Franciscan at Home

We have just finished celebrating the Year of St Paul, and it is fitting that the theme for this issue of The Sower is ‘Loving the Church’, for that is a wonderfully succinct way of summing up the essence of Saul’s conversion and of his receiving a new name rooted in a new calling. Saul was converted to an abiding love for the Church.

After all, what was Saul before his conversion? He was one who loathed the Church. He found the Church not so much irrelevant or simply unattractive, as deeply offensive and hateful—to himself and, he was convinced, to the God of his fathers. Saul, we know from the Acts of the Apostles, was present for the stoning of Stephen: those who had acted as the witnesses against Stephen, the first Christian martyr, ‘laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul’ (Acts 7:58). ‘And Saul was consenting to his death’ (8:1). Following the death of Stephen, Acts describes how Saul ‘laid waste the Church’ (8:3). He ‘dragged off men and women and committed them to prison’ (8:3), ‘breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord’ (9:1).

Saul’s conversion was a complete turning around, a total change of direction, so that what was hated now became the occasion for his deepest and most ardent love. The Risen Jesus appeared just as Saul had apparently gained new powers for persecution of these followers of ‘the Way’ (9:2). After this meeting, Saul completes his journey to Damascus, no longer seeking those whom he might imprison but, in his own words, ‘a prisoner of Christ Jesus’ (Philemon 1). The capturer has been captured. His physical journey and destination is unchanged, but he has undergone a dramatic spiritual reversal of direction. He receives a new name, Paul, and a new vocation. There is a ‘new creation’ and now nothing else is to count for anything apart from this new reality, this new love (see Gal 6:15).mHis persecution of the Church is now to be remembered as his most reprehensible activity: he is ‘the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God’ (1 Cor 15:9).

In this issue we complete our introduction to John Paul II’s prophetic document on the Gospel of Life.

One of the most important initiatives of Pope John Paul II was his call for a ‘new evangelization’—a rekindling of the primary mission of the Church to proclaim, by word and deed, the Good News of Jesus Christ to all people. This would include the proclamation of the Gospel to those peoples and cultures which had received the Gospel in the past, but have ‘fallen away,’ (hence the need for ‘re-evangelization’).

In the final chapter of Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul reminds us of the Church’s identity as ‘the people of life and for life… because God, in his unconditional love, has given us the Gospel of life’ (78.3; 79.1). I am reminded of powerful words in the Gospel of John in which Jesus contrasts the thief ‘who comes only to steal and kill and destroy’ with himself, the Good Shepherd who said, ‘I came that they may have life and have it abundantly’ (Jn 10:10). Most of this encyclical has focused on the monumental struggle between the ‘culture of death,’ which like the thief ‘comes only to steal and kill and destroy’, and the mission of Jesus and the Church to bring and protect life. This final section focuses on the positive mission of the Church to promote a ‘new culture of human life’.

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.

We continue the exposition of John Paul’s teaching on questions concerning the sacredness of human life.

In the first chapter of Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II surveys the bleak landscape of the contemporary world, a landscape marked by unprecedented attacks on human life and human dignity. However, even in the midst of this ‘culture of death’ there are signs of hope—a hope that is rooted in the One who came to bring life to the world: Jesus Christ.

The first premise of this ‘gospel of life’ is that ‘[Human] Life is always a good’ (34.1), because it reflects and shows forth the goodness of its Creator: God. Humans are made in God’s ‘image and likeness’ and St. Irenaeus in the 2nd century, remarked that ‘Man, fully alive, is the glory of God’ (34.2). Tragically, sin has tarnished the image of God in man, but for those who have committed themselves to following Christ, in them ‘the divine image is restored, renewed, and brought to perfection’, fulfilling God’s desire that all should ‘be conformed to the image of his [God’s] Son (Rom. 8:29)’ (36.4). Christians know that human life is sacred because it has its origin in God, its restoration to the image of God made possible through the redeeming work of Jesus Christ, and its glorious destiny set before it – to have an eternal life of loving union with God. St. Irenaeus wrote of this destiny when he taught ‘the life of man consists in the vision of God’ (Adversus Haereses, IV, 207).

Fr. Richard Conrad, O.P., unfolds the meaning of “grace” as the loving God’s transforming presence in Sacred Scripture and Catholic theology.

To speak about God’s grace is to speak about God’s kindness and God’s gifts. In Catholic theology, and thus in formal religious education, it has become the cus­tom to reserve the term “grace” for the more special form of God’s kindness and the more special gifts He gives. God has a kindness towards all His creatures; but He has a special kindness - a love which can be called friend­ship - towards those angels and human beings He invites and draws to share His own happiness eternally. The purpose of this article is not to develop a systematic explication of the Catholic theology of grace, nor is it intended to unfold the history of this doctrine. Rather, this article will instead focus on the theological foundations of the Catholic doctrine of grace, and its basis in Sacred Scripture, for it is only by understanding the fundamental principles of the Catholic faith that we can reflect the gratuitous nature of God’s grace in our catechesis.

In this article we begin to examine Pope John Paul II’s presentation of the status of life issues in our times in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae.

‘The Gospel of Life (Evangelium Vitae) is at the heart of Jesus’ message’ (1.1). This opening line of Pope John Paul II’s eleventh encyclical letter makes it clear that Catholics are called to be ‘unconditionally pro-life’ (EV 28.1). This document explains with prophetic force, based on both faith and reason, what this means and why it is an essential aspect of Catholic faith and identity. The fact that this pro-life stance is viewed by many as ‘rigid’ or ‘narrow-minded’ is a reflection of the cultural climate of our times.

Eric Westby offers sound, practical advice for ways in which we can evangelize in our catechetical work.

I know I am not the only catechist who has prepared what I thought was the greatest catechetical session since the Sermon on the Mount, only to have it help the participants cure their most recent battles with insomnia. Over the years, as I have seen little impact from what I thought were well-planned sessions, it has forced me to look more closely at the process of conversion, specifically that which we do to prepare a person to hear the Good News. In Catechesi Tradendae 20, Pope John Paul II describes catechesis as a maturation of the process of evangelization. As a catechist, the better I assisted in the process of evangelization (the better I helped a person know, love and follow the Lord Jesus) the easier it became to catechize that person. In this article, I would like to offer practical ways we can evangelize in our catechetical endeavors, and in doing so, prepare the foundation for catechesis and lifelong conversion.

Is the doctrine of the Holy Trinity actually taught any more? This may sound like an alarmist question. One would imagine that the sign of the cross and its accompanying words, ‘In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen’, are still used and explained by the vast majority of Catholic parents, catechists and teachers. Sadly, this is not as common as one might have presumed in the past. In many catechetical resources circulating in Britain the Blessed Trinity is no longer mentioned at all. In this article I’ll be highlighting three simple points: a) that the Trinity is still being eliminated from some Catholic teaching materials, b) that this matters, and c) that we can know the reasons why the Trinity is not being taught and can thus retrieve effectively the very foundation of Christian faith, hope and love.

The Editor of The Sower recently revealed the following statistic: The Report of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales Working Party on Sacramental Initiation, On the Threshold, ‘manages to compile a 66 page report of recommendations about RCIA without once referring to the Trinity, to the Father, to the Son or to the Holy Spirit’.[i] The text uses unvaryingly the word ‘God’ throughout. Another document, from the Catholic Education Service, called, On the Way to Life,[ii] subtitled, ‘a framework for Catholic Education, Catechesis and Formation’, in its 99 pages, mentions the Trinity only once and that is in a quotation from Pope John Paul II. An electronic search of the document for ‘God the Father’ reveals that the phrase appears only twice and each time as part of the title of Mary Daly’s book, Beyond God the Father![iii]

Of course, these are not catechetical programmes in themselves but guidance documents. Surely, you might say, actual sacramental programmes will be imbued with references to the persons of the Trinity? At a recent diocesan day for catechists it was discovered that, in the participants’ examples of catechesis of the Christmas story, not a single catechist present referred to Jesus either as God or as the Son of God. Such catechesis about Christmas will be portrayed as a story of a strangely extraordinary man (or baby) if it is not explicitly taught that Jesus is God become man, Son of God sent by his Father in the power of the Holy Spirit. More and more frequently one finds catechetical texts referring to ‘Jesus’ and to ‘God’ and ‘Jesus praying to God’ as though he were a man like us and not God, or with a special relationship (never explained) with God.

There are, then, different ways of not teaching the doctrine of the Trinity. One, as we have seen, is by omission; the other is by teaching heresy. For example, the adult formation programme for the Archdiocese of Westminster, At Your Word Lord, began with a session on the Trinity as ‘three aspects’ of the one God. These three aspects, it continues, have a loving relationship with each other. The notion of aspects rather than persons having a loving relationship, sadly increases the confusion. Resources for Children’s liturgy in the United Kingdom almost invariably teach children the heresy of modalism on Trinity Sunday, prompting children to draw (or even wear in the offertory procession) three different types of hat.

‘I know that St Peter was a Catholic; was St Paul one as well?’

The Year of St Paul begins on 28th June 2008 and runs until June 29th 2009. This is the Year offered to us by the Church during which we can learn to appreciate even better the catholicity of St Paul. A consideration of this parishioner’s apparently naïve question can yield surprising insights and might provide us with food for thought when we are wondering what we might highlight during the coming Year. An immediate response to the question would be to point out that the Year begins on the Feast of St Peter and St Paul: the Church holds the two great Apostles together in her celebrations, in her memory, in her prayers. They are both of them together pillars and foundations of the Church; together they inspire the mission of the Church in every age. If we know that St Peter was a Catholic, we might think it a rational presumption that St Paul was as well!

As Catholics, we have the blessing of guidance from the See in which both St Peter and St Paul spent their final days. The first thing we can do is to avail ourselves of the grace of this Year dedicated to St Paul, and encourage those whom we are catechising to do the same. On May 10th the Holy See announced the indulgences which would be made available for participation in the Year. ‘Indulgences’ can remind us vividly of St Paul’s own deep awareness of the mercy of God. The Year is to be a Year of Grace, a Year of God’s special outpouring of loving-kindness.

In his Letter to the Romans, undoubtedly the greatest and most demanding of his Letters, Paul reflects on the history of salvation, in which human disobedience is met with ever-greater acts of divine kindness and indulgence, culminating in the disobedience of all, so that God ‘may have mercy on all’. He sings, ‘O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgements and how inscrutable his ways!’ (Rom.11:33) God’s goodness and mercy so far transcend all that we can comprehend, as he turns all misery and sin into an opportunity for blessing: O felix cupla! This great hymn of praise is the pivot on which the Letter to the Romans turns, and St Paul then leads us into a profound consideration of human ethics and behaviour. Faced with the reality of God’s merciful action in our lives, how should we act? Listen to his language as he begins this section: ‘I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God…’ (12:1). Paul’s ‘therefore’ is meant seriously: act out of the mercy which you yourself have received. Paul’s ethics are a treatise on the practice of mercy.