Day 5: Man's Capacity for God (Part 2)

All creatures bear a certain resemblance to God, most especially man, created in the image and likeness of God. The manifold perfections of creatures - their truth, their goodness, their beauty - all reflect the infinite perfection of God.     (Catechism 42) 

 

Not a bad finish to this first chapter. It went into how God is knowable through reason (Fides et Ratio came to mind), even if just through observation of the world around us so we have little excuse for not believing in a Supreme Being (Wis 13:5; Rom 1:18-23). I mostly agree with that, but I have to wonder how true that is for all human beings throughout history. That's not really been an issue for me so I don't dwell on this, mostly it's been wrestling with what God wants and expects of me. This is probably the most common for folks. At the end of the day, the showdown between God and Job is something that comes to mind (Job 38-39). It can be enormously frustrating at times, but we must trust God in the end because He is the omnipotent one, not us. We may think that we have the answers and still be completely wrong. Giving such trust is not easy for us and has to be constantly done again and again.

Day 4: Man's Capacity for God (Part 1)

"Beauty in the world points to the beauty of the artist, the Creator of this world... We crave God, and that craving means we can realize that there is such a thing as God." (The Catechism In A Year Companion, Vol. I, p. 12.)

 

As you can see, the first Catechism companion arrived today. A bit pricey for the size, and considering that there are 4 for this podcast series, but so far I think it may be worth it. It takes each day and after the reading in the Catechism, offers 3 things: Reflect on the Faith, Take It to Prayer, and Dive Deeper. The first gives a summary of what the major points were in the reading, the second a transcript of Fr. Mike's daily prayer, and the last is extra related content. 

So today was the first part of man's search for and capacity for God. It does seem like a yearning for God is built into our DNA. Certainly, human history, even with all the primitive and false religions over the millennia, shows that. Yet, while I can understand how people can get confused and led into false religions in their search for God, atheism has always struck me as being nonsensical. 

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” (Psalm 14:1)

Yes, yes, I know that those who deny the existence of God say that we believers are fools for our "ignorance" and "lack of evidence" (to their satisfaction that is). It is a mindset that I find completely alien, foreign to the basic makeup of humanity, and just cannot understand it. I get being angry with God or lacking understanding of God, both of which we all have, the first at some point in our lives while the second has some variance impacted by age & education but in my opinion never fully goes away given that we're fallible mortals. Yet denying the very existence of God? No, that I don't get at all. One of the objections raised by atheists to believers "Which god? Zeus? Thor? Allah? Yahweh? Flying Spaghetti Monster?" in my view actually works against their disbelieving mindset. The question itself shows man's yearning for God (well, except FSM perhaps). Whether we believe in multiple gods or the One True God, we still have that desire within us to seek out the divine, our Creator.

In today's reading, the Catechism talks about how God created us out of love. I do believe that God is the ultimate source of love, and even that His creation of us was done out of love, yet what still puzzles me is why? He didn't need to. God being lonely isn't something I can wrap my head around. It's not as if God can have an equal to Him. Whatever good we have in us I can see coming from God, but we can also be such frail, spiteful, deceitful, and violent creatures as well. Something I think about now and then with no satisfying answer, but one to trust God about for now.

All in all, a thought-provoking first half of this chapter, as you can see, plus a pretty decent companion book to go with it.

Day 3: What We Believe (Part 1)

This was unexpected. On this day, Fr. Mike is joined by Jeff Cavins to give an overview of Part 1 of the Catechism (there are 4 total). I was surprised that there was no reading for today, just the need to listen to the podcast. The length was about what each session of Ascension's excellent The Bible Timeline series with Cavins is, at 48 minutes. Given that this is the longest part of the Catechism, perhaps this is to be expected. Divine Revelation and the Creed appears to be what will be covered in this part.

I liked Cavins in The Bible Timeline series so his contribution to Fr. Mike's podcast was enjoyable.

UPDATE: Hmm... there are 4 companion books to go along with this podcast so I ordered the first one to try it out. We shall see.

Baruch & the North African Councils

David Szaraz over at Apocrypha Apocalypse has wrapped up a good, exhaustive review of the Book of Baruch and the North African Councils of Hippo & Carthage. This is one issue I hadn't really looked into much myself, distracted as I was with Esdras and a defense of all the deuterocanonical books, so am grateful for all the effort he put into these videos! 

When OCIA was RCIA...

 

This was my textbook you could say when I was doing RCIA back in the late 1990s at Sagrado Corazón, in Washington, DC. A friend of mine from Ecuador had invited me to go to church, and this eventually led to my enrolling in RCIA. That just goes to show that we should always take our friendships seriously because God may have a purpose in mind that we just don't know about. I only know a little about RCIA (OCIA now) these days since my sister just finished it, but back then I don't recall much of anything online and thus we were given this "textbook". Pretty basic from memory, but it did help with the then-new Catechism. I still have this on my bookshelf but haven't really looked at it much since those days. When I finish with this Catechism journey, I may have to re-read it to refresh my memory on its quality. It seemed good to me 25 years ago but I have no idea if I'd say the same today. 

