Becoming a Channel of Grace in Catechesis

The OCIA class I was leading was about to enter the period of the catechumenate, and it was time for a talk on human sexuality and Christian anthropology. This talk had been looming in my mind for weeks prior, causing me no small amount of anxiety. I felt reasonably confident in my ability to communicate the Church’s teaching on these controversial topics, but it is always somewhat daunting for me to get up in front of a group of people and talk about sex, gender, and other “theology of the body” topics. As my audience was composed of adults who were seeking to become Catholic, I knew there was a good chance that many of them were still in need of conversion on these topics. They had all made some concrete step toward becoming Catholic, but nevertheless, the Church’s teaching on human sexuality can be a moment for some to walk away. In my mind, the stakes were high.

My first instinct when preparing a talk has always been to go to the Catechism or some other authoritative resource. For this particular topic, I turned to the great St. John Paul II’s Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body. While I was well acquainted with the Church’s teaching on human sexuality, I had never actually taken the time to read John Paul II’s catecheses on these topics. I was immediately struck by how thoroughly driven by Scripture each catechesis was. While Man and Woman He Created Them is by no means light reading, to me it read like an extremely well-done Bible study. The doctrinal conclusions that John Paul II arrived at seemed almost obvious because of the way in which he used Scripture to drive his arguments. Reading through his teachings was like being led by a highly skilled guide through a treacherous mountain range. And while John Paul II was the guide, the path was laid out by God himself. Reading Theology of the Body was like being in conversation with God. It was prayerful. I was so captivated by the book that I tore through it far quicker than I ever imagined I could.

What do you think when you read the word “saint”? Do you imagine an icon of a placid martyr, like Ignatius of Antioch crawling with lions? Perhaps you think of a saint from your own living memory, like Pope St. John Paul II or St. Teresa of Calcutta. Or maybe you think of a living person you know who embodies sanctity and who might even one day have a place in the Roman canon. Words like “sin,” “failure,” and “redemption,” however, are probably not the first to come to mind when most of us think of the saints.

This is understandable, and it has been affected by historical circumstances that have shaped our writing about the saints through the centuries. We need and want good examples, and the stories of saints we have grown accustomed to are mostly positive tales of their virtue and accomplishments.

Let’s say your child has aspirations of becoming a great soccer player. What do you do? You go on YouTube and find highlight videos of Lionel Messi dribbling and shooting and say, “Look, if you practice, you could do that.” I know because I have done this. We generally don’t watch highlight reels of mistakes (lowlights?) or long, slow videos of improvement.

For a long time, this is what we have done with the majority of our presentations of the saints, as well. We love to talk about their incredible sanctity (“St. John Vianney only slept two hours a night because he heard so many confessions!”) or we focus on the saints who don’t have very visible stories of sin or conversion.[1] I have a deep love for saints such as Thérèse of Lisieux and John Paul the Great, but I sometimes find treatments of their lives difficult to relate to, as these stories give the impression that they never struggled with sin in the way that I do.

St. Monica, the mother of St. Augustine of Hippo, is a good example of this treatment. As a scholar of the early Church who has read St. Augustine’s Confessions numerous times, I have slowly become aware of the flat and incomplete treatment we often give to St. Monica by focusing only on the one great aspect of sanctity for which she is most famous: intercession for her wayward son. It is understandable that we focus on this, particularly when there are people in our families who are far from God. Intercession for Augustine is St. Monica’s most prominent activity in the Confessions itself, as Augustine wanted to clearly depict the means that God used to bring him to conversion.

However, Monica is a more complex figure than simply the “Mother of Tears” who prayed her son into the Church. Long before the blessed death of his mother related by Augustine in book 9 of the Confessions, he gives us several glimpses into parts of Monica’s life that needed redemption. By examining three of these and seeing how God’s grace was operative in each situation, my hope is to demonstrate how saints like Monica can be examples to us of the redemptive power of God in normal circumstances and not just examples of truly exceptional sanctity.[2] I will examine them in the order in which Augustine describes them in the Confessions, which is not chronological.

When I had been a mother for about 20 years and was leading a women’s Bible study at church, I asked a group of mothers with young children to give me one word that would complete this sentence: Motherhood is a time of . . . “exhilaration,” “chaos,” “frustration” and “creativity” were some of the answers they called out to me. Then I shared with them a conclusion about motherhood that I had been coming to in those years. It was an idea I wish I had known when I first began having children, so I wanted to see if perhaps it could make a difference for them. I suggested that, above everything else, motherhood is preeminently a time of conversion. Why?

