Ubi Petrus

You are great, O Lord, and greatly to be praised: great is your power and your wisdom is without measure.  And man, so small a part of your creation, wants to praise you: this man, though clothed with mortality and bearing the evidence of sin and the proof that you withstand the proud.  Despite everything, man, though but a small part of your creation, wants to praise you.  You yourself encourage him to delight in your praise, for you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.

In this penultimate plea that I think finds resonance in the heart of everyone who has come to believe in God, CCC #30 quotes what is perhaps the most famous line St. Augustine ever wrote.  As someone who spent twenty-some years in the wilderness bouncing from one unsatisfying concept to another I have a profound appreciation for what Augustine was talking about here.  For me it was something like a never-ending string of Goldilocks experiments – this one too frivolous, this one too severe, that one too thin, this one too intellectual, and then suddenly a spiritual Calgon moment that when you accept it becomes a lifelong journey deeper into that perfect answer.

But if Christianity was so blindingly obvious to me once I actually tried it, why is it not so to others?  The Catechism gives a range of reasons, and some of them are a little painful to admit:

…revolt against evil in the world; religious ignorance or indifference; the cares and riches of this world; the scandal of bad example on the part of believers; currents of thought hostile to religion; finally, that attitude of sinful man which makes him hide from God out of feer and flee his call. (CCC #29)

“[T]he scandal of bad example on the part of believers”.  I don’t think a single one of us doesn’t cringe a bit at the realization that our actions at one time or another may have been the cause of someone else turning away from the faith.  It’s hard to read a story about the Church on most major websites today where there isn’t at least one acrid comment from someone saying the actions of another drove them from the Church.  So many today have such a tenuous connection with their faith life that it is incumbent upon us to be aware of ourselves perhaps even moreso than in ages past.  That is not to say that we ought to walk about fearful of upsetting someone but rather that we must consistently remember our call is to be saints not just “pretty good” guys and gals.

Even if we fail in this, and I know at least I will fail far more often than I’d like to consider, we must simultaneously take comfort in knowing that we are not the only, or even the primary, reason someone will come to seek Christ and His Church.  “The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself.” (CCC #27)  Let us, then, seek to be co-workers with God in drawing all to Him; if we do our part we can rest confident in the knowledge that God is already doing His.

It was our first year in the Catholic Church, I say ‘in’, I had quit my job as a Protestant minister because having spent over a year exploring the Catholicism I could no longer teach Protestant theology in good conscience and declaring that conflict of interest I quit, trusting God to care for our family as we plunged into the Tiber River.

It was our first year in, we were not Catholic yet but we were attending Mass and a special bishop approved version of RCIA that focused only on the Sacraments, sacramentals, the Saints and specifically Catholic teaching and devotions.

It was our first year in, before we were Received and Confirmed when one of our RCIA sponsors who shared the journey with us remarked one day that I must miss the focus on the bible and all the scripture we used to have in our Protestant services. I was temporarily dumbstruck. I had a lot to learn, not just about the Faith but about the faithful, many of whom knew less about their Faith than we newcomers did. Sure, I get how that can sound prideful and it might be if it weren’t just such a bald fact.

I asked Ted, we will call him Ted, Ted, can you hand me that missalette? Uh huh.

We began to look at it, the Eucharistic Prayers, the responses said by the people, the Readings and Responsorial Psalms. As we glanced over them I was hoping he was catching my drift. He wasn’t. I ask him, Ted, where do you think these phrases from the Prayers come from? His answer was a question, The Church? Yes but the primary source is sacred scripture, the b-i-b-l-e. And the Readings too?, he asked. He was catching on. All of them, I assured him came either verbatim or with slight modifications for the sake of the Liturgy from sacred scripture. I can tell you Ted, I said, taken together in just one Mass, that’s far more bible than I ever heard, read or saw in a single Protestant Sunday service in my experience; three decades worth .

So, how is it that a cradle Catholic, a faithful mass attending cradle Catholic now in his late 50s could have missed that and could have been stumped to reply to his Protestant friends and relatives when they challenged him about the lack of bible in the Mass. If you are waiting for me to answer that, I can’t other than perhaps poor homilies and bad to nil catechesis and no use of the CCC, which is chock-a-block full of bible? But my answer is a question.

The texts of Sacred Scripture are often not quoted word for word but are merely indicated by a reference (cf.). For a deeper understanding of such passages, the reader should refer to the Scriptural texts themselves. Such Biblical references are a valuable working-tool in catechesis. [CCC#19]

(cf. 19 Roman Catechism, Preface 10; cf. 1 Cor 13:8.)