One more thing about Sagrado Corazón. When I was received into the Church my maternal grandmother was one of my sponsors. I didn't know until I had asked to her to do so that this parish was where she had gone as a little girl many years before! The neighborhood back then had been Irish, which can be seen in some of the frescoes & statuary, that had obviously changed to overwhelmingly Hispanic by the time my friends and I were going to there. I've always known it as Sagrado Corazón but it began as Sacred Heart. Needless to say Grammy was really happy about this, in addition to my entering the Church. Icing on the cake as she would say. 

Day 2 Bueller? ... Bueller? ... Bueller? ...

The whole concern of doctrine and its teaching must be directed to the love that never ends. Whether something is proposed for belief, for hope or for action, the love of our Lord must always be made accessible, so that anyone can see that all the works of perfect Christian virtue spring from love and have no other objective than to arrive at love. (Catechism 25)

Well if I'm completely honest, today's reading reminded me of how much I envied the named leading character in this 1980s classic film:

There are times when life does NOT move pretty fast, and you can sneak a day off, but instead drags on like this lesson. That was kind of what these paragraphs were like. To be fair, Fr. Mike did say that the Prologue was like a class "syllabus" which in my opinion this last part of it definitely was. The most promising part was taken from the Roman Catechism, which I quoted above. Fr. Mike does a pretty good job explaining this section, which even though not riveting material does have importance moving forward in the Catechism.

Ok, that's Day Two and hopefully Day Three will be more engaging.

 

The "Bread of Life" Discourse in John 6 According to the Syriac

"This is a hard word, who is able to hear it?" (John 6:60)

Subdeacon Daniel Kakish had a fascinating discussion with Dr. Michael Wingert on this topic, which really makes one understand just why he was so puzzled by the questions from his Protestant interlocutor in a recent debate. The Subdeacon was right when he said that for all our differences, on this Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and even the Assyrian Church of the East all agree on the core doctrines of the Eucharist. There is much here in this discussion edifying to all Apostolic Christians, useful too in discussions with Protestants. 

Day 1: An Unexpected Party?

God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, 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. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Savior. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life. (Catechism 1)

After giving some quotes from Scripture, the Prologue of the Catechism starts off with this really nice opening part: God is love and calls each of us to him, "to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength". So for all mankind, it's the beginning of sort of an "unexpected party" with Love itself calling us to him. No dwarves to raid one's pantry, but a "Redeemer and Savior" bringing us an invitation to become "his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life." I particularly liked the line, "God draws close to man," something to keep in mind during hard times. Good opening line, Pope St. John Paul II.

So begins the Prologue and this journey back into the Catechism. Today includes paragraphs 1-10, which is kind of like a "syllabus", as Fr. Mike says. I read these parts on my own first and was surprised that Fr. Mike reads it out on today's video. This was actually good, to reinforce what I had read. I should have expected this though since this is a podcast. To be honest, there's not much to work with here that wasn't kind of obvious to me, but Fr. Mike does a good job explaining the meaning of what is given in these paragraphs.

Ok, not a bad start and we'll see how it goes on Day Two.

1 Esdras & the North African Councils

Back in 2004 and 2007 I wrote replies to Protestant apologist William Webster about his claim on 1 Esdras and the North African Councils of Hippo & Carthage. I found the claim intriguing at the time, the other issues on the Canon of Scripture seeming to be mostly repeats by both sides (Gary Michuta has some excellent content on this though). In the intervening years, I've learned much more on the topic which I hope to share in an updated article soon. David Szaraz in the meantime completely knocked this out of the proverbial park on this in several videos. He has generously offered to collaborate on the updated article. For now though, here are the awesome videos by him mainly on the 1 Esdras issue:

There and Back Again: A Second Journey Through the Catechism Begins

I read the Catechism of the Catholic Church many years ago when I was in RCIA, but recently it dawned on me that this was about 25 years ago! Such happens I guess when you get older, time does seem to fly by quickly without you thinking about it. When you do stop and think about something, bam! You realize just how long ago it was! Now I've referenced the Catechism since RCIA, but don't recall having gone further. I've decided to change that and start over with the Catechism, taking a deep dive into it as I did all those years ago. Thus the title of this first post. I'm no hobbit of course, but this will seem like a journey of sorts and I rather like keeping the spirit of J.R.R. Tolkien in mind.

For this journey I will be open and free with my thoughts, not dwelling on making apologetics or scholarly points, but simply taking the Catechism on its own at face value. I'm using this blog mainly to record those thoughts, not to convince anyone of anything and Twitter/X is too limiting for that. Fr. Mike Schmitz seems to offer the best program for my schedule, that is his The Catechism in a Year podcast (YouTube version). I've purchased Ascension's version of the Catechism and finished putting on all the indexing tabs. I may go into this more at another time, but their version is really, really good and makes it easy for the reader to use, more so than the version I used years ago and have had on hand. Douglas Beaumont gives a great review of this here:

Ok, with the preliminaries all done, along with my somewhat coherent ramblings, let's start today with Fr. Mike's Introduction: