Sin and Prayer in the Catechism

The final year of the Why Catholic program covers Part Four of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: Christian Prayer. The part on prayer is the smallest of the four parts of the Catechism, so the number of paragraphs covered by each of the 12 sessions is smaller than in any of the previous three years. I've read the covered paragraphs as we've worked our way through, so in just two weeks, I will have completed reading the Catechism cover to cover for the second time (plus going to it for reference).

Every now and then, I read something that I don't understand. Such is the case in paragraph 2744, which quotes St. John Chrysostom's Sermon on Anna:

Nothing is equal to prayer; for what is impossible it makes possible, what is difficult, easy. . . . For it is impossible, utterly impossible, for the man who prays eagerly and invokes God ceaselessly ever to sin.

When I first read this, I though, "Whoa, that's way over the top! We're all sinners! I pray, and I sin. For this to be true, either my prayers aren't prayers, or my sins aren't sins!" I freely admit that I was conflicted. I thought that the quoted passage couldn't possibly mean what it literally said, and so I assumed that the original context of the quote would provide the true meaning. Perhaps when he says sin, he's specifically talking only about mortal sin. But, I can't find the Sermon anywhere on line, and I don't have any compilations of St. John's writings anywhere at hand. I have no idea what the context is.

I tried to convince myself that the passages in the Catechism that are in the smaller font are ancillary. They are there to add flavor, if you will. What's more, a quoted passage is no more infallible by virtue of being included in the Catechism than it was in its original context. Saints, while holy and virtuous, are not necessarily infallible with respect to the doctrine of their writings.

Now, as I sit pondering the passage, I suppose that the whole thing pivots upon those two words, "eagerly" and "ceaselessly." If one is in constant communion with God in prayer, then there would be no sin. It is only when we break that communion, or flag in our devotion, that we fall from grace.

I have apparently come around on the quote by St. John Chrysostom, at least to the extent that praying eagerly and ceaselessly is as hard as living completely free from sin, and the attempt is necessary for any who wishes to lead a holy life.

For the second saint quoted in paragraph 2744, St. Alphonsus Liguori, I'm going to have to give that more thought on a different day.

Companion to the Catechism

Way back in 1994, when the 1st edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church was released, my wife and I bought a copy of the Catechism, but we also purchased the Companion to the Catechism. According to the information provided by the publisher,

This Companion to the Catechism of the Catholic Church Book of References contains all the passages of Sacred Scripture referred to in the Catechism arranged according to the paragraphs in which the references are made.

But that is only a beginning. The Catechism also refers to conciliar texts, papal documents, writings of the Fathers and of the Saints. There are more than 3,600 of these references extending from the earliest credal formulations of the ancient Church to the documents of Vatican II and beyond to the magisterial teaching of Pope John Paul II. The Book of References includes all the texts referred to arranged, along with the Scripture passages, according to the paragraphs of the Catechism in which they are referred.

So, we thought we had it made. We would have at our fingertips all of the passages referenced by the Catechism. If only that were true. I've found, in the last few weeks, that some of the references that I want to look up are most decidedly not included in the Companion.

Need an example? Consider paragraph 2760 from the Catechism:

2760 Very early on, liturgical usage concluded the Lord's Prayer with a doxology. In the Didache, we find, "For yours are the power and the glory for ever."4 The Apostolic Constitutions add to the beginning: "the kingdom," and this is the formula retained to our day in ecumenical prayer.5 The Byzantine tradition adds after "the glory" the words "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." The Roman Missal develops the last petition in the explicit perspective of "awaiting our blessed hope" and of the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.6 Then comes the assembly's acclamation or the repetition of the doxology from the Apostolic Constitutions.

There are three references in the paragraph: (4) Didache 8,2:Sch 248, 174; (5) Apostolic Constitutions, 7,24,1:PG 1, 1016; and (6) Titus 2:13; cf. Roman Missal 22, Embolism after the Lord's Prayer.

What do you get when you turn to the references for paragraph 2760 in the Companion? A single entry: Roman Missal 126 (Embolism after the Lord's Prayer). The other references aren't there! Not even the referenced scripture passage from Titus!

