsen@gosaintandrew.com for more information. Come join us and experience what makes our Blue Ribbon School so special. www.gosaintandrew.com