Tradition is not something I receive and against which I measure myself, but a communal process in which I participate as a contributor by virtue of my own experience. Again, Christian discipleship does not consist in merely entering into a dialectical process in which I assess my own experience, measure that experience against the Church's teaching and then arrive at a synthesis which is different than both, still less, if the Church's teaching is reduced to merely the collective experience of the community. In that respect this method goes classical Protestantism one better. It must be said that personal experience does have a proper place in catechesis. Every good teacher knows that past experience should be built upon in advancing students from what they already know to what they are about to learn.
Education is, after all, a particular kind of experience.
Likewise, every good evangelist knows that his experience of God's grace in his life will add emotive force to his proclamation of the Gospel. That past experience is the grist of gratitude and of zeal. Only the effects of God's actions impress themselves upon the senses generating what could be called an experience of God. This phenomenon has always been dealt with in mystical or spiritual theology, or more popularly in devotional literature, not so much in catechesis. Such occurances should, however, have a place in the classroom.