Franciscan at Home

At a regional bishop’s meeting that i recently attended, an animated dialogue took place regarding different catechetical approaches currently employed in our Catholic schools. The discussion was wide ranging, but several bishops lamented the all-too-common absence of any treatment of the “fear of the Lord.” It appears that many texts avoid all but a passing reference to it. What also became apparent is that, in numerous cases, the reason for its exclusion is that many teachers and catechists simply don’t understand it themselves! Many intentionally omit it in order to protect people, especially children, from what they judge to be a punitive focus that is out of keeping with modern religious sensibilities. The teaching is thought to be inherently Jansenist, and they fear its effect on children and catechumens. This is a tragedy, as nothing could be further from the truth.

Fear of the Lord is a critically important disposition of a person toward God. It acknowledges the infinite glory and majesty of the Supreme Being, the One Creator God who effortlessly sustains all that he has created in being. He is mysterious beyond comprehension, an all-consuming fire, at once terrible in power and fascinating beyond imagination. As the Catechism affirms, “we firmly believe and confess without reservation that there is only one true God, eternal infinite (immensus) and unchangeable, incomprehensible, almighty and ineffable, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; three persons indeed, but one essence, substance or nature entirely simple” (202) and one “infinitely above everything that we can understand or say” (206).

To truly grasp the immense mystery of God’s infinite splendor and grandeur is to be amazed. It is to be filled with deep religious awe. God is discovered as the numinous, omnipresent presence to which every creature owes its existence and to whom they must answer. The Catechism affirms that, when faced with God’s presence, humans discover their own insignificance and recognize God’s holiness (see 208). This is, of course, absolutely true and profoundly important. But it is also where the confusion begins.

In the summer of 2002, I had a health crisis, and left a community where I had been discerning a vocation to consecrated life. Feeling alone, and at a loss as to how to move forward, I went home to my parents to recover. About a year later, my mother developed ALS, and after eight months in hospice care, went home to Jesus. I was still in poor health, without work, and grieving. I could not foresee how the Lord would come to my aid. Then my sister invited me to come to Michigan to help her homeschool her seven children, to a town and parish where, she claimed, the Catholic community was amazing. I had been in many places where I’d experienced rich community and was a little skeptical. But I felt deep peace and even certainty that this was the right next step—at least for a little while.

Six months after I arrived in my sister’s town, some new friends asked me how I liked being there. I answered: “I’d like to be buried here.” I was not being morbid. Rather, after spending several years in Europe, Washington DC, and Canada, I’d at last found a place to settle, to rest in, to belong.

As I cared for and instructed my three very young nieces and nephew, my soul began to come to life again and let go of grief. Through my sister and her friends, I found myself adopted into a vibrant group of Catholic families, most of whom homeschooled. The parents were serious about living their faith and forming their children in it. I looked forward to the weekly mom’s coffee and play group, and soon I was “Aunt Liz” to a host of children.

One day not long after I’d arrived in Michigan, I stayed to pray after daily Mass at the parish, and the grief over my recent losses surfaced. Crying, I was surprised to see a woman I did not know tap me on the shoulder, asking if she could pray with me. I said yes, and that was the beginning of a beautiful Christian friendship. It was also my introduction to a community where praying with others was a normal occurrence. In those early days, I took advantage of all kinds of opportunities for healing prayer, basking in the love and consolation I received.

Because there was no space for me in my sister’s house, I was invited to live with a family from the parish who lived down the street. They became fast friends. The father of the family enlisted my service on the evangelization committee at the parish. We promoted and facilitated new small groups, and soon I was meeting folks of all ages from all walks of life and welcoming them into the community of which I was still a new member.

The more people I met, the more I was amazed by the witness of faith. Funerals at the parish were powerful experiences of hope, and I left them inspired and eager to run the race well. One image in particular remains emblazoned in my memory. It was the memorial Mass for the adult son of a couple who had already lost their other son. During the opening hymn, the father stood in the front row of the church with his hands raised, praising God with full voice. Tears streamed down his cheeks, and yet, his faith in God’s goodness and mercy impelled him to give thanks even in the midst of heartache.

