Franciscan at Home

In an essay on literature, C.S. Lewis praised the genre of fantasy or myth, which he, J.R.R. Tolkien, and others had embraced. Lewis writes: The value of the myth is that it takes all the things we know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by ‘the veil of familiarity.’ The child enjoys his cold meat, otherwise dull to him, by pretending it is buffalo, just killed with his own bow and arrow. And the child is wise. The real meat comes back to him more savory for having been dipped in a story….by putting bread, gold, horse, apple, or the very roads into a myth, we do not retreat from reality: we rediscover it.[i] The fact that we have seen an apple many times before does not have to render it ordinary; in other words, by “dipping that apple” in a story that makes us see it differently, not only can we actually appreciate it more but we may, in fact, see it properly for the first time. Lewis, of course, “dipped the apple” of Christianity in many of his books, leading readers to reconsider key aspects of Christianity due to the unique way in which he presented them. That metaphor is also a fitting one to describe the repeated, and often surprising, manner in which we encounter the living Word in our lives after our initial conversion—and the manner in which catechesis should seek to frame its presentation of that Word.

Hablando por mí, debo admitir que mi mente a menudo divaga durante la Misa, especialmente durante la Misa diaria. Generalmente me dejo caer en un banco de la iglesia unos treinta segundos antes o después de que el sacerdote haya entrado. Mi mente anda dando vueltas y estoy distraído por miles de pequeñas preocupaciones. Para cuando haya terminado el Evangelio, a menudo me doy cuenta que apenas he escuchado una palabra. Mi respuesta, "Gloria a Ti, Señor Jesús" a veces me provoca una risita silenciosa ya que viene pegada al final de un chorro de pensamientos que nada tenían que ver con Jesús. Luego, a pesar de mi sincera intención de concentrarme en la homilía, de nuevo se me va la mente. Sin embargo, a lo largo de los años, he descubierto unas técnicas que me han ayudado a lidiar con este problema.

Before I became Catholic, if there was one word that summed up my evangelical Pentecostal Protestant experience, it was “spontaneous.” If there was one word that summed up my perception of the Catholic experience, it was “rubric.” My perception was that Protestants were spontaneous and therefore “authentic,” while Catholics had rubrics and were therefore “lifeless.” After I became Catholic, I began to work with RCIA and discovered that apparently I’m not alone. While concluding an RCIA inquiry meeting one year, I closed in an extemporaneous prayer and, when finished, one of the inquirers said out loud, “Wow! I had no idea you could pray like that. I thought Catholics could only pray memorized prayers.” As I have settled into being Catholic, I’ve learned the key to “authenticity” in prayer is not spontaneity but sincerity. Yes, there are many rubrics and prewritten prayers, but these are given to ensure that the faithful will hear more than an individual’s personal insights. As the tears streamed down my face during the Mass where my wife and I were received into full communion, there was nothing “spontaneous” about the event. The fact that I knew what was coming did not make it any less powerful or life giving. I’ve also learned that there is room for spontaneity. Like most things in the Church, it is both/and, with everything being done in its proper place and time. This article will examine aspects in the Church’s RCIA that allow for “planned spontaneity.” I use the phrase “planned spontaneity” because they are not truly spontaneous, but areas where the Church gives the celebrant freedom to adapt a particular part of the rite. I hope this article will inform those who direct RCIA and inspire priests to be more pastorally effective.

The central theme of Pope Saint John’s Paul II’s post-synodal apostolic exhortation, Ecclesia in America, is the encounter with the living Jesus Christ.

In this article we will examine the guidance provided by the Catechism of the Catholic Church regarding the pedagogy needed for liturgical catechesis. Pedagogy The Catechism’s main concern is the presentation of the content of the Deposit of Faith;[i] however, the Catechism also offers us the “pedagogy of the faith.”[ii] The Instrumentum Laboris for the 2012 Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelization noted that the Church published the Catechism for a dual purpose: to provide a definitive account of the Church’s faith and morals and also to articulate this account according to the unchanging pedagogy of the faith.[iii] We can therefore expect the Catechism to identify, in its presentation on liturgy and the sacraments, key pedagogical elements that need to guide and inform particular methodologies, as they are developed for specific groups that have their own particular needs related to context, culture, or age.[iv] In the Catechism, “pedagogy” always refers to God’s way of forming and teaching his people. The term is used only ten times, but the main contours of its meaning are clear: the majority of the references intend us to focus on the gradual and progressive movement of God’s formative activity, while others highlight either the culmination of such a movement in the Person of Christ, or else the loving nature of this design on God’s part.[v] We should notice this double action in the pedagogy: a gradual revelation with a corresponding fostering of the capacity of the person. God “communicates himself to man gradually,” preparing his people “by stages” to become capable of welcoming, knowing, and loving him “far beyond their own natural capacity.”[vi]

Personally, I must admit that my mind often wanders during Mass, especially at daily Mass. Usually, I plop down in a pew thirty seconds before or after the priest has entered. My mind is racing and I’m distracted by a thousand little preoccupations.

