Since Christianity is not a philosophy, ideology, method, or practice of self-improvement asceticism, but rather life in Christ, in the Holy Spirit (faith-trust that works through the Love of the Holy Spirit), catechism is not a course of catechism lectures, nor the teaching of intellectual scholastic truths-dogmas (Reality is not like that – there (in God) everything is different and everything is not as it seems: no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no heart has conceived what the Church-Eucharist, the Kingdom of God, is), but the preparation of a person to give themselves to Jesus Christ – the Savior-Healer, God of Love! Therefore, the essence of catechism (where, of course, there is also word-theory, the essence of which is to tell how the catechumen should think and how to correctly follow God’s commandments to know the truth about oneself – to know one’s ruin, nothingness, sin-infirmity) is to evoke a need for Christ.
What can a paralyzed person know? What is health? The body is a mystery to be believed in. But what a paralyzed person can really know is their infirmity, paralysis to everything good (I do no good and cannot(!) do good!)! This is the essence of catechism – to enter a state of righteousness – the experiential knowledge of the truth about oneself, not just theory-word (you are an invalid, you are a sinner, you are sick…). Words without experience are empty sounds, idle talk. What is health-the body, a person of the Old Testament does not know – this is the Kingdom of God, the Church-Eucharist, the Body of Christ (this knowledge is available only to Christians who know Christ by the Holy Spirit), and the only knowledge available to the experience of people of this age is to know sin, death, godlessness! Therefore, the paralyzed person first, through the zealous keeping of the commandments of healthy Life (which is a revelation, testimony from God), more precisely, through trying (as a slave, not: “I want” or “I don’t want”!) to keep God’s commandments (which are the characteristics of a healthy person), will know their paralysis, sin, godlessness and only then will desire salvation, healing. Only then will they endure to the end all the painful healing procedures of preparation for baptism by the Holy Spirit (through great tribulations we must enter the Kingdom of God). Only the one who has a need for the Savior will receive the Holy Spirit and become a Christian. For the wicked and lazy slaves, Jesus Christ is first of all the Lord, not Brother, Friend! We are always sons to God (unworthy, but sons), but for us, Christ is first of all the Lord, and we are unworthy slaves! And the one who, not being a slave of Christ, dreams of friendship, brotherhood, has deceived themselves, deceived by heretics, demons, antichrist. First, the wicked and lazy slave must become a sincere and zealous slave. Only a slave (one who humbly gives themselves into slavery to the Doctor-Savior) will be healed, not the one who practices self-treatment – fantasies-dreams about happiness, deification, love…
For the seed of the Holy Spirit to fall into the soil (of the heart) and bear fruit a hundredfold, the heart of a person (the catechumen) must be cleansed of stones, thorns, and weeds (so that the stony heart is broken, softened, loosened, and does not harden, does not become insensitive due to gluttony, drunkenness, vain, idle worldly cares), and must be plowed, loosened, and fertilized by the deeds of self-denial, tears of repentance, and the endurance of tribulations with humble joyful thanksgiving! And only a slave can cleanse their heart of dirt and impurities (who is not asked: does he want to do this – to clean out the impurities, filth, abominations… Pulling out thorns and sharp thistles is hard, bloody work!). For the hireling will say: I will not do this (hard, bloody (repentance to bloody sweat), unpleasant) work (cleaning my heart, breaking up the stony road (stony heart), throwing out broken stones, uprooting old passions… fertilizing the soil with virtues, irrigating, moistening with tears of repentance, etc.), I better dream, theologize (engage in scholasticism – fantasies about deification, about the Tabor light…), but to catechize, that is, to prepare my heart (stony, wicked, lazy…) for the Sowing (Baptism by the Holy Spirit): to fight passions, fertilize the soil with virtues… – I do not want to, and I will not! The hireling chooses what he likes, he may today, if there is no work that he likes or is convenient, and not go to work – he is a hireling, his own master: he wants – goes to work, does not want – does not go! And the slave is not asked: what he wants – he is told what to do, and he must do it! Therefore, the one who treats himself, can he choose, prescribe to himself bitter medicine, painful procedures… and will he endure them if he follows his own will – while the devil offers him an easy, painless, comfortable broad path to “salvation” (destruction)?! Of course, the hireling will choose an easy, comfortable path (which leads to destruction), and will never stand on the narrow Cross path of self-denial, self-crucifixion, which leads to Eternal Life! Therefore, catechism is (voluntary!) slavery-obedience. And a slave does not theorize, does not philosophize, but works (from the word slave) – fulfills God’s commandments, God’s will (breaks the heart, this stone block that weighs in the chest, clears the soil, fertilizes… prepares for sowing, for Baptism) – and experientially knows their infirmity (is humbled), prepares for the operation-transplantation of the Body of Christ (Hypostatic Body of Catholic Personal Communion-Perichoresis) instead of their sinful, selfish, self-centered flesh! Catechism is slave labor, action, not listening to catechismal scholastic lectures (where the blind lead the blind about colors; or the dead tell the dead about life; or speak of unknowns (X) with other unknowns (Y): what is X? – it is Y, and what is Y? – it is X!?). The theoretical part of catechism is to tell the catechumen, the slave-disciple, what they should do and how to think, not what to scholastically know (empty formulas, theories, for example: “The Holy Trinity is…,” which need to be recited, that is, scholastic empty knowledge (“dogmas”) for the sake of knowledge). And what is being done now in so-called Orthodox churches?! There is not even theory in catechism: not to mention that anyone is prepared by slavery-obedience (to Christ) for Baptism, for Marriage, but even in words (even scholastically) no one tells anyone anything!? What kind of Christianity in Orthodox churches, where there is no catechism, can be spoken of?! By their fruits, you will recognize them! God allows everything! Be vigilant, pay attention to yourself! Know the last times by the catastrophic state of the churches, by the “love” among “Christians” (the first sign of Christians, disciples of Christ, is love among themselves, that is, being in the Holy Spirit, and the fruits of the Holy Spirit: love, joy, thanksgiving, peace, goodness, meekness…): for example, Orthodox “Christians” of one “Orthodox” empire kill Orthodox “Christians” of another “Orthodox” empire (see the Bulgarian-Byzantine wars; and this madness continues throughout history, and to this day in the XXI century).