When my wife and I were younger, we would occasionally talk about Family Missions Company. We were fascinated by their model of sending young families to underserved parts of the globe to spread the message of Christ. It is something that we both would have loved to do. However, we also both agreed that it was not where we were being called at that time in our life. Instead, I served as a religion teacher at a Catholic high school near my hometown. Soon, we began to joke that it was pretty much the same thing as Family Missions—we were doing hard work to spread the Gospel to people who seemed to not have heard it before, and we were doing it for pay that really wasn’t sustainable!

Of course, as the years have gone by, I certainly acknowledge that the work done in mission fields around the world is very different than teaching in an American Catholic school. But I have also realized that the analogy holds up well in many ways. The work of Catholic education is hard. Many of the students and parents in Catholic schools really are not open to hearing the Gospel. The pay is less than the “market average” when compared to public schools. Clearly, the idea that Catholic schools are like missionary work is not completely unfounded. Now, as a Catholic school principal for over 15 years, I see more clearly that Catholic education is mission work, and, in some particular ways, I have begun to approach it as such.

In the first paragraph of the first document of the Second Vatican Council we find a summary of the Council Fathers’ goals for their work: “This sacred Council has several aims in view: it desires to impart an ever increasing vigor to the Christian life of the faithful; to adapt more suitably to the needs of our own times those institutions which are subject to change; to foster whatever can promote union among all who believe in Christ; to strengthen whatever can help to call the whole of mankind into the household of the Church. The Council therefore sees particularly cogent reasons for undertaking the reform and promotion of the liturgy.”[1]

As many have noted, these aims have as their clear goal the renewal of the Church and its human structures for the sake of evangelization, both for those already in the family of God and for those not yet part of that family. In keeping with the remarks by which Pope St. John XXIII opened the Council, its goal and purpose was to make the Gospel of Jesus Christ more readily knowable and known by and to the men and women of our age.[2] One might fairly describe the intent of the Council as catechetical and evangelical. That is, it sought to do what it could to enliven the efforts of Catholics to deepen their own faith in the Triune God and to draw others to the same God.

Unfortunately, that intention did not bear its hoped-for fruit, at least initially. As many have also noted, in the initial postconciliar years and decades, the intended fruition of the Council Fathers’ desires not only did not come to pass, but just the opposite occurred, such that, some 20 years after the close of the Council, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger remarked that “the catastrophic failure of modern catechesis is all too obvious.”[3]

Why and how did this failure in catechetical and evangelical renewal occur immediately following the Council? Many have offered answers to this question from numerous perspectives. A recent and compelling answer is found in Brad Bursa’s Because He Has Spoken to Us: Structures of Proclamation from Rahner to Ratzinger. Bursa not only traces the theological origins and development of the postconciliar catechetical collapse to the attempted catechetical implementation of the theology of Karl Rahner, but he also proposes a way forward by pointing to the Trinitarian Christology of Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI.

I have had the joy, honor, and privilege of working with adolescents for over 20 years, first as a Catholic high school teacher, and now as a licensed marriage and family therapist in the throes of raising my own tweens and teens. There are several key moments in my formation, work, and ministry that stick out in my mind.

The first was a teaching demonstration I completed in my undergraduate studies. I was preparing to graduate without a clue of what my next step would be in my ministry and career, and as I stood before my peers and professor, I felt deep in my soul the Lord calling me to work with teenagers in the high school setting. A second moment occurred a few years later, during my time as a high school theology teacher. I had a student in one of my classes whom I tried to engage each day, only to have her ignore me or roll her eyes. One day, I walked into my classroom and found her crying beneath my desk. I listened to her cries and gave her tissues to wipe her tears as she opened up about the pain and suffering of her home life. As I sat, listened, and prayed, I heard the Lord call me to work with teenagers once again, but in a new way: as a therapist. Since then, there have been countless hours through the years of sitting with teens, listening as they share their pain and struggles and doing my best to bring light into their darkness and truth into their hearts. I am grateful for the call I have received, and I recognize the challenge that it has been.