The Companion is useless for me when I turn to it in desperation to try to get some context for the quotes from St. John Chrysostom and St. Alphonsus Liquori in paragraph 2744. More on that in a future post.

What Do Catholics Really Believe?

Many years ago, I asked myself several questions that, in my naivete, I had since assumed that all serious Christians have to ask themselves upon attaining maturity. Somewhere I must have made a false assumption, for every time that I delve into survey results on what other Catholics believe, I cannot help but be amazed and distressed.

The questions that I had were pretty basic, or so I thought. Why am I Catholic? Why am I not Lutheran or Methodist or some other Christian denomination? Why aren’t I a Jew, a Moslem, a Hindu, or a Buddhist? Does it make a difference? If I tell people that I am a Catholic, what am I saying about myself? Eventually, I came to the conclusion that I am Catholic because I believe the claims of the Catholic Church, that it does make a huge difference, and that when I tell people I am Catholic, I am telling them that I believe what the Catholic Church teaches.

Apparently, most Catholics never deal with these questions. I hope that it’s a larger problem out in the broader world than it is here in the German-Catholic ghetto at the extreme north of the Cincinnati Archdiocese. I say that based solely upon a single anecdote. I knew a woman who moved into the area and converted to Catholicism. She was a lovely lady. A few years after her conversion, she changed jobs and moved to a nearby city—not a big city, mind you, one with a population of about 20,000. A year or two after her move, I ran into her at a pilgrimage. She shared that she missed the faith of the people from our area. People in the city are as likely as not to say, “I’m Catholic, but . . . .” That little three letter conjunction, which is intended to signal high-minded independent thought, so much more instead.

What prompted all of this is an examination of survey results. The American Religious Identification Survey 2008 results have been in the news recently, mostly for noting an increase in those claiming no religion whatsoever. About a year ago, in February 2008, it was the results of the Pew Forum U. S. Religious Landscape Survey, which made waves in Catholic media for noting that 32% of U.S. residents who were raised Catholic no longer consider themselves Catholic. God only knows how many more still call themselves Catholic, although they functionally ceased being Catholic long ago. Finally, there was the Survey of Religion and Politics conducted by the University of Akron dealing with voting patterns in the presidential election. All three are available on-line.

If the Catholic Church is known for anything in the United States, it would be for it’s staunch opposition to abortion. And yet, among individual Catholics, 48% think that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and only 45% think that abortion should be illegal in most or all cases. The majority of Catholics, it would appear, are pro-choice, even though the Church calls abortion an intrinsic evil.

What about God? 93% of Catholics are absolutely or fairly certain that God exists, but only 60% believe in a personal God (in the Akron study the figure is a mere 41.9%!). That means that 40% of Catholics either don’t believe in God or believe that God is an impersonal force. It’s not a question covered by the survey, but I can’t help but wonder how those 40% view the divinity of Jesus, whom Catholics profess in the Creed to be “the only Son of God eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God.”

There are some inconsistencies in the numbers. Only 70% of Catholics believe in life after death, but 82% believe in heaven. The disparity must come from those who believe the souls in heaven are dead.

Not surprising is the statistic that most Catholics rarely read their Bible. A third of Catholics never read their Bible. Another third read scripture either seldom or several times a year.

The University of Akron study divided Catholics into three categories: Traditionalist, Centrist, and Modernist. When I first read those divisions, I assumed that I would fall within the Centrist division. I am certainly not a Modernist, and I don’t reject the Second Vatican Council. I was surprised to see that a higher percentage of Traditionalist Catholics voted for Obama than Centrist Catholics (surprised because of Obama’s support for abortion and the Catholic Church’s opposition). Even among Traditionalist non-Latino Catholics, weekly worship attendance (one of the precepts of the Church) and belief in a personal god are less than total at 89.4% and 72.9% respectively. The numbers for Centrist Catholics are much worse.

These kinds of numbers are a temptation to despair. Although 24% of the American population identifies itself as Catholic, many (most?) don’t really mean what they say. It’s hard to say whether all these muddled souls are willfully dissenting from Church teaching, or are just ignorant products of poor catechesis. It is clear that the Church in America has some work to do.

