Franciscan at Home

This year we are focussing on God the Father. It is a time to consider origins and goals since the Eternal Father is, of course, both. He is the source of human life and He is its only and unimaginable goal. The whole of life is encompassed by His watchful providence as He leads us from Himself to Himself.

Catechesis necessarily takes its orientation from these fundamental truths, and we can think of catechesis as our gradual induction into these most basic points about our life. It is easy to see why the Church gives such prominence to the role of catechesis: what more important work in the Church can there be than that of bringing people to a realisation of these marvellous truths?

It is a work of God to convert a father to the gift and task of his fatherhood; indeed, we live in a society in which many fathers have abandoned fatherhood. It is even possible that fatherhood is more hidden than motherhood and more susceptible, in a way, to general neglect; nonetheless, like all naturally good gifts, it responds to appreciation, cultivation and instruction. I am sure, however, that fatherhood is from the very root of personhood and needs the grace of God to flourish. Just as God has given me seven children, plus two in heaven and one to be born in the next month, so I need God to help me to adapt to the varieties of personality and the everyday dynamics of family life. The transformation of my-ever shrinking time for ‘me’ into the treasurable time for ‘my family’ is at the heart of God’s action in my life. Sharing, then, what God is doing with me as a father, is a way of fanning into life one of the gifts of God which has been severely frostbitten.

If it is simple to say that I am discovering some of the dimensions of the ‘Father’ as catechist, it is not so simple sustaining the simplicity of this in the reality of daily life. What I want to pass on to my children is a beautiful wonder at the mystery which permeates each person’s life, beginning as it does with Creation and the act of God at the foundation of each person’s life. What I am in danger of doing is passing on a dreadful gloom in front of the practicalities of life: the clearing up, the clearing out of the house in time for school, the rushed return journey and the endless unfinished things that express the impossibility of fulfilling my perfectionist tendencies. Not to mention the dreadful fears that arise in my heart from what I read in the papers.

This new series examines key features of contemporary culture that characterize the ‘field’ into which the Word is sown by catechists today.

There is no such thing as truth!’

‘That may be wrong to you, but it’s right for me!’

‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!’

We have all heard these maxims in some form or another. They express a philosophical position by which many people direct their lives: relativism. In a homily given on Monday 18 April 2005 Pope Benedict XVI spoke of ‘the dictatorship of relativism’. Catechizing persons immersed in a culture of relativism is one of the most difficult tasks of catechesis in our time.

No miracles of Jesus? No effective apologetic for the divinity of Christ. No apologetic for the divinity of Christ? A seriously weakened catechesis. We cannot have an effective apologetic for the divinity of Christ unless we defend the historical truth of his miracles as recounted in the Gospels.

The formation of catechists should enable them seriously to address the historicity of Jesus’ miracles.

A common question asked by many Evangelicals or Protestants is, ‘Are you saved?’ The answer, for them, is that if you have proclaimed Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, then you are saved. You are saved by making this formal statement. Some Catholics may respond to this question with ‘Yes, I am saved,’ meaning that at their Baptism they received sanctifying grace, and it follows that if they die in this state of grace, they should enter into eternal life. Whilst this is an acceptable way of interpreting the meaning of the question to be consistent with the Catholic faith, the problem with the question, ‘Are you saved?’ and the way of thinking behind it is that it diminishes the meaning of hope.

We must recognize that this phrase originates with the Protestant view of salvation. This view is that simply by believing in salvation through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and he being our personal Lord and Savior, we are saved. The truth, however, is that we are not saved. Our salvation is still in anticipation. To falsely place this anticipation into the realm of actuality is to destroy hope entirely.

This brief paper is entitled, ‘The Dramatic Nature of the Christian Life.’ For devotees of the eminent theologian, Hans Urs Von Balthasar, this topic calls to mind his multi-volume volume work, Theo-drama[i], in which he engages the world of theatre as a way of understanding the truly original drama. By that I mean the drama of the inner life and love of the Trinity, the hidden counsels wherein the Triune God freely elected to create and redeem – thus setting the stage for the drama we call ‘salvation history’.