♪♪
Guard the good deposit entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who lives in us.
Guarding the deposit of faith is the mission which the Lord has entrusted to His Church
and which she fulfills in every age.
♪♪♪
This treasure, received from the Apostles, has been faithfully guarded by their successors.
All Christ faithful are called to hand it on from generation to generation
by professing the faith, by living it in fraternal sharing,
and by celebrating it in liturgy and prayer.
♪♪♪
From sacred scripture to the fathers of the Church,
from theological masters to the saints across the centuries,
the Catechism provides a permanent record of the many ways
in which the Church has meditated on the faith
and made progress in doctrine so as to offer certitude to believers in their lives of faith.
♪♪♪
Okay, I want to tell you what's so special about this book,
The Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Pope Benedict has said this is a precious and indispensable tool for catechists.
Why is that?
Well, never before in the Church's history have we had a reference text for catechesis quite like this one.
This book has been drawn from the fullest possible expression of Catholic truth,
drawing on the teaching of scripture, tradition, the magisterium, the Church fathers,
spiritual writers, ancient and modern men and women, East and West, liturgy,
even Christian art, which the Catechism says is a reflection of our creation in the image of God and His creativity.
It's a work, a thing of beauty that's meant not just to inform us,
but to inspire us and to form our interior lives after the mind of Christ.
We can really say, drawing as it does on the whole tradition of the Catholic faith,
that it speaks with Christ's voice in the Church.
It's a magnificent gift.
You know, we could really say that the Catechism is the echo of Christ's voice,
resounding to us down throughout the ages in the Church.
Did you know that the word catechesis means echo?
It comes from the ancient Greek theater. It's a Greek word.
It's first used in Christian history by St. Paul and St. Luke in the book of Acts
to talk about the process of forming disciples.
The catechist echoes what he learns from the Church and what he learns from Christ
to form in the pupil.
And that's our job as catechists, not to give out our own opinions,
but to allow the voice of the Church to speak through us.
And the Catechism is our tool.
We have the words of the Church, the Church universal throughout the ages,
so that we can echo to our students the voice of Christ in the Catholic tradition.
It's helpful, I think, to know something about the origins of the Catechism,
where it came from.
It helps us to appreciate it and make use of it.
And the key point here is to understand its origins in the Second Vatican Council.
Pope Benedict has even said that parts of the Catechism
are completely determined by the teaching of the Council.
John Paul, blessed John Paul II, when he presented the Catechism to the world,
presents it precisely as the teaching of the Catechism.
And Pope Benedict, when he presents the Catechism to the world,
presents it precisely as the Catechism prepared following the Second Vatican Council.
So the first point to address is,
well, what was the catechetical significance of Vatican II?
Vatican II, people have heard about it, they know about the Council.
I think sometimes it's a bit hazy in people's minds exactly what its significance was.
So let me try to explain it this way.
John XXIII called the Council.
He said this is going to be a different kind of Council.
Most of the Councils throughout the history of the Church have met to address,
say, a specific error that needed to be corrected or to define one particular doctrine.
This Council was intended specifically to be a catechetical Council.
Pope Paul VI said it was the great catechetical event of our age.
Why is that?
Well, the intent of the Council was to guard the deposit of faith
but also to reflect on how to present it in a way that would be most accessible to 20th century man and beyond.
So how did they do that?
How did the Council Fathers accomplish that goal?
Well, we mentioned before the first principle of the Church's faith is that of unity.
So the question was how to reflect on the various parts of the Catholic faith and tradition
to show their integral unity, their harmony, and how they fit together.
For example, the Council treated the question of how Scripture fits together with sacred tradition
and the magisterium to form an organic whole.
The Council reflected on the way the laity share in the ministry of the Church
and how they interact with the hierarchy.
The Council reflected on how the ministry of the bishop interacts with the ministry of the Holy Father
and how all the bishops work together as a whole.
It reflected on how the particular churches, like our church in Birmingham,
how that relates to the church universal.
It even looked at the question of how the church relates to the world outside the church.
So this whole question of the relationship of the parts and how it all fits together,
the individual Christian and the church, the church and society, the sources of tradition,
this is really the intent of the Council.
Cardinal Ratzinger, before he became Pope Benedict,
reflected once on the history of catechesis after the Council.
He said that the tools of catechesis didn't really keep up with the fruits
and the benefits of the Second Vatican Council.
What were those fruits again?
We talked about the Council really drawing out the unity of the faith,
how all the parts fit together.
That is what he said was lacking in the tools of catechesis, a vision of the whole,
how all the parts fit together.
