“To Thine Own Self Be True”: A Mystagogical Journey Through Liturgical Experience in Shaping the Christian Identity of Youth

Abstract

In the pursuit of an authentic Christian experience, particularly among young people, it is essential to focus on reconfiguring what constitutes a true Christian identity. This entails a deep immersion in the lived experience of faith, with particular emphasis on the liturgical encounter, along with the signs and symbols employed in the experience. In the face of innumerable challenges partly precipitated by contemporary society and culture, such an engagement can foster a genuine experience of Christian life, encouraging young people to embrace authenticity while maintaining a focus on core beliefs and identity markers as they are lived and experienced. Consequently, the liturgical experience enhances the mystagogical journey, allowing young people to reflect on their identity as active participants in the faith. This intentional focus enables them to perceive faith as a true and defining marker of their identity as Christians.

1. Introduction: Setting the Stage

When I was an educator in Catholic schools in Malta, I often took the opportunity to probe spiritual questions through the exploration of main literary themes or motifs in English literary works as part of the subject of English literature. Despite the apparent disinterest in literature itself among teens, the deepest foray into these texts could attest to the spiritual yearnings of teenagers, together with their sincere discussions and queries. It seemed the space where teens could feel safe and relate, corollary to the medium of literature, which expresses the yearnings of humankind, not least the youths themselves. This is the itinerary which the quotation from the title, taken from Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, invites us to.1 Thus, for example, an exploration of “Tyger” by William Blake would elicit a plethora of lively responses that delve into the spiritual realm. Yet, oftentimes, these were sporadic and fragmentary occasions. While the capacity of youth to speak about the transcendent can be said to be inherent, this is a fragmentary endeavour, reflective of the complexity of the world within which we navigate, which can be described as post-secular and post-Christian, characterised by a “rugged individualism”. The insinuation of a “narrative” of rational and empirical knowledge has come to displace the archetypal meta-narratives that inhabited the world of the previous generations, resulting in a “methodology of deconstruction” which “has left us bereft of the sense of mystery, discounted experience, and leaves many ill-prepared for a lived faith in today’s instrumental, flat, and rational worldview” (Melley 2021, pp. 76–77). Until recently, science and technology have primarily shaped the dominant culture, rather than mysticism or metaphysics (See Regan 1994, p. 48). To use Taylor’s words, the move from the “porous self” to the “buffered self” has instilled a disenchantment that has characterised modern society.2

As Melley contends, “fragmentation, modernization, and commodification have led to tenuous connections with the Christian tradition and community”.3 The experience of the Christian faith within Catholic schools can be largely characterised by an individualised, fragmentary experience, especially evident during the liturgical experiences themselves which purportedly aim to strengthen the sense of communal worship but often render the students themselves into mere spectators to an unfolding drama with little bearing on their lives. And yet, as Charles Taylor contends, in relation to the cosmos, “we are striving to discover our true form through creative expression, moving stage by stage” (Taylor 2024, p. 5). This movement cannot be divorced from an experience wherein the macrocosmic perspective is intertwined with the microcosmic level of experience.

The Maltese context is one where the rationale of Catholic schools—here called “church schools”—is still one that champions a hegemony of Catholic faith while admitting to an ever-increasing fragmentation, and it is within this context that the presuppositions in this paper are explored, with attention and implications of the extant literature within a wider sphere.

In light of the work of previous scholars, it can be argued that the notion of mystagogy shows great potential within the sphere of religious education. Taking this notion as a point of departure, this paper seeks to align the tool of mystagogy with the liturgical experience, within which it was originally embedded. With its emphasis on an experience that encompasses the whole human being, the cognitive and affective domains, mystagogy, as “an initiation, via the liturgical celebration that took place in history” (Mazza 1989, p. 33), has the potential, through a dynamic process, to ensure an authentic exploration of the Christian faith.

2. The Relevance of Mystagogy for the Contemporary Arena

“Our primordial orientation to the world is not knowledge, or even belief, but love”

(Smith 2009, pp. 26–27).

