Franciscan at Home

I shall begin with a confession. Of all the miracles and divine manifestations in the New Testament, I often experienced awkwardness when I encountered the Transfiguration. For a number of years, I complacently listened to, and read, the passage, tiptoeing around the event, not wishing to disturb it, because I did not know how to grapple with its mystery.

My complacency was shattered when I read Jean Corbon’s The Wellspring of Worship. Originally a Parisian and a Roman Catholic, Father Corbon became a priest of the Greek-Catholic eparchy of Beirut.
When I encountered Corbon’s Eastern Catholic exegesis on the Transfiguration in The Wellspring of Worship, I imitated St. Peter - I did not know what to say! I was aware that my literal reading of the Transfiguration had been shallow, and now I was meeting, through Corbon, the patristic tradition, which gave me completely new insights, particularly in respect to who was transfigured. Corbon quotes from St. John Damascene’s Second Homily on the Transfiguration: Christ ‘was transfigured, not by acquiring what he was not but by manifesting to his disciples what he in fact was; he opened their eyes and gave these blind men sight.’

This liturgical meditation is reprinted from Romano Guardini's book, Sacred Signs.
Man has many powers. By knowing them, he can seize upon all things around, stars and mountains, seas and rivers, trees and animals, and all manhood which surround him, and he can draw them all into himself. He can love them; but he can also hate them and repel them from him. He can set himself against them, or he can long for them and draw them to him. He can grasp and transform the world round about him according to his will. Waves of all kinds pass through his heart, of joy and longing, of sorrow and love, of peace and excitement.

But his noblest power is that of recognising that there is a higher Power above him, of reverencing this Power and of dedicating himself to It. Man can acknowledge God above him, he can adore him and give himself to Him, ‘so that God be glorified.’

We are to let our souls be lit up with God’s greatness: we are to adore that greatness, we are not to remain selfishly enclosed within, but we are to stride beyond ourselves and set ourselves to the task of glorifying God in the highest. This giving of ourselves is sacrifice.

The right use of images remained a concern of the Church’s pastors in the centuries after Trent, and one of the most significant documents was Pope Benedict XIV’s Brief Sollicitudini Nostrae of 1745, which provided a concise summary of current questions. However, it was only in the twentieth century that the Supreme Magisterium of the Church made general pronouncements about sacred art and its relationship with the sacred liturgy.

‘On the Spot’ aims to highlight some of the complex positions, questions and comments experienced by Catechists, teachers and parents. It tries to outline 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 the benefits—and challenges—of using the church building as a focus for catechesis.

In an age where equality and non-discrimination are taken by many as the highest and even as the sole principles of morality, among the most difficult truths for many present day Catholics (or would be Catholics) to understand, accept or justify, is the reservation of the priesthood to men alone. The objective here is to give a clear presentation of what the Church herself says about this issue in the hope that this will be useful to those handing on the Catholic faith, especially those engaged in RCIA programs, and the like, who are dealing with people more than likely influenced precisely by these two modern ‘dogmas’ of equality and non-discrimination.

The topic of sacred architecture is both timely and timeless. Timely because of the contemporary crisis that surrounds the sacred. Timeless because God never ceases to call man to himself. In the revelation of the divine economy of salvation, God never neglects time and space. As the eternal, invisible, and infinite God, whose dwelling place is in Heaven, he reveals himself, and encourages mortal, visible, and finite human beings to call upon his name. As he makes known the hidden purpose of his will, he summons us to a sacred space in an acceptable time.
There are three practical and grounded guiding principles the cardinal reflects upon concerning the vocation and mission of the architect and artist in the life of the Church.

The English-speaking world has been preparing for a new translation of the Mass. This translation is a more literal translation from the Latin. It includes more challenging words and terms such as “consubstantial” and “grievous fault.” It is common knowledge that there has been a decline in the understanding of the Catholic faith among Catholics since the 1960s. This continues to be a challenge in catechesis. The new translation of the English in the Mass will help catechists not only teach towards the Mass, but can give the catechists a focal point when teaching the entire Catholic Faith.

The theme of this issue of The Sower is liturgical catechesis, with a particular emphasis on the place of art and architecture. It was a topic dear to the heart of the very first editor of The Sower, Canon Francis Drinkwater, who founded this catechetical journal in 1919. Drinkwater was a pioneer in the movement to root catechesis more closely in the liturgy. In 1948, for example, in an article, ‘Catechesis and the Liturgy’, he argued that teaching the faith should be an ‘overflow’ from the celebration of the Mass and should explain ‘the real inward meaning of the Mass’, that of ‘sacrifice, as between man and God’.

The aim in this article is to present and discuss what the Catechism of the Catholic Church and other key magisterial documents say about the relationship between liturgy and catechesis.[i] It is not concerned with the general teaching in the Catechism on either liturgy or catechesis. Rather, it focuses on the relationship between them.

This brief paper is entitled, ‘The Dramatic Nature of the Christian Life.’ For devotees of the eminent theologian, Hans Urs Von Balthasar, this topic calls to mind his multi-volume volume work, Theo-drama[i], in which he engages the world of theatre as a way of understanding the truly original drama. By that I mean the drama of the inner life and love of the Trinity, the hidden counsels wherein the Triune God freely elected to create and redeem – thus setting the stage for the drama we call ‘salvation history’.