In 1985, Blessed Pope John Paul II called an extraordinary Senate of the bishops
to reflect on the Council and how it could best be lived out and expressed and taught in the church.
This is the point that came up, that there was a need for an authoritative explication of the Council,
a universal catechism.
Once before in the church's history, we had this process.
There was a very important Council, and the fathers of the Council called forth for a catechism.
This was the Council of Trent in the 16th century,
and the Council produced what came to be called the Roman Catechism,
which stood the test of time for 400 years and was a magnificent text, still a wonderful reference.
Something like that was needed now post-Vatican II,
a universal catechism that could speak to the whole church and express the teaching of the Council.
Pope John Paul II's Catechism
Following the Synod, Pope John Paul took up the call of the Synod for a universal catechism
and made it his own. He embraced it.
So he called a commission of 12 cardinals and bishops.
Cardinal Ratzinger was the chair to begin work on the text.
They, in turn, sought input from experts in catechesis, from diocesan bishops,
and ultimately from the entire episcopate that had an opportunity to offer observations and comments and input.
They collected literally thousands of comments and observations and suggestions
so that the resulting text really was a product of all of the bishops of the church in their teaching authority.
This is why when Pope John Paul officially promulgated the text 30 years after the Council,
he could say it reflects the symphony of the faith.
It's also why Cardinal Ratzinger, reflecting on the authority of the text,
could say, whoever separates himself from this text as the authentic norm and reference for catechesis
separates himself from the Catholic faith itself.
There's a very old tradition in the Catholic Church,
going back to the time of the apostles,
of summing up Christian experience, the Christian mystery, in four fundamental dimensions.
The profession of faith, what we believe,
sacraments in the life of faith, how we receive the grace of God,
the life of faith itself, the moral and spiritual response to the grace of God,
and then finally prayer, our heartfelt expression of love and gratitude to this life of grace and faith.
They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching
and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayer.
We find that this is how the catechism is structured around these four dimensions,
what the catechism calls four pillars.
It follows the same pattern of the Roman catechism, used the same four pillars.
So part one is on the creed, part two on the liturgy and the sacraments,
part three on the moral life, and part four on the life of prayer.
It's important to realize that there's a profound reason for this structure.
The four parts are interrelated.
We've come back again and again to this aspect of the organic, integral unity of the faith.
We find that what we profess in the creed is actually made present in our lives
through the grace of the sacraments.
The grace of the sacraments is the grace of God.
The grace of the sacraments, in turn, is what informs our moral life
and makes the Christian life possible.
And finally, these things are celebrated in our life of prayer,
hence the organic unity of the four parts.
This relationship is captured by an ancient saying in the church,
Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi.
What we pray is what we believe.
The significance of this for the catechist is to understand that all these parts hang together.
We can't separate the life of grace from the life of prayer.
We can't separate our profession of faith from how we live.
Some people, in fact, have suggested that the catechism be seen as,
instead of having four parts, really having two major parts,
what God has done for us in Christ and our response to that grace.
Imagine a diptych.
A diptych is an ancient form of icon of two images on separate panels connected by a hinge.
You can think of God's love for us, our response, and Christ at the center
as the lens reflecting these two dimensions.
Cardinal Schoenborn, who was the editor of the catechism,
has used this image of a diptych to instruct us in our method of catechesis.
We begin with the question of God's grace.
This is the fundamental point of the Catholic faith for the catechist
and our frame of reference for everything else.
Everything in catechesis has to be structured around this question of God's gift to us in Christ
and our response.
If we keep that in mind, it's the central point we need to use in teaching from the catechism.
The primacy in catechesis has to be given to God and His works,
and then secondarily, our response to this expression of grace.
There are some major themes that flow from this four-part structure of the catechism
that, if you keep them in mind, will really help your work as a catechist.
We already mentioned this concept of the diptych, of the primacy of God's grace.
It might be helpful to stop and reflect for a moment on what grace is in Catholic teaching.
The catechism in paragraph 1997 tells us that grace is a participation in the inner life of God Himself,
conforming us to His nature.
This is why St. Thomas could say that the good of grace in one soul
is greater than the good of the entire created universe, because it's the good of God Himself.
As catechists reflecting on this, we realize that there's a fundamental core
that directs all of our thinking and all of our teaching.
This is what the Second Vatican Council called the hierarchy of truths.
The catechism echoes this concept.
It says we need to keep the hierarchy of truths in mind as we teach,
and it, in fact, informs the structure of the catechism itself.
What is this hierarchy of truths?
