My Teaching is Not Mine

Christocentricity in catechesis also means the intention to transmit not one's own teaching or that of some other master, but the teaching of Jesus Christ, the Truth that He communicates or, to put it more precisely, the Truth that He is. We must therefore say that in catechesis it is Christ, the Incarnate Word and Son of God, who is taught - everything else is taught with reference to Him - and it is Christ alone who teaches - anyone else teaches to the extent that he is Christ's spokesman, enabling Christ to teach with his lips. Whatever be the level of his responsibility in the Church, every catechist must constantly endeavor to transmit by his teaching and behavior the teaching and life of Jesus. He will not seek to keep directed towards himself and his personal opinions and attitudes the attention and the consent of the mind and heart of the person he is catechizing. Above all, he will not try to inculcate his personal opinions and options as if they expressed Christ's teaching and the lessons of His life. Every catechist should be able to apply to himself the mysterious words of Jesus: "My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me." St. Paul did this when he was dealing with a question of prime importance: "I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you." What assiduous study of the word of God transmitted by the Church's magisterium, what profound familiarity with Christ and with the Father, what a spirit of prayer, what detachment from self must a catechist have in order that he can say: "My teaching is not mine!" 

Catechesi Tradendae, 6

Good Teachers

"There is one simple key to exciting and successful education on any level … good teachers. Good teachers, in turn, means two things, both of them love-things. The teacher by whom students are inspired, the teacher who changes their lives, is always a double lover. He is a lover of the subject and a lover of the student. Students detect that love almost infallibly, and it is simply irresistible… But this love of student and subject that is the key to great teaching is a love of God, at least implicitly, even if the teacher is an agnostic or an atheist. The spark is not just natural affection, friendship, or desire but some sort of disinterested, self-forgetful, wondering, and worshipful agape for the student and for the subject. For the student is an image of God, who is love, and the subject is a bit of truth, which God is also. Loving these two supreme values of personhood and truth is implicitly loving God because that is where they are. They are divine attributes. Therefore good teaching is loving God."

Peter Kreeft, The God Who Loves You