Franciscan at Home

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Sharing the Light of Faith (1979)

Catechism of the Catholic Church (1993) 

This series of articles seeks to explore the rather remarkable fifty-year period in the history of the Church’s catechetical mission. We have already looked briefly at the outcomes of the International Catechetical Study Weeks, the General Catechetical Directory (1971), Evangelii Nuntiandi (1974), and Catechesi Tradendae (1979). In this article, we will consider a document of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Sharing the Light of Faith: National Catechetical Directory of Catholics in the United States (1979) and two documents of the universal Church, The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (1987) and the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1993).

Sharing the Light of Faith: National Catechetical Directory of Catholics in the United States (1979)

At the conclusion of the Synod of Bishops on catechesis, Archbishop Joseph Bernardin of Cincinnati, who had previously served as the General Secretary of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, described a project that had been undertaken by the US bishops shortly after the publication of the General Catechetical Directory in 1971: “Our Directory, which has been under development for nearly five years, is a comprehensive, practical statement of policy and guidelines governing the content and methods of catechesis in all forms and at all levels . . . The intent of the Directory is to codify the best of responsible, tested catechetical thought and practice, in light of the Church’s teaching and traditional wisdom, and so serve as a normative guidepost as well as an incentive for catechetical endeavors.”[1]

Indeed, work on a national catechetical directory had begun six years before. In fact, the bishops of the United States were among the first conferences of bishops in the world to follow up on the directive of the General Catechetical Directory for bishops “to prepare directories for their own nations or regions.”[2]

Shortly after the publication of the General Catechetical Directory, the administrative board of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops turned to their chairman of the Committee on Education, Bishop William E. McManus, to devise a plan for the development of a national catechetical directory for the United States. In 1972, the general assembly of bishops approved two committees to prepare the national directory: an oversight committee and a working committee. The oversight committee, composed of seven bishops (called the Bishops’ Committee on Policy and Review), was to set policy for the development of the directory and to review the efforts of the working committee. The working committee’s task would be the actual writing of the directory.

The resolve of the American bishops to produce a national directory was confirmed when they added two staff members to execute their plan. In 1973, Msgr. Wilfred Paradis and Sr. Mariella Frye were appointed project director and assistant project director, respectively. Along with Archbishop John Whelan, a member of the Bishops’ Committee on Policy and Review and an ex-officio member of the working committee, they initiated a nationwide consultation to determine who would be invited to serve on the working committee. In time, the working committee came to be known as the National Catechetical Directory Committee. It was composed of twelve members—four bishops and eight other members representing the diversity of the Church in the United States.[3] Committee members came from different regions of the country and different cultural backgrounds. They were professional catechetical leaders and volunteer catechists. They were parents, teachers, parish religious education directors, and campus ministers.

Between 1973 and 1975, several preliminary drafts of the document were circulated to bishops, theologians, priests, religious, diocesan and parish directors of religious education, catechists, and parents. I remember vividly as a seminarian in 1974 being included in one of the final consultations on the directory. It was the first time in history that a document with such a high level of authoritative significance as a catechetical directory was the subject of such wide and deep consultation. The result of all this work and extensive consultation, Sharing the Light of Faith: National Catechetical Directory for Catholics of the United States, was approved by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1977 and by the Congregation for the Clergy in Rome in 1978. It was published in 1979, the same year as Catechesi Tradendae.

At some point in your career, you may struggle with burnout, job dissatisfaction, or simple boredom with the daily monotony. Perhaps you have resigned yourself to projects left incomplete or finished half-heartedly. Something is better than nothing is a tempting motto. On the flip side, I have met people, particularly people working for the Church, who feel that working hard for a promotion is too “worldly” and not fit for a Christian. It may surprise you that a saint once wrote, “A person with no professional ambition is of no use to me.”[i]

Inferior Work Is Not Christian Work

That was expressed by St. Josemaría Escrivá, the founder of Opus Dei. He wrote those words because he clearly saw the connection between work and virtue. The virtuous Christian, regardless of whether he or she is working in the Church, the office, or at home, is working to the best of his or her ability and always striving for perfection.

Professional ambition, while it can be wrongly ordered, is not only the worldly or greedy. Success in our professional lives is not antithetical to the Gospel. Rather, a good Christian will be a good worker. We often think of virtue in terms unattached from daily living. But the life of grace is built on the everyday, normal life of the Christian.

Virtue is found in doing daily work well. St. Josemaría warned, “Since we should behave at all times as God’s envoys, we must be very much aware that we are not serving him loyally if we leave a job unfinished; if we don’t put as much effort and self-sacrifice as others do into the fulfillment of professional commitments.”[ii]

We cannot strive for virtue at only certain times of our day or in particular environments. The woman who cuts corners at work, the man who is lazy at the office, and the student who does not study are not virtuous. Striving for excellence and virtue cannot be compartmentalized into certain arenas of life. Escrivá continues, “people who neglect obligations that seem less important will hardly succeed in other obligations that pertain to the spiritual life and are undoubtedly harder to fulfill.”[iii]

Self-knowledge here is important. If I am constantly cutting corners or neglecting obligations, are these the result of choices I am making and behaviors I could remedy? On the other hand, if we live with ADHD or another medical condition, our struggle to make deadlines might have a very different cause. I am not insinuating that those who must work with disabilities are less holy. Those who live with the challenges of neurodivergence are called to strive for virtue in work, too, but it will look differently for all of us.

