Tag Archives: catechism. US Catholic Catechism for Adults

Catechisms and Saintly Catechisms: Padre Pio

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Where do catechisms come from? They’re recent instruments for forming people in their faith. Martin Luther was the first to compose a catechism in question and answers for ordinary people in the 15th century.

In response to Luther, the Dutch Jesuit Peter Canisius composed the first Catholic catechism in 1555 followed by three others afterwards. The Council of Trent directed a catechism be written as a resource for the clergy and that appeared in 1556. Robert Bellarmine later composed an important catechism requested by Pope Clement VIII and after that bishops from all over the world composed catechisms for their people. I can still recite questions and answers from the Baltimore Catechism of my youth.

Catechesis was done in earlier centuries without catechisms, through preaching, sacraments, the feasts and seasons of the year. The Second Vatican Council changed the language of the liturgy from latin to the language of the people and revised the liturgical prayers and rites so that they better serve as catechesis. Some today want to maintain the primacy of the catechism in catechesis but, while they’re still useful, we need to catechize more through the liturgy, sacraments, feasts and seasons. It’s a task of the Second Vatican Council remaining to be done. 

Today’s the feast of Padre Pio, the Italian Capuchin friar who’s one of the most popular saints of modern times. I would say he’s a saint who’s a catechism. He was a stigmatic, who carried the wounds of Christ in his body. Church officials were wary of him;  investigation after investigation questioned his credibility, but ordinary people recognized his holiness. To them he was a striking sign of God’s presence in an ordinary human being. Padre Pio taught that, not through a book, but through himself.

In 2006 the bishops of the USA published the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults, which interspersed stories of saints and others as examples of the faith expounded in the book. They were acknowledging what we all know: people are better catechisms than books. 

Padre Pio reminds us of that today.

The Sacrament of Penance

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Prodigal son

Penance is a neglected sacrament in our church today. Few Catholics receive it. It was among the last sacramental rites to be revised after the Second Vatican Council and little catechesis accompanied its introduction. The Mass, with its changes in language and form, got most attention after the council. It seems to me that Penance needs to be better known and better celebrated.

Like the Mass, this sacrament has different names. It’s called the Sacrament of Reconciliation, the Sacrament of Penance and also Confession. Each term describes something about it.

It’s called the Sacrament of Reconciliation because God shows us mercy here, a mercy that reconciles us to him and to our world. The prayer the priest prays after the penitent confesses sin explains the sacrament:

“God the Father of mercies through the death and resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins. Through the ministry of the church may God grant you pardon and peace. I absolve you from your sin in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

Reason can point to a God all-powerful and infinitely wise, but faith says God is “the Father of mercies.” God reveals himself as merciful in Jesus Christ who died and rose again from the dead. Appearing to his fearful disciples on Easter Sunday evening he said to them:

“’Peace be with you.’ When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.’” (John 20,19-23)

God is merciful and mercy brings “pardon and peace.” The mercy of God is a favorite theme Pope Francis stresses today in his preaching and ministry. It is a prominent theme in the recent Synod on the Family. We need to believe in it.

Besides the Sacrament of Reconciliation, the sacrament is called the Sacrament of Penance. To do penance is to try to heal the wounds and damage we have caused through what we have done or left undone in life. The penance given the penitent by the priest in confession is part of a life-long way of penance. We’re also part of a church that must be always penitential, a church always needing to be reformed.

The sacrament is called Confession because we look at ourselves in the light of God’s word and try to uncover and express what are our sins and how they prevent us from loving God and neighbor as we should.

Reconciliation, Penance, Confession. The simple steps taken in this sacrament are concrete expressions of these themes. We can confess individually, probably the most familiar way, or as part of a group. There are two ways for celebrating the sacrament in groups, one ending with individual absolution, the other with general absolution.

Briefly, individual confession before a priest can be done either kneeling or face to face. It begins with the Sign of the Cross, a sign of God’s blessing and God’s presence. Then there is a short reflection on God’s word so that we might know our sins and be encouraged to confess them to our God. This step should also take place in our preparation for confession.

We express our sins to the priest, receive a penance from him and pray that God forgive us.

The priest then declares the mercy of God and the grace of pardon and peace in the prayer mentioned above.

The sacrament concludes with an expression of thanksgiving to God, who is merciful.

A fuller treatment of the Sacrament of Penance can be found in The United States Catholic Catechism for Adults,  now free online.

A Mission at St. Margaret’s: Monday

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Monday Mass: November 29

This morning in St. Margaret Church in Madison, Ct,  I celebrated Mass and afterwards gave a short morning catechesis on the Holy Eucharist, our great common prayer.  Here are some simple suggestions I made about praying at Mass.

https://vhoagland.wordpress.com/2009/10/01/praying-at-mass/

http://vimeo.com/6084341

Tonight at 7 PM our mission continues. Here’s the lineup.

Monday: Searching for God: St. Elizabeth Ann

Opening hymn

Announcements and opening prayer

Catechesis  (10 minutes): Growing in faith:  The US Catholic Catechism for Adults

Praying today: Prayers and prayerbooks

Reflective hymn

Sermon:   (35 minutes)     The Saint of Wall Street: St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

Benediction hymns, short prayer, closing hymn) (15 minutes)

The way we’re learning about our faith is changing. One example is the new US Catholic Catechism for Adults. It’s a catechism for adults, instead of a catechism for children. It’s for adult Catholics, and not just for priests or special catechetical teachers. All of us are invited to learn and keeping learning about our faith, and then live what we know and believe.

The new Catholic Catechism for Adults, besides definitions and explanations, uses the lives of saints and holy people, many of them American, as examples and guides of faith. Faith doesn’t exist in a book, it’s lived by people.

St. Elizabeth Seton is the first saint the catechism offers. She a wonderful example of what’s meant when we say we are searching for God. All of us are searching for God. Her life took an extraordinary number of twists and turns, from childhood, to married life, to prosperity and then to adversity,  to her conversion to Catholicism and her life as a dedicated religious involved in the ministry of the church.Through it all she kept searching for God who made her and mysteriously called her.

Another way we use to learn about our faith today is the scriptures. Tuesday night and Wednesday night we’re going to look at Jesus as he is presented in the Gospel of Matthew, which is often called the first Christian catechism.

I’ll give a summary of these presentations afterwards in blogs at Victor’s Place