by Father Terrence P. Ryan, CSP
January 21, 2014

I prefer that people tell me what they believe rather than tell me what I am supposed to believe. Tell me of your experience of God, or Jesus, who whoever, whatever. If people tell us simply what we are supposed to think, believe, do, we might comply when we are young. As we grow up, we drop a lot of this. If people come to me with a problem, I may have a solution that I think will help them, but if I simply say do this or that, it has only a short term effect. If I tell them what I actually did, what my experience with the problem/solution is for me, that goes a lot further. A catechism answer that is not lived out, is shallow. Young people are dropping out of religion that is all about ideas, and very little about shared experience.