Such a postmodern worldview discussed in the previous section is fertile ground for the reconfiguration of mystagogy. As Johnson-Miller and Espinoza affirm, “the re-emergence of mystagogy today coincides with the postmodern need for holistic and embodied faith” (Johnson-Miller and Espinoza 2018, p. 164). This aligns with a crucial notion of embracing a pedagogy which interweaves the processes of learning about or learning from to learning into a Christian identity and a faith perspective.4 It is a pedagogy that immerses the student into the faith perspective. Thomas Groome speaks of a “shared Christian praxis approach”, or a life to Faith to life approach. Put aptly, it is “a pedagogy that enables people to bring their lives to a faith tradition, and to bring a faith tradition to their lives” (Groome 2007, p. 365). It is a pedagogy that underscores a movement wherein, transcending the post-secular discourse of “faith-numbness”; the young person is no longer a spectator but a dynamic participant. Its dynamics empower the learner with the locus of control of the whole experience through participation, conversation, and presentation, whereby participants are initiated into the narratives of Christian faith and are encouraged to appropriate and base their life experiences on it.5

Hence, the starting point for this pedagogy entails a reconfiguration of the liturgical experience, a fact that acquires more poignancy in reiterating the attention that the liturgy itself is loaded with action. Hence, it comes as no surprise that the actuosa participatio, the main tenet of the liturgical renewal since the Second Vatican Council, has become what Kevin Irwin slates as “redundant”. The simple reason for this is that liturgy has always been about participation. Even, the very term anamnesis means “that we make memory together, and in making memory, we literally take part in, are partakers in, what was accomplished for our sakes in history and is also here and now enacted for us” (Irwin 2013, p. 37).

This taps into mystagogy and its potential in the contemporary participation of young people in the Christian faith, albeit in a complex milieu that inhabits a vastly different worldview from the background of the great Church Fathers of mystagogy. Being a deductive method of catechesis makes mystagogy especially relevant in the contemporary field (Šídlová 2019, p. 207). In light of the aforementioned contexts, a deductive approach characterised by the setting of experience at the starting point of catechesis, mystagogy serves to give a renewed vigour to the relevance of the faith and does not merely serve as a buttress to traditional inductive approaches to catechesis and religious education.6

This article presents briefly, first and foremost, the mystagogical tradition of the Church Fathers in order to understand the trajectory undertaken in the development of this particular method of catechesis, together with a reconfiguration of a “mystagogy” espoused by Karl Rahner and more recent scholars who address a different society wherein mainstream Christian faith and the church are no longer the main protagonists, in a bid to analyse its relevance and potential within the contemporary scene. Against this backdrop, this dynamic development of mystagogy can attest to a creative response to a new need that sets an experiential journey at the fulcrum of religious education.

3. The Mystagogical Tradition in the Early Church

These introductions into the Mysteries day by day, and these new instructions, which are the announcements of new truths, are profitable to us; and most of all to you, who have been renewed from oldness to newness. … As soon, therefore, as ye entered in, ye put off your garment; and this was an image of putting off the old man with his deeds

(Cyril of Jerusalem 1845, p. 263 “Lecture XX: On the Rite of Baptism”).

Mystagogy, with its etymology deriving from an initiation into the pagan mysteries in the ancient Greco-Roman world, since transposed to the Christian tradition, “was the way in which elders, that is mystagogues, helped candidates to identify and reflect on the hidden mysteries within their experience and the practices of their community”.7 Enrico Mazza explores the manifold meanings of mystagogy, especially among the Greek Fathers. Mystagogy has four basic elements interwoven together, which are experience, mystery, liturgy, and community.8 Albeit on an implicit level, these elements run the thread of our exploration throughout this article.

Today, mystagogy is becoming increasingly familiar because of the reconfiguration of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) in the light of the Second Vatican Council. Yet, within the RCIA, where mystagogy is associated with the catechesis addressed to the newly initiated neophytes from Easter Sunday to Pentecost, it can be sometimes seen as not quite having the importance it should have, sometimes even disappearing into oblivion once the neophytes are received into the folds of the church. This has been noticed in various situations within the Maltese scenario, wherein the newly baptised seem to become anonymous and, hence, no proper endeavour is given to this mystagogical element which, ultimately, should be the glue that unifies the fourfold experience of the RCIA. Attention to the language of the Ordo implies the notion that mystagogy is the thread that runs throughout the fourfold experience of the RCIA itself, thus interweaving these stages together, starting from the very first stage of the precatechumenate, a point explored at length by Regan.9 Thus, evangelisation leads to “the faith and initial conversion that cause a person to feel called away from sin and drawn into the mystery of God’s love”.10 The same can be said of the catechumenate.11

