Catechesis And Evangelization

Abstract

The Church exists to evangelize. After his resurrection, Jesus mandated his disciples to go and make disciples of all nations and baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Mt 28:19). Not only that but Jesus also sent the eleven to teach the people to observe whatever he had commanded them. Two aspects which are outstanding from the above reference are: ‘to make disciples’ and ‘to teach’. We can simply say to teach is the catechesis and to make disciples is evangelization. The Church consequently took this mandate from Christ, thus it became her vision and mission in the world. It is in this context therefore that this essay is focussing on the place of catechesis in evangelization. The main thrust here is to see the role played by catechesis in the whole
work of spreading the gospel or the relationship which exist between the two. To make this possible this paper will begin by elaborating the key terms, this will be followed by various views from the Church teachings on the subject matter.