Franciscan at Home

‘Catechists…are the ambassadors of Christ, God as it were exhorting by their mouths. They have the honor of collaborating in the spread of the Gospel in virtue of divine power. Their office is not derived from men but from God through Jesus Christ.

‘This consciousness of the Christian teachers’ divine mission must be the law of his moral attitude, the first rule of his thoughts and discourses, the basis of all his activity. It must arouse in him the sentiments of his duty and dignity and counteract the ennui of daily routine. In the life of St. Paul it created two sentiments, two passions, one might say: a high-mindedness without pride and a devotion without reserve.’[i]

St. Paul knew that God has made it possible for every person to know right from wrong. He lived in a world fraught with political turmoil. As a Jew, he was exposed to the bickering between the various sects of Judaism. And as such he was also a victim of the oppression of the Roman occupiers of his land. Later, as he traveled throughout the Mediterranean, he was often dragged into court, and finally he died at the hands of the Roman Emperor Nero.

In this issue of The Sower, Sr Johanna Paruch continues to focus on St. Paul as the outstanding catechetical saint for our times.

In his audience on October 8, 2008, Pope Benedict continued his addresses to celebrate the year of St. Paul. He was speaking of Paul’s treatment of Jesus’ teaching, ‘when he brings about a form of transposition of the pre-Paschal tradition to the situation after Easter.’ Pope Benedict wants to show us that St Paul is true to the teaching of Christ, even though the ways in which he presents the teaching of Christ can be very different. Benedict notes that this fidelity is particularly apparent when Paul writes about the Kingdom.

‘For example, the parable of the Pharisee and the publican (cf. Lk 18:9-14), imparts a teaching that is found exactly as it is in Paul, when he insists on the proper exclusion of any boasting to God. Even Jesus’ sentences on publicans and prostitutes, who were more willing to accept the Gospel than the Pharisees (cf. Matt 21:31; Lk 7:36-50) and his decision to share meals with them (cf. Matt 9: 10-13; Lk 15:1-2) are fully confirmed in Paul’s teaching on God's merciful love for sinners (cf. Rom 5: 8-10; and also Eph 2:3-5). Thus the theme of the Kingdom of God is reproposed in a new form, but always in full fidelity to the tradition of the historical Jesus.’

Jesus announces, ‘This is the time of fulfillment. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel’ (Mk 1:14). The proclamation of the kingdom by Jesus is, as we know, the very heart of his message. Pope Benedict confirms that this provides us with the core content of the Gospel. He writes, ‘The Kingdom of God is at hand. A milestone is set up in the flow of time: something new takes place. And an answer to this gift is demanded of man: conversion and faith. The center of this announcement is the message that God’s kingdom is at hand.’[i]

As I read the Holy Father’s homily preached as he formally opened the Pauline Year, I was struck by his repeated emphasis of the shared martyrdom of Peter and Paul. In the Catholic Church it is the practice to commemorate the anniversary of the deaths of its saints rather than their births, except for those of Mary and John the Baptist. Their deaths are, however, really their births into a new and heavenly life.

In the light of Christ’s passion and death, Christians should expect to suffer, and perhaps to die for him. Already in the Old Testament, suffering was a part of the price made for following the will of God. Abraham, Moses and David were all wrenched from their previous way of life to answer in obedience God’s special call to them. The prophets experienced the same thing. Jeremiah protests:

‘The word of the LORD came to me thus: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you.” “Ah, Lord God,” I said, “I know not how to speak; I am too young.” But the LORD answered me, “Say not, ‘I am too young.’ To whomever I send you, you shall go; whatever I command you, you shall speak.” ’ (Jer 1:4-7).

Paul echoes this in the account of his conversion in his Letter to the Galatians. He speaks of God, ‘who from my mother’s womb had set me apart and called me through his grace’, who then ‘was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him to the Gentiles’ (Gal 1:15-16).

If St. Paul were visiting us her today, what advice would he give to catechists?

Dynamic catechesis is a dialogue of salvation. In this sacred conversation we share the revelation of Jesus Christ and invite our hearers to faith. Catechesis is an act of communication. It is a form of communion with others.

Among other examples of catechesis in the New Testament, I draw your attention to three of them in Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. Paul involves himself personally and passionately with people. He speaks. He listens. He persuades. He testifies. He trusts enthusiastically in the power of the Spirit to convince his listeners. If he were visiting us today, I think he would inspire us to use the following guidelines for catechesis.

Share the theology of the Cross
Illumine the hope of the Resurrection
Explain the Power of the Eucharist

‘I know that St Peter was a Catholic; was St Paul one as well?’