I often feel that adolescents are unfairly criticized and misunderstood. They are described as emotional, irrational, uncontrollable, and, at times, an overall nuisance. Yes, adolescents can have big emotions. Yes, they experience uncertainty and upheaval in their lives—even several times in a given day. Yes, they want to go against the grain regularly and question everything and everyone. I believe, however, that the changes adolescents experience in this time of life, specifically in their brain development, are some of their strengths and superpowers rather than their downfall. When youth ministers have a deeper understanding of these changes, along with the obstacles and opportunities they pose, we are empowered to meet, serve, and accompany them better.

The term “disciple” is a translation of the Greek word mathetes, which means a student or follower of a teacher. Of course, we know that Jesus was called a teacher or Rabbi by many, and he had a good number of disciples. However, his manner of teaching was a bit different from other teachers of his time. He did not sit and wait for others to come to him. Rather, he called or summoned disciples, and then he had them follow him, not only by following his teachings but literally and physically following him around. Thus, this teacher was a unique kind of teacher, which would mean that his disciple will be a unique kind of disciple.

Personally, I have always loved school and reading and studying—sitting still and learning is one thing that I believe I have been pretty good at. However, the idea of getting up and moving around wherever someone else might lead me seems a bit demanding and discomforting. Yet, that is the kind of disciple the Lord wants me to be.

How can we describe Jesus’ program of formation for his disciples? These elements come from some Gospel texts where he specifically addresses his followers and often challenges them.

It goes without saying that Christianity has faced various kinds and levels of hostility throughout history from governments and societies. Christians have often been forced to choose between moral or religious values and civic or cultural values. Material goods, reputations, jobs, freedom, and even lives have been at stake—and are today in many places. One major milestone in the conflict between Christianity and the state came in the year 249, when the Roman emperor Decius issued an empire-wide decree ordering all citizens to participate in pagan sacrifices. The exact nature of the sacrifice varied from place to place, but it typically involved an incense offering, a libation (or offering of wine), and eating some sacrificial meat. This is unique in the history of the Roman state religion to that point, as performance of actual religious rituals had almost never been prescribed by law for the average citizen.

The Decian Persecution

Though we do not have the text of Decius’ decree, we know quite a bit about its enforcement from several sources. Most notable among these are the writings of St. Cyprian, who was bishop of Carthage (in modern-day Tunisia) from 249 until his martyrdom during the persecution of Valerian in 258. As bishop of the second-most prominent city in the western half of the Roman empire, Cyprian was on the forefront of Christian reactions to the decree to sacrifice. It is largely through his letters and treatises, especially On the Lapsed, that we learn three things. First, we learn what was asked of Christians (and, in fact, all citizens) during the enforcement of Decius’ decree. Second, we learn how Carthaginian Christians reacted to the decree. Finally, we learn how the Church, especially the hierarchy, viewed the differing Christian responses. These facts can give modern-day Christians, who face all kinds of hostility and persecution, insight into how the early Church understood the Christian responsibility under duress and whether there was any flexibility in acceptable responses.

What we ultimately need to understand is how Christians, then and now, react to pressures from governments and societies. So I will focus first on Christian reactions to the decree and how these reactions were viewed by Church leaders. We can break down Christian reactions to the decree into two categories. First were those who were called on to sacrifice but completely and publicly resisted to the point of suffering. Some were put in jail, had their property confiscated, or underwent torture; some were ultimately put to death. In their suffering, they were called “confessors” (because they confessed, or proclaimed, Christ publicly) and in their deaths, “martyrs.”