The balance for this lack is not condensation* condescension but love, love as the Catechism says is “the love that never ends”, love that want’s to lead all the Teds and Owens into the full embrace of Christ’s matchless love. That is the goal of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

 Above all – Charity

To conclude this Prologue, it is fitting to recall this pastoral principle stated by the Roman Catechism:

The whole concern of doctrine and its teaching must be directed to the love that never ends. Whether something is proposed for belief, for hope or for action, the love of our Lord must always be made accessible, so that anyone can see that all the works of perfect Christian virtue spring from love and have no other objective than to arrive at love.¹⁹ [CCC#25]

For the Catechism Project, this is your Artist + Illustrator + Occasional Catechist, owenswain of owenswain.com/blawg

*Thanks to my friend judyferg for catching my error and suggesting I meant condemnation when I wrote condensation. I actually meant  condescension but there is no question I was certainly all wet.

This work is intended primarily for those responsible for catechesis: first of all the bishops, as teachers of the faith and pastors of the Church. It is offered to them as an instrument in fulfilling their responsibility of teaching the People of God. Through the bishops, it is addressed to redactors of catechisms, to priests, and to catechists. It will also be useful reading for all other Christian faithful. [CCC #12]

That being true, it sure would be nice if all who lead RCIA whether clergy, religious or lay person would read the CCC. I can’t speak for everyone but I’ve heard of some rather funkadelic and free wheeling things being taught in RCIA and other religious adult education. None of those things will the faithful reader find in the CCC.

But why ignore such a wealth of wisdom? Why ignore a beautiful synthesis of 2000 years worth of learning and discerning of doctrine and dogma under the direction of the Holy Spirit? Why play light with sound instruction on how to live practically as a Catholic in our world? Why play loose with moral teaching that upholds the dignity of every human being?

I can’t imagine any other reason than that the teacher finds they don’t agree with the teachings of the Church, or portions of it and so won’t allow themselves to be informed by it and thus won’t help others conform their minds to Christ by it. If this isn’t putting it too plainly, it comes down to a problem with Authority. Do I assert my own when teaching others the faith or do I authentically convey those teachings given by the authority of Christ through the Apostles?

It’s been my happy fortune to have been invited to lead a number of different parish based workshops and short term teaching sessions. It’s quite a trusting things for these priests to have allowed me to teach, being a relatively new convert (January 2006, all those years of Protestant pastoring not withstanding). It’s been quite a surprise to find how often participants have either never heard of the CCC or having heard of it do not own a copy and have never read even a small portion of it. And we wonder why the average Catholic is so easily confused about their Faith or so easily swayed by such and such novelty or teaching that crosses their path from both inside and outside of the Catholic Church.

When the average Catholic realizes that for less than 20 bucks they can own and regularly reference such a foundation on all manner of things and that they do not have to leave wisdom to the priest and seminarian it can be a life giving moment. I love those moments.

For the Catechism Project, this is your Artist + Illustrator + Occasional Catechist, owenswain of owenswain.com/blawg

When I sat down to read today’s section of the Catechism and realized that five of the eight paragraphs deal with the typesetting and formatting of the document I thought, “wow, three days into the project and I’m going to wind up with a post that puts the ‘duh’ in ‘dud'”.  Well, let’s just say that if I was right it won’t be because the other three paragraphs didn’t offer plenty to work with.

If you’ve ever heard me talk about RCIA (and this applies to all catechetical programs I think, but RCIA is the field where I spend my time) you’ll know that one of my biggest gripes is that all but the most exceptional programs have a tendency to treat everyone who goes through them as if they’re popped out of a cookie cutter.  They all get the same resources, sit through the same talks, follow the same schedule and poof at some predetermined time out is supposed to pop a “sufficiently” catechized member of the Body of Christ.  Anyone who has worked in catechesis for any amount of time, however, knows that’s just never the case – start a program with ten people and when the catechetical egg timer goes off you’ll more likely than not wind up with ten people in very different stages, ranging from the still-raw-in-the-middle folks who were never drawn close enough to the heat of Christ to those extra-crunchy types who have a mountain of intellectual formation but whose hearts never really got involved at all.  If you’re lucky (and yes, if you’re really good) you’ll have a few who come out of the program at just the right time with enough intellectual and spiritual formation to know what they’ve gotten themselves into and are possessed of a burning desire to continue and deepen their formation.

