In most parish religious education programs, sacramental preparation covers first reconciliation, first Communion and confirmation, but this year’s theme for Catechetical Sunday focuses on “Matrimony: Sacrament of Enduring Love.” Don’t start planning any weddings, however.

“Most of the kids we have in those classes will get married, so I think we have to talk about the dignity of marriage, the vocation of marriage with them,” said Dr. Vincent McClean, director of the diocesan Office of Catechetics.

“The outflow from marriage, of course, is family,” he said. “As we’re talking about family we’re talking about the body of Christ.”

That means the theme for Catechetical Sunday, which will be celebrated across the Diocese of Peoria and around the nation this weekend, is intended to extend and to deepen the body of Christ through CCD, as well as the example of the catechists, he said.

Most of the 1,227 catechists who are working with the 10,066 students in parishes in central Illinois are married and have very successful marriages, according to McClean, who noted that everyone faces difficult situations from time to time “but there’s always that love and that support.”

“My hope would be that catechists would feel that in their call to teach the faith they have that human aspect of it — you’re there for kids, you support kids,” he said.

The theme, which comes from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, was also chosen to coincide with a variety of new priority initiatives from the conference. That includes the release of a pastoral letter on marriage and the continuation of the For Your Marriage Web site.

The articles prepared for this year’s celebration cover “Responsibility and Joy: Catechesis and the Promotion and Protection of Marriage,” “Theology of the Body: A Catechesis into the Fullness of Love,” and “Pornography’s Effects on Marriage and the Hope of Recovery and Healing.” There is also a prayer for family commitment. These materials can be found by clicking on a link for Catechetical Sunday at www.usccb.org.

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McClean said he has been working with the regional directors of religious education to plan “Let My People Come,” a program of continuing education for diocesan catechists. Throughout the year each vicariate will sponsor three presentations — one on confirmation, one on RCIA and one on First Communion — and three open discussions chosen by the regional directors.

“We did not dictate the topics,” McClean said. “Some are going to do the rosary, some are going to do Christology, some are going to do the Eucharist.”

More details will be available soon, he told The Catholic Post.

Another course of continuing education, “The Catholicism Project,” was to be previewed at the Spalding Pastoral Center in Peoria on Sept. 16. It is the latest work by Father Robert Barron, a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago who is probably best known to the people of the Diocese of Peoria as one of the keynote speakers for the You Are Called Conference in 2007. McClean said he will be the featured speaker at the 2011 Summer Institute.

He said he would rather do something throughout the year, than focus everyone’s energy on two or three days each June.

“It just seems important to me that we have an ongoing educational program for catechists,” he said. “A lot of children are being introduced to the faith and sustained in the faith through the CCD program.”