I Believe in God, . . .

This graphic was featured in the January 16 issue of The Catholic Telegraph. According to this poll, 7% of Catholics don't even believe in God!

I know this was an online poll, but it makes a person wonder who those 7% are.

Vocations and the Catechism

Today I experienced another one of those coincidental confluences that makes you wonder whether anything is really a coincidence, or if it was arranged by the hand of God. If it's been arranged, then what in the world does He want me to do with it?

First, I read and commented on a post by Father Schnippel. He is the vocations director for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, and he was commenting on a column in newspaper of the Wichita Diocese on where vocations come from. The three areas that generate seminarians are family life, parish life, and life through education and formation. Father Schnippel's comment on education and formation boiled down to the need to teach youth the fullness and beauty of the truth, but also lead them into a life of prayer and spiritual formation. My comment concerned people who think they know better.

Second, I went over to the EWTN podcast site. Every month, they offer a series that has aired at some point in the past. It's available for a month, and then it is replaced by a new offering the following month. The offering for January is an eleven episode series, Catechism and Controversies:

The Catechism of the Catholic Church issued in its present form contains an authentic statement of the faith in its fullness. Unfortunately, there are those, and many are religious educators, who are already trying to subvert the teachings found in the Catechism. In a challenging and insightful way, Msgr. Michael Wrenn examines the inner workings behind the publication of the new Catechism of the Catholic Church as well as several problems found in today's religious education efforts.

I listened to the first few, and that brings me to the third item.

Three years ago, I took a Basic Doctrine class through the Archdiocese. One of the texts for the class was Introducing the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Traditional Themes and Contemporary Issues, Edited by Berard L. Marthaler. During the course of the class, we had to read several of the essays and write papers on them. It wasn't easy reading, and for that reason, most of the students hated the book. I found it fascinating in that it opened to me a window into a world of people who really did not like the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

I had previously read the Catechism, and I loved it. There was one essay in the Marthaler volume, by Peter C. Phan, that we had to read and write a paper on and that I found downright offensive. Phan claimed that the structure of the Catechism was a "fundamental flaw" and that it "sundered" the integral unity between faith and life in a "monumental failure." My favorite line from his essay was this:

Furthermore, just as the old skins would burst if the new wine were poured into them, and the wine would spill, and both the skins and the wine be lost, so the four-part scheme proves to be the procrustean bed upon which a host of new theological issues are forced to lie. As a result, both the scheme and the doctrines suffer.

I had to look up the story of Procrustes to be really offended. I wrote a paper sharply critical of the author, and to the instructor's credit, she gave me a good grade on it, but I got the impression from the class that the instructor embraced much of the contemporary theology that the critics of the Catechism espoused.

How are these second two related to the first? While there are many of us who believe that the way to increase vocations is through embracing traditional formulations of Church teaching, with are authoritatively and clearly presented in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we continue to train people to view those formulations as outdated and counterproductive. We have some fabulous priests, many of whom are young, but we also have many entrenched lay persons who are not going to go quietly and wield significant power in the formation of our youth.

I want to make it clear at this point that I am not talking about anybody at my local parish. I am merely relating my experience in an Archdiocese class. You can listen to the EWTN podcast series and draw your own conclusions. Note that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Doctrine Committee found it necessary to issue a notice finding fault with at least one of Peter Phan's books.

Direct Dial, Part II

My wife, like most wives, I suspect, has a way of correcting me when I take things to excess. The other day we were talking, and she noted that I've been a little critical in some of my recent blog posts. She's right, of course. I jumped into the blogosphere about two months ago, and found an echo chamber for some of my opinions regarding the liturgy and traditional Catholic pieties. I can be as pharisaical as anybody, and I find that I have to guard against such tendencies. Sometimes I slip.

So, I'd like to back up and revisit my post on "direct dialing" and the honor that we give to Mary and the saints.

We can, of course, misplace our devotion to Mary. Our Blessed Mother should always lead us to her Son, as at Cana where she said, "Do whatever he tells you (John 2:5)." Mary is not an end, in and of herself; she is a path to Jesus. I recall growing uncomfortable in a Rosary cenacle where the prescribed prayer was one in which we prayed to Jesus to make us worthy of His Mother. It seemed to be placing the cart ahead of the horse.