Don’t we all wish we could do better than that?  Even right here in the beginning the Catechism in quoting the Roman Catechism warns us of the need to recognize and provide for the particular needs of every individual:

Above all, teachers must not imagine that a single kind of soul has been entrusted to them, and that consequently it is lawful to teach and form equally all the faithful in true piety with one and the same method!  Let them realize that some are in Christ as newborn babes, others as adolescents, and still others as adults in full command of their powers.

Even as most of our school calendar-based programs are chugging close to their halfway point, perhaps there is still enough time to make a little assessment of whether we could find a way to make sure more particular individual are being addressed.  Even if we can’t do anything to change now, it always helps to think about what you’d like to try in the future.

As important as my little soapbox issue may be, CCC #25 ends the Prologue of the Catechism by reminding us all that there is something far more important than any catechetical style, selection of materials or particular program of formation by again quoting the Roman Catechism:

The whole concern of doctrine and its teaching must be directed to the love that never ends.  Whether something is proposed for belief, for hope or for action, the love of our Lord must always be made accessible, so that anyone can see that all the works of perfect Christian virtue spring from love and have no other objective than to arrive at love.

Deus Caritas Est.

Sure, back a number years ago I may have been the clever guy to come up with the idea for a collaborative blog based on reading and faith sharing on the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition [CCC] but here’s the real deal, it’s my dear wife who has read the CCC daily since our conversion in January of 2006.

She reads a small portion each day, over breakfast, along with the daily Mass Readings from her Bible. She doesn’t necessarily complete the CCC each calendar year because sometimes she reads as little a single numbered article at one sitting or over more than one sitting but in five years she’s read the entire Catechism three times. That’s no merger accomplishment. It’s certainly more than I accomplished via the defunct Catholic Catechism blog and more than I’ve accomplished in reading the CCC myself period. And I’m the guy who is supposed to be some kind of part time catechist.

The one gift she wanted last year for Christmas, believe this now, was the Compendium to the CCC which makes the CCC look like a novelette. I obliged, happily, proudly.

I don’t blame you at all, dear reader, if you’re thinking, Heck, have your wife write this column. I know, and she’s an educator by profession so she could do it. But she reads the CCC to tune her own heart and mind and isn’t quick, like me, to tell others what she’s discovered. Like Mary, yes that Mary, she ponders things in her heart. I love that about her. I love that she approaches the living teachings of the Catholic Church the way they are to be approached, namely, with the intention of conforming her mind to the will of God, trusting the Catholic Church does indeed hold the deposit of the faith as given by Christ through the Apostles and under his actual authority in order to “to help men believe that Jesus is the Son of God so that believing they might have life in his name, and to educate and instruct them in this life, thus building up the body of Christ” [CCC #7].

She may eat breakfast while reading the Catechism but a ‘cafeteria’ Catholic she is not.

For the Catechism Project, this is your Artist + Illustrator + Occasional Catechist, owenswain of owenswain.com/blawg

 P.S. It’s a pleasure to have been welcomed by FRIVAL to be a contributor. May God bless our journey through the CCC and yours as you read along. I do not claim to be anything other than what I am, no official authority but a fellow pilgrim  – who happily subjects himself to the greater wisdom of Christ given authoritatively through the teachings of the Apostles through the ages who are in full communion with Rome –  and clergy convert from Protestantism. I thank God for my Protestant heritage and for his saving grace by which we are alone brought to the gates of eternity.

I’m going to break with the purely systematic approach to this study and start in the middle of this section of the Catechism with a quote that I think more fully illustrates the rest.  In CCC #14 we read: “Those who belong to Christ through faith and Baptism must confess their baptismal faith before men.”  This isn’t a suggestion – the word is “must” not “can”, “might” or even “should”.  But how are we who belong to Christ to know what it is we believe that we might confess it before men?  That’s exactly where the Catechism comes in, providing “the essential and fundamental contents of Catholic doctrine […] in the light of the Second Vatican Council and the whole of the Church’s tradition.” (CCC #11)  Herein we will find not just neuveau theologie, as if the world and the Church started all over again after Vatican II, but catechesis based on the continued and continual striving of the Church throughout the centuries to better understand and teach about God.

The overall structure of this Catechism is also of ancient origins which as a lover of history just makes me six kinds of giddy (and no, I’m not going to list them).  We will, in this voyage, work from the baptismal profession of faith as found in the Creed, then on to the sacraments of the faith, moving then to the life of faith as found in the Commandments and finishing with the prayer of the believer, delving into the Lord’s Prayer.  You can almost see a cycle built up in this order that is lived out by each and every Catholic – our profession of faith prepares us to receive the sacraments which strengthen us to live a life in conformity with God’s great Human Owner’s Manual in the Commandments which enables us to make the time in our lives for prayer, which then deepens our understanding of God and our commitment to our profession of faith – and voila we are back at the beginning.  Far from a dusty, old, irrelevant book never to be taken off the shelf this is a map of the very life of every believer.

