Franciscan at Home

The modern ethos regarding sin is a perplexing one. On the one hand, it seems that everything is morally okay, so long as it does not hurt anyone else. Yet, on the other hand, there are very strange and strict social sins that are virtually forbidden unless one wants to end up ostracized by the modern (and oftentimes online) community. Sin today is treated with an increasingly permissive attitude. What stands out as the overarching theme of this new morality, however, is a law of radical individualism regarding sin. Everything is acceptable if it feels good for the individual, as long as social norms are not violated.

Our Communal Lord and Savior

This strange and ambiguous moral philosophy espoused by our modern world stands in sharp contrast to the revelation of Scripture and the teaching of the Church. Particularly, the law of radical individualism stands in opposition to our belief in the “Communion of Saints,” professed in the Creed. The Catechism is beautifully succinct in its identification of this entity: “The communion of saints is the Church” (946).

The Second Vatican Council emphasized the Church as the “People of God,” a descriptor that is very fitting in our age.[1] The Communion of Saints, therefore, must be seen in light of this community of persons around Christ, their head. This Communion of Saints is a true communion—a sharing among persons of what is held in common. The Catechism proceeds to express that what is shared in common are spiritual goods, which are shared among the People of God both on earth and in heaven. The antiphon of the Eastern liturgies captures this: “God’s holy gifts for God’s holy people” (CCC 948).

What emerges from this basic structure is the antithesis of radical individualism. As members of the People of God and of the Communion of Saints, we do not merely have a personal Lord and Savior but a God who, in gathering us into a community, acts within this communion. Jesus Christ saves us personally, but not alone; his work is mediated by the action of the entire Church, of which he is the head. Lumen Gentium, Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, expresses this beautifully: “God, however, does not make men holy and save them merely as individuals, without bond or link between one another. Rather has it pleased Him to bring men together as one people” (no. 9).

If you talk to an array of Catholics, you’ll likely hear differing experiences when it comes to memorization and their life of faith. Some are haunted by memories of being forced (and failing) to properly recite memorized facts about the faith in front of classmates and then being shamed for it. On the opposite pendulum swing, some were never tasked with memorizing anything about the faith. The truth of Catholicism, then, became like the seed sown on a rocky path, easily plucked away without deep roots.

What, then, is an approach to memorization in catechesis that is more closely aligned with the movement of the Holy Spirit in our times? The Church offers us the third way of meaningful memorization.

Memorization Cannot Be Severed from Catechesis

Pope St. John Paul II reaffirmed that “the blossoms, if we may call them that, of faith and piety do not grow in the desert places of a memory-less catechesis. What is essential is that texts that are memorized must at the same time be taken in and gradually understood in depth, in order to become a source of Christian life on the personal level and on the community level.”[1] As Catholics, we must memorize the truths of the faith. Memorization is essential to the fullness of life in Christ because in committing to memory his words and teachings, our whole person is formed more and more into his likeness. This is a lifelong process, which is why John Paul II reiterated that what we memorize must be understood ever more deeply.

When it comes to the catechesis of children, a worthy place to begin their life of memorization is in Sacred Scripture.

Recently in one of my religion classes, my ninth graders and I were thinking about how important the virtue of faith is in the Gospels. Faith usually seems to be a free-will assent that Jesus waits for in order to act in and through a person. But there is also the woman with the hemorrhage, whose faith draws healing power out of Jesus on its own (see Mk 5:30). Then there is the healing of the paralytic, which expanded our discussion to the Communion of Saints and the power of intercessory prayer: “when he saw their faith” (Lk 5:20), Jesus proceeded to heal the paralytic. One student pointed out that we don’t actually know whether the paralytic believed Jesus could do this. The man’s cure was provoked by the faith of his friends. What is this mystery? How are we united in Christ and with one another?

The ordinary means of this identification with Jesus is the Sacrament of Baptism. The sanctifying grace we receive is the very life of God in us; through baptism, we “come to share in the divine nature” (2 Pt 1:4). United to Christ, we are by that very fact united to God and so to one another. Jesus said, “I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me” (Jn 17:20–21). This is the reality of the Communion of Saints. Our personal sanctity is not the exclusive goal of our union with Christ; its ultimate purpose is the building up of the Body of Christ, the Church, the whole Christ. As CCC 1267 states: “Baptism makes us members of the Body of Christ: ‘Therefore . . . we are members one of another’ [Eph 4:25]. Baptism incorporates us into the Church. From the baptismal fonts is born the one People of God of the New Covenant, which transcends all the natural or human limits of nations, cultures, races, and sexes: ‘For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body’ [1 Cor 12:13].”

Bl. Fr. Marie-Eugene of the Child Jesus, OCD, emphasizes that this union is the work of the Holy Spirit in and through each one of us: “We know that it is the Spirit of Love who carries out the eternal design of God. He placed the foundations for it by bringing to pass the mystery of the Incarnation in the womb of Mary. Since then, He continues His work by pouring into our souls a filial charity that identifies us with the Incarnate Word, Christ Jesus. This grace makes us one with Christ, that we may form with Him the whole Christ.”[1] In The Reed Of God, Caryll Houselander points out that this identification takes place slowly and, as its fruit, gives us God’s power to live his life here and now: “What we are asked to do is to be made one with Christ, to allow Him to abide in us, to make His home in us, and gradually, through the oneness that results from living one life, and through the miracles of His love, consummated again and again in Communion with Him, to become Christs, to live in Him as Our Lady did. When we are changed into Him as the bread into the Host, then with His power we can follow His example.”[2]

From the earliest years of Christian history, the Church referred to the Blessed Virgin Mary as the New Eve. For example, in about 180 A.D., St. Irenaeus wrote that “The knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary.”[1] Many of the Early Church Fathers who came after him continued this tradition of beginning in the Old Testament with Eve to teach about Mary. Why did they start there instead of the New Testament? Why must we, too, start there?

Starting in the Right Place

I spent many years as an evangelical Protestant before I became a Catholic. Even though I had a great love of Scripture and taught many Bible studies, I never really “saw” Mary in the New Testament. I knew she was an important part of Jesus’ story, of course, but because of her few recorded words and appearances, I simply never gave her much thought. To me, it seemed impossible to arrive at Catholic teaching about Mary from the scant references we find about her in the New Testament. I chalked up her exalted role in Catholic teaching to sentimentality. All of us love our mothers. Catholics love the mother of Jesus. I left it at that.

When I had cause to think about the claims of the Catholic Church, I noticed right away that the Church has always begun in the Old Testament to explain Mary. The early chapters of Genesis tell us that “In the beginning,” God created male and female to be the flesh and blood fullness of his image and likeness on earth (see Gn 1:1; 1:26–27). When they fell, God’s response to their disobedience was to curse his enemy, the serpent, who was the real culprit in that drama. He vowed to send another man and woman, a mother and her Son, to victoriously finish the battle begun in Eden (see Gn 3:15). This makes perfect sense! If, from the beginning, God intended the masculine and the feminine, together, to be the icons of his image and likeness in creation, then we should expect to find both a man and a woman to herald the start of his re-creation after the Fall. Mary’s role in the Church’s teaching is theological, not sentimental. I finally had eyes to see this, and it changed everything for me.

As catechists, we owe it to those being catechized to be the best communicators of the content of the faith as possible. But to whom are we to look for the best example of how to achieve this end? Memories of our favorite teacher might help; perhaps, one of the myriad books on teaching techniques might aid us; but, given the importance of what we teach—the salvation of each member of mankind—should we not look just a little bit higher? Maybe even to the author of the material we are to impart?

To many who are hearing this for the first time, it could sound very presumptions. But really, what has God done throughout Revelation other than show us all the ways in which he teaches us through the three persons of the Trinity? Does this not become the “source and model of the pedagogy of faith” and of God?[1] While each of the three persons of the Trinity have their own methods to impart, perhaps the most relatable of the three, for pedagogical purposes, is the one who took human form: the Son.

A brief survey of the Gospels shows many varied teaching techniques and methods. With the apostles, Jesus was “their only teacher,” a “patient and faithful friend,” someone who consistently taught them the truth throughout his whole life.[2] “He provoked them with questions”; he told them more than he told the masses; “he introduced them to prayer”; he sent them forth on missions with others; and “he promised them the Holy Spirit” (DC 160). Additionally, Christ “evoked and elicited a personal response” in all who heard him (DC 161). And though this response of obedience and faith was deep-seated, because of sin, it required “ongoing conversion,” which Christ provided (DC 161). Unfortunately, we oftentimes read right past Christ’s pedagogical methods and don’t learn how to teach from the divine teacher himself. There are five examples (out of many) I would like to propose that illustrate Christ’s teaching methods in Scripture that will be helpful for catechists.

On May 9, 2024, Pope Francis announced to the world that the following year, 2025, would be a Jubilee Year for the Catholic Church worldwide. The Jubilee Year would begin on Christmas Eve, December 24, 2024, and last until Epiphany, January 6, 2026. This holy year would be marked by special liturgical celebrations, greater availability of the Sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession) and Indulgences, concrete expressions of works of mercy (caring for the sick, the elderly, the homeless, migrants, etc.), and pilgrimages to Rome and her most important churches (basilicas). How has the world reacted?

From Apathy to Antagonism and Everything in Between

I’m sure that, for much of the world, the announcement came and went unnoticed. What the Catholic Church does is so irrelevant in some places and to some people that the news of the Jubilee Year never appeared on their radar screen, so to speak.

Others probably received the news with cynicism. I understand this reaction, as I, too, harbored cynicism about the Catholic Church for the first thirty years of my life. “So the Pope is announcing a Jubilee Year that promises forgiveness of sin for all those who make a pilgrimage to Rome. What a convenient way to drum up tourist revenue for the Vatican city state! The Pope’s pocketbook must have been getting lean, so he had to think creatively!”

Still others likely reacted with hostility. These would be theologically serious Protestants, who remember quite well what issues were at stake in the Reformation and still identify closely with the theological views of the first generation of Protestant Reformers, men like Martin Luther and John Calvin. For such Protestants, the proclamation of a Jubilee Year is a triggering event that calls to mind the Catholic Church’s practice of indulgences. The sale of indulgences provoked the Reformation in the first place. The legend goes that a certain priest by the name of Johann Tetzel was traveling through Germany raising money for the building of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome by selling indulgences. “When the coin in the coffer clings,” he is supposed to have said, “the soul to heaven springs!” This crass distortion of the Church’s theology and practice of indulgences unsurprisingly aroused vocal resistance from Martin Luther and others, who felt that it obscured the Good News of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. For some modern Protestants who remember this history well, Pope Francis’ announcement of the Jubilee Year only shows that Rome hasn’t changed, that she continues to disguise the Gospel with her traditions and rituals.

Catholics, or at least those favorably disposed toward the Church, probably haven’t reacted with cynicism or hostility, but at least some have met the announcement with puzzlement. There are young people, converts, and “reverts” who have never experienced a Jubilee Year—or at least don’t remember the last one well. They want to know, “What is a Jubilee Year? Does it make any difference to my spiritual life? How should I participate?” They are open; they just need more information.

Finally, there are more experienced Catholics who do understand what a Jubilee Year is and remember previous ones. But perhaps they heard the news of the Pope’s announcement and greeted it with a yawn: “Here we go again . . . another Jubilee Year. I suppose I should try to do something this time . . . maybe walk to the local shrine and try to get an indulgence for Dad.” I understand that there is such a thing as “Catholic fatigue,” even for well-meaning Catholics. And for many, the Jubilee Year can seem like just another thing to do, like the annual diocesan-parish share campaign, the parish picnic, and the monthly Knights of Columbus council meeting.

I think I understand all of these reactions fairly well. This is now the fifth Jubilee Year of my lifetime, the second I will experience as a Catholic, and over the course of my life I personally have had all the reactions I mentioned above: obliviousness, cynicism, hostility, puzzlement, fatigue. And yet, I’m convinced in my heart that the proper response to the announcement of Jubilee 2025 should be joy, hope, and excitement. Lived well, this Jubilee Year can be a moment of miracle and grace for all of us, a kind of yearlong spiritual Christmas season in which we daily awake to open the gifts of grace that God our Father so lovingly gives us. So, I write these words to wake up the oblivious, calm the cynical and hostile, inform the puzzled, and energize the fatigued to embrace this Jubilee Year and live it to the fullest.

A Personal Connection

In an odd and unexpected way, my life has come to be wrapped up in the Jubilee. My journey into the Catholic Church began in earnest just as the Great Jubilee Year of 2000 was beginning. In the Fall of 1999, when preparations were getting intense, I was accepted into the doctoral program in Scripture at Notre Dame, intending to study with a fellow Calvinist who taught Old Testament there. Then, to my surprise, my doctoral supervisor suggested I write my dissertation on the Jubilee Year of Leviticus 25, even though I’d had no particular interest in this area before.