To return to early Christianity, the initiated ones were the adult catechumens who needed to be instructed in the faith, and after baptism, after which they would become fully fledged members of the community, they received catecheses about the mysteries in which they participated. Thus, mystagogy was inextricably bound to the liturgy in the early Christian tradition. The most notable proponents of mystagogical catechesis are Cyril of Jerusalem (d. 386), Ambrose of Milan (d. 397), John Chrysostom (d. 407), Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 428), Augustine of Hippo (d. 430), and Maximus the Confessor (d. 662). While each of these Fathers were unique in their expression, the basic characteristic of mystagogy within the early Church can be described as “a homiletic tool with an emphasis on biblical typology that takes priority over doctrinal or systematic methods”.12 Typology becomes, thus, a useful hermeneutical tool that serves to unite past, present, and future.13 The catecheses of the Fathers employ typology in particular and unique ways. Thus, for example, if Ambrose makes use of superimpositions, Theodore of Mopsuestia makes use of allegory in his typology.14 John Chrysostom’s mystagogy, on the other hand, is characterised by an emphasis on Christian moral behaviour.15 The mystagogy of Maximus the Confessor seeks to address the “function” of the liturgy of the Church—especially through her hierarchy—whereby humanity is deified and God ultimately becomes “all in all” (see Maximus the Confessor 2020; see also Cooper 2005). As Mazza argues, apart from the homiletic character of these mystagogical teachings, what accords them a proper liturgical entity is

… also and above all because of their purpose, which is to explain to the neophytes, or newly baptised, the meaning and nature of the liturgical actions in which they have participated: baptism and the Eucharist.16

The reappropriation of mystagogy since the Church Fathers can be said to be particular, in occurrence with the changing pattern in a secular and post-secular world, where the Christian religious education has changed from being the protagonist to one which is influenced by diversities and complexities, characterised by a space where while “religion and religious sensibilities have not been eradicated by modernity, they have substantially been transformed into something new and individualized”,17 wherein the relationship between the typology and the sacramental meaning has ceased to be of meaning.

4. Karl Rahner and Mystagogy in the Contemporary Scene

The development in mystagogy in the post-Vatican era beyond the retrieval of the RCIA transcends the sacramental and ecclesial realm within which the Church Fathers developed mystagogical teaching. To this end, this mystagogical teaching itself has undergone a process of reconfiguration in response to emerging contexts and evolving circumstances. Since Rahner was aware that “we live in an age which becomes suspicious when in answer to its questions, an ‘other-worldly; dimension is pointed to, in which everything is reduced to clarity and order” (Rahner 1971, p. 12). Together, with others such as Leonardo Boff, Rahner champions mystagogy, without actually using the term, “since it advocates an anthropological theological perspective with human life as the starting point” (Elshof 2017, p. 145).

As Regan points out, Rahner’s mystagogy is aimed at the Christian in the world, far removed from the milieu of the baptised neophytes to whom most of Fathers’ catecheses were addressed.18 Rahner’s mystagogy follows the Ignatian method of exercises, focusing on discernement.19 The mystagogy of Rahner impinges on an innate openness of every human being for God’s mystery. Hence, in a creative rendering of the mystagogy espoused by the Church Fathers in lieu of the adults who had just been baptised, in Rahner’s view, the experiential relationship with God transcends the ecclesial, liturgical and sacramental realms to incorporate the whole experience of lived life.20

Since the 2000s, scholars tapping into the relevance of mystagogy in religious education have been Mirjam Schambeck and Bert Roebben. Again, we are dealing with a different conceptualisation of mystagogy from that of the Church Fathers and even that of Karl Rahner who is still assuming a background of a Christian experience, since these scholars (not without their criticisms) envisage a “mystagogy in the midst of an educational world, and from a culture that they consider post-Christian and post-secular”.21 The three characteristics of the contemporary conceptualisations of mystagogy are outlined by Elshof. First, contemporary mystagogy entails offering a Christian perspective on life. The second characteristic involves acquiring religious experiences within mystagogical settings and, finally, reflecting on and interpreting those experiences.22 The mystagogical settings outline different kind of experiences, running the gamut from ritual, spiritual, and biblical stories to buildings.23

While approaching the problématique from different approaches, both Schambeck and Roebben “believe that religious education should not only have informative, reflective and communicative goals, but should also aim to be mystagogical: students should acquire religious experiences, stimulating their sensibility for the mystery”.24 It is a journey that transcends mere religious tourism to become a pilgrimage whereby students are encouraged not only to interpret, but to make sense of their new experiences—hence, discovery of meaning (Roebben 2009, p. 20)—which, in turn, enable the students to discover a new way of being.

