Franciscan at Home

Over the next few issues of The Catechetical Review, I will be presenting three articles on the role of the catechist: from the perspectives of a parent, a teacher in a Catholic school, and a parish volunteer. I have fulfilled all of these roles myself, but may I say at the outset that none of them has been as personally important to me as the one conferred by the vocation of marriage—that of husband and father, with responsibility for my family. This is where I will begin.

In 1981, Pope John Paul II issued Familiaris Consortio. I remember this event as clearly as if it were yesterday because it spoke directly into our circumstances. My wife, Anne, and I were anticipating the birth of our first child. One sentence stood out and its impact has never left me: “Their [the parents’] role as educators is so decisive that scarcely anything can compensate for their failure in it” (36). A few years earlier, the same pope had also pointed out that “… parents themselves profit from the effort that this demands of them, for in a catechetical dialogue of this sort each individual both receives and gives.”[i] He was telling us that if we put our efforts into this task, we would gain as much as our children.
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John Paul II’s emphasis on “the church of the home” picked up on a theme from VaticanII. The success of the Church’s educational efforts in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had obscured the role of parents as catechists. Yet the family’s role in passing on the knowledge of God was as ancient as humanity itself. This pattern is so consistent through the Old Testament that I will not multiply examples—a few will suffice. The covenant God offered to Abraham implied an ongoing relationship with his family through the generations; his household had to be a place of instruction, prayer, and worship for the continuation of the covenant. This was reiterated in the Law of Moses: “and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise (Deut 6:7). When the new covenant was offered through Christ, the importance of the family was in no way diminished. From the earliest days of Christianity, the family was seen as the gathering place for worship and prayer, and the favored place for catechetical instruction. In Christ, spouses participate in the plan of God, imaging in their marriage Christ’s union with his bride, the Church.

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When I entered the Catholic Church, I lost my “job” of 13 years as a Pentecostal pastor and had to look for other employment. The only available interview was at a Nissan dealership. In the interview, the General Sales Manager (GSM) said they were short staffed and I could have the job if I was willing to train myself by making use of their training videos. I was desperate for a job and said yes! I had no idea what I was in for.

I eagerly arrived for my first day at work and was given a shared desk with a phone and shown all the brochures for the different models of cars. After reviewing the brochures, I went to the assistant manager and asked to see the training videos. He looked at me with indifference. He said the GSM was off for the day and the videos were locked in his office.

I asked, “Well, if I can’t watch the videos, what should I do?” At that question, he became agitated. He looked at me and said, “Why do you need them? Sell me a car!” I stared back sheepishly, in silence. He continued, “Come on. How hard can it be? Sell me a car. Right now.” I uttered a few “ums” and he gave a few more commands on how I should be able to just “know” how to sell him a car. I meandered back to my desk and read brochures for the rest of the day.

Two days later, I realized I had no price sheet and didn’t know the cost of the cars. I tentatively approached the assistant manager again and asked him how to find the cost of the cars. Once again, he became agitated, looked at me and said, “Do I need to do everything for you? You gotta get out on the lot and look at the prices on each car. You gotta get to know the cars and their features.” I thought to myself, “You’ve got to be kidding me. There is no price sheet? There is no book that contains all the features with pricing options and my only way to knowledge is to wander the lot and look at sticker prices?”

As it turns out, there was a book with all the information that I needed, but they didn’t give me one. Eventually the other salesmen had mercy on me and began to show me the ropes—management never did.

I was thrown into an environment and expected to have a particular outcome without the requisite training. Instead of an opportunity for apprenticeship, I landed in a dealership of dysfunction. Many times, those who prepare to become Catholic experience the same thing. RCIA is often good at telling people what they need to do, when it should be showing people how to do it. The Church says that RCIA should be an “apprenticeship in the whole Christian life” (General Directory for Catechesis, 63; Ad Gentes, 14). So, what does an apprenticeship look like?

One of the major temptations of being a leader in the RCIA process is to overlook the significance and power of the Period of Purification and Enlightenment. It is such a busy time in the process—organizing the scrutinies, working on all of the planning for the Easter Vigil, and just working through the exhaustion that comes after journeying through a long process. But it is important for us to remember that this period is one that is filled with great grace and great opportunity for the elect to grow significantly in their relationship with Christ.
A Major Catechetical Shift

One big challenge that faces us in this period is the catechetical aspect. When we do a closer examination of what the Church calls for in this period, we find that not only does Purification and Enlightenment bring about a major catechetical shift from the kind of catechesis presented in the catechumenate, but that catechesis also plays a pivotal role in bringing the elect and candidates into a much deeper knowledge of and more intense relationship with Christ.