As St. John Paul II concluded his Theology of the Body (TOB) Catechesis in November of 1984, he indicated that the application of TOB could go “far beyond the content of the reflections presented here” (TOB 133:1), while reaffirming the importance of his explicit applications to the teachings on responsible parenthood found in Humanae Vitae. Just three years later, the Magisterium provided its first major example of these wider applications of TOB when the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith promulgated Donum Vitae to address medical interventions into the transmission of human life. The teachings of Donum Vitae continued the application of TOB to the theme of responsible parenthood but directed it to the question of how couples can seek to grow their family in a morally sound way when they are experiencing challenges with their natural fertility. 

Echoing the main teachings of Donum Vitae, this installment of the series summarizes how the anthropological and moral principles of TOB support the proper use of medical science in the exercise of responsible parenthood, while highlighting the grave evils of artificial reproduction. 

Procreative Love and Responsibility 

Within the TOB framework, procreation essentially means providing the dignified and just context for God’s creative action, and the essence of responsible parenthood centers on the commitment of man and woman to provide that context out of love for each other and with a sense of obligation before God. Responsible parenthood means being fruitful in a way that does justice to all involved precisely in order to fulfill the privileged role of man and woman in the mystery of creation, thus preserving the truth of procreation as an essential aspect of the love to which human sexuality is ordered. 

Procreation springs from the heart of conjugal love, rather than being something added on to the love of the man and the woman, and represents an utterly unique way for them to express their love and commitment to each other. Through procreation, man and woman give motherhood and fatherhood to each other and thereby give themselves to each other with an unsurpassed depth. For that reason, those who love in this conjugal way deeply want to give motherhood and fatherhood to each other and to see new life spring from their loving communion. Therefore, it is natural and fitting that a man and a woman in conjugal love seek medical help whenever they are experiencing infertility. Likewise, the teachings of the Church recognize with great compassion the pain of infertility precisely because it frustrates the deep currents of conjugal love. 

However, along with the deep desire to give children to each other, married couples stand before God with an obligation to cooperate with him in the transmission of life. Married couples should feel that same sense of obligation to seek proper healthcare if they experience infertility. In other words, a couple that truly loves each other and that wants to fulfill their obligations before God cannot remain indifferent to infertility. 

There are natural limits to human fertility within God’s plan for human sexuality, but medical science generally says that more than twelve months of sexual intercourse in the fertile phase of the woman’s cycle without conception would be a cause for concern. According to the meaning of responsible parenthood, a couple in that situation should seek fertility care out of love for each other and with a sense of obligation before God. 

We should keep in mind that this medical care does not always lead to very complicated or invasive procedures or expensive treatments; sometimes very simple observations and changes can be made to help a couple overcome their infertility. However, no matter how simple or complicated their fertility issues may be, the couple should feel a moral obligation to try to overcome their infertility within the bounds of prudence and within the meaning of the same language of the body that governs all responsible parenthood. 

By seeking fertility care in line with the principles of responsible parenthood, couples say to each other, “Because I care so much about you, I can’t act like I don’t care about our infertility. Sharing parenthood with you means so much to me that I am willing to take the time and effort to seek help and to accept the physical and emotional costs of trying to overcome our infertility. I am not willing, however, to do anything that degrades our bodies, contradicts the meaning of our spousal communion, or violates the dignity of the children we seek to give each other. The treatment we seek must be dignified and loving in order to genuinely express the movements of my heart toward you.” 

Fortunately, TOB offers couples a clear basis for understanding the criteria by which treatments would be dignified and loving and thus within the proper meaning of responsible parenthood. 

Foundational Doctrines Are the Key to Eucharistic Revival

Several years ago, a Protestant couple came to my parish RCIA to support friends who were becoming Catholic. They came every week for the entire process. After one of the sessions, they asked, very sincerely, “We believe the Catholic teaching on the Eucharist. You say those who do not profess the same belief in the Eucharist cannot receive to protect them from receiving unworthily. Since we believe, why can’t we receive?” I gently explained that to truly profess belief in the Eucharist is to believe all that is connected to the Eucharist. It is not possible to accept the Eucharist while at the same time rejecting the authority that makes the Eucharist possible. The Eucharist is a sacrament of unity.

The Church in the United States is focusing on a National Eucharistic Revival. In some sense, the RCIA process is always one of Eucharistic revival because receiving the Eucharist is the apex of the initiation process. What the couple in the opening story illustrates is that understanding, accepting, and living the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist requires full acceptance of the underlying, fundamental doctrines—not just believing Jesus is substantially present.

The premise of this article is that to convince people of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist without their acceptance of the underlying doctrines is leading them to an experience without substance. This article will briefly talk about the purpose of, problems involved with, and pathway to leading people to a full understanding of the Eucharist.