They let go of their overarching search for salvation and let themselves be found (in this case by Christ). The quest receives new meaning, the longing is rearranged, and questions that have been asked along the way are not solved but rephrased.25

Having touched on all the existing literature on the various developments and more conceptualisations of mystagogy, this article, which seeks to depart from a premise based on a context where the Catholic church is still relatively present in students’ lives since these are students who attend a Catholic school, focuses on the experiential acquisition or, rather, the reconfiguration of the liturgy amongst other experiences—in a way, reinstating liturgy as a the focal point of the mystagogical journey. Thus, we now turn to Sacramentum caritatis.

5. Sacramentum caritatis: A Reappropriation of Mystagogy Within the Liturgical Experience?

Sacramentum caritatis, the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation on the Eucharist, promulgated in 2007, highlights the role of the liturgy as the main focus of an insertion into the religious experience. An analysis, together with a reconfiguration of the main tenets of this document, would be especially crucial in the application of the mystagogical perspective in relation to the particular Maltese context. Within the perspective of Sacramentum caritatis, the liturgy itself acquires a catechetical focus, notably throughout a profound reconfiguration of the celebration of the Eucharist itself. Thus, “the best catechesis on the Eucharist is the Eucharist itself, celebrated well” (Benedict XVI 2007, p. 64) Since attention revolves back to the whole liturgy, encompassing aspects such as texts, gestures, postures and so on, O’Malley is entirely correct in calling the liturgy a “curriculum” (O’Malley 2019, p. 3). Like the journey of the disciples at Emmaus, it is an accompaniment of discipleship in “the apprenticeship of Christian life”. Yet, this experience cannot be ensconced in some kind of “hidden curriculum” framework of deep knowledge of faith. As Roebben argues, if it is precisely an experience, it must go beyond didactics and enable the participant to interpret and make sense of new experience, leading to creativity and transformation.26 The movement towards an embodied framework is what aligns this liturgical formation with a mystagogical paradigm.

This experiential character is the fulcrum of the liturgical experience. Participation in ritual itself is a series of actions: listening to the Scriptures, reflecting on the homily, singing, kneeling, and so on. Since it engages the person on so many levels, it is a transformative experience (Marie-Smith 2012, p. 17). An insertion into the liturgical experience itself can serve as a transformative potential in a context such as that of Malta, where a significant number of believers continue to gather for mass. The same is true of adolescents and teenagers who attend church schools. Through repetitive gestures, young people can be initiated into a reality where every word and every gesture is always new because “it meets with an always new moment in our lives” (Francis 2022, p. 53). It is this that defines the whole liturgical experience and must be communicated within Christian youth formation:

In liturgy the community comes before their God. God and people meet, dialogue, tell stories and perform rituals. While the relationship is not between equal partners and reverence for the Holy is in place, the two parties relate to each other intimately as friends and partners

(Van Ommen 2015, p. 9).

Indeed, it is within the real recovery of the meaning of the liturgy and the implication of liturgical formation that the process of mystagogy is key:

It is at the level of mystagogy that liturgical formation is best served whereby the life of the assembly (in its members) is consciously changed and reoriented toward God’s reign through a deeper and prayer-filled consideration of the salvific encounter that is experienced in liturgy—and the self-implicating nature of this encounter

(Whelan 2017, p. 72).

Sacramentum caritatis outlines three elements of this process. First, “it interprets the rites in the light of the events of our salvation”. Second, “a mystagogical catechesis must also be concerned with presenting the meaning of the signs contained in the rites”. Almost twenty years later, the reconfiguration of signs and symbols in the liturgy remains a focal point in Desiderio desideravi. This is especially poignant within a perspective where youths, so tech savvy, may risk being alienated from transcending a just appreciation of signs and symbols to a movement towards an interpretative framework. This is the focal point of the next section of this paper. Third, a “mystagogical catechesis must be concerned with bringing out the significance of the rites for the Christian life”. Liturgy is lived and experienced as community, yet, in light of the previous literature explored, the notion of worship necessitates a serious reconfiguration. Apart from the semblance of a ritology which mainly confines young people to the periphery, the main challenge inherent in the latter element is the move from an individualistic experience to a collective experience of the mystery, ensuring an experience of reciprocity and authenticity. While the ecclesial aspect is almost missing in a number of post-Christian contexts, the reconfiguration of community is key.

