We Are Launching a Parish-based Institute

A brief introduction to the Stella Maris Institute

I thought I would take some time to let my readers in on our latest project at the Family of Parishes. As we respond to the Archdiocese of Cincinnati’s pastoral planning process, we are taking innovative steps to advance the mission of the Catholic Church in our region.

For most adult Catholics, faith formation stopped at a rather young age. Why? Generally speaking, it stopped because catechesis has long been tied to receiving the Sacraments of Initiation. For most of us, these were completed somewhere in the ballpark of 8th grade. Interestingly, The Literacy Project has determined that the average American reads at about a 7th-8th grade reading level. A similar stat line must run through faith formation. Consequently, many Catholics “graduated” with a junior high understanding of the faith. This obviously doesn’t take into account the actual content of the catechesis, which is another topic of conversation.

Of course some of us, like me, went to Catholic school all the way through high school. There, in Catholic school, religion was often bracketed off from the other subjects or tacked on as certain devotions or rote prayers uttered quickly so we could get on to lunch, the football game, or what have you. It was not integrated and infused into the entire educational experience.

The vast majority of Catholics have not experienced the joy of a deep, abiding relationship with Jesus Christ — and ongoing formation in light of it.

So when you take the formation experiences of most Catholics and combine it with the confusion caused by a post-Christian secular culture, we have a recipe for…the Stella Maris Institute. I am director of evangelization for the Stella Maris Family of Parishes just east of Cincinnati, Ohio, and we are founding a parish-based institute for adult formation this summer.

Our Reasons

Over the last few weeks, several people have asked me “why start an institute in the Family of Parishes?” I’ll respond, here, by way of a few points.

First, we are responding to the Church’s call for adult formation. In his 1979 apostolic exhortation, Catechesi Tradendae, Pope John Paul II said, “I cannot fail to emphasize now one of the most constant concerns of the synod fathers…the central problem of the catechesis of adults. This is the principal form of catechesis, because it is addressed to persons who have the greatest responsibilities and the capacity to live the Christian message in its fully developed form” (§43, emphasis mine). In 1997, the General Directory for Catechesis described adult catechesis as the “chief form of catechesis. All the other forms, which are indeed always necessary, are in some way oriented to it” (§59). And, in 2020, the Directory for Catechesis notes that “accompaniment and growth in faith are necessary so that the adult may mature in…spiritual wisdom” (§259). Adult catechesis should be a primary focus for us, and the Institute, a “house” of adult formation, further concretizes this as a priority.

The Stella Maris Institute will be a flagship effort in this area. The Stella Maris Institute will help adult parishioners encounter Christ, enter into abiding communion with him, and embrace the lay apostolate through solid catechetical programs. As a “house of formation,” the Institute will offer human, intellectual, spiritual, and apostolic formation for adults. It will organize and galvanize adult formation and spirituality efforts through the following initiatives:

• Bible Studies

• Book Studies

• Talks

• Courses

• Workshops

• Print and Digital Resources

Second, we are forming adults of full stature in the faith (cf. Eph 4:13). The author of From Christendom to Apostolic Mission notes that our culture’s key battles are intellectual. The moral character of many of them can obscure this fact. The world doesn’t “think Christian” anymore, and none of us are immune to secular ways of thinking and being and acting. The author goes on to say we need to mount an “intellectual counterattack.” By this, he means we need “the sort of intellectual life that was characteristic of the Church in her early centuries, a life possessed to some degree by every Christian. It is not simply or primarily a matter of college degrees but of the conversion of mind to a Christian vision of reality and of readiness to live out the ramifications of that vision.”¹ Consequently, the Institute aims to form adults who are not “tossed by waves and swept along by every wind of teaching arising from human trickery” (Eph 4:14) produced by today’s dictatorship of relativism. Interestingly, the etymology of “institute” means: “to cause to stand; to make firm.” This is exactly what we’re aiming to do — to help adults stand more firmly in their Catholic faith. We want to restore a Catholic “imaginative vision” — a Catholic way of viewing all of reality in light of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. Catholics don’t just see some things differently because of Christ, they see everything differently in his light.

Next, I’d say we’re creating an organism, not an organization. The Institute won’t be a kind of stodgy, academic entity. We’re probably not going to give out certificates or anything like that. We’re definitely to steer clear of a bureaucratic quagmire. The Institute will be humble and it will be smart. It will be a place of encounter, or, better, a community of encounter — where people encounter Christ and each other by immersing themselves in the richness of the Catholic intellectual and spiritual tradition. And, in a digital age with no shortage of consumable content available with the click of a button online, we are going to prioritize incarnate, in person offerings — because community matters. Here, let me share with you our core values that make the Institute what it is:

1. Christocentric — at the heart of catechesis we find the person of Jesus Christ. Therefore, all of our endeavors should not presuppose the Gospel, but propose it and an encounter with Jesus Christ.

2. Faithful — the Institute is, at the bottom of it, a catechetical endeavor that seeks to faithfully communicate the teaching of the Church. We want to be simply Catholic.

3. Personal — meaning relational. We aren't just about teaching the masses, but about forming relationships with those who engage in the Institute. Additionally, we don't want things to remain at the level of abstraction, but we teach through personal experience that shows how the faith really does "touch down" into daily life.

4. Real — in an increasingly artificial world, we are trying to come into contact with what is really real, with the truth. This requires humility and docility to the Holy Spirit, as it inevitably means conversion.

Finally, we are starting the Institute to cultivate growth in holiness. It exists to foster sainthood. Over the weekend, I was reading The Long Loneliness by Dorothy Day. She made the point that for many in the Catholic Worker movement, “the holy man was the whole man, the man of integrity, who not only tried to change the world, but to live in it as it was.”² This strikes me as right and it aligns with the hope behind the Institute. We aim to grow as men and women of integrity who can make a gift of ourselves for the sake of the world. And in making this gift, we’re not going to flee from our brothers and sisters within our post-Christian culture. Instead, we are going to engage the culture as it is — "to build a new culture in the shell of the old,” “a society in which it is easier for people to be good.” We are hoping for an experience of what I’m going to call whole Catholicism in an increasingly fragmented world.

Putting Adults in Communion with Christ

The Institute exists to put adults into deeper communion with Jesus Christ. It exists in response to the Church’s call for adult formation, that adults might come to full stature in Christ, within a living community that encourages growth in holiness. It will be a critical piece of our evangelization efforts moving forward — the formational companion to The Surrender Initiative, which is our spiritual core. From here, we hope to see increased growth in the lay apostolate throughout southern Clermont County.

1. From Christendom to Apostolic Mission (Bismarck, ND: University of Mary Press, 2020), 4.

2. Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness (New York: HarperSanFrancisco: 1997), 191.