Our known unknowns are much more perilous than our unknown unknowns.

Over 40 years of practicing psychotherapy I worked with many, many couples. A small but significant number of couples could not get past saying they loved each other but were “stuck” and unhappy in their relationship. For them, I found myself saying, “Love is the only four-letter word you can’t use here anymore. Every time you get to the word ‘love,’ I ask you to paraphrase it.” I can add that none of the couples paraphrased “love” in the same way. However, the exercise of paraphrasing the word “Love” every time they came to it, the couple invariable were able to begin to name the issues that they had never had an opening to admit to their partner.

I propose a similar thought experiment for Pauley’s (Liturgical Catechesis in the 21st Century: A School of Discipleship, 2017) book. It is in many ways the best of the books on liturgical catechesis. The author captures the hope of turning believers into disciples and overlaps many of the hopes, dreams, opportunities, and challenges of more fully evangelizing baptized Catholics. Like Hahn (Hahn, 2014) Pauley is clear that evangelizing Catholics is much more than plugging them into helping slots in the parish.

However, despite all the excellent elements included in his book that makes Pauley (2017) a welcome breath of fresh air and the most inclusive book on adult catechesis that is in so many ways overlaps my vision for mystagogy, of the many observations I might make, let me offer only one thought experiment. Every time the words liturgy or liturgical come up cross the word out and paraphrase it. I say that because though the book honestly faces many of the unknowns of the new evangelization, the function of the word “liturgical” or “liturgy” appears to be putting a Band-Aid on the many unknown unknowns in the book. Those unknown unknowns are much more serious than the known unknowns. Even if paraphrasing whenever the words “liturgy” and “liturgical” came up resulted in several “I don’t knows” it would be better than persisting in papering over the more serious unknown unknowns.

For example, advocates for the liturgical catechesis approach evidently present as unaware that as a pedagogical theory, liturgical catechesis is linked to observational learning. According to Albert Bandura, the learning theory of observational learning has three key requirements for “learning by modeling or social learning.” Those three elements are:

• attention (paying focus to the model’s behavior),
• retention (being able to remember the observed behavior), and
• reproduction (having the physical ability to replicate the behavior).

That model works adequately well in a monastery where (in homes, Lk. 10) other distractors that limit attention are extremely limited, behaviors are repeated on a continual basis such as daily Mass and the Church’s prayer of the hours, and physically the behaviors are repeated over and over under the headings of “work and pray.”  Plus, the members of a monastic community live in close proximity to one another and have ongoing opportunities to observe and respect the models of holiness an monastic life in the community.

However, in a secular world where (in homes, Lk. 10) people don’t go to church as Davis & Graham (The Great Dechurching: Who’s Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will it Take to Bring Them Back?, 2023), are distracted by constant screen time, and physically distant, learning theorists are tempted to simply say “observational/modeling learning doesn’t work” any more. Linking mystagogy to “liturgical catechesis” has linked it pedagogically and andragogically to an approach that barely works for religious instruction except in a monastery.

Interestingly, when I did an internet search for successful liturgical catechesis the witness to its effectiveness (Wagner, 2025) told of his journey that has led to his joining a Benedictine Abbey. While that is a most admirable outcome for his journey, few can or will take that path. Mystagogy points us toward the resources and options available to the multitudes of Catholic Christians who cannot or will not follow a path that leads to monastic life.

My point is that if we are indeed attending to the 2024 synod’s desire for lifelong formation for all, the aspirations are great, but from a learning theory perspective liturgical catechesis is constructed on far too narrow an approach to reach the hundreds of millions who need it.

Deacon Ray Biersbach, PhD

April 14, 2025