EPS Celebrates 30 Years of Educating Adult Catholics in the Faith
After 30 Years, EPS Continues Laying Bricks to Build The Church
Thirty years ago, after the Second Vatican Council drew to a close, Sr. Joan Bland, SND, sensing a vacuum of lay leadership training in parishes throughout the Archdiocese of Washington, began an “urgent work” taking up the theology of Vatican II and applying it to faith education courses for adult Catholics.
Archdiocese of Washington priest, Msgr. Raymond East, a longtime EPS instructor and member of the former pastors’ advisory board, recalled the beginning of Education•Parish•Service in his homily at a special Mass celebrating EPS’s three decades of providing theological, Scriptural and practical education.
When she established EPS, Sr. Joan was guided by two Vatican II documents Lumen Gentium which
celebrates Christ as “Light of the World” and Guadium et Spes or “Church in the Modern World.”
In designing the program, she worked closely with pastors from the Archdiocese.
Before EPS, Msgr. East said, “there was nothing in terms of education, nothing to prepare laypeople for ministry and service.”
But when she began the program to educate Catholic lay people in the faith, Sr. Joan followed the model set by Jesus, who picked from among the people 12 apostles, then 72 disciples to go out and spread the good news and build up the kingdom of God.
“We are a continuation of that building. Christ is the foundation,” said Msgr. East, pastor of St. Teresa of Avila Parish in Washington, and also Executive Director of the Office of Black Catholics. Sr. Joan started the work of EPS, continued first by Sr. Mary Ann and then by current EPS president Dr. Maggie McCarty, he said.
EPS is designed to educate Catholics to understand their faith so they can live and share it in their homes, workplaces and communities, as well as serve in their parishes, in collaboration with their pastors.
“We are pilgrims on this journey. We are not there yet,” Msgr. East said. “We are not to go there alone: We are supposed to take someone with us.”
“The whole Church needs to catch on fire!” Msgr. East said, adding one way to teach that goal could be by spreading the word about EPS – particularly among young people – and contributing financially to keep EPS alive and strong.