The Catechism starts off asking and answering two very important questions – what are we to do and how are we to know.  First, we are reminded of something important about God, who existed before any of us ever asked those questions: “God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life.” (CCC #1).  It is important to remember that, despite His great love for us, God does not “need” anyone or anything in His creation, he is “perfectly … blessed”, perfectly happy, in himself.  Yet because of who He is, God created us.  What are we to do about that?

In a phrase that will make lovers of the Baltimore Catechism purse a thin smile the Catechism answers, “to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength”.  It really is that simple, even though we spend an incredible amount of energy finding ways to make it seem more complicated.  The rest of the Catechism is an explanation of how and why we are to do that.

How are we to know what to do?  That is the role of catechesis and a founding reason for the creation of the Catechism, which quotes Catechesi Tradendae in defining catechesis as “an education in the faith of children, young people, and adults which includes especially the teaching of Christian doctrine imparted, generally speaking, in an organic and systematic way, with a view to initiating the hearers into the fullness of Christian life.” (CT 18)  The words “organic and systematic” are utterly critical to any well-formed program of catechesis.  The Association for Catechumenal Ministry provides a very helpful definition for these two terms:

Systematic means that each successive teaching be linked to the teaching given beforehand, demonstrating the hierarchy of truths. A carefully laid-out systematic presentation of the faith does not leave any holes. It is complete. It does not skip over any of the essentials of the faith due to careful planning.

Organic means that each doctrine is linked to other doctrines, showing the integral unity of the Faith. Organic catechesis has more to do with how a lesson is presented, while systematic catechesis has more to do with how a curriculum or “doctrine cycle” is devised.

Going back to the initial questions for a second, what are we to do?  To seek, know and love God with all our strength.  How are we to know how to do that?  We must learn, and we must be taught – taught by others who have themselves been taught and learned in a systematic and organic way.  This Catechism is one of the great keys to unlocking the mystery of God’s plan for us, a great gift of God to the Church and from the Church to each of us.  I haven’t even begun to dig in to the deep meat of this text and the promise is already exciting!

Several years ago a group of people led by the incomparable Owen Swain set out to read the Catechism in one year, providing their reflections along the way.  Unfortunately due to time and circumstances the site that hosted that work is no longer available but it set in my heart a desire to do the same thing some day.  After all this time and much thought and prayer, combined with the start of this new Liturgical year I have decided to finally move forward with that inclination using the same guideline as that project had so many years ago.

Why the Catechism and why now?  Because, in part the Pope has undertaken significant effort to impart greater energy to a New Evangelization, and as Pope John Paul II wrote,  “an extraordinary commitment to evangelization is urgently needed so that everyone can know and receive the Gospel message and thus grow ‘to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ'”.  As it is “a sure norm for teaching the faith” (Fidei Depositum), rich in the Bible and the Church Fathers, there is perhaps no greater place to start.

The great Dominican saint, Albert the Great, Doctor of the Church and teacher of St. Thomas Aquinas, in his work “On Cleaving to God“:

Now there is no one who approaches God with a true and upright heart who is not tested by hardships and temptations. So in all these temptations see to it that even if you feel them, you do not consent to them, but bear them patiently and calmly with humility and long suffering. Even if they are blasphemies and sordid, hold firmly on to this fact in everything, that you can do nothing better or more effective against them than to consider all this sort of fantasy as a nothing. Even if they are the most vile, sordid and horrible blasphemies, simply take no notice of them, count them as nothing and despise them. Don’t look on them as yours or allow yourself to make them a matter of conscience. The enemy will certainly take flight if you treat him and his company with contempt in this way. He is very proud and cannot bear to be despised and spurned. So the best remedy is to completely ignore all such temptations, like flies flying around in front of your eyes against your will.

…

For it is in accordance with this eternal law that God has established with irrevocable firmness that deserts should be a matter of the will, whether in bliss or torment, reward or punishment. Love itself is a great will to serve God, a sweet desire to please God, and a fervent wish to experience God. What is more, to be tempted is not a sin, but the opportunity for exercising virtue, so that temptation can be greatly to a man’s benefit, since it is held that the whole of a man’s life on earth is a testing. (Job 7.1)

While the exact provenance of the entire work is somewhat unsure, I think it is sufficiently moving to include it here and doubt that the good Doctor of the Church would overly concern himself with the content of what is above.