Franciscan at Home

This month of October marks the 30th Anniversary of Pope John Paul’s great letter to the Church on catechesis, Catechesi Tradendae. It was this letter that describes Mary as ‘the mother and model of catechists’ Here Gary Sullivan reflects on Mary’s life as a catechetical journey.

She never planned a lesson or used a grade book. Chalkboards had yet to be invented, not to mention whiteboards. She never clicked a power point or used an overhead; but Our Lady revolutionized catechetical instruction. By employing the most essential catechetical tools Mary was way ahead of her time. She is the primordial catechist. In her example we find the marrow of catechesis. What she models to the modern catechist is the example of the correct posture which yields the most fruit. No one can argue with the results we find in her prize student.

We ponder a Marian curriculum of prayer provided for us in Luke’s Gospel and expounded in the Catechism.

The Catechism’s treatment of prayer in its fourth pillar is, in a number of ways, a very Marian catechesis. And that is perfectly natural, given the Catechism’s penchant for laying great stress upon the economy of salvation, which Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, the Catechism’s general editor, has called its leitmotif. [i] Mary is the great ponderer of the economy of salvation, as Luke makes clear in his Gospel. Twice in chapter 2, once after the shepherds adore the new-born Christ and again after Mary and Joseph find him in the Temple, Luke tells us that Mary ‘kept’ these events in her heart. After the first instance, at verse 19, he adds the words, ‘pondering them in her heart.’

The words themselves are worth pondering for a moment. At verse 19 the word translated ‘kept’ is in the Greek syntereo, which means ‘to keep closely together,’ ‘to conserve or to remember.’ At verse 51 the same translation, ‘kept’ is used for the related word diatereo, which means ‘to watch’ or ‘to observe strictly.’ The word ‘ponder’ is the Greek symballo, meaning ‘to throw together.’ That might not seem to mean much, until one notes that it has the same root as the word symbolon, which is the ancient label given to our Creed, or what we sometimes call in English ‘the symbol of the faith.’

Why would Luke be inspired by the Holy Spirit to tell us that Mary ‘watched’ and ‘remembered’ these events surrounding the birth and childhood of Our Lord, ‘pondering them’ [throwing them together] ‘in her heart?’ At paragraph 2599 the Catechism gives us a hint of an answer. There we are told that ‘The Son of God who became Son of the Virgin learned to pray in his human heart. He learns to pray from his mother, who kept all the great things the Almighty had done and treasured them in her heart.’ She was a Jewish mother and so she prayed, as did all of her people, out of the fund of her memories of God’s great works on behalf of His people. If Jesus Himself learns to pray from Mary, shouldn’t we, too? And so, we could conclude, that what Luke supplies for us, in the two brief verses just cited, are the rudiments of a Marian curriculum of prayer. And the Catechism echoes that in several ways in its pillar on prayer. But to fully appreciate the Marian quality of its catechesis, we first have to get a little fuller background.

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

The whole body is the tool and the expression of the soul. The soul does not merely dwell in the body, as if it dwelt in a house, but it lives and works in every member and every fibre. It speaks in every line, and form, and movement of the body. But in a very special way the face and the hand are the tool and the mirror of the soul.

This is obvious with regard to the face. But watch anyone – yourself – and see how a movement of temper, of joy, of astonishment, of expectation is revealed by the hand. How often a quick raising, or a slight twitch of the hand says more even than a spoken word. It appears sometimes as if a spoken word were almost coarse compared with the delicate language of the hand, which tells so much.

After the face, the hand is the most spiritual part of the body. It is truly firm and strong, as the tool for work, as the weapon for attack or defence; but it is very delicately formed, with many joints, flexible and penetrated with sensitive nerves of feeling. It is truly a machine through which man can reveal his soul. By the hand we welcome the stranger and join souls when we join hands – with this act we express trust, joy, agreement, sympathy.