6. A Movement from Metaphor to Symbol: A Process of Becoming Symbol-Literate

“Like the bundles of energy described in quantum theory, liturgical symbols interact with each other, transferring and increasing energy, shedding light and unfolding meaning”

(Kubicki 2008).

In 1957, Paul Tillich had argued that only symbolic language can express the ultimate (Tillich 1957, p. 41). The realm of literature can initiate youth to the world of metaphors and symbols, even though the latter can still remain an unattainable, if still not incomprehensible, realm simply because either they bear no connection to young people’s lives or else they are not initiated into the world of symbols. Regan affirms unequivocally, and correctly, that “symbols, so widely used in liturgy, do justice to experience in a way that doctrinal concepts cannot”.27 Herein lies the starting point of the education process, in the reconfiguration of a pedagogy leading young people to discover that it is in the proper participation in the liturgy that the movement from metaphor to symbol to sacrament is authentically experienced and interpreted. Hence, the reason why “attending to the meaning of metaphors is important in order to make people aware of the power of rituals to carry persons through the initiatory process to the healing process and to a process of self-maturation”.

Their language relates to Christian faith and identity, our connection with God and one another, and our participation in the Paschal Mystery of our Lord Jesus Christ. The key word is “participation” since it transcends a mere spectatorship or “tourism”, to use Roebben’s term. Only once this is attained can young people really experience the liturgy in its fullness, once they discover that they are “first and foremost: loving, desiring, affective, liturgical animals who for the most part don’t inhabit the world as thinkers or cognitive machines”.28

The interpretative framework that involves a relationship with signs and symbols is also centripetal to Desiderio desideravi.29 Such an interpretative framework to be effective with youth in their formation calls for an authentic recovery of signs and symbols, a crucial aspect within mystagogy itself, which goes beyond catechetical methods since they touch on every aspect of their lives. Valenziano asserts:

“renewing’’ mystery-based symbols is not a catechetical undertaking, nor is it pedagogical or didactic; what is required is consistency in bring forth the mystery-based realities themselves, presenting them in terms of signs that uniquely make them present and do not merely allude to them

(Valenziano 1998, p. 31).

Thus, a mystagogical journey with youths would enable them to retrieve and interpret the meta-narrative of their identity through the fostering of a sacramental imagination, through participation, eventually to be transformed by it and also to apply it creatively. This echoes Taylor’s affirmation regarding symbols in language, namely that “the meaning of a symbol is thus never and totally delineated”.30

While Roebben upholds the criticisms of meta-narratives, it must be argued that this depends on the particular context within a particular country. The demise of meta-narratives is not yet in the Maltese Catholic school milieu, though it must be conceded they are becoming ever more foreign.

Such a preparation during the education of young people would invite an attention to the rites within Mass itself, which invites participation in an itinerary into the complexity of human life itself—an aspect to which young people are especially sensitive—a trajectory wherein the self-development of a person progresses from “forgiveness of sins, to healing, to nourishment through the Word and the Eucharist and to a rediscovery of a new self in a communal activity in order to be empowered to live and transmit the encounter in all life circumstances” (Buttigieg 2023). This is a bid even despite the prima facie formal structure of the liturgical rites themselves. If we pay attention to the Psalms in the readings, we realise that they can serve as an engagement with a wide range of emotions experienced by human beings, in all circumstances of life. This encompasses a spectrum of emotions which includes praising and giving thanks to God, bargaining, and expressing lament in the face of various vicissitudes (see also Hessel-Robinson 2012, p. 41). Their dialogic nature makes for a potentially profound experience wherein young people can find and, in turn, make meaning to the complexities of life within such readings. Such a trajectory encompasses a dynamic wherein the symbolism inherent to the liturgy must become “starting point for prayer and symbols which reach out to the Mystery in the heart of the world…”.31