The year 2000 turned out to be a kind of personal jubilee for me as I discovered the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the liberating power of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. And by the end of the year, I made the decision to enter the Catholic Church. This I did, with my wife and family, early in 2001, just as the world’s greatest scholar on Leviticus, Rabbi Jacob Milgrom, was releasing his massive commentary on the final chapters of that book, including the Jubilee Year. I can’t help but feel that God providentially brought me out of my bondage to sin and error and into the Catholic Church—the only place where I had access to the Sacraments necessary to experience spiritual liberation—through the graces Pope John Paul II unleashed by proclaiming the Great Jubilee.

Catholic school educators: heed the challenge! Extend your vocation response to include the family.

The vocation of the Catholic school teacher calls us to be catalysts that lead students to come to know, love, and serve God. In bygone times, home and school worked “hand in glove” to form a Christian character within the child. Some contemporary families are enthusiastic about pursuing that call. Many others, however, admit feelings of inferiority when it comes to being the spiritual formators of their children. They count on us to fill in the gaps that they perceive exist. Those parents need us to evangelize them.

What? You might say, I am already on overload! Lesson plans that incorporate various learning styles and mediums, differentiating instruction, student support meetings, mainstreaming, maintaining the student information system, extracurricular activities, faculty committee work, school duties (arrival, lunch, dismissal) . . . and the list goes on. Now you want me to add intentional evangelization of the family? I have no more time! Well, the good news is that you do not need more time if you apply the adage, “work smarter, not harder.”

First, identify projects for liturgical seasons and other faith-formation topics that are part of your normal teaching curriculum. Then, develop interactive lessons that lead from the head (ideas) to the heart (affection, emotion). You may engage the students in the lesson with activities like becoming a character in the Christmas crib scene, defining the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit with modern examples, depicting timeline events of the Triduum, building a Jesse Tree, or choosing a favorite proverb or “Jesus one-liner” from the Bible. Within instructional class time, teach the students how to find Scripture citations and where to look for information on Church-related themes like feast days, novenas, litanies, women in the Bible, etc. Finally, Work with the full class or in small groups to produce a single, unified class project. Display it in the classroom for the season.

Who am I, really? What makes me who I am? And how much do other people affect who I become? These perennial questions reflect the fact that we are deeply affected by things around us, especially by other people. In some ways, our surroundings helped make us better people, and in other ways, worse. Whether for better or worse, we can wonder who we would be without these influences in our life. It seems hard to argue against how impactful our relationships are, and it raises the question of just how much our relationships define us.

Our Image and Likeness

The search for our own identity goes hand-in-hand with who God is. The Trinity is “the source of all other mysteries, the light that enlightens them,” which includes our own mystery (CCC 234). However, the Trinity is anything but easy to understand, and attempts to resolve the mystery neatly have resulted in numerous heresies in the Church’s history. How can a God whose identity is beyond human understanding or expression help us understand ourselves? How can the unfathomable essence of God help us fathom who we are?

As mysterious as the Trinity is, the Church’s dogma makes one thing clear: our triune God is a relational God. When two things are in relationship with each other, it means that their existence and identities are intertwined. In this sense, none of the persons of the Trinity can be separated from the others (see CCC 255). The Father cannot be apart from the Son, nor the Son apart from the Father, nor the Holy Spirit apart from either.[1] At the same time, a relationship implies distinguishability; it is not possible to say something is unique if there are no differences to tell it apart from something else. The persons of the Trinity are essentially united, but each is distinguished by their relation to each other (see CCC 254–55). The Father is who he is because of the Son, and vice versa. The Holy Spirit is who he is because he is the Spirit of the Father and the Son.[2] To put this more simply, the relationship each person of the Trinity has to the others is both unitive and distinctive: their relationships simultaneously describe their union and their distinction.

Created in God’s image and likeness, human persons bear a certain similarity to the relationality of the divine persons.[3] Being distinct persons, we are nonetheless made for unity. Pope St. John Paul II observes that all human reality can be understood through the lens of relationship. In fact, everything in our lives is composed of four fundamental relationships: with God, with oneself, with others, and with the rest of creation.[4] Sin is ruptured relationship, and reconciliation is its repair. The first sin in Eden is a loss of friendship, and it is echoed in all human strife and injustice.[5] Salvation history, on the other hand, “is the wonderful history of a reconciliation,” a restoration of friendship.[6] Notwithstanding the immense difference between the divine persons and us, we are also constituted by relationships.