In the last issue of The Sower Fr. Cash wrote about the essential personal encounter with Jesus Christ necessary for catechists to be authentic witnesses to the transforming grace that Jesus wants to share with all the baptized. In this article he explains the obstacles that can hinder growth in that transforming grace.

Faith is not only a way of knowing, but is a gift of the Holy Spirit that transforms us as human beings. We come into a deep personal experience of the knowledge of Jesus Christ. And that faith transforms our lives. I know him, and because he has forgiven my sins, my life is transformed, just as any Christian’s life is transformed through the all-surpassing knowledge of Christ. So why doesn’t every Christian have this experience?

In 1927, the great theologian Romano Guardini wrote his introduction to a short series of meditations which he collected under the title, Sacred Signs. He explained the purpose of these ‘little essays’ as ‘intended to help in opening the door to the liturgical world’. They are not intended as catechesis in the usual sense; they are not explanations of the meaning of the signs we use in liturgy, nor are they descriptions of how they came to be used in the liturgy. Rather they are are simple aids to helping us ‘to read in outer form the inner state: to read from the body what is in the soul; to read from the earthly process what is spiritual and hidden.’ These are the living signs, objects and actions through which we can begin to grasp the invisible grace at work in the liturgy. ‘The liturgy is a world of sacred and hidden events which have taken visible shape – it is sacramental.’

This, Guardini says, in ‘liturgical education’ – to provide a ‘living vision’ of the sacred in and through these signs. ‘Seeing and doing are the groundwork’, he claims, on which teaching can most properly be founded. We can then illustrate with clear doctrine and accompany our explanations with a historical perspective. But first of all, let us try to give something of the vision of the sacred.

The entries in the short book tell us what he means: ‘The Hand’, ‘Kneeling’, ‘’Walking’, ‘Standing’, ‘Striking the Breast’ – simple and basic actions which accompany all liturgy. And then the objects we see around us – ‘The Steps’, ‘The Door’, ‘The Candle’, and so on. The Sower will be presenting a selection from this beautiful and compelling book in its forthcoming issues, as a further aid to catechists for use in their liturgical education and catechesis, hoping both to inspire and to inform.

Durante muchos años, me preguntaba por qué hablábamos de ser salvados por la Pasión de Nuestro Señor. Me parecía tan raro decir eso. Se me hacía más fácil comprender cómo los milagros y sanaciones, y la enseñanza divina de Jesús podrían ser importantes para nuestra salvación. Sus milagros nos revelan su Divinidad y nos ayudan a hacer un acto de fe en El, mientras sus enseñanzas nos guían en el camino hacia el Cielo. Y sabemos, por supuesto, que es efectivamente toda la vida de Cristo – su Encarnación, Nacimiento, Ministerio, Muerte y Resurrección – que nos salva. Sin embargo, ¿por qué será que hablamos de su Pasión como enfoque y núcleo de esta obra redentora?

Inicialmente lo que me ayudó a comprender algo de esto fue a través de un libro descomunal, The Stature of Waiting (La estatura de la espera) de W.H. Hanstone. El autor se había interesado en un detalle insólito de los Evangelios: el hecho que la palabra griega para describir la actuación de Judas no era la palabra ordinaria para expresar una traición, sino una palabra distintiva, ‘paradidomi’, que significa ‘entregar’. De las treinta y tres ocasiones en que se menciona su acción, solo una vez se refiere a Judas como traidor de parte de uno de los Evangelistas. La consistencia con la que se utiliza el verbo ‘entregar’ nos señala lo central e importante que es este concepto. ‘El fue entregado’ marca claramente el inicio de la Pasión.

While I am indeed grateful for Catholics United for the Faith and for Vatican II’s summons of the laity to their active apostolate in the Church and the world, it might be helpful to recall what John Paul II went on to write in his Apostolic Exhortation about “temptations” faced by the laity after Vatican II (#2),

“At the same time… the post-conciliar path of the lay faithful has not been without its difficulties and dangers. In particular, two temptations can be cited which they have not always known how to avoid: the temptation of being so strongly interested in Church services and tasks that some fail to become actively engaged in their responsibilities in the professional, social, cultural and political world; and the temptation of legitimizing the unwarranted separation of faith from life, that is a separation of the Gospel’s acceptance from the actual living of the Gospel in various situations in the world.”