Students are encouraged to become attuned to their role as active participants (despite the apparent redundancy of the term), whereby they are able to take part in “participation in a religious way of interpreting and living”.32 Indeed, this “process of interpreting immerses the youths into the experience”.33 Dialogue with symbols entails participation on the part of the believer, a creativity and a reciprocity, in which the participants, once they have been transformed by the experience, are once more co-protagonists in that they are able to share that experience of themselves with the others (Ferrone 2016, p. 148). This aligns with the third element of mystagogy explored by Sacramentum caritatis, an experience that can take place in domains outside of the church, in the form of various experiences, and, to an extent, the final layer of lived mystagogical experience outlined by contemporary scholars.34 In making sense of new meanings that often operate within a community, young people themselves are the fulcrum of a reconfiguration of a communio experience of the faith.35

Such an immersion provides young people the opportunity to probe deeper into the iteration and implications of symbols used in liturgical rites and to reflect on how these symbols speak to them beyond the liturgical experience. The Church Fathers used these symbols ingeniously in a way ensuring that the Christians would carry the mysteries into their daily lives. Cyril’s words serve as an example: “Having been baptized into Christ, and having put on Christ, you have been made conformable to the Son of God… see that you do nothing unworthy of so great a garment, but keep it ever unspotted by good works”.36 Young people should be empowered to allow themselves to be provoked by these symbols. The seemingly ubiquitous yet powerful symbols of bread and water, for example, can provoke young people into reading through the symbol and its provocations in order to make light of a complex world. More often than not, symbols and their operation take place within a community; hence, the dialogue with symbols can serve as an engagement into the wider realm of community. For example, by asking about the provenance of the water that serves baptism, young people are encouraged to ask questions about our dependence on nature and our disconnection from the earth itself in the discussion of water sources in a bid to retrieve eco-literacy (see Stewart 2011, pp. 27–37). These are questions that have a collective bearing and that necessitate a collective response. It is a way of living with faith and the church amidst the ensuing provocations that test the boundaries of faith. Young people can be encouraged to probe the injustice of the world in that a number of places do not have access to safe drinking water. Another example is the symbol of bread and a real interpretation of Eucharistic sharing that assumes a poignant facet in the understanding that Eucharistic sharing ensures an equality among partners that transcends societal norms and boundaries. This reconfiguration might help the believing community, in turn, recover the real meanings of offering and sharing as espoused by the early Church in her celebrations and reintegrate them within the liturgy itself.

7. A Bid for Authenticity: A Resolution of Antinomies

An immersion into the symbol ensures that the “less is more adage” is subverted in the process. “Reducing symbols by either artificiality or miserliness inhibits their ability to serve as sacraments of our encounter with the divine”.37 The image of the flowing water, enshrined in the Didache is an example. The mandate in Chapter 17 is to “Baptise in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit in flowing water” (Milavec 2003, p. 7). The mystagogical catecheses of the Church Fathers are replete with a profusion and abundance of the symbols in their imposition and exploration from diverse angles. We hearken back to Cyril of Alexandria, who unpacks a series of layers in speaking of the baptismal waters. In the Mystagogical Catecheses II, 6–7, he speaks of these waters in terms of various scriptural events: the creation waters, the flood and Noah, the crossing of the Red Sea, and the Jordan river crossing. The prayer over the baptismal waters in the sacrament of baptism within the RCIA is one poignant example that closely echoes Cyril’s reflections:

Father,

you give us grace through sacramental signs,

which tell us of the wonders of your unseen power.

In Baptism we use your gift of water,

which you have made a rich symbol of the grace

you give us in this sacrament.

At the very: dawn of creation

your Spirit breathed on the waters,

making them the wellspring of all holiness.

The waters of the great flood

you made a sign of the waters of Baptism

that make an end of sin

and a new beginning of goodness.

$$

Through the waters of the Red Sea

you led Israel out of slavery

to be an image of God’s holy people,

set free from sin by Baptism.

$$

In the waters of the Jordan

your Son was baptized by John and anointed with the Spirit.

Your Son willed that water and blood should flow from his side

as he hung upon the cross.

After his resurrection he told his disciples:

“Go out and teach all nations,

baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy

Spirit”.

$$

Father,

look now with love upon your Church

and unseal for it the fountain of Baptism.

By the power of the Holy Spirit

give to this water the grace of your Son,

so that in the sacrament of Baptism

all those whom you have created in your likeness

may be cleansed from sin

and rise to a new birth of innocence

by water and the Holy Spirit.

$$

We ask you, Father, with your Son

to send the Holy Spirit upon the waters of this font.

May all who are buried with Christ in the death of Baptism

rise also with him to newness of life.

