The  Catechist and the Catechism of the Catholic Church

Joe Portelli

Karl Barth was minister of a church in Switzerland. He was a great theologian and also a great preacher. One day, someone asked him the secret of his carefully prepared sermons. He replied: "I take the Gospel in one hand and the morning newspaper in the other, and I try to see what the light of the Gospel is telling me about the deeds of the day." (Number 81 from The Illustrated Catechism - A Redemptorist Pastoral Publication 1980)

I would modify the words of Barth thus: the Gospel and the Catechism of the Catholic Church in one hand and the morning newspaper in the other hand since the Catechism presents us with the teaching of the Church. The teaching of the Church is indispensable because "Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture...both of them, flowing out from the same divine well-spring, come together...to form one thing, and move towards the same goal." (Dei Verbum 9). Because "Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture make up a single sacred deposit of the Word of God" (DV 10), in which, as in a mirror, the pilgrim Church contemplates God, the source of all her riches. (Number 97, The Catechism of the Catholic Church).

So I would say that a catechist should have the Bible and Catechism of the Catholic Church in one hand and the morning newspaper in the other.

The apostles and disciples experienced Jesus Christ, the Risen Lord, when they were gathered as the Church. And we must experience Jesus in the Church.

And since "Catechesis is an education in the faith of children" (John Paul II, Exhortation Catechesi tradendae 18);

and since the "Catechism ..… faithfully and systematically presents the teaching of Sacred Scripture, the living Tradition in the Church and the authentic Magisterium, as well as the spiritual heritage of the Fathers, Doctors and saints of the Church, to allow for a better knowledge of the Christian mystery and for enlivening the faith of the People of God….. takes into account the doctrinal statements which down the centuries the Holy Spirit has intimated to his Church…..also helps to illumine with the light of faith the new situations and problems which had not yet emerged in the past.";

and since the Catechism is a "a sure norm for teaching the faith";

a catechist is duty bound to use the Catechism of Catholic Church. A catechist is not proclaiming his/her message but that of Jesus Christ confided to his Church as coming to us by Scripture and Tradition.

The Catechism is arranged in four parts. "The four parts are related one to another:

The Christian mystery is the object of faith (first part);

it is celebrated and communicated in liturgical actions (second part);

it is present to enlighten and sustain the children of God in their actions (third part);

it is the basis for our prayer….and it represents the object of our supplications."

"The Liturgy itself is prayer;

The confession of faith finds its proper place in the celebration of worship.

Grace, the fruit of the sacraments, is the irreplaceable condition for Christian living, just a s participation in the Church's Liturgy requires faith.

If faith is not expressed in works, it  is dead and cannot bear fruit unto eternal life." (From the Apostolic Constitution Fidei Depositum, John Paul II)

Catechesis should be systematic. And the Catechism helps the catechist to be so.

During the last two years of his life, Blessed Dun Gorg Preca, founder of the Society of Christian Doctrine, S.D.C., M.U.S.E.U.M.,  began his Wednesday addresses to members of his Society with this sentence of Jesus: "Father,...this is eternal life, that they may know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." (Jn 17: 3)  "May the light of the true faith free humanity from the ignorance and slavery of sin in order to lead it to the only freedom worthy of the name: that of life in Jesus Christ under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, here below and in the Kingdom of heaven, in the fullnessof the blessed vision of God face to face." (John Paul II, Apostolic Constitution: Fidei Depositum)

May we catechists first really know God and Jesus Christ, so that this faith is caught by those we teach, because this will lead us to fullness of life as human beings here on Earth and in Heaven.

May Mary, Mother of the Incarnate Word and Mother of the Church, help us to make flesh the Word of God in those we lead.