Although John Paul II made these remarks some years ago, do we not still see these temptations today? If these temptations are not faced squarely, if the laity fail to engage in the battle within of conforming their daily lives with the truth and charity of the Gospel, holiness will not happen. Let’s look a little closer at the battle each temptation poses.

For many years, I used to wonder why we speak of being saved by the Passion of Our Lord. It seemed an odd thing to say. I could more easily see how the miracles and healings, and the divine teaching of Jesus, might be important for our salvation. His miracles reveal his divinity to us and help us to make an act of faith in him, while his teachings guide us on the path to heaven. And we know, of course, that it is indeed the whole of Christ’s life – his Incarnation, birth, ministry, death and resurrection – that saves us. Still, why is it that we speak of his Passion as the focus and centre of this saving work?

I was initially helped to understand something of this through reading a remarkable book, The Stature of Waiting by W.H.Vanstone. The author had become interested in a strange detail in the Gospels: the fact that the Greek word used to describe Judas’ act was not the usual word for betrayal, but a distinctive word, ‘paradidomi’, meaning ‘to hand over’. Of thirty-three occasions when Judas’ deed is mentioned, only once does a Gospel writer refer to Judas as a ‘traitor’. The consistency with which the verb ‘handed over’ is used points us to the centrality and to the importance of this concept. ‘He was handed over’ clearly marks the beginning of the Passion.

The lady sitting next to me at one of our parish sessions for adults clearly felt comfortable talking about her own Christian faith. She leaned over to me. ‘I was baptised a Catholic,’ she confided, ‘but I left the Church after some bad experiences. I never really stopped believing in God, and a couple of years ago I started going to a house church. I really learned what grace is there – something I never learned in the Catholic Church. Still, I’ve come back to the Church now…’
On the Spot highlights some of the complex positions, questions and comments experienced by catechists, teachers and parents. It outlines 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. I Peter 3:15).

Amette Ley looks at how we teach the Catholic understanding of the life of grace.

At that point the chatting groups were called to order and I never heard why she had moved from her house church back to our parish. The route from being a cradle Catholic, to finding a new sense of one’s faith through a Protestant denomination, and then returning to the Catholic Church, is not unusual, of course. But the whole experience of this lady seemed to me a good illustration of the confusion in many minds of how the Church understands the life of grace, and how we go about possessing it. Bringing people to understand this is, of course, at the very core of what catechesis must achieve.

Mariette Ulrich wonders whether she’ll be able to do anything about her lack of interest in television this Lent. The moral of this story highlights the absurdity of our addiction to television and our poor excuses for lack of addiction to the Word. Wouldn't it be great if the reality was reverse?

Somehow our faults and failings seem more glaring during Lent; one of mine is that I spend too much time reading Scripture and too little time watching television. I know that even fifteen or twenty minutes of TV a day would be better than nothing at all, but most days, I just don't get around to it. I realize there are many educational, informative, and uplifting programs on television, but even so, I tend to go for weeks at a time without so much as picking up my remote control. Isn't it pathetic when you have to dust it off before using it?

I really ought to know the networks and channels from memory, and be able to find a given program at the right time, but I must admit I'm deficient in this area. Rather than flip indecisive­ly through the listings, I usually give up and leave the set turned off. To be perfectly honest, I get a little annoyed with those TV thumpers who can quote channel, program, and time‑slot at the drop of a hat. I feel intimidated by their ability, and I'd never dare debate television with them; they know their stuff too well.

Besides a lack of time (being a very busy mother), part of my problem is that I don't know where to begin: do I start watching TV at dawn and plow through every commercial, show, and newscast, or do I simply select programs here and there? ‘Watching it all’ seems a huge task.