In our last blog, Fr. Bob spoke about the second leg of our Catechism of the Catholic Church, “how we celebrate.” He discussed how God continues to give of himself through the Sacred Liturgy. Here, Featured Blogger David Augustine, parishioner of St. Anne who is studying Liturgical Studies at the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein discusses the Liturgy from a bibilical perspective — unveiling its mystery and healing power.  During Lent, perhaps consider attending daily Mass:  6 p.m. at St. Catherine’s Chapel on Tuesdays; 6 p.m. at St. Anne’s on Wednesdays and Thursdays; and 8 a.m. at St. Anne on Fridays; and 9 a.m. at St. Anne’s on Saturdays.

The created order is like an iceberg; only 10% of it is above water – in other words, visible. Faith pulls back the veil that shrouds its supernatural inner depths. Through the sacramentality of the Liturgy, we are called to experience a
healing of the eyes, transforming how we look at the world.

2 Kings records an event in the anything-but-mundane life of the prophet Elisha (who lived 9^thcent. B.C.). The man of God was in the Israeli city of Dothan when Syrian chariots
surrounded the city to capture him. On seeing the chariots, Elisha’s servant
panicked, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” Elisha responded with his usual
calm, ““Fear not, for those who are with us are more than those who are with
them.” Then Elisha prayed, and said, “O Lord, I beg you, open his eyes that he may see.” So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.” (2 Kings 6:15-23 RSV) These are the hidden and spiritual depths that are opened up through prayer by the “man of God”.

Shortly before his Passion, Jesus led his inner band of disciples – Peter, James and John – up on a mountain to pray. Before their eyes and “as he was praying, the appearance
of his countenance was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white.” (Lk
9:28-36) After this, his disciples saw him conversing with Moses and the
prophet Elijah as the cloud of God’s glory overshadowed them. While in prayer,
the divine glory veiled by Jesus’ humanity flared up, transfiguring his
countenance with the uncreated light of God’s glory. He is now seen for what he
really is: the archetypal image of the Father, he who “bears the very stamp of
his nature” (Heb 1:3), he who informs both the Law (Moses) and the prophets
(Elijah). The Lord has given his disciples a glimpse of the glory to come, the
glory permanently set forth in his resurrected state. This is the same glory
given to us in the Baptismal Liturgy as an earnest of our own resurrection: “he
has put his seal upon us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee”
(2 Cor 1:22) so that the “life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.”
(2 Cor 3:10)

On the day of his Resurrection, the Lord joined a pair of his disciples as they walked the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus. They failed to recognize him. When they arrived at
Emmaus, however, the Lord sat at table with them, and “he took the bread and
blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they
recognized him; and he vanished out of their sight.” Later, they told the other
disciples how “he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.” (Lk
24:13-35) Sound familiar? This passage, like the other post-Resurrection
narratives, is what we call, in church language, “ecclesiological”. This means
that it tells us something about the Church. Which brings us to the Eucharist.
In both the proclamation of the Word of God and in the sacraments of the Church
(above all, the Eucharist), Christ continues to be present to his disciples. It
is there that he is known by people of faith who devote themselves to prayer.

In the “daily bread” of the Eucharist, we are given the ongoing challenge to be a people of
faith, a people who pull back the veil on the heaviness of empirical reality
and see the glory of God manifested in our midst. The Eucharist is an epiphany;
it is a clarion call to see materiality transfigured in the light of his glory,
we ourselves being transformed in the process. Or, in the words of St. Paul,
“Though our outer man is wasting away, our inner man is being renewed every day
… because we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are
unseen; for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are
unseen are eternal.” (2 Cor 4:16-18)

Through Liturgy, we are called to a transfiguration of the eyes. In John 9, Jesus healed a man blind from birth. Jesus “spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle and
anointed the man’s eyes with the clay, saying to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of
Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.” (John 9:1-12) Without this prerequisite healing, all is darkness. “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is not sound,
your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness,
how great is the darkness!” (Matt 6:22-23) A creation rendered opaque to God’s
glory is darkness. Faith transforms it into light.

 

 

This is our third in our blog series, which focuses on the second leg of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “how we celebrate.”

A few weeks ago in a homily I used the image of a 4-legged table to describe a holistic approach to our Catholic faith.  If you remove one leg from a table, you can make it work depending on where you place objects on the surface.  If you break off a second leg, you don’t have a very useful table.  You might get inventive and prop the table in a corner, and get by, but you’d have to admit the limitations of the situation.  Our faith stands on four legs, or pillars.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church is structured to reflect these four pillars, and gives us a quick way of checking on the health of our spiritual table, on how authentically we are living our Catholic faith.

To sum up:  The first leg is the doctrine of the Church, or what we believe as Catholics.  The second leg is how we celebrate our faith and make God present, through liturgy and sacrament.  The third leg is how we live as moral persons in line with the teachings of Christ.  The final leg is how we pray.  Our Catholic faith must stand on all four of these legs.