Well, it's important to note at the beginning that there is a hierarchy of truths
doesn't mean that some truths are less true or unimportant.
It simply means that some truths flow from others as their source and origin.
It's a principle of organization.
Once again, it's another way of stating this concept of organic or integral unity.
What is the first truth, the truth of truths in the Catholic faith?
It's the truth of the Blessed Trinity.
If you understand that God is a trinity, you grasp that He is undying love and unending bliss.
This is the truth from which everything else in the faith flows.
God in His undying love pours out of Himself His love and His grace upon the world that He creates.
The second truth in the hierarchy of truths is the mystery of Christ Himself.
Why did Christ become man?
Why was the Word made flesh?
The catechism quotes St. Irenaeus and St. Athanasius.
In this marvelous text, God became man so that men might become gods,
not to become literally God, but to share in His inner nature.
This is the central mystery of Christ.
Through His death and resurrection, the paschal mystery,
He merits for us this eternal life and undoes the damage and the death of sin.
The next truth in the hierarchy of truths is the truth of the church, the mystery of the church.
Why is this?
Well, the church is the body of Christ.
It is the sacramental presence of Christ on earth.
It's where we meet Christ.
St. Cyprian says that he cannot have God for his father,
who does not have the church as his mother.
The next truth in the hierarchy of truths is the dignity of the human person.
When we consider this mystery of grace that God would share with us,
His own inner life, His own nature,
we see what an incredible dignity God has bestowed on humankind.
Thus, all of the moral and the social teachings of the church
flow from that respect for the human person that is intrinsic to the nature of the faith itself.
And then finally, the last truth in the hierarchy is what Cardinal Schoenborn, the editor,
says is the first principle of the church is faith, namely unity,
that all of these things hang together.
And we can't pick and choose our aspects of Catholic faith.
We see them as an integral unity in a whole.
These are the principles of organization, thematic,
that run throughout the catechism and have to inform our teaching.
The catechism is really designed to draw this integral unity of the faith.
When John Paul presented it to the world,
he said that it was intended to show the wondrous harmony of the faith.
The catechism itself, paragraph 18, says the catechism is to be seen
as an organic presentation of the whole of the Catholic faith.
Now, I want to show you how.
First, if you will, turn to the table of contents.
You see the beginning is the Pope's apostolic constitution,
introducing the catechism to the world.
And then the prologue, which gives practical instruction for using the catechism.
We'll come back to the prologue in a minute.
But do you see how the very next thing is part one, the profession of faith?
I want to point something out to you.
Do you see under part one, it says section one, I believe, we believe.
And then at section two, the profession of the Christian faith.
Each of these four pillars, the four sections, has a two-section division.
The first section is more general,
laying out the fundamental and unifying principles, if you will.
The second section gives a more detailed doctrinal exposition.
Thus, in part one, section one treats how we come to know anything about God,
from our natural knowledge of God and God's self-revelation in Christ,
scripture, tradition, and the magisterium.
And part two then goes on to describe the specific contents of that revelation,
such as the doctrine of the Trinity or of Christ and His church.
Part two, celebration of the Christian mystery, does the same thing.
First, there's a general discussion of the paschal mystery in the church,
the work of the blessed Trinity and the liturgy and the sacraments.
And then secondly, a discussion of the seven sacraments themselves,
as the initiation, healing, and communion into the life of the blessed Trinity.
Part three, our life in Christ.
First, there's a discussion of the incredible dignity of the human person
in the image of God, our freedom, grace, the virtues, conscience, and sin,
and the social dimensions of our Christian life.
And then second, a specific discussion of each of the Ten Commandments,
according to Christ's summary of the laws, the love of God and the love of neighbor.
Do you see the pattern?
Part four, Christian prayer works the same way.
First, there's a discussion of prayer in general.
What is prayer? The tradition of prayer in Scripture in the church.
And then a specific discussion of the Lord's Prayer,
which the catechism calls the summary of the whole gospel.
Let's go back to the prologue, paragraph 18 in the catechism,
which gives practical instruction in how to use the catechism.
This is on page 11 in most editions.
This is also a good place to point out that the basic unit of organization
in the catechism is the paragraph.
So if you look at the index, for example, it references paragraph numbers,
and not page numbers.
You see, this catechism is conceived as an organic presentation
of the Catholic faith in its entirety.
It should be seen, therefore, as a unified whole.
Numerous cross-references in the margin of the text,
italicized numbers referring to other paragraphs that deal with the same theme,
as well as the analytical index at the end of the volume,
allow the reader to view each theme in its relationship to the entirety of the faith.
Do you see?
At every point, the catechism calls us to compare and analyze
in light of the totality.
Let's consider the cross-references for a moment.
Turn to paragraph 27, if you will.
This is the first place we find cross-references used.
The doctrine being treated here is the desire for God written in the heart.
Now, if you look to the side of paragraph 27,
you'll see three little numbers, 355, 170, and 1718.
These are references to other paragraphs in the catechism.
Now, let's see how this works.
If we turn to paragraph 355, the doctrine of man,
created in the image of God.
So, the catechism wants us to know that our innate desire for God
is born of our creation in His image.
The two doctrines are related.
Now, let's look at paragraph 1718, another cross-reference,
which takes us into the third pillar, our life in Christ,
and the fulfillment of that desire for God.
Look at the very first line of paragraph 1718.
The Beatitudes respond to the natural desire for happiness.
This desire is of divine origin.
So, you see, the cross-references help you to search out that unity of the faith.
The next point I want you to notice
is that the catechism puts some things in large print
and some things in small print.
Let's look at an example.
Turn to paragraph 2558.
First, the text introduces the topic of prayer in large print.
And then it follows up with this magnificent quote from St. Therese.
For me, prayer is a surge of the heart.
It is a simple look turned toward heaven.
It is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.
The small print in the catechism
very often is drawn from the writings of saints, liturgies,
spiritual doctors, meant to give a full expression,
a deeper reflection on the truth of the faith.
I find that these are excellent tools for teaching.
After you've laid out the doctrine,
you can go to these small print sections
and reflect on the teachings of the saints.
Turn to paragraph 44.
You'll find a section called In Brief.
You'll see that at the end of every chapter,
there's this summary of bullet points
of the major aspects of the doctrine under consideration.
This is a very helpful tool to reference
as you prepare talking points for your teaching.
Have I made sure to hit every major aspect of the doctrine?
Finally, I want you to turn to paragraph 2865,
the very last paragraph in the catechism.
What comes next?
We've mentioned over and over again
that the catechism draws on this incredibly rich
Catholic expression of the faith,
all these different sources of revelation and authority.
Here's where we actually find the list,
and it's magnificent.
You'll see right following 2865,
there is a index of citations.
The first is the scripture citations,
and you can see there are over 30 pages
of scripture citations in the catechism.
Following that are professions of faith.
Then we find ecumenical councils.
There are over five pages of citations
just from the Second Vatican Council alone.
After that, we have particular councils and synods,
pontifical documents,
ecclesiastical documents,
canon law citations,
citations from the liturgy,
the Roman liturgy and the Eastern liturgy as well,
ecclesiastical writers.
This is one of my favorite sections.
In fact, sometimes for reflection and prayer,
I just go and read the citations of the saints
over and over again.
There's so many of them from the second century,
Irenaeus of Ignatius of Antioch,
the great doctors of the church like Athanasius.
They're all in there.
You go search them out.
It's incredibly rich.
And then finally, after the ecclesiastical writers,
then we turn to the subject index.
Now, I don't want you to overlook this
because it's a tremendous resource, really.
If you open to page 759, for example,
and look down the page at baptism,
you can see how rich the reflection of the index is
on all the different aspects of baptismal life and promise,
the grace communicated in the baptism,
how catechumens received baptism,
how Christian life is rooted in baptism.
You can really trace the doctrine out
through all the four parts
and see this integral unity that we're talking about.
So don't overlook the subject index
as you're preparing your lessons
and seeking for that unity of the faith.
After the subject index,
the very next section is a list of abbreviations.
Throughout the text,
you'll find footnotes to pontifical documents
and conciliar documents,
usually just given in an abbreviation.
The list of abbreviations will help you know
where those come from.
Finally, in some editions of the Catechism,
you'll find a glossary.
This is a very helpful tool
that gives accurate and faithful definitions
of theological terms and doctrinal terms.
It's also a very useful tool in your teaching
if you don't know what a particular word means.
This book is not going away.
Pope John Paul told us
this is the authentic reference for catechesis.
This is the sure norm.
Pope Benedict, in his letter on the Year of Faith,
has urged Catholics all across the world
to study this book,
the Catechism of the Catholic Church,
and make it their own.
He's reminded us that what lives within the Catechism
is not a mere theory,
but on page after page,
it's an encounter with a person
who lives within the Church,
namely Jesus Christ.
I think we can conclude with no better phrase
than that given to us by blessed Pope John Paul II
when he gave the Catechism to the world.
He said,
Use it.
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