We ask this through Christ our Lord.

Amen.38

This profusion and its various reflections on the symbol itself, sometimes open to provocation, sheds light on the kind of iterations important for young people to be able to interpret, providing a space where their life-stories can be anchored and where they are able to make sense of their experiences and make new meanings. This aligns with the life to Faith to life notion by Groome, mentioned earlier.

Indeed:

we need to use plenty of water and oil for baptism, burn real candles, decorate with fresh flowers, process with grace and dignity, begin the Easter Vigil in the dark, build dramatic Easter fires, make music that erupts from the depths of our being and enter into communal prayer with generous amounts of silence.39

It is the case that young people need the stories wherein they have a role to play; they are not simply the spectators or mere tourists but the pilgrims in their own story. This is the aim behind religious education, which should empower young people to make sense of a holistic participation in the liturgical celebration, an education that engages the whole person. Ultimately,

Education is not something that traffics primarily in abstract, disembodied ideas; rather, education is a holistic endeavour that involves the whole person, including our bodies, in a process of formation that aims our desires, primes our imagination, and orients us to the world—all before we start thinking about it.40

This ties intimately with an important aspect that characterises the journey of young people in their quest for the transcendent: the need for authenticity and the need for a sense of belonging, a sense of belonging which is then offered to others. Yet, in order for this to be incorporated effectively, inculturation of the liturgy is key. One way this can be effected is the attention to reintegration of symbols within the liturgical experience within wider and diverse experiences, as outlined in the previous section. Only inculturation ensures that

Those who are attracted to liturgical expressions of the faith feel these practices allow them to ‘inhabit’ the faith that has existed for over 2000 years. These practices also provide a sense of connection to one another and to Christians throughout the ages (Bevins 2020, pp. 19–20).

This authenticity is also inextricably linked with a reconfiguration of the sense of wonder experienced through the liturgy. Yet, perhaps ironically, wonder can only be achieved if the participant has managed to make sense of the experience in the light of the good news transmitted throughout the ages.

Mystery and majesty evoke wonder, and wonder awakens us to the presence, beauty, and glory of God. To wonder is to behold, to observe fully, perceive, and apprehend. Wonder allows us to contemplate the mystery of faith. Wonder engages the imagination and creates space for prophetic insight and vision.41

8. Conclusions

“Liturgy frees us from having to create our own story from our limited perspective and experience. Instead, it invites us to find our place and allows us to join God’s story”

(Bevins 2020, p. 21).

Mystagogical catechesis is central to a religious education for youths in the contemporary scene. This can be especially abetted through formation by the liturgy itself.42 This is because mystagogy is not simply a sphere of catechesis but as theology in itself.43

Yet, two things must be borne in mind. The experience of pilgrimage must be inculcated through an education which, in itself, includes a pilgrimage from acquaintance with the signs, symbols, and gestures in the liturgy to a sacramental imagination that enables young people to be protagonists in the encounter with the Triune God, a sacramental imagination that pushes the confines of secularity and the post-Christian perspective. As Irwin affirms, “liturgy is a learned set of behaviours. To enter into it as fully as possible means that we expend every energy and means to do so”.44

Second, the mystagogical Fathers made use of examples with which the people of their times were familiar. We must not be afraid to look at the contemporary scene and use its language in dialogue with liturgical signs, symbols, and gestures in the catechesis of young people. As Borg argues, “we must reflect deeply upon our contemporary situation and try to. use the same method in explaining the significance of our baptismal rites by using things and experiences with which the people of God today are accustomed” (Borg 1995, p. 162). This involves exploring creative ways of exploring how the liturgical experience speaks to the contemporary situation, corollary to the journey inherent in the mystagogical process itself. Experiences that involve deeper explorations into eco-literacy through the reappropriation of the rites and symbols, together with an immersion into the dialogical nature of the psalms, need to be reclaimed and made relevant within the spiritual journey of the younger generation. It would be a crucial experience which reconfigures the relationship between the theocentric and the anthropocentric, with all its ramifications.

Creativity is the highest level of interiorisation of the liturgical experience, and, potentially, this sits very well within the attributes of young people themselves. It is in the immersion into the experience of the risen One, who continues bestowing the Holy Spirit, that the young believer can graft that unique experience into the more mundane instances of their life, find meaning beyond Sunday, and truly become “a ‘mystic’, one who has ‘experienced’ something”.45