The Year of St Paul begins on 28th June 2008 and runs until June 29th 2009. This is the Year offered to us by the Church during which we can learn to appreciate even better the catholicity of St Paul. A consideration of this parishioner’s apparently naïve question can yield surprising insights and might provide us with food for thought when we are wondering what we might highlight during the coming Year. An immediate response to the question would be to point out that the Year begins on the Feast of St Peter and St Paul: the Church holds the two great Apostles together in her celebrations, in her memory, in her prayers. They are both of them together pillars and foundations of the Church; together they inspire the mission of the Church in every age. If we know that St Peter was a Catholic, we might think it a rational presumption that St Paul was as well!

As Catholics, we have the blessing of guidance from the See in which both St Peter and St Paul spent their final days. The first thing we can do is to avail ourselves of the grace of this Year dedicated to St Paul, and encourage those whom we are catechising to do the same. On May 10th the Holy See announced the indulgences which would be made available for participation in the Year. ‘Indulgences’ can remind us vividly of St Paul’s own deep awareness of the mercy of God. The Year is to be a Year of Grace, a Year of God’s special outpouring of loving-kindness.

In his Letter to the Romans, undoubtedly the greatest and most demanding of his Letters, Paul reflects on the history of salvation, in which human disobedience is met with ever-greater acts of divine kindness and indulgence, culminating in the disobedience of all, so that God ‘may have mercy on all’. He sings, ‘O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgements and how inscrutable his ways!’ (Rom.11:33) God’s goodness and mercy so far transcend all that we can comprehend, as he turns all misery and sin into an opportunity for blessing: O felix cupla! This great hymn of praise is the pivot on which the Letter to the Romans turns, and St Paul then leads us into a profound consideration of human ethics and behaviour. Faced with the reality of God’s merciful action in our lives, how should we act? Listen to his language as he begins this section: ‘I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God…’ (12:1). Paul’s ‘therefore’ is meant seriously: act out of the mercy which you yourself have received. Paul’s ethics are a treatise on the practice of mercy.

As we begin the Year of St Paul, Alan Schreck assists us in our appreciation of the saints as the greatest educators.

The greatest teachers of the Catholic Church are her saints. True, many of them were not articulate or great preachers, and some were even illiterate. Nevertheless, they are recognised as ‘saints’ because their lives provide us with the clearest and the best instruction in what the Christian life is all about. And what is it all about? In a single word: Holiness, which means becoming like God in character and virtue. What does holiness look like? We see it most perfectly displayed in the Son of God incarnate (God among us in person, or literally ‘in the flesh’), Jesus Christ. But a nearly perfect reflection of holiness, the character and virtue of God himself, is seen in the saints. The saints teach us most fully what God intended us all to be and to become - truly God-like.

If we look at the ‘reflection’ of God in the saints, we don’t find just a single image or portrait, but a marvellous collage of images of God and his love as different as the sun and the moon, or as mountains and the ocean. There were saints who were kings and queens, and beggars; great intellectuals, and simple priests (like St. John Vianney) who couldn’t learn their Latin; girls and boys and octogenarians; world-traversing missionaries and mystics in their cloisters; bloodstained martyrs and ‘clowns’ of God (like St. Philip Neri). There were soldiers (from St. George to St. Joan), prophets and prophetesses, religious foundresses and mothers, servants of the poor and needy...yes, and even some who were teachers by profession. What they all have in common is a passionate love of God that grew in their souls and finally burst into full blossom. Marvellously, there is a saint for everybody - some saint whose life and experience will uniquely touch a particular person and open them more fully to God. The saints remind us of what we are all made for.

Writing from the first Catholic home of John Henry Cardinal Newman, who lived here at Maryvale Institute from 1846-1848, I am struck once again by the profound links between Newman, for whose beatification we continue to pray this year, and St Paul, whose life we celebrate in a particular way from June 29th, 2008 until June 29th, 2009. Both of them were, of course, ‘Men of Letters’; but much more than this, they are united by two great themes in their writings: the converting power of doctrine and the parallel converting power of personal influence.

Newman had a particular conviction concerning the vital role of doctrine in the Christian life. This conviction emerged from his own life experiences. In the Apologia he writes, ‘When I was fifteen (in the autumn of 1816) a great change of thought took place in me. I fell under the influences of a definite Creed, and received into my intellect impressions of dogma, which, through God’s mercy, have never been effaced or obscured.’ During his life, Newman had to fight against the ‘anti-dogmatic principle’ which characterized the evangelical movement of the time. But now he had discovered the converting impact of doctrine. Creeds and dogmas, he said, ‘live in the one idea they are designed to express’. Dogmas are alive; they are living, saving truths and they unite us to the One who alone has the power to save. The heart and the head belong together, and together they lead us to the One who is to be served faithfully with both.

