Remembering A Legacy

Earlier this spring, Our Sunday Visitor posted an article about the legacy of Saint John Paul II.  While the author admits that she only covers a fraction of his legacy, she does a wonderful job of capturing the impact the late Holy Father made on the Church and the world.

This is something we set out to do in our permanent exhibit, A Gift of Love: The Life of Saint John Paul II, and today we decided to lay out how we preserve the pieces of our beloved John Paul’s legacy that the author mentions.

Theology of the Body

John Paul II’s anthropology gave the Church a new language with which to address the fallout of the sexual revolution and help Christians recover a sacramental understanding of the world.

World Youth Days

With each successive World Youth Day, Pope John Paul II helped the Church see that it didn’t need to change in order to inspire young people; rather, it needed to challenge young people to change — to be bolder, more faithful and more heroic.

Fourth Luminous Mystery: The Transfiguration

And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain apart. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his garments became white as light.

Matthew 17:1-2

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “For a moment Jesus discloses his divine glory, confirming Peter's confession. He also reveals that he will have to go by the way of the cross at Jerusalem in order to ‘enter into his glory’ (Luke 24:26)” (CCC, 555).

While meditating on the Transfiguration, say one Our Father, ten Hail Mary’s, and a Glory Be (see "How to Pray the Rosary" if you are unfamiliar with any of these prayers).

Second Luminous Mystery: The Wedding Feast Of Cana

On the third day there was a marriage at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there; Jesus also was invited to the marriage, with his disciples. When the wine failed, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." And Jesus said to her, "O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come." His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."

John 2:1-5

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "On the threshold of his public life Jesus performs his first sign at his mother's request - during a wedding feast: The Church attaches great importance to Jesus' presence at the wedding at Cana. She sees in it the confirmation of the goodness of marriage and the proclamation that thenceforth marriage will be an efficacious sign of Christ's presence" (CCC, 1613).

While meditating on the wedding feast of Cana, say one Our Father, ten Hail Mary's, and a Glory Be (see "How to Pray the Rosary" if you are unfamiliar with any of these prayers).

This Prodigal Son Is Every Human Being

Those who know the parable of the prodigal son, remember this story as a beautiful portrayal of the rich mercy of God. A son leaves his father, squandering every gift that he inherits. He ends up in a place very far from his father’s love and care, where he lives hungry and unsatisfied. He eventually comes to himself in this place, realizing that his father’s servants live more satisfied that he does. So he decides to humbly return to the father who loves him. Rather than rebuke his son, the father “embraced and kissed him” upon his return, treating the young man with more mercy than anyone reading the story might think he deserves (Luke 15:11-32).

In his Apostolic Exhortation, “Reconciliation and Penance,” Saint John Paul II writes:

This prodigal son is every human being: bewitched by the temptation to separate himself from his Father in order to lead his own independent existence; disappointed by the emptiness of the mirage which had fascinated him; alone, dishonored, exploited when he tries to build a world all for himself sorely tried, even in the depths of his own misery, by the desire to return to communion with his Father. Like the father in the parable, God looks out for the return of his child, embraces him when he arrives and orders the banquet of the new meeting with which the reconciliation is celebrated.

The most striking element of the parable is the father's festive and loving welcome of the returning son: It is a sign of the mercy of God, who is always willing to forgive. Let us say at once: Reconciliation is principally a gift of the heavenly Father (5).

God loves us like the father in the parable loves his son. We turn away from Him daily, abusing the good gifts He has given us. And He welcomes us back daily, giving us the gift of reconciliation with His merciful heart.

We celebrate this gift through the Sacrament of Reconciliation or Confession, “a great gift of healing that brings about closer union with the Lord” and with the Church (YOUCAT 235). Our Baptism reconciles us with God, but we need Confession because Baptism “does not free us from human weakness and the inclination to sin. That is why we need a place where we can be reconciled with God again and again” (YOUCAT 226).

Human Life Is Sacred

In [God’s] hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.

-Job 12:10

Every human life is sacred. Blessed John Paul II often reminded us of this, and that is why our final Year of Faith reflection is on the dignity of the human person. 