The second category includes those who came to be known as the “lapsi”—the lapsed or fallen. In this category, there were two types: There were those who, when called upon to sacrifice, did just that. After the end of the persecution, St. Cyprian described these in On the Lapsed as, shall we say, eager. He wrote: “Without any compulsion they hastened to the forum, they hurried of themselves to their death, as if this was what they had long been waiting for, as if they were embracing the opportunity to realize the object of their desires.”[1] He is writing here, of course, not about the physical death of the martyrs but the spiritual death of those called the sacrificati, or the sacrificers.

However, there is another group that came to be called the libellatici, “those who have little books.” Because the Romans did not have a central database of those who had followed the edict, they tracked participation by issuing libelli, or little books, to those who had sacrificed. We still have today around 40 of these libelli, mostly from Egypt. These show that they functioned as certificates of sacrifice, signed not only by the sacrificer but by the local commission in charge of enforcing the decree, as well as, in some cases, a professional scribe or another person who held power of attorney for the sacrificer. Once you had sacrificed, if an official demanded to know whether you were in good legal standing, you could show your libellus to prove that you were. Evidence suggests that perhaps two copies were made of each libellus, one being kept by the petitioner and one deposited in the local archives.

I took my first steps as a catechist at 17, when I met the Missionaries of Charity on a service camp trip sponsored by my youth group. The sisters needed help with their summer camp for inner-city children, and I needed service hours for graduation. That summer changed my life. I discovered the joy of catechesis and ended up serving and teaching alongside the sisters for seven years until I entered my community, the Sister Servants of the Eternal Word.

These Missionary of Charity sisters, inspired by Mother Teresa’s witness and charism, mentored me in the art of Christocentric catechesis. The Missionaries of Charity incorporate evangelization and catechesis into everything they do, particularly in their work with children. The children’s time of catechesis was not called religion class; it was “Getting to Know Jesus.” In its striking simplicity, this title captures the essence of catechesis: “to put people not only in touch but in communion, in intimacy, with Jesus Christ.”[1]

The sisters didn’t have textbooks, slideshows, or videos; the Scriptures, the liturgy, and the Church’s teaching were their only sources. They taught from their own experience of intimacy with Jesus, lived in the daily rhythm of their communal prayer life as religious sisters. This prayer life permeated their entire catechetical process, beginning with a time of prayer in chapel asking God to bless our work and open the hearts of the children. For the sisters, catechesis was not just about communicating truths of the faith—it was about sharing the joy of a life lived in union with Jesus and inviting the children to experience this same joy. This catechesis was effective, too. Several children converted to the Catholic faith over the years and continue to live committed Christian lives to this day.

My community’s sisters often witness similar transformations in those we encounter in our apostolate of evangelization through catechesis and retreats. Following our patrons, Sts. Francis and Dominic, we teach spiritual things spiritually (see 1 Cor 2:13), inviting our students and retreatants to experience the riches of a Catholic life. Although we are an active community, we spend about five hours a day in prayer so that the Church’s liturgical life shapes both our communal and apostolic undertakings.

In these short reflections, we will consider how various elements of the spiritual life lived by a religious community might also inspire a life of prayer in any person—priest, religious, or lay person—who is called to the sacred work of forming others in the Catholic life.

I am reading a remarkable book. It’s called How Saints Die: 100 Stories of Hope by the Italian Carmelite Antonio Maria Sicari. The book reveals just how much can be learned about the saints by how they face their own death. The saints, of course, are ordinary human beings—not a one born with a halo—who have persevered in their Christian life. Each has grown in heroic virtue by God’s grace.

Frequently in the pages of this book the reader is confronted by human beings demonstrating a shocking serenity and trust in God amidst dire circumstances at the end of life. Whether dying of disease or advanced years, or often violently through the malice of others, each of these women and men has been deeply conformed to the self-giving love of Christ. In facing death, each could truly say “The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21) or “I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20)!