The ‘second leg’ is an answer to the question:  How does God continue to effectively give us
the gift of Himself?  Catholics have a sacramental understanding of God’s gift of life to us.  Through the sacraments, which are expressed in our liturgy, visible signs make effective an invisible reality: the grace of God, the very gift of God’s life in our soul.
The word liturgein means ‘to make present or to re-present,’ a saving reality of God.  The Eucharist, for example, makes use of the visible signs of bread and wine and of the words of Christ in order to fulfill his commandment to ‘take and eat’, so that we might
have divine life within us.

I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.  The Jews
quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us (his) flesh to eat?” Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. (Jn. 6:51-56)

It is clear, from these words of Jesus, that he intends to give himself to us sacramentally.  This gift is not ‘just symbolic’, but is a true gift of God himself.  The life contained in the sacraments is made effective through the saving sacrifice which Christ endured in his Passion.  His life’s blood, poured out sacrificially on the cross, is the life of the Church.  There is a wonderful depth, vividness and ‘down to earth’ quality to the sacramental and liturgical realties.  For this reason Jesus clothed himself in our flesh, so that he could give himself to us through our senses, through our humanity.  The liturgy celebrates this wonderful way of God’s relating to us, through which we are drawn into his life.

 

 

Perspective on 3-in-1: The Holy Trinity by Mike Nuzzo

If asked, could you coherently describe the Holy Trinity to someone?  The Holy Trinity is a simple, yet powerful, part of our faith that is misunderstood by many people (including myself until recently).   The Catechism of the Catholic Church calls it “the central mystery of Christian faith and life”, yet it is so often glossed over, and we are left with “blind faith” alone, or just confusion.  Even the Nicene Creed glosses over the Oneness of God.

The Trinity is as follows: God is one in nature and substance,  yet appears in three distinct persons to us: Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

I believe it is in our human nature to instinctively reject things that we cannot prove or visualize.  To go beyond our human nature and expand our spirit and faith,  we must disconnect from the limitations of our imagination.   We can understand and visualize each “person”: God as our creator, Jesus as the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit as the Love of both the Father and the Son.  But once we try to see the three persons as One, we go beyond the capability of our imagination, and we must let go a little.  We must now use our intellect to understand.  Our intellect focus on what is possible, or impossible,  without the limitation of having to visualize it.  With rational thought, and the knowledge of our faith, we can begin along the path of understanding.

The differentiation between intellect and imagination is what really got me while reading “Theology and Sanity” by Frank Sheed.  I always thought I had a great imagination, and was proud of being able to visualize issues & concepts.  I never thought that it could be a limiting trait when exploring ideas at the edge of our understanding.  Now that I am aware, I am (sometimes) able to stop my imagination when it gets in the way.

Why do we have such trouble believing God can be so much more than human? Perhaps this is because of our inability to grasp the full concept of God, and thus this is one of the key mysteries of our faith.  Pray today about this concept, and when your imagination starts flashing pictures, stop, backup, and  meditate on an intellectual journey to come closer to God.

A Roadmap for Catholics: Intro to catechism by Fr. Bob Weighner

Now and then a parishioner will ask me some question regarding the faith.  Sometimes, I just answer them, but often I will refer them to the Catechism of the Catholic Church(CCC).  What is a catechism?  The online etymological dictionary tells us that it means “instruction in Christian principles,” from Latin, catechismus “book of instruction,” and from Greek, katekhizein, “to teach orally”.  Some of us old-timers remember the Baltimore Catechism, which was a simplified question-and-answer form.  Throughout the centuries, many catechisms have been written.  Major catechisms were written for the clergy, theologians and Church leaders, as an aid to their work, and the minor catechisms were written for the lay faithful.

Pope John Paul II commissioned new catechism in 1986

 

 

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) chaired commission

 

In our modern age, a new catechism was commissioned by Pope John Paul II in 1986.  Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) chaired that commission, and completed the work in 1992.  This is a comprehensive work, a universal Catechism, which is envisioned as a “reference text” for use by bishops, priests, catechists, and the lay faithful.  It is a great treasure for the Church today.  Pope John Paul II considered the Catechism to flow from the work of the Second Vatican Council, whose overarching goal was to make the faith more accessible to modern man.  He was convinced that, without proper tools, such as an up-to-date Catechism, it is not easy to teach our faith.

The 4-Legged Table of our Catholic Faith

The Catechism is meant to address the whole range and experience of the Catholic
faith.  To accomplish this, it is divided into four main parts – a 4-legged table, so to speak: faith, liturgy, morality and prayer.  Each of these sections is viewed through a particular inheritance of the faith:

Part I:  What we Believe – studies the Apostles
Creed/Nicene Creed as a synthesis of Catholic teaching.

Part II: How we Celebrate – studies the sacramental and liturgical life of the Church.

Part III: How we Live – the study of Christian morality through the life of Christ and
the Ten Commandments

Part IV: How we Pray – examines the “perfect prayer” given us by Jesus:  the Our Father.

This is a comprehensive approach to the faith, and a fitting way to organize our blogging
page.  Through these pages, we hope to clarify what the Church believes, deepen our appreciation for the liturgy and sacraments, address moral issues in the faith, and lastly, learn better how to speak with our Lord.

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