Our first clue of this catechetical shift is in the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults itself, which tells us that Purification and Enlightenment is “a period of more intense spiritual preparation, consisting more in interior reflection than in catechetical instruction to purify the minds and hearts of the elect as they search their consciences and do penance” (139). We see here that the complete and systematic catechetical instruction that we had been doing in the catechumenate should have already been completed by the time of the Rite of Election. Now, catechesis shifts in its focus: to purify the minds and hearts of the elect and facilitate a time of penance and purification, in other words, to help them come to a real understanding of their sinfulness and their need for ongoing conversion and repentance.

However, this is only half of the picture of the kind of catechesis we should be doing in this period. The Rite continues, “This period is intended as well to enlighten the minds and hearts of the elect with a deeper knowledge of Christ the Savior.” Now we have the complete picture of what the Church is asking us to do in our catechesis in this period. On the one hand, the elect are called to intense purification—to come to grips with their sin and their desperate need of salvation and grace. On the other hand, their minds need to be enlightened with a deep and personal knowledge of and intimacy with Christ who is their Savior.

During the Jubilee Year of Mercy, Pope Francis gave us much to think about, pray about, and work on. He also gave us an opportunity to gain a special plenary indulgence, by passing through a designated Holy Door and performing certain holy acts with devotion. What a great grace!

In order to teach about indulgences, we need to be able to explain them, which can be challenging.

The Church has been entrusted with the fullness of the truth, God’s final self-revelation in Jesus Christ, who is the “image of the invisible Father” and in whose image each human person is created. Because we know Jesus Christ, we can see and understand the truth about man. For this reason, the Catholic Church has the only adequate anthropology, meaning that she possesses a true and complete understanding of the human person.

To an increasingly secular culture this sounds like anti-cultural blasphemy. Why? To answer that question, let’s look at the radically different ideas about reality from which our culture and our Church begin the project of understanding what it is to be human.
A Fundamental Difference

To understand the growing gap between Catholic and secular anthropology we have to recognize that each grows organically from one of two mutually exclusive concepts of the ultimate reality—that reality which explains the existence of everything else.

For Catholics the ultimate reality is the eternal Blessed Trinity, who created the universe and all it contains from nothing, by a free act of infinite power and love. For modern secularists, the ultimate reality is matter, the revealingly named “God Particle” from which all other particles and composites are made.

These two paradigms are utterly incompatible.

The classical Judeo-Christian worldview flows from the fact that we understand creation has a Creator and that the Creator has a purpose and intention for his creation, most especially human beings, whom he made in his image and likeness to share in his own blessed life.

The modern secularist worldview flows from the false idea that only matter exists, tumbling through the void of time and space, combining and recombining according to the immovable laws of physics in an unending, purposeless reshuffling of atoms.

On that view, everything spiritual (God, souls, mind, will, etc.) is simply an illusion created by the exhaust of biomechanical processes. This philosophy is called Materialism. It is not true, but it is dangerous and has deeply influenced our culture.

Let’s examine more closely how all this colors our view of man.

Every January we enter back into ordinary time with the baptism of Jesus at the Jordan by John the Baptist. As John’s father Zachariah prophesied at his birth, John is the “Precursor” who “will go before the Lord to prepare his way” (cf. Lk 1:76).

This transition to ordinary time provides a rich context for a fresh reflection on our Christian mission to “prepare the way of the Lord.” In this article, we’ll look at several philosophical proofs of God’s existence and then see how everyday acts can prepare the mind and heart for faith. In order to enter into this topic, it will help to begin with a few thoughts about human reason.

The purpose of this article is to answer the title-question as succinctly as possible from within the framework of the Second Vatican Council and subsequent papal interpretation by Pope St. John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor (VS). First we must understand two terms in order to more fully grasp the meaning of conscience and how it operates in life, namely, the terms “freedom” and “truth.”

Truth That Sets Us Free

Freedom and truth are uniquely tethered to one another in the Gospel of John where Jesus says, “If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (8:31-32). The first thing to note is that truth here is not a mere concept, but a person: the second Person of the Blessed Trinity Incarnate. Truth here is not an ideology; it is neither propaganda, nor can it be reduced to a set of theological propositions. The fullness of truth is a Person, Jesus Christ, the Word Incarnate, who died and rose again. The fathers of the Second Vatican Council proclaimed as much in Dei Verbum (no. 4) in their treatment of Revelation, taking their cue from the First Letter of John who spoke of “the Word of life – for the life was made visible; we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was made visible to us” (1:1-2).