There is a compelling challenge that every catechist must face: having fallen in love with Christ ourselves, how do we pass this love on to others? The answer is far from simple. Human beings are multi-dimensional, so we have to work on many levels simultaneously. In considering how to approach this work, we are indebted to the great Roman catechist, Sofia Cavalletti. It was she who drew attention to the typical order in which catechesis—indeed all human learning—unfolds, especially for children: first the body, then the heart, then the mind. If we are to catechize well, we need to follow this order, or we may find ourselves working against human nature instead of with it. Hans Urs von Balthasar, in more elevated, theological language, proposed the same basic progression: first beauty, then goodness, then truth. Both Cavalletti and von Balthasar discerned the Trinitarian analogy underpinning this human learning process, and consequently, elements of Trinitarian theology can be applied. For example, while each “aspect” is distinct, none of them can be neatly separated from the others; they always operate together. Whatever is perceived by the senses will in some way affect the heart and then be reflected upon by the mind. Sometimes, it may seem like this is happening in the same instant of time, and at other times, each dimension may follow on from the other slowly and ponderously, with the meaning finally dawning on us weeks, months, or years afterwards. How then can we integrate this insight into our catechetical practice? It would seem that a significant part of the answer lies in retrieving a catechetical approach almost as ancient as the Church itself, one that uses the same human learning progression identified by Cavalletti and von Balthasar. It is called mystagogy, which is essentially an unfolding of the holy mysteries revealed in the Scriptures through the liturgical signs by which they are celebrated and made present.

When my son was a newborn, we brought him to the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at the University of Notre Dame for a Sunday Lenten Eucharist. Unable to comprehend the theologically rich prayer texts, he nonetheless was fascinated by the drama of light and darkness playing out in the stained glass windows, together with the choir’s sublime interpretation of a Palestrina motet. Such beauty was formative of his identity, teaching him something essential about the splendor of the triune God even before he could begin to understand the meaning of such words. Nonetheless, for many Catholics worshipping on a regular basis, the experience of liturgical beauty is noticeably absent from their lives. Churches, rather than eliciting awe and wonder from the worshipper, are too often designed as monuments to suburban banality. The narrative of salvation, once tangible and substantial in mosaics, frescos, and statuary, is traded in for bare walls and empty spaces. The highest standards of musical excellence relative to composition sometimes give way to mere sing-ability. Preaching and liturgical presiding can be performed clumsily. The problem with such inattention to liturgical beauty is not merely a concern of the aesthete; rather, a liturgy without beauty stifles the joy of the Gospel itself. As Pope Francis writes, “Evangelization with joy becomes beauty in the liturgy, as part of our daily concern to spread goodness. The Church evangelizes and is herself evangelized through the beauty of the liturgy, which is both a celebration of the task of evangelization and the source of her renewed self-giving.” A non-beautiful liturgy is not about bad art; it is about a failure of the Church to evangelize.

What a sweet consolation it is when we feel close to God in liturgy, with the help perhaps of inspiring music or a challenging homily or a strong connection with members of the assembly. But what happens when such consolations are not our regular experience? How can we encounter God in liturgy even when we’re not feeling “fed”?

Catechesis is usually understood as a gift given from mouth to ear in teaching and preaching. But catechesis can also proceed according to the sense of sight, by way of church architecture. Such a visual catechesis can immediately impact adults and children alike. So many of us know what we “like” in church architecture, but a catechetical view of church architecture—one which sees it as the gospel for the eyes—requires understanding the church building as an architectural image of Christ’s Mystical Body. Scripture describes the living members of the Church as forming the image of Christ’s Mystical Body, but architectural language is then immediately employed: this Body is called “God’s building” and “God’s temple” (1 Pet 2:5, 1 Cor 3:9-17). Just as the Temple of Solomon signified Christ by way of foreshadowing, so today’s churches signify Christ by way of fulfillment and sacramental foretaste. In either Old Testament Temple or Christian church, the Person revealed through architecture is Christ, the New Temple. So to encounter a church that reveals the radiance of the New Heaven and the New Earth is to encounter Christ by means of a building, which is both sacramental and catechetical. This encounter—both with the ear and with the eye—inspires hope because the object of hope is a future good that is difficult to obtain: becoming a citizen of heaven in union with the Blessed Trinity in the realized kingdom of God. Temple, God’s Building and the Mystical Body In a well-known passage in the Gospel of John, Christ says “destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up” (Jn 2:21). Those around him presume he is speaking of the great Jerusalem Temple, but the writer quickly explains: “he was speaking of the temple of his body.” So Christ’s body is compared not just to any building but to one that was the center of Jewish worship, precisely because it was the dwelling place of God with humanity.[i] To be in the temple was to be in God’s presence. Earthly space and time were left behind as one entered an architectural image of the New Garden replete with carved images of palm trees, flowers, vegetables, and angels covered in gold. Beyond the great veil was the architectural rendition of heaven itself in the Holy of Holies, the place of God’s throne and abiding presence with his people.[ii] Temple worship, as such, becomes obsolete after the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, because Christ’s own body became the new place of God’s presence. Christ offers perfect worship simultaneously being priest, victim, and place of God’s presence: so indeed the new temple is his body. But the character of the Jerusalem Temple nonetheless remains critically important for what it reveals about Christ. In the time of Christ, the Temple Mount was a dazzling complex famous for its stones that captured the apostles’ attention in all three synoptic gospels (Mk 13:1; Lk 21:5; Mt 24:1). References to stones in Scripture are more numerous than can be recounted here,[iii] but the intent is clear: the temple was an assemblage of costly, precious and holy stones which revealed to the world the place where God dwelt with his people. These stones would soon come to be understood as architectural renditions of people assembled into the image of Christ. Put simply, in biblical symbolism, stones are people—the living stones—and the more precious, cut and polished the stones, the more they signify those same people transformed by grace and assembled as Christ’s body, the new temple.