The topic of human life is covered in the Catechism of the Catholic Church under the Fifth Commandment, you shall not kill. The section begins with:

‘Human life is sacred because from its beginning it involves the creative action of God and it remains forever in a special relationship with the Creator, who is its sole end. God alone is the Lord of life from its beginning until its end: no one can under any circumstances claim for himself the right directly to destroy an innocent human being’ (as quoted in CCC, 2258).

Scripture tells us that all human life is to be protected and respected from the first moment of existence until natural death. This is because “the human person has been willed for its own sake in the image and likeness of the living and holy God” (2319).

The Christian Faith Rests On The Trinity

Wherever there is love, there is a trinity: a lover, a beloved, and a fountain of love.

-St. Augustine

The Christian faith rests on the mystery of the Trinity.

The mystery is there in every revelation God has given to man. The mystery is there when we are baptized “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt. 28:19). And the mystery is there in any loving relationship, like in the Holy Family depicted above. 

When we speak of the Trinity, we speak of the Father. “Jesus revealed that God is Father in an unheard-of sense: he is Father not only in being Creator; he is eternally Father in relation to his only Son, who is eternally Son only in relation to his Father…” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 240).

We also speak of the Son, named by the Nicene Creed as “the only-begotten Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father.”

We also speak of the Holy Spirit, who was “sent to the apostles and to the Church both by the Father in the name of the Son, and by the Son in person, once he had returned to the Father” (244). The Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son, as that fountain of love between the two that abundantly overflows.

I Believe In God

Our profession of faith begins with God, for God is the First and the Last, the beginning and the end of everything (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 198).

Everything we believe, and in fact, everything that we are depends on God. He is one, without limit, and Lord over heaven and earth. The people of Israel tell us this about God in the Hebrew Scriptures, and they knew because He mercifully chose to reveal His own name to them:

To disclose one’s name is to make oneself known to others; in a way it is to hand oneself over by becoming accessible, capable of being known more intimately and addressed personally (203).

God revealed Himself to Moses in the burning bush as YHWH, or “I AM WHO AM.”  This name reveals everything about God, but at the same time, it reveals almost nothing. It is “mysterious just as God is mystery. It is at once a name revealed and something like the refusal of a name, and hence it better expresses God as what he is—infinitely above everything that we can understand or say…” (206).

The name indicates that God is hidden, yet very much present at the same time.

The Mirror of Faith

The Church…guards [this preaching and faith] with care, as dwelling in but a single house, and similarly believes as if having but one soul and a single heart, and preaches, teaches, and hands on this faith with a unanimous voice, as if possessing only one mouth.

-St. Irenaeus of Lyon

The Church carries with her a creed, for communion “in faith needs a common language of faith, normative for all and uniting all in the same confession of faith” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 185). In one brief formula, gathered from the Scriptures and summarizing the whole of the Good News, the people of the Church are able to declare their one love for the one Truth in Jesus Christ.

The word “formula” might seem off-putting, and earthily out of place when it comes to things above this world. The Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church explains why this formula is necessary, though:

Without fixed forms, the content of the faith would dissipate. That is why the Church attaches great importance to definite sentences, the precise wording of which was usually achieved painstakingly, so as to protect the message of Christ from misunderstandings and falsifications. Furthermore, creeds are important when the Church’s faith has to be translated into different cultures while being preserved in its essentials, because a common faith is the foundation of the Church’s unity (25).

We call these forms, “professions of faith,” “creeds,” or “symbols of faith,” and they stand as points of reference for catechesis (CCC, 187). 

The Assurance Of Things Hoped For

Every minute of every day, through every experience and encounter that we have, God invites us into His company. In order to believe, our hearts must be ready to listen and respond to God’s invitation.

This response is faith, and it involves completely submitting our intellect and our will to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). It is a free abandonment to the truth, “by trust in the person who bears witness to it” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 177). Faith stakes everything on a relationship with this person, Jesus Christ, accepting Him as revelation of the one, all-merciful and all-powerful God.

The Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church (YOUCAT) lays out the qualities of faith in bullet points:

Faith is knowledge and trust. It has seven characteristics:

• Faith is a sheer gift of God, which we receive when we fervently ask for it.
• Faith is the supernatural power that is absolutely necessary if we are to attain salvation.
• Faith requires the free will and clear understanding of a person when he accepts the divine invitation.
• Faith is absolutely certain, because Jesus guarantees it.
• Faith is incomplete unless it leads to active love.
• Faith grows when we listen more and more carefully to God’s Word and enter a lively exchange with him in prayer.
• Faith gives us even now a foretaste of the joy of heaven (21).

Faith is an authentically human act, in which our “intellect and will cooperate with divine grace” (CCC, 155). God does give us “motives of credibility,” in the miracles of Christ, the witness of saints, true prophecies, and in the fruitfulness of the Church (CCC, 156). Still faith “seeks understanding,” calling the believer to dive deeper into “a more penetrating knowledge,” which “will in turn call forth a greater faith, increasingly set afire by love” (CCC, 158).

The Lamp To My Feet And Light To My Path

In our last Year of Faith reflection, we touched on the revelation of Jesus Christ entrusted to us in Sacred Scripture. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) explains that in “order to reveal himself to men, in the condescension of his goodness God speaks to them in human words…” (101). Scripture is a gift to men and women, for otherwise we would not understand what God so mercifully wants to tell us.

The Church venerates Sacred Scripture as one utterance, one Word from God the Father who speaks lovingly to His children. Although this one Word was written by human authors, all parts of the Old and New Testaments are believed to be inspired by the Holy Spirit:

"God chose men and while employed by Him they made use of their powers and abilities, so that with Him acting in them and through them, they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those things which He wanted" (Dei Verbum, 11).

Now the Christian Church does not take all parts of the Scripture word for word, but understands that, “Christianity is the religion of the ‘Word,’ of God, a word which is ‘not a written and mute word, but the Word which is incarnate and living’” (CCC, 108):

The Bible is not meant to convey precise historical information or scientific findings to us. Moreover, the authors were children of their time. They shared the cultural ideas of the world around them and often were also dominated by its errors. Nevertheless, everything that man must know about God and the way of his salvation is found with infallible certainty in Sacred Scripture (YOUCAT, 15).

This is why the faithful must look to the Holy Spirit, the interpreter of Scripture, and recognize that there are literal and spiritual senses to what we read. We must pay attention to what the sacred author’s intention is, first being “attentive ‘to the content and unity of the whole Scripture’” (CCC, 112). Second, the Scriptures should be read within the Tradition of the Church, within “the faith that gave rise to them” (YOUCAT, 16). Third, pay attention to the “analogy of faith,” or the “coherence of the truths of faith among themselves” (CCC, 112-114).

Faith Transmitted To All Generations

God desires that all men know the truth of Jesus Christ. Before He ascended into heaven, Christ Himself gave the Church a mission, to go and “make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:19). Therefore, all Christians must proclaim the truth of the Gospel, fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ, “so that all men can freely make a decision for Christ” (YOUCAT).

The Gospel has been transmitted in two ways. It was first transmitted orally by the Apostles, through their fellowship, their preaching, their teaching, and the guidance they gave. Second, it was transmitted in writing, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

The latter we see clearly in the Sacred Scriptures, but the former way is somewhat less tangible. This is why the apostles appointed bishops as successors, so that this teaching could be handed on and preserved with authority. Guided by the Holy Spirit, apostolic succession makes the “living transmission” of the Gospel possible (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 78). This way, the “Father’s self-communication made through his Word in the Holy Spirit, remains present and active in the Church,” or as the Catechism puts it, God is able to continue speaking with the Spouse of His Son (79).

As Catholics, we accept and honor both Sacred Scripture and Tradition. For “there exists a close connection and communication” between them, and both, “flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end” (Dei Verbum, 9). This end is the fruitful transmission of the Word of God in its entirety throughout the world.

Loving Revelation

All that is said about God presupposes something said by God.

       -St. Edith Stein (1891-1942)

In our last reflection on the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we affirmed the possibility of knowing God through natural reason. Movements in creation and in our souls can lead us to a certainty in the existence of God.  

