Franciscan at Home

At the edge of a wood stands a larkspur, its deep green leaves characteristically rounded, and with delicately bending, yet firmly formed, slender, stem.  The blossom seems as if cut out of heavy silk, of a blue as deep as a gem, so that the whole air around seems filled with it.  Someone comes and plucks the flower, and then, getting tired of it, throws it on the fire.  In a few moments the whole bright splendour has become a small streak of grey ash.

Perhaps the greatest gift the Catechism of the Catholic Church makes to us is its presentation of what we can describe as a ‘dogmatic spirituality’. 

It is easy to think of dogma and spirituality, not only as irrelevant to each other, but somehow opposed. Dogma can be seen as hard, precise, unyielding. Spirituality, on the other hand, is often viewed as warm, welcoming, indefinable, mysterious.

In the Lord’s Prayer we address God as ‘Father’. Catechesis on God the Father is central to our transmission of the faith. Catechists are often asked about the analogy between earthly fathers and our heavenly Father – is God our Father like an earthly father? Less often do catechists think of the priest, this other earthly ‘father’ that Catholics have, and ask: Can the priest, whom we also call ‘father’, help us appreciate and understand God’s fatherhood more fully? Yet I believe this is a valuable key.

Many say that the father of a family is a ‘real’ father and the fatherhood of the priest is only ‘something similar’. It is also common to think that the word ‘father’ really applies to the father of a family and only by analogy do we apply the term to God, that God is also ‘something similar’.

The view is frequently heard, too, that married Catholic priests are, at last, able to be fathers in the true sense of the word and that rather than this be an exception, it should be an open possibility for all priests of the Catholic Church. Celibacy is understood here in negative terms as renunciation of ‘real fatherhood’.

I, however, would argue that not only the fatherhood of the Catholic priest but celibate fatherhood is the fullest form of fatherhood possible for man because this is closest to the Fatherhood of God. Let me explain.

On the Spot aims to highlight some of the complex positions, questions and comments experienced by Catechists, teachers and parents. It tries to outline the knowledge necessary to be faithful to Church teaching and which will best help those we teach who call us to account for the hope that is in us (cf 1 Peter 3:15).

In this issue, we look at the misconceptions, both literal and spiritual, which children sometimes hold concerning the Our Father, and consider some of the levels of meaning we can explore with them.

‘Our Father who are in Heaven, hello be my name, my king done come, my will be done...’ And that's before we even start on trespasses, temptation and deliver us from evil.

It takes a good deal of patient work with young children, as teachers and parents will testify, to simply instil the correct wording of the prayer into their heads, especially when the majority of the class or group are experiencing it for the first time.

In the Gospel, our Lord was approached by his disciples with the request, ‘Lord, teach us how to pray!’ (Lk 11:1). In response to this request, our Lord taught the first community of his disciples how we are to communicate with the Lord and Creator of the universe, someone we can not see, and someone whose voice we can not hear audibly and yet someone with whom we are called to be in relationship. Jesus taught his first disciples the Our Father.

This liturgical meditation is take from Guardini's book, Sacred Signs.

We long for union with God, and we must so long, for it is our inmost need. Our soul points out two ways of obtaining this: they are different ways, but both reach the same goal.

The first way to union goes by knowledge and love.

Knowledge is a union: by knowing things we penetrate them and draw them into ourselves; they become our own, a part of our life. So also all love is union – not a mere striving, but in itself a union. So far as a man loves something, so far doe it already belong to him.

This union is, however, of a special kind: we express this by saying that it is ‘spiritual.’

Yet this word does not fully say all, for the other union, of which we shall speak later, is also spiritual. What we mean is that this union is one not of being, but of motion; of consciousness and frame of mind.

Is there any outward form for this – a likeness? Certainly, and a very wonderful one – light and heat.

Why is it that we invoke God as ‘Our’ Father? What does the word ‘Our’ entail? When we say those two words, ‘Our Father’, there are two relationships we are denoting. Before he became Pope, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger summed up both relationships when he wrote, ‘The fatherhood of God gives Christian brotherhood its firm foundation.’[i] The first relationship is that we are brothers and sisters. This is expressed in the word ‘Our’. The second, expressed in ‘Father’, is that we are sons and daughters. In Baptism, we enter into this life of the Blessed Trinity. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, ‘There is only one God, and he is recognized as Father by those who, through faith in his only Son, are reborn of him by water and spirit.’[ii] By the power of the Holy Spirit and through Baptism, we are reborn as brother and sisters to Jesus and sons and daughters to the Father.

The Lord’s Prayer can be very helpfully used as a prayerful focus for catechising in morality. One of the advantages of this is that those we teach will gain the vital perspective that how we live and act flows from our prayer and is an expression of it. One on the gravest errors of our time is the dichotomy between faith professed and the practice of lives.[ii] It will help all of us to remember, as well, that the commandments begin with God and our relationship with him.

When teaching morality, it is important to present our final ‘end’, or goal, very clearly. Then we need to present how to reach that goal, cooperating with God’s grace. Finally, we explain and discuss how to behave towards others in the light of these convictions. The structure of the Our Father lends itself very well to this approach. Our true fulfilment is to draw close to God, whom we call Abba, Father. The ‘how’ is reflected in the central part of the prayer; and the prayer closes with an appeal for help in relationships with others and in remaining faithful to the life he has in mind for us.

We cry out to our Father in heaven revering his name; life in its fullest sense consists in a loving relationship with him. We are created in his image and he has placed in us a desire for him.[iii] So in teaching morality the focus is to be on the Father, his kingdom,[iv] and our eternal destiny. When we adopt this perspective, challenges in daily life can be seen to help lead us to the very place where we learn to be our true selves, the heart of the Father.

Jesus’ disciples requested, “Lord, teach us to pray…” (Lk. 11:1). Those who asked understood, even before St. Paul wrote, that “we do not know how to pray as we ought” (Rom. 8:26). The response, commonly known as the Our Father, is the “fundamental Christian prayer” (CCC 2759). It contains every element of a perfect prayer. Yet, in its beauty and simplicity, one essential aspect of the Our Father’s foundation is often overlooked: the virtue of humility.

Holy Mother Church announces that “humility is the foundation of prayer” (CCC 2559). If humility is the virtue on which all prayer is founded, it is reasonable to conclude that humility is the very root and foundation of the Our Father. If people are able to make this connection, they will be able to identify the presence of humility in every line of the prayer; and they will also gain a fuller understanding of this seminal virtue.

Humility is present in the first exclamation, “Our Father,” which is an admission that “no one knows the Father except the son…” (Mt. 11:27; cf. CCC 2779). Further, humility is present in the recognition that the Father is “in Heaven,” which means that He is “majestic” and His dwelling “transcends everything we can conceive” (CCC 2794). The seven petitions that follow are imbued with humility because that virtue is at the heart of these first two statements.

This liturgical meditation is taken from Romano Guardini's book, Sacred Signs.

The church space within speaks of God. It belongs to the Lord and is quite filled with His holy presence. For it is God’s House, separated off from the world, enclosed in walls and vaulted roof. This space is turned inwards, towards the hidden God. It speaks of the mystery of God.

But what of the space without? The great wide space over the plain, which extends endlessly on all sides? The space on the hills, spread out into the infinite? In the valleys, deep lying, surrounded by mountains? Is all this not connected with sanctity?

Most certainly this also. From the House of God the tower grows up into the free air and, as it were, takes possession of it in God’s name. In the tower, in the belfry hang the bells of heavy brass.