We looked at a passage in St. Matthew’s Gospel to understand what conversion means, why it is necessary, and why motherhood offers women deep and abiding opportunities to experience it. In that passage, the disciples asked Jesus, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” (18:1). In reply, he made it clear that the more important question is: Who will get in? He said that those who seek to enter heaven must “turn [be converted] and become like children” (18:3). Even the disciples needed to understand that it was not enough to be an admirer of Jesus. They needed to consciously turn away from a life of self-reliance and become like children, with simple trust in and obedience to Jesus. Thus, he established the necessity of conversion. He illustrated the point when he called a child out of the crowd to come to him. The child obeyed, putting himself (literally) in Jesus’ hands, who then set the boy in their midst. Jesus told the disciples, “Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (18:4). So, what does all this have to do with motherhood? Jesus said it best: “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me” (18:5). What did he mean?

To receive a child in the name of Jesus is what we do when we have our children baptized. A child who has been baptized into Jesus and his Church has been made part of his Mystical Body. In a very real way, Jesus himself has taken up residence in our homes through our children. He is there to save them—and us. Throughout our lives with them, we will hear Jesus call to us, always beckoning us to turn from the small, cramped, ill-fitting life of the self and become what we truly are: children of God. In other words, he will use our lives with our children to turn us from self-love to self-donation, making us ready for union with God. How will we, as mothers of children from infancy to adult life, hear his voice?

When you think of what it means to “pray like the saints,” what image comes to mind? In our Catholic faith, we have been blessed with a rich heritage of spiritual practices and prayer techniques to help us grow closer to our Lord. In this article, we’ll be looking at a specific prayer method that many might consider odd or morbid at first. It is, however, a meditative method that is filled with many graces and engages both the mind as well as the heart. I am speaking of the practice of meditating upon death, or memento mori.

It may surprise us to learn that this practice is one that has found strong advocates in some of the greatest spiritual masters of Catholic spirituality. In his Rule, St. Benedict of Nursia urged his monks to remind themselves daily of the fact that they would one day die.[1] St. Francis of Assisi referred to death in familial terms in his famous “Canticle of the Sun,” giving her the title “Sister Death.” And in the Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius recommended using reflection upon death as a method for discernment.[2]

God has illuminated his work in my life as a catechist in many ways. Perhaps the most enlightening of these experiences happened when I was about 30 years old. A sophomore in my Sacraments class asked, “Mr. Digmann, did anything change for you after your confirmation? Did you feel any different?” I am always very open and honest with my students, and after a moment of pause to consider, I replied, “No. However, God is at work in our lives whether we notice it or not, or whether we feel it or not.” I encouraged them to continue to be open to God and his work in their lives during their own confirmation preparation process, even if they didn’t notice that work right away.

But my answer really bothered me. It was a day or two later when I was mowing my lawn, continuing to wrestle with this question and my response, that it hit me. I stopped the mower, literally lifted my hands to God, and praised and thanked him for revealing to me how he had worked the most significant spiritual experience of my life without me even realizing the sacramental root of it all.

It was a Sunday just like any other. At the end of Mass, the priest said, “Next week, bring a non-Catholic to Mass.” I turned to my wife and whispered, “I have someone in mind.”

I had a Chinese coworker whom I will call “John.” He and I often talked about philosophical topics such as the meaning of life. At first, John was an atheist, but through our conversations, he had moved into agnosticism. Accepting Thomas Aquinas’ arguments for the existence of God wasn’t too hard for John because he often praised Aristotle, and Aquinas seemed like a continuation of Aristotle.

Discussing Aquinas was good progress in our conversational catechesis, but getting from Aquinas to Jesus seemed far off. So one day I decided to jump right to it and asked point-blank:

“Who do you say that Jesus is?” John was surprised by my question.

“My understanding is that he founded Christianity,” he responded politely, “but I need to read more about his philosophy.”

Not knowing where to go from there, I told John that I would find some material and get back to him. But I felt lost. Should I talk about the historicity of the Gospels? Should I explain that Jesus is the only person in history to be preannounced? Should I tell John that Jesus is God?

Before I could find the material that I had I promised to give John, I found myself at church, at that liturgy, with Father encouraging us to bring a non-Catholic to Mass. So, back at work, I took the plunge and said to John, “The best way to understand Jesus is by taking you to Mass next Sunday.” He didn’t hesitate to accept my invitation.

When Sunday came, I waited for John in the parking lot, and then my family and I accompanied him into the church. I could tell he was curious about the reverence parishioners showed toward the altar. As the Mass began, I waited for the priest to say something along the lines of, “Welcome all non-Catholics; I will explain the Mass.” However, he began celebrating the Mass as usual. It was a beautiful liturgy, as always, and the priest gave a wonderful homily—but he made no special mention to acknowledge any guests.

