Franciscan at Home

There is a compelling challenge that every catechist must face: having fallen in love with Christ ourselves, how do we pass this love on to others? The answer is far from simple. Human beings are multi-dimensional, so we have to work on many levels simultaneously. In considering how to approach this work, we are indebted to the great Roman catechist, Sofia Cavalletti. It was she who drew attention to the typical order in which catechesis—indeed all human learning—unfolds, especially for children: first the body, then the heart, then the mind. If we are to catechize well, we need to follow this order, or we may find ourselves working against human nature instead of with it. Hans Urs von Balthasar, in more elevated, theological language, proposed the same basic progression: first beauty, then goodness, then truth. Both Cavalletti and von Balthasar discerned the Trinitarian analogy underpinning this human learning process, and consequently, elements of Trinitarian theology can be applied. For example, while each “aspect” is distinct, none of them can be neatly separated from the others; they always operate together. Whatever is perceived by the senses will in some way affect the heart and then be reflected upon by the mind. Sometimes, it may seem like this is happening in the same instant of time, and at other times, each dimension may follow on from the other slowly and ponderously, with the meaning finally dawning on us weeks, months, or years afterwards. How then can we integrate this insight into our catechetical practice? It would seem that a significant part of the answer lies in retrieving a catechetical approach almost as ancient as the Church itself, one that uses the same human learning progression identified by Cavalletti and von Balthasar. It is called mystagogy, which is essentially an unfolding of the holy mysteries revealed in the Scriptures through the liturgical signs by which they are celebrated and made present.

When my son was a newborn, we brought him to the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at the University of Notre Dame for a Sunday Lenten Eucharist. Unable to comprehend the theologically rich prayer texts, he nonetheless was fascinated by the drama of light and darkness playing out in the stained glass windows, together with the choir’s sublime interpretation of a Palestrina motet. Such beauty was formative of his identity, teaching him something essential about the splendor of the triune God even before he could begin to understand the meaning of such words. Nonetheless, for many Catholics worshipping on a regular basis, the experience of liturgical beauty is noticeably absent from their lives. Churches, rather than eliciting awe and wonder from the worshipper, are too often designed as monuments to suburban banality. The narrative of salvation, once tangible and substantial in mosaics, frescos, and statuary, is traded in for bare walls and empty spaces. The highest standards of musical excellence relative to composition sometimes give way to mere sing-ability. Preaching and liturgical presiding can be performed clumsily. The problem with such inattention to liturgical beauty is not merely a concern of the aesthete; rather, a liturgy without beauty stifles the joy of the Gospel itself. As Pope Francis writes, “Evangelization with joy becomes beauty in the liturgy, as part of our daily concern to spread goodness. The Church evangelizes and is herself evangelized through the beauty of the liturgy, which is both a celebration of the task of evangelization and the source of her renewed self-giving.” A non-beautiful liturgy is not about bad art; it is about a failure of the Church to evangelize.

What a sweet consolation it is when we feel close to God in liturgy, with the help perhaps of inspiring music or a challenging homily or a strong connection with members of the assembly. But what happens when such consolations are not our regular experience? How can we encounter God in liturgy even when we’re not feeling “fed”?

Catechesis is usually understood as a gift given from mouth to ear in teaching and preaching. But catechesis can also proceed according to the sense of sight, by way of church architecture. Such a visual catechesis can immediately impact adults and children alike. So many of us know what we “like” in church architecture, but a catechetical view of church architecture—one which sees it as the gospel for the eyes—requires understanding the church building as an architectural image of Christ’s Mystical Body. Scripture describes the living members of the Church as forming the image of Christ’s Mystical Body, but architectural language is then immediately employed: this Body is called “God’s building” and “God’s temple” (1 Pet 2:5, 1 Cor 3:9-17). Just as the Temple of Solomon signified Christ by way of foreshadowing, so today’s churches signify Christ by way of fulfillment and sacramental foretaste. In either Old Testament Temple or Christian church, the Person revealed through architecture is Christ, the New Temple. So to encounter a church that reveals the radiance of the New Heaven and the New Earth is to encounter Christ by means of a building, which is both sacramental and catechetical. This encounter—both with the ear and with the eye—inspires hope because the object of hope is a future good that is difficult to obtain: becoming a citizen of heaven in union with the Blessed Trinity in the realized kingdom of God. Temple, God’s Building and the Mystical Body In a well-known passage in the Gospel of John, Christ says “destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up” (Jn 2:21). Those around him presume he is speaking of the great Jerusalem Temple, but the writer quickly explains: “he was speaking of the temple of his body.” So Christ’s body is compared not just to any building but to one that was the center of Jewish worship, precisely because it was the dwelling place of God with humanity.[i] To be in the temple was to be in God’s presence. Earthly space and time were left behind as one entered an architectural image of the New Garden replete with carved images of palm trees, flowers, vegetables, and angels covered in gold. Beyond the great veil was the architectural rendition of heaven itself in the Holy of Holies, the place of God’s throne and abiding presence with his people.[ii] Temple worship, as such, becomes obsolete after the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, because Christ’s own body became the new place of God’s presence. Christ offers perfect worship simultaneously being priest, victim, and place of God’s presence: so indeed the new temple is his body. But the character of the Jerusalem Temple nonetheless remains critically important for what it reveals about Christ. In the time of Christ, the Temple Mount was a dazzling complex famous for its stones that captured the apostles’ attention in all three synoptic gospels (Mk 13:1; Lk 21:5; Mt 24:1). References to stones in Scripture are more numerous than can be recounted here,[iii] but the intent is clear: the temple was an assemblage of costly, precious and holy stones which revealed to the world the place where God dwelt with his people. These stones would soon come to be understood as architectural renditions of people assembled into the image of Christ. Put simply, in biblical symbolism, stones are people—the living stones—and the more precious, cut and polished the stones, the more they signify those same people transformed by grace and assembled as Christ’s body, the new temple.

