Franciscan at Home

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.

In this article, the President of Cor Unum provides keys for understanding the teaching of Pope Benedict XVI’s Encyclical, Deus caritas est, for catechesis on social justice. This article is extracted from a talk the Cardinal gave at the Maryvale Institute in Birmingham England on 8th April 2008.

Pope Benedict XVI’s first Encyclical, Deus caritas est (‘God is Love’), met with an unusually positive reception throughout the world. Newspapers and electronic media devoted extensive coverage and unreservedly affirmative comments to it. The Pope chose to place the central phrase of the New Testament Revelation at the centre of his message.

The Pontifical Council Cor Unum of which I am President is the Vatican office entrusted with the task of the realisation of the Pope’s diakonia. The fact that the Holy Father began his official papal doctrinal activity with the theme of charity has given our office a deeper consciousness of our mission. We wish to contribute to the dissemination of Deus caritas est; we want it to have a vast echo.

Yesterday, I addressed the Bishops of England and Wales on this very topic, and today I am grateful that Maryvale Institute, allows me to direct my comments more specifically to you, the Faculty and students of this Institute, dedicated to formation in evangelisation, catechesis, Catholic theology and philosophy both in this country and abroad. I am especially pleased to know that a particular emphasis of your Institute is to study the teachings of the Popes, most notably their Encyclicals, among which must number Pope Benedict’s Deus caritas est. It is also good to see so many priests and the seminarians studying at the Archdiocese of Birmingham’s Oscott College. What a privilege it is for me to deliver this lecture in the place once lived in by Cardinal Newman, the great prophet and advocate of ‘an intelligent and well-instructed laity’!

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).

In this final article, introducing Veritatis Splendor, Alan Schreck explains how John Paul II clarified Catholic teaching in relation to other moral positions.

A controversial topic that Pope John Paul II addresses in Chapter 2 is the modern theological concept of ‘fundamental choice’ or ‘fundamental option’. The Biblical basis for this notion is that the ‘obedience of faith’ (cf. Rom 16:26) by which a person entrusts his whole self to God (cf. Vatican II, DV 5; VS 66). In the Old Testament, Israel’s fundamental decision is whom they will obey or serve. ‘Choose this day’, Joshua urges the people, ‘whom you will serve!’ (Joshua 24:15). ‘The morality of the New Covenant is similarly dominated by the fundamental call of Jesus to follow him, ‘the invitation he gives to the young man’ (VS 66; Mt 19:21). We have the freedom to respond to that call to serve the Lord, but as St. Paul warns, ‘do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh’ (Gal 5:13).

Gerard Boylan examines examples of catechisms from both pre-Reformation and post-Reformation periods and finds them more varied than might be expected.

Effective catechesis, as we know, takes account not only of the content of the message to be handed on, but also of the personal circumstances of those being instructed, the situation of the national Church, and a host of cultural factors. Effective catechesis increases knowledge and understanding and thereby strengthens a person’s commitment to an essential assent already given, and this more formal instruction is internalised, and becomes an experienced truth in the circumstances life, when it is reinforced by the habit of prayer, by the example of other Christians whose lives encourage us, by our taking seriously participation in the Mass and the sacraments, by the practice of virtue and the avoidance of evil, by spiritual reading—in other words, by what the General Directory for Catechesis calls ‘on-going formation’ of many kinds.

St Mary’s College, Oscott, the seminary in north Birmingham, in England, is home to a significant Recusant and rare books collection of some 15,000 printed books and pamphlets. Among them are catechetical works dating from the late fifteenth to the early nineteenth centuries. They reflect the changing circumstances of their readers and the life of the Catholic Church in England over a period of some 350 years. Some of them correspond to the accepted definition of a catechism - a summary of principles, often in a question-and-answer format. But the majority are more extensive works, which contain not only a summary of Catholic doctrine, but in addition address the need for the ‘on-going formation’ that lay people needed in circumstances which were often inimical to the practice of their faith.

It is a work of God to convert a father to the gift and task of his fatherhood; indeed, we live in a society in which many fathers have abandoned fatherhood. It is even possible that fatherhood is more hidden than motherhood and more susceptible, in a way, to general neglect; nonetheless, like all naturally good gifts, it responds to appreciation, cultivation and instruction. I am sure, however, that fatherhood is from the very root of personhood and needs the grace of God to flourish. Just as God has given me seven children, plus two in heaven and one to be born in the next month, so I need God to help me to adapt to the varieties of personality and the everyday dynamics of family life. The transformation of my-ever shrinking time for ‘me’ into the treasurable time for ‘my family’ is at the heart of God’s action in my life. Sharing, then, what God is doing with me as a father, is a way of fanning into life one of the gifts of God which has been severely frostbitten.