The Council fathers did not intend to divorce Catholic doctrine (truth) from the Person of Christ (the fullness of truth) in their account of Revelation. Rather, they intended to teach something more profound about truth, namely, its power to summon, call, beckon, entreat, instruct, and even lay claims to our freedom. Truth shines like light in the darkness (Jn 1:5), similar to what St. Paul taught when he wrote: “For God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to bring to light the knowledge of the glory of God on the face of Christ” (2 Cor 4:6). There is splendor in truth whereby we can legitimately speak of being addressed by veritatis splendor. Jesus made this clear before Pilate when he said: “For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice” (Jn 18:37).[i]

In coming to know this truth, which is to say, by remaining in Christ, the Light of the World (Jn 8:12), we are set free. We are freed primarily for love, since there can be no love without freedom; and freedom for the purposes of this article is defined as: self-possession through realization of the good. If love is a ready self-donation or laying down one’s life for one’s friends (Jn 15:13), then one obstacle to love surely includes being insufficiently self-possessed as to render an authentic gift of oneself more difficult; there’s “no one” to give. Being set free in further “finding oneself” through realization of the good, however, means that the abuse of freedom is possible as well, such that evil follows. In the experience of evil, we do not so much give ourselves as throw ourselves away, thereby becoming “lost” (Lk 15). Such evil actions steadily lead to lesser degrees of freedom as we throw ourselves away instead of preparing the gift in and through greater self-possession. Greater self-possession is another way of conceiving the truth that in giving ourselves, we find ourselves (Gaudium et Spes [GS] no. 24). This was why Jesus counseled us: “Do not give what is holy to dogs, or throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot, and turn and tear you to pieces” (Mt 7:6). Evil is what evil does, ending by “tearing you to pieces,” stealing “you” away along with your self-possession and freedom by trampling them underfoot. This is a distinctive way of “losing oneself” that is pleasing neither to God nor to Jesus Christ whom he sent.

“Who am I? 24601!!”

Nearly four decades ago, Pope John Paul II posed some prophetic questions in Catechesi Tradendae. These questions are directed both to the entire universal Church and to all local churches: “How are we to reveal Jesus Christ, God made man, to this multitude of children and young people, reveal Him not just in the fascination of a first fleeting encounter but through an acquaintance, growing deeper and clearer daily, with Him, His message, the plan of God that He has revealed, the call He addresses to each person, and the kingdom that He wishes to establish in this world with the "little flock"?[i] These questions are as relevant today as when the pope first raised them. Indeed, preachers, teachers, and those who bear witness to the faith reveal Jesus Christ to the multitude of young people. In different places and in various ways religious educators are developing new ways of reaching out to young people through a language and medium that they can understand, but there is still much to be done. Even though the modern world provides a variety of communication media, many parishes continue to employ only traditional methods of transmitting the faith. The Need for Communication Technology Certainly these traditional instructional methods still have their place, but in catechesis we do more than simply pass on and memorize information. The instruction we aim for is one that leads to ongoing conversion and to an intimate relationship with Christ. While Jesus engaged in direct traditional instruction, he also made use of oral media such as parables, stories, and proverbs to help his listeners relate to and internalize the lessons he taught. Baraka Ngussa asserts that “Jesus, the great teacher taught using media resources that could facilitate effective learning to his audiences. He used such media resources as fish, fig tree, nature, etc.”[ii] Jesus knew the power of stories and that stories draw the attention of people and are easier to remember than abstract theological postulations. Jesus’ teaching had the end goal of leading people to the Father, not creating theologians. He often chided the scholars of his time for missing the “big picture” of salvation. Today’s teachers and preachers can make use of the best teaching practices available, just as Jesus made use of the teaching styles available in his days. As far back as 1950, Marshall McLuhan spoke prophetically to a group of educators on the “Electronic Effects of the New Media.” He said many teachers would end up as displaced persons if they were not able to key into the fast changing digital world.[iii] Digital instructional media can effectively complement traditional methods of instruction. When faith lessons are enhanced with audio-visual media the young people born into a digital culture can easily understand the media language. Catechesi Tradendae advises that “Catechetical activity should be able to be carried out in favorable circumstances of time and place, and should have access to the mass media and suitable equipment…seeking out and putting into operation new methods and new prospects for catechetical instruction.”[iv] One wonders why the use of multimedia in faith formation is not more widespread, even in those parishes that have the means to do so. One reason is that many parishes rely on volunteer catechists, who have generously accepted that call to teach but are nonetheless in need of basic training on managing a classroom, preparing a lesson plan, and many times default to simply using the textbook. While a good amount of time is spent addressing these issues in catechist training, it would also help to address some of the underpinning learning theories, as well as their complementing multimedia techniques, to give them an in-depth understanding of current teaching methods.