These are excerpts and notes from the book: The Catechism of the Catholic Church and the
Craft of Catechesis, by Petroc Willey, Pierre de Cointet, and Barbara
Morgan. It is an excellent read for
those setting about using the catechism as a teaching tool. It explains the catechism and its structure,
and then sets forth the manner in which you should teach from it, and how to
check whether you are staying on course.
For purposes of our Tuesday night catechism study group,
there is not teacher; we are learning together.
Therefore, the points I note below are merely some of the many key
points of this book, but ones which I believe may help us see better what we
are about, and also help us to use the tools within the catechism more effectively.
·
“The catechism is not a work to be read briefly
or hastily; one needs to stay with the text, pray with it and immerse oneself
in it to appreciate fully its visionary power and the compelling sense of
beauty, goodness, and truth that radiates from its pages. It benefits from this slow reading aloud of
the text.” (pp: xi- xii)
·
“There is a vital need to understand the
difference between doctrine and theology. Doctrine … is salvific; it leads us toward
holiness. The Catechism contains
doctrine, not theology – theology being the activity of reflecting upon
doctrine. … The Catechism of the Catholic Church is situated at a level that
precedes theological concepts and that provides their foundation. (p: xxxi)
·
“The Catholic Faith is not a series of isolated
propositions to be believed, but a unified whole, rooted in the unity of God.” Many people may only be catechized in
“fragments of that meaning.” (pp 2-3)
·
“The Catechism gives us an organic presentation
of the Faith. The annunciation of the
Faith is made, not as a list of points, or isolated truths, but as a living,
organic whole, in which the connections between the spiritual life and dogma,
between the liturgy and the moral life, and between the personal and communal
dimensions of the Faith, are stressed” (p7)
·
The
Catechism is broken into four parts.
The first two have to do with God’s action: the Creed and the Liturgy and
Sacraments. The last two have to do with
our response: Life in Christ and
Prayer. Knowing about God and the
saving work of Christ is key to understanding the second half of the catechism,
our response and our dependence on grace.
·
In the section titled Life in Christ, “The moral
life, for a Christian, is not the fruit of human effort, striving after
near-impossible ideals, of ‘dreaming the impossible dream’; it is the fruit of
a new life, described in terms of both an incorporation into Christ at baptism
and the reception of the Holy Spirit, who ‘having become their life, prompts
them (Christians) to act.’” (p21)
·
“And now here is the remarkable teaching of the
Catholic Faith, so beautifully and powerfully expressed in the Catechism: what
we would never have been able to discover, but needed to have revealed to us,
is the condescension of God, who teaches us how to stand as beggars before him
by himself coming as a beggar, and asking us for a drink to quench his thirst;
our desire for good things from him is only a pale reflection of his desire for
us and for our good. (pp 21-22)
·
“The Catechism is concerned to identify with precision
the meaning of each individual doctrine and … the relation and connection of
each doctrine to the whole Faith.” (p
31)
·
“Cross-referencing
between paragraphs is one of the main ways the authors of the Catechism
encourage us to help us make the links between the different dimensions of the
Christian Faith in our lives. … Numerous
cross-references in the margin of the text as well as the analytical index and
the end of the volume, allow the reader to view each theme in its relationship
with the entirety of the faith.” (p 35)
·
“We practice an organic reading and teaching of
the Faith, especially through the use of cross-references in the Catechism.” (p
39)
·
“C.S. Lewis presented a useful analogy in Mere
Christianity to help us think about the relationship between knowing God
personally and knowing about God. He
said that experiencing God might be compared to standing on a beach, sensing
the power of the waves. Doctrines, on
the other hand, are more like a map of the sea – far less interesting than the
sea itself, but if we want to get anywhere and not merely stand on the beach
all day we will need the map. Doctrine
is what we need if we want to be practical about the Christian life and start
moving. “ (pp 44-45)