Last year was my first year as a high school campus minister. Part of my job was also teaching an “Approaches to Leadership in the Faith” class. Students had to apply and interview to be in this class, and they were then selected to be the retreat leaders, and leaders in our school community, for the year. I had a lot of freedom when it came to how I instructed the students and what I decided to teach them. I felt as though the most valuable thing I could do is take them to the chapel for the first 20 minutes of class each time I had them. To me, having them develop a personal relationship with Christ was the most important thing in which to invest.

While we were in the chapel, I would introduce the students to different forms of prayer. We would do lectio divina, intercessory prayer, praise and worship, reflections for the liturgical seasons, etc. I always ended our time in the chapel by lifting up our prayers and intentions to Jesus through Mary, and then we would pray a Hail Mary together. After a while of me leading the Hail Mary, I had one of my students, Gabriella, ask if she could do it. I was more than happy to allow her to take the lead on our closing prayer!

Last year was one of the most difficult years of my life. It was my first year as a theology teacher, and even though I had been well prepared through my secondary education program and ministry experience, I was not prepared for the constant criticism and judgment I would receive from my coworkers. These comments filled my mind with self-doubt, anxiety, and fear. 

One month into teaching, I decided to be honest with my students about how I was feeling. I was not at my best that day, and I told my class, “I’m sorry if I’m not giving you my full attention and energy today. I’ve been experiencing a lot of anxiety recently, and I think it might be getting the best of me today. It has nothing to do with you; it’s just internal.” Immediately after class, one of my students approached me with tears in her eyes. Let’s just call her “Christina.” She said, “Thank you for sharing your feelings with us. I have severe anxiety and depression, so hearing you talk about your struggles makes me feel like I’m not alone.” 

We talked about how she has been attending therapy and about her struggle with having a relationship with God. I learned that Christina grew up in a Christian home, but cried every time she attended a church service. From then on, I began praying for Christina daily. The following week, Christina asked if I could sit with her and her friends during break. This quickly led to me sitting with Christina at break and lunch regularly, where we’d have conversations about mental health, our love of Crumbl cookies, and what it looks like to know Jesus Christ. Those moments didn’t seem like much at the time, but I wholeheartedly believe that God was working in them. 

I was a Catholic kid in the public school system in the mid 1960s. This meant, of course, that I was destined for Sunday school. My parents remained true to the promise they made to God on the day they were married to bring their children up in the faith. So, off I went. I have no recollection of how I found my way to the classroom (I was only six or seven), but what I do remember, what I will never forget, is the feeling I got when I walked in.

Hanging on the wall was a rather large crucifix, and tucked into a niche high up on the wall was a statue of Mary. I imagined both images looking down at me. Both were definitely mysterious to me—the public school classrooms did not have this, and neither did my family home. Imagine my bewilderment. I did trust my parents, so I accepted that I was supposed to be there. I was just not exactly sure why.

I was intrigued by and drawn to the statues, and I looked forward to returning to the classroom the following weeks. They caused a kind of spiritual longing in me that is hard to put into words. A seed had been planted by God and nourished by the Holy Spirit through these unexpected wood and plaster depictions of the most important characters in the story of salvation history.

How much worse off we would all be without physical pain! As counterintuitive as it sounds, pain is your friend. Pain is a mechanism to warn you that something is wrong. Imagine a scenario where there was no physical pain. When you get sick with a virus, you don’t feel bad, so you don’t take care of yourself. The virus spreads rapidly because there is no way to know that you have it until it is too late. Death or relentless monitoring become the only two ways to know that something is physically awry. Who would want to live like that? Dramatically shortened lifespans and constant paranoia? No thanks!

Twenty years ago, when I was first diagnosed with cancer, it was pain that made me go see a doctor. Thank goodness the pain arrived in time! The doctors found the cancer and treated it before it was too late. I’ve received 20 additional years on this good earth because of this good friend, pain. If it weren’t for pain, I wouldn’t be alive to write this today. I am grateful!

Because it is so familiar, physical pain is no longer very intimidating to me. Of course I don’t like it, but it’s manageable. Besides alerting me to something being amiss, it is helpful because it is purifying. It calls me to something higher. For instance, when a tech comes into my hospital room to wake me up in the middle of the night to draw blood, I am challenged to respond with kindness and docility. She appears abruptly with a bright light and sharp needle to do her job. This is rather unpleasant for me, but it’s also for my good. The least I can do is be pleasant to her regardless of how I am feeling. Subtle sighs or groans of annoyance or self-pity only serve to assault her with an air of needless negativity. What good does that do? I admit that sometimes I fail, but the pain offers me a great opportunity. It calls me to become the best version of myself.