Week 3: Passages 109-171

This week we read passages 109- 171, or days 15-21 on the CHN guide.

How is everyone doing? I encourage you as you read to highlight, mark up, or take notes in a notebook- even if you never look at it again the process of recording your thoughts really helps the material stick! And of course you’ll want to note your favorite passages so you can comment about them on this blog!
I’m finding the length of these readings pretty doable. I even got this one done ahead of time, because as you all are reading this I am in New York living it up! And attending Mass with His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI– accompanied by my four kids ages 8 and under. I’ll let you know how that goes!

But anyway back to the Catechism!

These readings continue where we left off last week in Article 3…
… of Chapter Two…
… of Section One…
…of Part One.


Are you with me?

We are up to Roman Numeral III: The Holy Spirit, Interpreter of Scripture
This section gives us guidelines for interpreting Scripture, through which God speaks to us in a human way.
First we need to understand the intention of the human author, taking into account the historical context, literary genre, and modes of the time of writing.
Second we need to read and interpret in light of the Spirit. Particularly what God wants to reveal to us for our salvation.
We are given three criteria for interpreting Scripture in accordance with the Spirit:

1. “Be especially attentive ‘to the content and unity of the whole Scripture.’ Different as the books which comprise it may be, Scripture is a unity by reason of the unity of God’s plan, of which Christ Jesus is the center and heart, open since his Passover.” (CCC 112)




2. “Read the Scripture within ‘the living Tradition of the whole Church.’” (CCC 113)




3. “Be attentive to the analogy of faith. By ‘analogy of faith’ we mean the coherence of the truths of faith among themselves and within the whole plan of Revelation.” (CCC 114)
   

There are two senses of Scripture: literal and spiritual, with the spiritual being divided into allegorical, moral and anagogical senses.

The Church carries the Divine Commission for interpreting Scripture, as St. Augustine reminds us:

“But I would not believe in the Gospel, had not the authority of the Catholic
Church already moved me.” (CCC 119)

IV The Canon of Scripture
The Church discerned which writings are to be included in the list of sacred books known as the canon of Scripture. There are 46 books in the Old Testament and 27 in the New.
The Old Testament has not been revoked, the Church venerates it as the True Word of God and a source of much teaching, wisdom, and prayer. Additionally, the mystery of our salvation is present in the Old Testament in a hidden way.
The New Testament hands on the ultimate truth of God’s Revelation. The Gospels are the heart of the NT “because they are our principal source for the life and teaching of the Incarnate Word, our Savior.” (CCC 125)

There are three stages of the formation of the Gospels:
1. The life and teaching of Jesus.
2. The oral tradition.
3. The written Gospels.

The Gospels hold a unique place in the Church, in the liturgy and in the minds of the Saints.

“The New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in
the New.” (CCC 129)

The typology of the Old Testament reveals prefigurations of what will be accomplished in the New Testament, but the OT does not lose its intrinsic value.

V. Sacred Scripture in the Life of the Church

“The Church ‘forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian faithful…to
learn the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ by frequent reading of the divine
Scriptures. Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.’” (CCC 133)

I need to read that over and over!

Chapter Three – Man’s Response to God

“By his Revelation, ‘the invisible God, from the fullness of his love, addresses
men as his friends, and moves among them, in order to invite and receive them
into his own company.’ The adequate response to this invitation is faith.”
(CCC 142)

By faith man completely submits his mind and will to God through a process known as the obedience of faith.

Article 1 I Believe
I. The Obedience of Faith
This section discusses those we can look to as examples of faith: Abraham (our Father in faith) and of course Mary whose faith never wavered even as her son died on the cross.

II. I know Whom I Have Believed
Christian faith differs from faith in a human person. We are adhering to the whole truth that God has revealed, to put such faith in a creature would be futile.
Because we believe in God we also believe in his Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit who reveals to men who Jesus is.

III. The Characteristics of Faith

“Faith is a gift of God, a supernatural virtue infused by him.” (CCC 153)

We need the grace of God to assist us! How often do I try to do things on my own strength? My brain has so much trouble wrapping around the idea that I can’t do everything all by myself, that I need the gift of God.
Faith is a human act, contrary to neither the human freedom nor human reason. I know I have had trouble accepting that statement. I really used to believe that Christians were not excersing their freedom or reason. I thought they were just blindly following what they were taught, which I didn’t understand so I concluded didn’t make any sense. Now I can see that while perhaps some Christian fail to apply their freedom and reason, the same can be said for a large number of non-Christians. Let’s face it – it is just so much easier to accept what you see around you and not rock the boat. It is Jesus who calls us out of our nice comfortable boat onto the wild and raging water and gives us the grace to do what seemed impossible and crazy! But accepting that invitation is tough.
We believe because of the authority of God, but so that faith would be in accordance with our reason God willed external proofs of His Revelation to be joined with the internal helps of the Holy Spirit.

“The assent of faith is ‘by no means a blind impulse of the mind.” (CCC 156)

Faith is certain because it is founded on the very Word of God.
Faith seeks understanding. Read this passage well, dear Catechism reading buddies, and find encouragement:

“It is intrinsic to faith that a believer desires to know better the One in whom
he has put his faith and to understand better what He has revealed; a more
penetrating knowledge will in turn call forth a greater faith, increasingly set
afire by love. The grace of faith opens ‘the eyes of your hearts’ to a
lively understanding of the contents of Revelation: that is, of the totality of
God’s plan and the mysteries of faith, of their connection with each other and
with Christ, the center of the revealed mystery. ‘The same Holy Spirit
constantly perfects faith by his gifts, so that Revelation may be more and more
profoundly understood.’ In the words of St. Augustine, ‘I believe, in order to
understand; and I understand, the better to believe.’” (CCC 158)

There is no conflict between faith and science. Truth can never contradict truth.

“Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between
faith and reason.” (CCC 159)

Faith must be free, men cannot be coerced. Christ invited conversion but never forced anyone.
Faith is necessary for salvation, we must believe in Jesus Christ and the One who sent him.
It is possible to lose faith, we must persevere.

“To live, grow, and persevere in the faith until the end we must nourish it with
the word of God; we must beg the Lord to increase our faith; it must be ‘working
through charity,’ abounding in hope, and rooted in the faith of the Church.”
(CCC 162)

Faith gives us foretaste of the beatific vision, when we see God face to face. However our experience here on earth is often that of looking into a rather dirty mirror. We see God imperfectly and all the evil and suffering of the world is a temptation against faith.
We must turn to the witnesses of faith, Abraham the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the saints.

Article 2 We Believe
I. Lord, Look Upon the Faith of Your Church
We have not given ourselves faith, it has been given to us by others and it is our responsibility to pass it on!

II. The Language of Faith
The Church is our mother, through which we first receive the gift of faith. She is also our teacher. As a mother teachers her children to speak, so the Church teaches us the language of faith using certain formulations to aid us in understanding the life of faith.

And so concludes the reading for this week. I love the analogy of the Church as a mother. I really cling to the example of the Church as I strive to raise my children as Christians. As mothers we are in a unique position to share in the Church’s maternal mission.

So let’s have some discussion questions!

• Share any passage that jumped out at you! What part of the reading spoke to your heart?




• Do see Faith as a supernatural virtue that is infused by God? What steps do you take to nourish your faith? (see CCC 162 for examples)




• How can we as wives and mothers, fulfill our duty to pass on the faith as it has been passed to us?