Then there is Luke 11:27-28.

As he said this, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, "Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you sucked!" But he said, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!"

The Church doesn't see any contradiction here between reverence for Mary and obedience to Christ, for Mary heard the word of God and kept it better than anyone. We should honor Mary for her spiritual gifts, rather than for her merely physical role. So, I admit being a little confused when the Antiphon for the Canticle of Mary for Evening Prayer II (from the Liturgy of the Hours) on January 1 reads:

Blessed is the womb which bore you, O Christ, and the breast that nursed you, Lord and Savior of the world, alleluia.

Or the hymn selection of Virigin-Born, We Bow Before You, with these lyrics:

Virgin-born, we bow before you;
Blessed was the womb that bore you:

Although confusing, the source is authoritative, "approved for use by the Dioceses of the United States of Americvan by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and Confirmed by the Apostolic See."

As for direct prayer to God, it's simply not accurate to think that those with a devotion to Mary or the saints do not also pray directly to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It's one of those cases where there is no dichotomy; it's a both/and rather than an either/or. We could, I think, turn the question around to those who profess that they have no need for the intercession of the saints because they dial direct. Do they pray directly to God present in the Eucharist? Do they take time to fall on their knees in adoration before the tabernacle or the exposed Sacrament?

I fear that I'm starting to get a little judgmental again. Yes, there are some cautions that accompany devotion to Mary and the saints, and they deserve to be recognized. And praying directly to God is a good and necessary thing. Marian devotion does not exclude this. If anything, true devotion to Mary facilitates it. To those who pride themselves on being direct dialers, I would extend an invitation to let Mary be your guide, for she always points the way toward her Son.

Direct Dial

A few weeks ago, our parish high school religious education program (formerly CCD, now PSR) ended the fall session with a group assembly at which a local man noted for his story telling addressed the students. He called his talking “Something About Heaven,” and it was mostly a series of reflections strung loosely together and covering a wide variety of topics. He admitted that, while he had given some thought to what he would speak about, he hadn’t spent as much time in preparation as he would have liked, so he was counting on the Holy Spirit to put words into his mouth.

At one point in his address he said that he would caution the Marianists in the crowd. I don’t think that he was talking about members of the Society of Mary, who are best known around here for running the University of Dayton. He was speaking more generally about those with a devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. After offering this caution, he declined to elaborate. He basically said, “Be careful,” but did not say what the danger might be. He went on to state with what seemed to be some pride that he himself was a “direct dialer.” The message that seemed to come through loud and clear to me at least was this: forget Mary and the saints, just go straight to God.

This doesn’t strike me as being a historically or traditionally Catholic position.

My wife and I are facilitators in the Why Catholic program at our parish. This past fall, we did the first half of the fourth year. Since each year follows one of the four pillars of the Catechism, the fourth year is devoted to prayer. In the fall session, we talked quite a bit about intercessory prayer and prayer to Mary and the saints. The best explanation for prayer to the saints that I found was paragraph 2683 in the Catechism:

The witnesses who have preceded us into the kingdom, especially those whom the Church recognizes as saints, share in the living tradition of prayer by the example of their lives, the transmission of their writings, and their prayer today. They contemplate God, praise him and constantly care for those whom they have left on earth. When they entered into the joy of their Master, they were "put in charge of many things." Their intercession is their most exalted service to God's plan. We can and should ask them to intercede for us and for the whole world.

Note that Holy Mother Church says that we can and should ask the saints for intercession. And, of course, the statements of the Church regarding imitation of and prayer to Mary, who is recognized with numerous solemnities on the Church calendar, is even stronger.

It seems to me that when a speaker is invited to address students in a Catholic religious education program, the speaker should reinforce, or at least not contradict, the teachings of the Catholic Church. Parents send their children to parish-sponsored religious education to learn what the Church teaches. When Church teaching is undermined or alternative theologies presented as equivalent to traditional doctrine, we do a disservice to our children, their parents, and our Lord.