We stand in a double and contrary relationship to objects outside ourselves. We stand to the world and all its contents as when God brought the animals to the first man for him to name. Among them all, Adam could find no companion. Between man and the rest of creation there is a barrier of difference, which neither scientific knowledge nor moral depravity can remove or efface. Man is of another make from every other earthly creature. To him they are foreign. His kinship is with God.

The baptismal font is an important feature and symbol of any parish church. It is necessary for catechists to have a clear understanding of the role of the baptismal font and the place of baptism for the life of the community. The canonical norms on the baptismal font and the place of baptism are clear: candidates must be baptised in the baptismal font in the proper parish church. The following norms will outline the baptismal font and also make clear where baptism is to be administered.

The question of the baptismal font is rarely discussed in any great detail. While the faithful see baptisms carried out at the baptismal font, many of them might not know much about the font itself. As the place where parents present their child for baptism or where adults are initiated into the Christian faith, the baptismal font is a sacred place.

Walking,—how many people know how to walk? It is not hurrying along at a kind of run, or shuffling along at a snail’s pace, but a composed and firm forward movement. There is a spring in the tread of a good walker. He lifts, not drags, his heels. He is straight, not stopped-shouldered, and his steps are sure and even.

In this meditation, Guardini wakens us to the fact that as merciful as God is, we still need to acknowledge our sinfulness to receive his mercy. The outward sign of striking the breast during the Confetior loses its significance, when our interior life denies any need for God’s forgiveness.

When the priest begins Holy Mass, while he is standing at the foot of the altar, the faithful, or the servers in their stead, say “I confess to Almighty God…that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word and deed, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault,” each time they confess their guilt and they strike their breasts. What is the significance of this striking the breast?

This liturgical meditation is take from Guardini's book, Sacred Signs.

It was morning. I had climbed a height and was turning back. Deep below lay the lake, and all round in the early light stood the mountains, great and silent. All was pure – the sky high above, the trees with their nobly formed fresh branches. And in myself, all my being was full of clear joyous force, so that I felt as if innumerable, invisible fountains were springing silently forth and all mounting into the bright wide heavens.

Then I understood how a man’s heart may overflow, as he stands lifting up his face, and, with outstretched hands, as if holding a paten up to endless Goodness, to the Father of Light, to God Who is Love – and offers to Him all that is around and in the world below, welling up, and brightening in the overflowing silence.

It must be to him as if all things rose up clear and holy from the paten in his hands.

Here Lorraine Buckley reflects on a theme that may be far from our minds at Christmas but is nevertheless a reality the Church brings forward for our contemplation in the liturgy of Christ’s birth.

It may seem odd to reflect on the last things at Christmas time, but this is what the Church’s liturgy invites us to do. The Post-Modern philosophy that pervades the current cultural climate in the West rejects all types of universal meta-narratives, fragmenting our world-view and outlook. The seasons of Advent and Christmas offer particular opportunities to help break out of this cultural trend. During Advent we have been preparing ourselves to celebrate the first coming of Christ in Bethlehem and renewing our desire for Christ’s second coming. Christmas is a time when Mother Church invites her children through the liturgy to step back from our day-to-day concerns to take a wider view: one which spans the whole history of salvation from the beginning of time to the eschaton. The Masses for the Nativity are a rich liturgical source for supplementing catechesis on death, judgment, heaven and hell.
The Gospel for Mass during the Day of the Solemnity of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ[i] reminds us that “in the beginning was the Word: the Word was with God and the Word was God”[ii] and then recounts creation, the Incarnation, and the purpose of the Incarnation in bringing light to the world so that all could become children of God who would see His glory. This short little scripture passage encapsulates the whole history of creation and salvation.