Philippine Catholic Church Celebrates National Catechetical Week

On September 26 – October 2, 2004, the different dioceses all over the country will celebrate the annual National Catechetical Week, an event to be spearheaded by their respective Diocesan Catechetical Offices.

The proclamation of a “National Catechetical Week” to be held yearly is an event of remarkable potentialities for the catechetical ministry in the Philippines. On July 9, 1986, at the conclusion of their mid-year meeting, the Bishops of the Philippines unanimously approved the proposal submitted by the Episcopal Commission on Education and Religious Education (ECERI) headed by its Chairman, Archbishop Leonardo Legaspi, OP, DD to proclaim a National Catechetical Week. The declaration was signed by His Eminence Ricardo J. Cardinal Vidal on the said date. Here follows the relevant portion of the Bishops’ “declaration”:

“The crucial importance of catechesis for the whole life of the Church has so often been underlined. John Paul II says that the Church depends essentially on catechesis not only for her geographical extension and numerical increase, but even more her inner growth and correspondence with God’ plan (cf. CT 13).

…Therefore, convinced that catechesis is intimately bound up with the whole Church’s life and reiterating our commitment to the primacy of catechesis in our pastoral concern, we declare the week within which the feast of St. Pius X occurs as the CATECHETICAL WEEK for the Philippines.” (ref. DOCETE Special Issue for 1986) Read full text.

Since its declaration, the yearly celebration of the Catechetical Week is one of the church events anticipated by Filipino Catholics, most especially by our catechists and religious educators.

This year’s theme for the National Catechetical Week is “Starting Afresh from Christ in the Company of Mary” which is based on the biblical text taken from the Gospel according to John 19: 37, “…And they shall look upon him whom they have pierced.”

His Excellency, Most Rev. Socrates Villegas, DD, Chairman of the Episcopal Commission on Catechesis and Catholic Education (ECCCE) shares to all of us his reflection on this year’s theme: “Our Lord has invited us to a kind of loving which He himself has shown to us first before asking us to do it. It is a kind of love that does not count the cost. It is a love that gives not only until death but even after death, and forever. The heart of our Lord Jesus was pierced after his death, and immediately, there came out blood and water -- the everlasting life and love of God. Our Mother Mary has offered us the same kind of example in terms of living out her faith and in following her son Jesus.”