THE SCIENCE OF ACCOMPANIMENT

 

‘Science’ is a systematized branch of knowledge.  Within the Christian and Catholic tradition (and certainly too within the experience of Don Bosco and Salesian tradition too), there has grown up a whole ‘science of accompaniment’.  It would be a pity for educators to Faith not to know or practice such a science.

 

  1. JOURNEY OF FAITH

 

People seek companions on a journey (to quote a well-known hymn!).  Consider the journey of faith:

 

There are 4 basic steps:

  1. Growth as a human being which includes religious experience.  A young person needs to know his or her depths and limitations, needs to ask and seek answers to questions of meaning, and will inevitably, with good accompaniment, grow to maturity.  The accompanier requires, at this level, some basic educational psychology.
  2. Encounter with Christ: ‘I came that they may have life and have it to the full’ (Jn 10:10).  This is especially a movement of faith, explicit, and possibly begins with the witness of others, especially the good teacher.  The encounter with Christ is more than curiosity because it begins to touch deeper aspects of being human, but perhaps it can begin with fascination for/about Jesus, as it did with the first followers.  The encounter comes through recognizing signs of Christ in people, history, attitudes, even objects.  Part of the encounter comes from proclamation and leads to adherence.  In this aspect the teacher is catechist, preacher/proclaimer.
  3. Gradual insertion into the community.  The clue to this is in friendship and festivity.  This is a group activity essentially and requires an accompanier who is skilled in group processes.  It is about participation, celebration.  Sacraments play a key role at this stage.
  4. Commitment and call.  Life is understood as a call to something…the question is what.  IN recent times the Pope has renewed his insistence on the call to holiness, and he has made this appeal directly to millions of young people.  Holiness sounds beyond anybody’s possibilities, so how does the accompanier approach the matter?  In simple ways – by mentioning the word, but by training people towards it.  Training to generosity, for example, helping young people to uncover the resources within them.  Every young person has some good within him/her, discoverable through a patient  work of attention to himself, comparison with others, listening and reflection.  The accompanier facilitates this.  At a certain point there has to be suggestion – through catechesis young people have questions like ‘what must I do?’  An explicit suggestion by the accompanier helps someone to see new possibilities.  When vocational suggestions are listened to they prompt a process of discernment.

 

[James Fowler in his Stages of Faith puts it in slightly different words but essentially the same process.  He says that we should ‘listen for meaning, offer possibilities, correct negative viewpoints’.)

 

  1. HANDBOOK OF ACCOMPANIMENT

There is a ‘handbook’ of teacher accompaniment waiting to be written.  Anyone want to help?  It would pick up the main skills and understandings.  Here are the ‘chapters’ as I see them through my own experience.  Think of them as ten clusters of skills and ideas.

  1.  The first move – show openness and make the first move towards a youngster.  Do this through actions which demonstrate kindness, respect, patience.
  2. Active presence – you can help best by ‘being there’ in an active (I would say proactive) way.
  3. Identification of signs of call and grace.  Remember that you are involved in an act of formation for the purposes of transformation.  You cannot cause the transformation since this is in God’s good time, but you can be alert to when it might happen.  At this point you work by proposal and suggestion (both of which can be legitimately rejected!)
  4. Discernment of God’s will.  priests-in-training ought do a course in discernment.  At the least they should try it out on themselves!
  5. Awareness of stages in the journey of faith.  Somebody like Fowler is useful reading.  Educators now accept much of what Piaget and others have said about stages of development of human beings.  It follows that faith follows similar stages, so why is that educators to faith don’t know anything about this?
  6. Follow-up:  a most important accompanying activity.  It is personal and creates atmosphere, shared action, occasional exhortation and what I call ‘the word in the ear’.
  7. Dialogue content: this may be called an ‘educational conversation but you could also call it spiritual direction.  The priest too may engage in sacramental encounter especially in the sacrament of reconciliation.
  8. The transcendent aim:  it’s called ‘salvation’ and none less.  Are we afraid to use this word?  Or, if we think it is not a useful word, do we have something which adequately expresses its content?  Whatever you do here implies content and action at a deeper level of course.
  9. A specific notion, let’s call it ‘assistance’ from the Latin ad-sistere, to stand with.  It involves meeting them where they are at, presence, dialogue, friendship.
  10. One-to-one but always in function of the group, and of ever-widening relation ships: in theological terms this is the universal thrust to mission and kingdom but you don’t have to use that sort of language with the kids of course!  Just show them a one-to-one kindness but never of an exclusive kind, always inclusive.

 

The above are perhaps not discrete and separate chapters but members of concentric circles, since they interact with one another.  But all in all they certainly make up a whole study program for someone who wishes to engage in promoting a Christian and Catholic lifestyle.