Reason isn’t the only thing He leaves us with, though. Out of love for His creation, God revealed Himself to man by opening Himself and voluntarily speaking to the world. God freely showed Himself to man so that we may know Him: 

Just as in human love one can know something about the beloved person only if he opens his heart to us, so too we know something about God’s inmost thoughts only because the eternal and mysterious God has opened himself to us out of love (YouCat, 17).

God first made Himself known to Adam and Eve, when “he invited them to intimate communion with himself and clothed them with resplendent grace and justice” (CCC, 54).

God continued to reveal Himself after the Fall, when men were scattered and divided by sin. He first did this in the covenant with Noah and then when He selcted Abraham as patriarch of the chosen people, who were specially called “to prepare for that day when God would gather all his children into the unity of the Church” (60).

Knowing Our God

Faith is man’s response to God, who reveals himself and gives himself to man, at the same time bringing man a superabundant light as he searches for the ultimate meaning of his life (CCC, 26).

When we join in the Profession of Faith each Sunday, we unite with our Church community in saying, “We believe.” We respond to God’s love for us and acknowledge that He is the source of all truth and happiness.

This act of faith is vital, for in believing we are living out what it means to be human. By believing in God, we become truly ourselves, for we come from God and we are made to move towards Him. God created us out of pure love, and He made us for Himself and in His image. This is why we are always searching for Him and seeking Him in everything that we do:

The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself (CCC, 27).  

God gave us the gift of free will, so we can reject His love or choose to forget Him. But our good and gracious God will not cease calling us. He will chase after us and shout, reminding each of us that we will not be at peace until we find our rest in Him (30). For “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

This may seem abstract, but the Catechism tells us that God is more than just this feeling of peace in our souls. Because we are made in His Image, we have the capacity to know Him through human reason.

What Is The Catechism?

Man is made to know and to love God. God the Father, “in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man” (CCC, 1).  In the Death and Resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ, God invited all men to become His children, heirs of His divinity.

The Apostles accepted this invitation, and they extended it to others in proclaiming the Good News throughout the world. The Church continues to proclaim this Faith, handing it on to each generation. This “handing on” is called catechesis, which Blessed John Paul II defines as:

…an education in the faith of children, young people, and adults which includes especially the teaching of Christian doctrine imparted, generally speaking, in an organic and systematic way, with a view to initiating the hearers into the fullness of Christian life (CCC, 5).

Catechesis is as old as the Twelve Apostles, but it wasn’t until twenty years ago that the Church published the Catechism of the Catholic Church. In his forward to the Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church (YOUCAT), Pope Benedict XVI explains that the twentieth century was a difficult time for the Church. Many people,

"Splendor Of An Entirely Unique Holiness"

Today the Church celebrates the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, a feast very near and dear to Blessed John Paul II’s heart. What exactly are we celebrating on this Holy Day of Obligation? Let us look to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which defines what the Immaculate Conception is and what it means for the Church:

490 To become the mother of the Savior, Mary "was enriched by God with gifts appropriate to such a role."¹³² The angel Gabriel at the moment of the annunciation salutes her as "full of grace".¹³³ In fact, in order for Mary to be able to give the free assent of her faith to the announcement of her vocation, it was necessary that she be wholly borne by God's grace.

491 Through the centuries the Church has become ever more aware that Mary, "full of grace" through God,¹³⁴ was redeemed from the moment of her conception. That is what the dogma of the Immaculate Conception confesses, as Pope Pius IX proclaimed in 1854:

The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin.¹³⁵

The Third Joyful Mystery: The Birth of Our Lord

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled. This was the first enrolment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be enrolled, each to his own city.

And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to be delivered. And she gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn (Lk 2:1-7).

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "Jesus was born in a humble stable, into a poor family. Simple shepherds were the first witnesses to this event. In this poverty heaven's glory was made manifest" (CCC, 525). The Savior, Son of Man was born to a Virgin, and all of creation rejoiced!

While meditating on the Nativity, say one Our Father, 10 Hail Mary’s, and a Glory Be.