If it is simple to say that I am discovering some of the dimensions of the ‘Father’ as catechist, it is not so simple sustaining the simplicity of this in the reality of daily life. What I want to pass on to my children is a beautiful wonder at the mystery which permeates each person’s life, beginning as it does with Creation and the act of God at the foundation of each person’s life. What I am in danger of doing is passing on a dreadful gloom in front of the practicalities of life: the clearing up, the clearing out of the house in time for school, the rushed return journey and the endless unfinished things that express the impossibility of fulfilling my perfectionist tendencies. Not to mention the dreadful fears that arise in my heart from what I read in the papers.

I was sitting about 20 feet from the steps going up to St. Peter’s Basilica on April 19, 2005, when the smoke went up from the stack of the Sistine Chapel. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger had been elected as the 264th Successor of St. Peter. My heart raced with anticipation to see my new Holy Father. One could see in his eyes humility, and perhaps a bit of disbelief, that Almighty God had chosen him to lead his family on earth. God called Abraham to do great things when he was 75 years old. Cardinal Ratzinger turned 78 years old three days before he was elected as Pope Benedict XVI.

I eagerly awaited Pope Benedict’s first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, a quote from 1 John 4:16 which means ‘God is Love.’ This would be the first dogmatic treatise on love in the history of the Church. Since then, the more I have taught from, and reflected upon, this encyclical the more I have realized that it is a model of catechesis. Pope Benedict takes into account all of the important aspects of catechesis.

The initial proclamation of the Gospel message has as its aim to illicit an initial moment of conversion and faith. What about catechesis?

‘The specific character of catechesis, as distinct from the initial conversion-bringing proclamation of the Gospel, has the twofold objective of maturing the initial faith and of educating the true disciple of Christ by means of a deeper and more systematic knowledge of the person and the message of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ (Catechesi Tradendae 19)

In his encyclical, Pope Benedict is giving us a catechesis on love, in both its both human and divine aspects, but he is also aware that, in catechetical practice, one must take account of the fact that ‘the initial evangelization has often not taken place.’ (CT 19) He therefore tells us, ‘I wish to emphasize some basic elements, so as to call forth in the world renewed energy and commitment in the human response to God's love.’ (Deus Caritas Est 1)

Alan Schreck helps us to see the vital importance of Veritatis Splendor, a ground-breaking document of John Paul II.

In this encyclical letter, John Paul II notes that ‘This is the first time, in fact, that the Magisterium of the Church has set forth in detail the fundamental elements of this teaching [regarding morality], and presented the principles for the pastoral discernment…’ (VS 115). Veritatis Splendor is, as we shall see, a ground-breaking document. It requires careful study, and its content is crucial for Catholics today to appropriate—especially the objective truth and unchanging nature of God’s moral law in the face of increasing moral relativism. In order to do justice to this encyclical we are treating it in three parts, over the next three issues.

The title of the encyclical tells us that the subject with which we are dealing is that of truth. Human beings are made for truth. They burn with an innate desire to know the truth. Jesus Christ, of course, is the truth (Jn 14:6), ‘the decisive answer to every one of man’s questions, his religious and moral questions in particular’ (VS 2.2). The role of the Church, particularly her pastors, is therefore to proclaim and teach God’s truth as revealed by Jesus and the Holy Spirit. And what the Church can teach about morality is particularly important because ‘it is precisely on the path of the moral life that the way of salvation is open to all’ (VS 3.2), even to those who through no fault of their own, do not yet know or believe in Jesus Christ as the Lord and the Truth.

The New Testament reports Jesus and the apostles performing many miracles of healing and exercising extraordinary powers over nature. There are similar claims about healing made by Christians today. What can an apologetics regarding miracles look like?
Things in the natural world behave in general in regular and predictable ways. If you throw a book out of a window it will fall to the ground; if you set light to a tree, and it burns away, it will become black and charred; if a man's heart stops beating for a few hours and he is by other normal criteria dead, he will not suddenly come to life again. And so on. For the last five hundred years, scientists have expressed this evident truth by saying that the world is governed by laws of nature which determine how things in it behave.

The Christian believes that the laws of nature operate because God makes them operate. (The reasons for believing this will be discussed later in the series). God has good reasons for making things behave like this, in regular and predictable ways. He is generous and wishes us to have substantial control of our own destiny, and substantial control over the natural world, to make it the way we want. Only if things behave in accord with natural laws can we make a difference to the world at other times and places by moving our bodies at this time and place. And only if laws operate in simple enough ways for us to understand can we utilize their operation.

For example, it is because natural laws make planted seeds grow into vegetables that we can grow vegetables by planting seeds, and so choose whether or not to grow vegetables. If the world was chaotic or operated on principles too difficult for us to understand, we could not control it.

On Feb. 22 2007, the Feast of the Chair of Peter, our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, published his post-synodal apostolic exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis (On the Eucharist as the Source and Summit of the Church’s Life and Mission). In no. 64 of this apostolic exhortation Pope Benedict XVI takes up the topic of the character of ongoing catechesis on the Eucharist to enable the deeply interior dispositions required for a fruitful participation in the Holy Eucharist. It addresses what is required for a personal eucharistic piety which is deep and constant. This is a topic which has suffered from some neglect during the first decades of the liturgical reforms that followed upon the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council.