IMAGINATION
A KEY TO RELIGIOUS EDUCATION METHODOLOGY
Keywords:
Faith, Imagination, Integration, Methodology, Religious EducationAbstract
This paper presents integration as the method to address the common problems in teaching the faith. Integration, proposed by the National Catechetical Directory for the Philippines 2007, is an approach to faith that relates how faith is communicated and the way faith is actually lived in the daily life of the ordinary faithful. As a human capacity, imagination is a way of thinking about faith and how to practice the faith by paying close attention to the divine presence in human experiences and the sources of the faith. It is a key in the process of integrating Christian faith and life that hopefully leads to the maturing of faith. Imagination is a human capacity that sees created reality as a ‘sacrament,’ that is, a revelation of the divine presence creating and sustaining the world and finds appropriate ways to respond to the divine disclosure in the actual living out of the Christian faith of thinking, doing and hoping.
References
Thomas Rausch, Being Catholic in a Culture of Choice, Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2006.
Kathleen Engebretson, “Reviving the Chain of Memory,” Catholic Schools and the Future of the Church, New York, NY: Bloomsbury, 2014.
Episcopal Commission for Catechesis and Catholic Education, National Catechetical Directory for the Philippines, Manila, Philippines: The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, 2007.
Robert L. Kinast, What Are They Saying About Theological Reflection, Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 2000.
Wendy M. Wright, Mary and the Catholic Imagination Le Point Vierge, Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2010.
Barbara Fleischer, “A Theological Method for Adult Education in the Works of Tracy and Lonergan,” Religious Education 95, 1 (10 July 2006).
Vatican II, “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes,” Austin Flannery, ed., The Basic Sixteen Documents Vatican II Constitutions, Decrees, Declaration, New York: Costello Publishing Company, 2007.
Vatican II, “Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum,” Austin Flannery, ed., The Basic Sixteen Documents Vatican II Constitutions, Decrees, Declaration, New York: Costello Publishing Company, 2007.
Claire E. Wolfteich, “Hermeneutics in Roman Catholic Practical Theology,” in Opening the Field of Practical Theology, ed. Kathleen A. Cahalan and Gordon S. Mikoski, Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.
Joseph L. Roche and Leanardo Z. Legaspi, “Imagination and Integration in the NCDP and CFC,” A Companion to CFC A Collection of Essays on the History, Features and Use of Our National Catechism, Manila, Philippines: ECCCE and Word & Life Publications, 1998.
Mary Karita Ivancic, “Imagining Faith: The Biblical Imagination in Theory and Practice,” Theological Education 41, 2 (2006).
Luke Timothy Johnson, “Imagining The World Scripture Imagines,” in Theology and Scriptural Imagination, ed. L. Gregory Jones and James J. Buckley, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 1998.
Susan K. Wood, “The Liturgy: Participatory Knowledge of God in the Liturgy,” in Knowing the Triune God The Work of the Spirit in the Practices of the Church, ed. James J. Buckley and David S. Yeago, Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 200.
Joseph L. Roche, Practical Catechesis The Christian Faith as a Way of Life 82, Quezon City: Phoenix, 2008.
Kevin Nichols, “Imagination and Tradition in Religion and Education,” Jeff Astley and Leslie J. Francis, ed., Christian Theology and Religious Education Connections and Contradiction, London, UK: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1996.
Claire Watkins, “Texts and Practices: An Ecclesiology of Traditio for Pastoral Theology,” in Keeping Faith in Practice Aspects of Catholic Pastoral Theology, ed. James Sweeney with Gemma Simmonds and David Lonsdale London, UK: SCM Press, 2010.
Patricia O’Connell Killen and John De Beer, The Art of Theological Reflection, New York, NY: Crossroad, 1994.
Joseph Martos, “The Sacraments and Morality,” The Sacraments, Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2009.
Patricia Kieran and Anne Hession, “Christian Religious Education: Purpose and Process,” Children Catholicism & Religious Education, Dublin, Ireland: Veritas, 2005.
Robert P. Imbelli, “The Heart Has Its Reasons Giving an Account of the Hope That Is in Us,” in Handing on the Faith 59, ed. Matthew Lewis Sutton and William L. Portier, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2013.
Avery Dulles, “Jesus and Faith,” in The Convergence of Theology: A Festschrift Honoring Gerald O’Collins, S.J., ed., David Kendall, S.J. and Stephen T. Davis, New York: Paulist Press, 2001.
“Day by day” is a folk rock ballad from the Godspell musical based on Matthew’s Gospel, accessed February 24, 2016, http://www.musicalschwartz.com/ godspell.htm.