Faith, Life & Creed
A Complete Catechesis for Christian Life

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Why your team needs Faith, Life & Creed

Faith, Life, & Creed makes preparation a snap! Everything the busy catechist needs is included right in the material.
Faith, Life, & Creed is designed with conversion in mind. Catechists don’t have to struggle with having to do a lot of lecture-style teaching while never quite getting to the faith-sharing, life-changing aspects of a gradual conversion process. Everything is already built into the Faith, Life, & Creed process! The entire resource is conversion centered from beginning to end and provides and guarantees that conversion stays at the heart and center of your catechetical process.

Faith, Life, & Creed is complete. And when we say complete, we mean complete! The resource is thoroughly researched and is based not just on the Catechism of the Catholic Church but on all the foundational documents of the church—both liturgical and doctrinal. Your catechists never have to worry that they might be missing something important.
Faith, Life, & Creed is completely field-tested. This process has been put through the most important test possible—weekly use for three years in a parish setting with catechists just like yours. And they’ve seen it work. The Faith, Life, & Creed methodology has transformed the lives of not only the catechumens and candidates where it has been used, but also the lives of the catechists themselves. It just plain works!

How does Faith, Life & Creed work?

Faith, Life & Creed uses a simple but powerful conversion method that flows from the Sunday liturgy.

There are two-and-a-half steps you need to take to lead your seekers to lifelong discipleship.

Step 1: Liturgy

The secret effective faith formation is to balance the complete coverage of doctrine and the varied, grace-filled lives of the candidates and catechumens.

To do this, we need to use the Sunday liturgy as the starting point. Faith, Life & Creed provides a Breaking Open the Word session for every Sunday of the year.

Through these sessions, the catechist reflects with the catechumens and candidates on the doctrine of the church that flows from the celebration of the liturgy over the course of a complete liturgical year.

Half-step: Connection

Every celebration of the liturgy is an encounter with Christ.

And every encounter with Christ stirs up questions of faith and belief within us.

Faith, Life, & Creed provides several examples of possible teachings that might respond to the questions raised in your session. And it provides a clear connecting statement that ties the experience of the catechumens and candidates directly to the teaching of the church. It couldn’t be simpler!

Step 2: Catechesis

Faith, Life, & Creed provides forty possible easy-to-use doctrinal sessions that flow naturally from the celebration of the liturgy and the liturgical year.

The material is easily adaptable to whatever length you need. Each doctrinal session is keyed to the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

And Faith, Life, & Creed provides helpful resource handouts—with complete copying permission—for your catechumens and candidates.

And that’s not all. Faith, Life, & Creed features a scope and sequence chart (pdf download) that provides the topic, the basic bulleted themes inherent in each topic, where it might be used in the liturgical cycle, where it is accommodated to the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the United States Catholic Catechism.

Overview

Part One

Part Two

What others are saying about Faith, Life & Creed

Faith, Life & Creed is an excellent curriculum for RCIA programs and indeed for adult Catholic faith development across the board. It weaves together a comprehensive study of Catholic faith from the church’s Scriptures, liturgy, doctrine, and moral teachings. Further, it gives people ready access to this rich “story and vision” of Catholic faith through a participative process, one that weaves conversation and presentation together. In this way it highlights the spirituality of our faith, that it should be put to work in our lives.

— Thomas Groome
Professor of Theology and Religious Education and Chair of IREPM
Boston College

Traditional, yet fresh. That’s the Catholic Church. And that is Catholic catechesis. But how can you best know the tradition? And how can you make it fresh for people right now, this week? Mary Birmingham, one of our most trusted catechists, provides all you need in an online resource that is faithful and creative. If you wish that you could do a better job sharing the faith you hold and that God ever makes new, check out Faith, Life & Creed.

— Rev. Paul Turner
Pastor, Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
Kansas City, Missouri

Faith, Life & Creed not only catechizes about the liturgy but also emphasizes that the liturgy is the “privileged place for catechizing the People of God” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1074). The spiral scope and sequence integrates the Scriptures, doctrine, liturgy, and life as the feasts and seasons unfold throughout the year. This is a well thought out, well prepared set of materials not only for catechumens but for adult faith formation sessions. Mary Birmingham, out of rich experience, creativity, study and deep faith again provides a creative and practical guide that will be of value to all those who are on “the way!”

— Kate Dooley, OP, PhD
Adjunct Professor of Theology
Dominican University
River Forest, Illinois

Meet Mary Birmingham

Mary Birmingham has been a leader in parish ministry for over 30 years. She has served as a catechist, liturgist, and director of the catechumenate.

One person said of her, Mary takes catechists by the hand and leads them gently through a very cleverly designed catechetical process. She presumes only a minimum of training, yet never talks down to her audience. In fact, she trusts that catechists will make judicious choices of her material, and she makes it easy for catechists to meet the needs of a local community. Mary has a knack for delivering solid scriptural exegesis, unpacking doctrinal implications in ways that make sense to ordinary people, and connecting both to the liturgical cycle. This is what a master catechist looks like—and she will make it look easy for those who are not as skilled as she, but unafraid to borrow from a master!

Mary is the author of Year-Round Catechumenate and the Word & Worship Workbook series. She holds a master’s degree from St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. She is a team member and institute coordinator for The North American Forum on the Catechumenate, a presenter for the Georgetown Center for Liturgy, Spirituality, and the Arts (Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.), a presenter at national and diocesan workshops in the area of initiation, sacramental and liturgical catechesis and whole community catechesis across the United States and Canada.

Mary believes in Faith, Life, & Creed and has a passion for helping teams like yours. That’s why she has been working so hard to bring this project out to the public. She told us recently, “I have never written so fast and furiously before in my life. My head is swimming!”

And she also told us, “I know this process works, because it is conversion-based, liturgical year and lectionary-connected, and liturgy-centered.”