III. THE CATECHIST'S ATTITUDE TO SOME CONTEMPORARY ISSUES

11. Service to the community as a whole and to particular groups. There are various groups in the community that may require the services of catechists: young people and adults, men and women, students and workers, Catholics, other Christians and non-Christians. It is not the same thing to be a catechist for catechumens preparing for baptism as to be community leader for a village of Catholics, with responsibility for various pastoral activities, or to be a religion teacher in a school, or to be charged with preparing people for the sacraments, or to be assigned to pastoral work in an inner-city area, etc.

Catechists will try to promote communication and communion between the members of the community, and will devote themselves to the groups committed to their care, trying to understand their particular needs so as to help them as much as possible. As the needs differ from group to group, so the training of catechists will have to be adapted for the groups envisaged. It would be useful, therefore, for catechists to know in advance the sort of work they will be called to and make acquaintance with the groups concerned. Some useful suggestions in connection with this have already been offered by the Magisterium, especially in the General Catechetical Directory, nos. 77-97, and the Apostolic Exhortation Catechesi Tradendae, nos. 34-35.

Special attention should be paid to the sick and aged, because their physical and psychological weakness calls for greater charity and concern.

The sick should be helped to understand the redemptive value of the cross, in union with Jesus, who took upon himself the weight of our infirmities (cf. Mt 8:17; Is 53:4). Catechists should visit them frequently, offering them the comfort of God's word and, when commissioned to do so, the Eucharist.

The aged too should be followed with special care, for they have an important role in the community, as Pope John Paul II recognizes when he calls them "witnesses of the tradition of faith (cf. Ps 44:1; Ex 12:26-27), teachers of wisdom (cf. Sir 6:34; 8:11-12), workers of charity". Families should be encouraged to keep their elderly members with them, to "bear witness to the past and instil wisdom in the young". The aged should feel the support of the whole community and should be helped to bear in faith their inevitable limitations and, in certain cases, their solitude. Catechists will prepare them for their meeting with the Lord and help them experience the joy that comes from our hope in eternal life .

Catechists will also show sensitivity in dealing with people in difficult situations such as those in irregular marriages, the children of broken marriages, etc. They must be able to share in and express the immense compassion of the heart of Jesus (cf. Mt 9:36; Mk 6:34; 8:2; Lk 7:13).