Diana Dudoit Raiche, School of Ministry
"Liturgical Catechesis and Catholic Identity."
Faculty Profile: Diana Dudoit Raiche
In the Author's Words
Liturgy is formative, contributing to Catholic Identity. To make the formative nature
of liturgy more explicit, the General Directory for Catechesis and the National Directory for Catechesis highlight the integration of liturgy and catechesis through liturgical catechesis.
Such integration draws upon the inductive as well as deductive operations of both
liturgy and catechesis. Liturgy as formation depends on an experience of liturgy that
includes and goes beyond learning about liturgy. Those who participate in liturgy
also need to reflect on the liturgical experience and the languages of liturgy in
relation to life experience. Such liturgical language goes beyond official prayers
and assembly responses. It includes biblical and liturgical signs, symbols and images;
ritual movements and gestures in the context of worship and prayer as a gathered assembly;
and, appropriate liturgical music, which can reinforce scriptural texts and images
that touch a person affectively. Liturgy as formative intends to contribute to and
support conversion to Jesus Christ, compel participants to desire intimate communion
with Christ, and transform human thoughts, beliefs, behaviors and practices in conformity
to the mission Christ left to the Church. Conversion, communion and transformation,
constitutive of Catholic Identity, demand an explicit liturgical catechesis to effect
liturgy as formative.
Raiche, Diana Dudoit. (2016). "Liturgical Catechesis and Catholic Identity." In Prisms of Faith: Perspectives on Religious Education and the Cultivation of Catholic Identity, edited by Robert E. Alvis and Ryan LaMothe, 90-112. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications/Wipf & Stock Publishers.
Faculty Profile: Diana Dudoit Raiche