Editor’s Note: The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has announced a three-year Eucharistic revival, to reawaken Catholics to the goodness, the beauty, and the truth of Jesus in the Eucharist. Each issue of the Catechetical Review, during the revival, will feature an article on the Eucharist, to empower our readers to make increasingly more meaningful contributions to the Eucharistic faith of those we teach. We hope you enjoy this article.

The great mystery of Christ’s sacrifice for us is at the heart of the Christian faith: “For Christ, our Paschal Lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor 5:7). As the Catechism explains, Jesus’ death manifests his sacrifice in two ways:

Christ’s death is both the Paschal sacrifice that accomplishes the definitive redemption of men, through “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,” and the sacrifice of the New Covenant, which restores man to communion with God by reconciling him to God through the “blood of the covenant, which was poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” (CCC 613)

Thus, the two principal effects of Christ’s sacrifice are, first, to remove our sins, and, second, to restore communion with God. Transformed by this gift of divine love, we are called to imitate Jesus and “walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph 5:2). Indeed, the Church teaches that every baptized Christian participates in Christ’s sacrifice (CCC 618). We are especially joined to it in the sacrament of the Eucharist, which makes Christ’s sacrifice ever present to us (CCC 1364). The Eucharist is a sacrifice because “it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the cross, because it is its memorial and because it applies its fruit” to our lives by taking away our sins and restoring communion with God (CCC 1366).

The problem is that for most people today, the biblical notion of sacrifice seems obscure. What does sacrifice in general, and Christ’s sacrifice in particular, really mean? And how do the sacraments—especially Reconciliation and the Eucharist—manifest the Lord’s sacrifice?

The best way to gain insight into these questions is to consider the symbolism of the sacrifices in the Old Testament.

For Christians, the celebration of the mystery of Christ is, on the one hand, formative and, on the other, an opportunity to offer praise and thanksgiving. This is especially true for Catholics because the events of our salvation in Christ are recalled daily, weekly, seasonally, and annually. The awareness of the liturgical cycle may not be immediately evident to the average churchgoer. Even the topic of the “liturgical year” may well evoke a range of responses. Some will shrug shoulders in indifference; others will give a blank stare of confusion; still others may light up with enthusiasm. For catechists and religious educators, the organization of the Church’s liturgical seasons offers a fruitful way of contemplating the mysteries of our salvation and a powerful means of forming Christians in the fundamental values of our faith.

An Initial Principle and the Liturgical Calendar

A few principal ideas can help bring into focus what might otherwise seem a daunting task. The first is this: If you want to know what the Church believes, pay attention to what she says when she prays. In other words, the Church herself provides the key that allows access to the meaning of the liturgical year. This occurs concretely in a liturgical ritual celebrated on the Feast of the Epiphany. Sometimes called the Epiphany Proclamation, it is known officially as “The Announcement of Easter and the Moveable Feasts.” The texts and music for it can be found in Appendix I of the Roman Missal. Without reproducing the entire text here, a summary will suffice.

On the day of Epiphany, during which Christians celebrate the manifestation of Christ to the nations as the world’s redeemer (the liturgical context is significant), the liturgy makes an explicit link between Christmas and Easter: “As we have rejoiced at the Nativity of the Lord, so we also announce the joy of the Resurrection.” These are the two pivotal events of the liturgical year. The Announcement goes on to note the most significant celebrations, the dates of which change from year to year: Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten season, the date of Easter, the Ascension, Pentecost, Corpus Christi, and the First Sunday of Advent. A previous edition of the Missal provides additional commentary:

Through the rhythms of times and seasons let us celebrate the mysteries of salvation. Let us recall the year’s culmination, the Easter Triduum of the Lord: his last supper, his crucifixion, his burial and his rising.... Each Easter, as on each Sunday, the Holy Church makes present the great and saving deed by which Christ has forever conquered sin and death.... Likewise, the pilgrim Church proclaims the Passover of Christ in the feasts of the holy Mother of God, in the feasts of the Apostles and Saints, and in the commemoration of the faithful departed. To Jesus Christ, who was, who is, and who is to come, Lord of time and history, be endless praise, for ever and ever.[1]

The Church celebrates in time the great mysteries of human redemption. Careful attention to the rhythms of the liturgical calendar can help us to honor the sacrality of time and notice how God works our salvation through the different seasons.

A first point that emerges from this liturgical proclamation can be seen in the structure of the calendar. The Paschal Mystery (Easter) is central to everything Christians do, central to the way we live. That conviction is made visible, sensible, in the unfolding of the liturgical year with each season’s emphasis on one aspect or other of the mystery of salvation. A second, no less important, point is that every Sunday is a remembrance of the Lord’s Day, the Resurrection. The richness of Sunday is beautifully developed by Pope St. John Paul II’s 1998 Apostolic Letter Dies Domini (On Keeping the Lord’s Day Holy), in which he reflects on five aspects of the first day of the week.[2] A familiarity with these can be a tremendous source for an educator’s reflection on the liturgy.

“The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everyone was asleep his enemy came and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off” (Mt 13:24–25).<

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