St Paul, also, writes powerfully of the central doctrines of the Faith and of the living Christ dwelling in them. We who were once slaves to sin, he reminds his readers, are now ‘obedient from the heart’ to the rule of teaching, or doctrine, to which our lives have been committed (Rom 6:17). This teaching is folly to those who do not understand it and who are perishing; but to us, says St Paul, who are being saved, ‘it is the power of God’ (1 Cor 1:18). Paul contrasts what he calls ‘plausible words of wisdom’ with the ‘secret and hidden wisdom of God’, a wisdom based on revelation and taught to the Church by the Spirit. This latter wisdom is saving truth, the wisdom of revealed truth. It releases us from being ‘estranged and hostile in mind’ (Col 1:21), bringing us to a transformation and renewal of the mind (Rom 12:2).

The Son, therefore, came, sent by the Father. It was in Him, before the foundation of the world, that the Father chose us and predestined us to become adopted sons, for in Him it pleased the Father to re-establish all things. To carry out the will of the Father, Christ inaugurated the Kingdom of heaven on earth and revealed to us the mystery of that kingdom. By His obedience He brought about redemption. The Church, or, in other words, the kingdom of Christ now present in mystery, grows visibly through the power of God in the world.

“Si la vida es más dura, el amor también la hace más fuerte, y solo este amor, fundado en el sufrimiento, pueda cargar la Cruz de mi Señor, Jesucristo. El amor sin egoísmo, sin depender de sí mismo, pero prendiendo en la profundidad del corazón una sed ardiente de amar y de sufrir para todos los que están a nuestro alrededor: una sed que ni la mala fortuna, ni el desprecio pueda extinguir.

“Yo creo, oh Señor; pero aumenta mi fe…Corazón de Jesús, te amo; pero aumenta mi amor. Corazón de Jesús, confío en Ti; pero dale un mayor vigor a mi confianza. Corazón de Jesús, te entrego mi corazón; pero enciérralo en Ti para que nunca pueda ser separado de Ti. Corazón de Jesús, soy todo tuyo; pero cuida mi promesa para que yo pueda ponerla en práctica hasta con el sacrificio total de mi vida.” 1 - Padre Miguel Agustín Pro, SJ, escrito poco antes de su muerte.

El tesoro del alma

Una pregunta que a menudo me he hecho es, “Estaría dispuesta a morir por el Credo?” Es natural pensar que moriríamos por Jesucristo o por la Iglesia – bueno, por lo menos creo que es natural. Pero, ¿moriríamos por lo que creemos? ¿El Credo es para nosotros, como lo fue para San Ambrosio, “sin dudar, el tesoro de nuestra alma”? El Directorio general para la catequesis afirma,

“Al fundir su confesión con la de la Iglesia, el cristiano se incorpora a la misión de ésta: ser « sacramento universal de salvación » para la vida del mundo. El que proclama la profesión de fe asume compromisos que, no pocas veces, atraerán persecución. En la historia cristiana son los mártires los anunciadores y los testigos por excelencia.” (DGC 83)

'Acogemos el símbolo de esta fe nuestra que da la vida’ (CIC 197). 2

Pope Benedict XVI has declared that from June 28, 2008 to June 29, 2009 the Church will celebrate a year dedicated to St. Paul. In his homily during First Vespers on the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, 2007, the Holy Father stated, “The extraordinary apostolic results that he was able to achieve cannot, therefore, be attributed to brilliant rhetoric or refined apologetic and missionary strategies. The success of his apostolate depended above all on his personal involvement in proclaiming the Gospel with total dedication to Christ; a dedication that feared neither risk, difficulty nor persecution.”[1]

It is not without good reason that so many Vicars of Christ have taken inspiration from this saint. Pope John Paul II has also admired the work of St. Paul, and desired to imitate him:

…I would like my words…to set your hearts aflame, like the letters of St. Paul to his companions in the Gospel, Titus and Timothy… Yes, I wish to sow courage, hope and enthusiasm abundantly in the hearts of all those many diverse people who are in charge of religious instruction and training for life in keeping with the Gospel.[2]

Catechists should be especially eager to celebrate this special year of St. Paul. Josef Andreas Jungmann, a Jesuit scholar of the 20th century, articulated the importance of St. Paul for catechists. St. Paul, he asserted, epitomized the teaching methods used by the early Christian Church. Jungmann wrote, “[I]t is Paul who surpasses the other witnesses of the primitive Church in the power of expression…the predilection for seeing and depicting the Church, grace and salvation from the viewpoint of Christ.”