Catechetical Instruction
Second Meditation - Importance and Efficacy
I. The Glory of God and the salvation of souls are the priest's exclusive aims when acting as a priest, and there is nothing like the catechetical instruction for achieving them. There is not much fear that pride will enter into our conversation with children and ignorant people when trying to speak to them so simply, so completely down to their level, that they understand us and listen with quiet eagerness. Such a method of conversing, however, will be to the eyes of the world, and even to otherwise sensible and talented people, something contemptible and unworthy of attention.
The great advantage of this is that the catechist priest will have only the Glory of God and the enlightenment of souls to concern him; he will be carrying out the command that Jesus uttered so tenderly: Suffer the little children to come unto me. (Matt. xix, 14)
Lord, that is most consoling. When I am belittled in everyone's estimation because they see me stooping down for Thee to the little child, in reality I shall be ascending higher and higher in Thy esteem and love.
II. How necessary and irreplaceable this humble ministerial duty is in the Church throughout every age! Who, if the interests of souls mean anything to him, can fail to see it? The primary evil, and the root of a great many other evils, is ignorance.
Those who never or very seldom approach the Sacraments - and they are legion - nor even go anywhere near a church, are mostly the victims of crass ignorance. And a very large proportion of those who hear Mass on Sundays and do their Easter duties, how imperfectly they understand what they are about!
Ignorance of things divine is a real epidemic these days. We are far indeed from witnessing the fulfilment of Isaias's promise:
The earth is filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the covering waters of the sea. (Is. xi, 9)What overwhelms us, with the deafening roar and uncontrollable might of a tidal wave, is supercilious ignorance.
For there is no truth. . . and there is no knowledge of God in the land. (Osee. iv, 1)The multitudes, with their leaders at the head, seem to be shouting to their God and their Redeemer: Depart from us. We desire not the knowledge of thy ways. (Job. xxi, 14.)
What will be the fate of so many wretched Christians who are ignorant of the doctrines required - necessitate medii - for salvation? What will befall those who have not the slightest interest in performing the essential duties of a Christian, simply because they do not know what they are?
III. But - you may say, or feel - I'm surely born for higher things. Look at my brilliant career, my talents, my power of imagery, my advanced and solid studies, my merits (and perhaps subconsciously) my desire for self-advancement and publicity: all this demands higher and wider scope for my energies.
Is there really scope for lofty enterprise in mealymouthed pimpering and pandering to frivolous mortals, in what the Code calls lenocinium, in the scattering of withered and stinking flowers of an empty and dated oratory? Are we to cater for a public
"quorum cibus nugae sunt" (St. Augustine: Lib. de cat. c. lv)whose only taste is for puerilities? Or if we impart ideas, must those ideas be so flimsy and useless that they float away and vanish like pretty bubbles?
What nobler enterprise than to drill into the minds of the ignorant - ignorant but redeemed by the Precious Blood of Christ - ideas of the existence of the Supreme Being and His high Attributes, the divine origin of man and his ineffable, eternal destiny, and the treasures of Mercy locked up in the Heart of the Saviour?
Why, dear Jesus, oh, why do we Thy priests, after so many years of study and clerical training, after having pronounced solemnly on bended knees: Dominus pars haereditatis meae et calicis mei; why do we also have to pride ourselves on tinsel and empty vanity?
IV. Experience proves that the only means of restoring the Christian life to many places where it has ceased to exist is the religious education of the children. When the little ones take to the catechism class it is only a matter of time for them to be given their First Communion - and how the Church longs to see, and positively commands, the union of Christ with souls at the first dawning of reason! - and afterwards to join in General Communions for children several times a year, to the accompaniment of festivities and ceremonies that children so love.
It is my duty to see that they learn appropriate hymns, to keep them in some sort of order, to announce the forthcoming event with a great flourish of trumpets, so to speak, getting the children themselves to do the trumpeting; and I should select a day when the whole parish can conveniently attend. It will not be long before I see the church crowded, either out of curiosity or from any other motive, and then I shall be able to speak to all and sundry, young and old.
Why should not we priests seize these golden opportunities of making contact with lapsed parents by winning over the children? Unless a priest gives himself ridiculous airs or repels by brusqueness or apathy, the child comes to him gladly and naturally. Therefore, can anyone among us be justified in saying: "I can't do anything with these people," without a rebuff from God and from our own consciences: "The very thing you can do you won't, and you even despise it."
Resolutions
1. I shall read and meditate over and over again, and with a firm determination to carry it out as far as my strength and office allow, chapter one of Section (Titulus) XX of the Code: "De catechetica institutione," canons 1329-1336.
2. With regard to the obligatory catechetical instruction to adults, mentioned in canon 1332, I shall overcome its difficulties as well as I can. If the parishioners do not attend the Rosary in the evening, I shall have catechism for them during the Mass they frequent most, if there are several Masses in the same church; if only one, and I find no other way, I shall divide the homily: into two parts: seven minutes for the explaining of the Gospel and another seven for some point of doctrine; and the latter I shall expound with orderliness and methodical sequence, even though the second part of my instruction may have no visible relationship with the first.
3. Although I may not have the charge of souls I shall offer my services most readily to the parish priest to help him in this work of the ministry, thus fulfilling canon 1333, 2nd par.; and besides this, I shall not miss an opportunity of teaching the essentials for salvation to anyone ignorant of them.
4. In the conviction that unless the child in school learns the doctrinal formulas by heart - formulas that no individual teacher can safely change - he will never know the catechism, I shall try to enlist the cooperation of school teachers in this matter. I shall take every prudent measure my zeal suggests and requires in order to win over the teacher, yielding, if necessary, my personal rights and points of dignity; and if he is not a good Christian I shall do my utmost to make him one; and I shall offer him my services in the teaching of Religion. The teacher and myself working together in harness would certainly do an immense good to souls and to the whole parish.
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Adapted from The Priest at Prayer
by Fr. Eugenio Escribano, C.M. (© 1954)
Translated by B.T. Buckley, C.M.
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Please pray for our priests and pray for vocations to the priesthood!
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