When I was much younger, as I was coming to the faith in the 1980s, I loved reading the lives of the saints. I also naively believed that Christian persecution was mostly a thing of the past. In fact, the 20th century witnessed the murder of millions of Christians. And the 21st century, when considering the serious adversities facing Christians, especially in parts of the Middle East and Africa, remains deeply troubling. In our time, no matter where we live in the world, the more the Catholic worldview is rejected the more we can expect that greater persecution is coming.

Of course, such persecution shouldn’t surprise us. We follow the One who died nailed to the Cross. And Jesus himself said, “Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you [falsely] because of me” (Mt 5:11). These words show us that it’s truly not a matter of “if” Christians are persecuted; our Lord said, “when . . . they persecute you.” We can, in fact, presume that such persecution will happen to us in one form or another. This has been the normative reality for Christians from the earliest centuries of Christianity.

What are we to do when faced with present or future Christian persecution? It seems to me two things are necessary.

Most catechetical texts and digital materials used in parishes and schools throughout the United States today are the product of thoughtful collaboration between the publishers who create them and the bishops who certify their theological and pastoral integrity.

Most catechetical texts and digital materials used in parishes and schools throughout the United States today are the product of thoughtful collaboration between the publishers who create them and the bishops who certify their theological and pastoral integrity. This collaboration yields catechetical materials that are not only doctrinally sound but also are effective tools for what is known as an evangelizing catechesis. The history and significance of this collaboration is the subject of this article.

An Immigrant Church

Desiring a common language of faith for the children of the many immigrants to their country in the 19th century, the bishops of the United States published the first edition of the Baltimore Catechism in 1885. That catechism was based upon Doctrina Christiana (1598), the catechism of St. Robert Bellarmine  published in the wake of the Council of Trent. The Baltimore Catechism would later be divided into three volumes, each volume corresponding to a particular age group. Although over one hundred other catechetical texts for children and youth would be published and used in Catholic schools and parishes, the Baltimore Catechism remained the most widely used catechetical text in the United States until the late 1960s. A four-volume set of the Baltimore Catechism remains in print (the fourth volume is a manual for teachers and catechists).

The Age of the Second Vatican Council

Unlike many previous ecumenical councils, the Second Vatican Council was not convened to address particular matters of faith or morals. Nevertheless, the council that was proclaimed to be pastoral rather than doctrinal in nature gave rise to sweeping changes in the life of the Church, especially in her sacred liturgy and practices of piety and devotion.

For most Catholics, the Second Vatican Council is seen as the council that replaced Latin with the vernacular at Mass, reoriented sanctuaries, introduced modern architectural forms into the building of new churches, and curtailed the requirements for fasting and abstinence. Pope Benedict XVI would note that these and other changes in the life of the Church led many to view the Second Vatican Council only through a particular lens, where one saw the council as a call to discontinuity and rupture from “former” doctrines and practices. As a remedy, Pope Benedict emphasized a hermeneutic of continuity, a lens through which the Second Vatican Council would properly be understood only within the context of the wider and longer Tradition, rather than the converse.

Catechetical texts of this era were not immune to the hermeneutic of rupture and discontinuity, nor from a contemporary culture that heralded the benefits of “new and improved” over “tried and true.”[1] Pedagogy of that era generally eschewed the rote memorization that was a staple in earlier times; religious educators attuned to these trends desired catechetical materials of a pedagogy far different from that used by the Baltimore Catechism. Some religious educators expressed a praiseworthy desire for catechetical materials that would place greater emphasis upon Sacred Scripture and offer the rationale for the tenets of Catholic faith and morals. Other religious educators, caught up in the spirit of that age, preferred catechetical materials that ultimately reflected a tendency to relativize Catholic teaching and minimize the gravity of Catholic moral teaching. An influential parish priest once grumbled to me, “The Baltimore Catechism provides great answers to questions that nobody asks.” That same priest would repeatedly express his admiration for the 87 theologians (mostly priests) who publicly expressed their strong dissent from the teachings on the grave evil of contraception in the 1968 papal encyclical Humanae Vitae within hours of its promulgation.