The Church exists for the purpose of sharing the Gospel and inviting the whole world to salvation and relationship in Christ. Consequently, “a Christian vocation by its very nature is also a vocation to the apostolate,” that is, a call to mission.[1] Many are enthused to receive such a dignified call, but these sentiments are not self-sustaining. The enormity of evangelizing the whole world, which initially can provoke excitement, often degrades to discouragement amidst incessant demands for action. There is always something more to do in this fallen world, and apostles can begin to question, “What time do I have to pray with so much to do? Wouldn’t it be more generous if I dedicated myself more to doing these good things? Isn’t the Lord also present in these good things? Could it be that I’m even being lazy or selfish by prioritizing a life of prayer? Aren’t there so many souls that need to be saved? How can I allow myself to stop?” This line of questioning, however, overemphasizes the person’s action above God’s, and if unaddressed, it leaves a person destitute of faith and energy.

St. John Paul II proposes to the Church’s apostles a safeguard against this kind of breakdown: “a solid spirituality of action.”[2] As the name suggests, it is a way of living and acting built upon the spiritual life. John Paul II describes it as a unity of contemplation and action, of communion with God that inspires ardent action.[3] This call to contemplation places Christians in contact with the source and fulfillment of their action. The saintly pope explains that the Church’s universal mission is to orient humanity’s gaze, awareness, and experience “towards the mystery of God,” particularly the redemption accomplished by Jesus Christ.[i4] In other words, the nature of apostolate is to draw all people to encounter God, to contemplate him and his saving work. If missionaries neglect their call to contemplation, they betray their own mission. However, when action is united to contemplation, apostles are able to see “God in all things and all things in God,” allowing “the most difficult missions to be undertaken” because they literally never lose sight of God.[5]

While the term “spirituality of action” was coined by St. John Paul II, the concept is anything but novel. Whether it is the Benedictine motto of ora et labora, prayer and work,[6] or the designation of “contemplatives of action” commonly applied to the Jesuits,[7] the unity of contemplation and action has been safeguarded by monks and missionaries alike throughout history. This spirituality, however, is not reserved solely for consecrated members of the Church. The Second Vatican Council calls the laity to inform their actions with their life in God because “their works, prayers and apostolic endeavors, their ordinary married and family life, their daily occupations, their physical and mental relaxation, if carried out in the Spirit, and even the hardships of life, if patiently borne—all these become ‘spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.’”[8] Put simply, there is no calling that favors contemplation or action at the expense of the other. Every Christian is called to a relationship with God that overflows into action, and the spirituality of action is the apostle’s response to this call.

At the origin of human history lies a pivotal moment—the fateful bite from the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. However, this profound narrative doesn’t conclude with the original sin; it finds its ultimate fulfillment in the taste of the Eucharist. Through the sense of taste, which once led to humanity’s fall, we now receive spiritual nourishment and the grace of eternal life, all made possible through the loving sacrifice of Christ.

In the Garden of Eden, God placed two trees—the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. While Adam and Eve were commanded not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, they were free to partake of the Tree of Life, which held the gift of immortality and eternal communion with God.

Tragically, temptation lured Eve into believing the serpent’s deceitful words—that eating the fruit from the forbidden tree would make her wise like God. She tasted the fruit and shared it with Adam, thus disobeying God’s command.

As a consequence of their disobedience, sin entered human nature, and God, in his mercy, expelled them from the Garden of Eden. This act of divine love spared them from eternal separation from God in their fallen state. Eating from the Tree of Life while in a state of sinfulness would have meant an eternity estranged from him. God had angels guard the Tree of Life in his infinite wisdom, ensuring that Adam and Eve would not eat from it on their way out. “He expelled the man, stationing the cherubim and the fiery revolving sword east of the garden of Eden, to guard the way to the tree of life” (Gn 3:24).

This denial of access to the Tree of Life foreshadowed the need for a Savior to redeem the human race from sin and open up access to eternal life through faith and grace. That Savior is Jesus Christ, whom the New Testament calls the “last Adam” (1 Cor 15:45). Just as Adam’s sin brought death into the world, Christ’s sacrificial death on the Cross brings redemption and the promise of eternal life. Thus, the image of the Tree of Life profoundly connects to the Cross on which Jesus was crucified—a Cross made of a tree, symbolizing the tree of the Fall being redeemed by the tree of the Cross.