The past few semesters, we’ve put on an evening breakfast for students trying to survive finals week. Last year, it was a staff-driven thing. This month–tonight, in fact–one of the student teams has spearheaded it. I volunteered to set up and run the griddle borrowed from the Knights.
Comfort food is good. Every so often my mom would have a “breakfast-at-dinnertime,” and we enjoyed the change-up from the routine of meat and potatoes.
It seems that the students are more stressed out than I remember from my college days. My own experience is pretty much irrelevant in comparison. I hated final exams. I rarely did well on them. Finals week was usually a time I spent trying to keep my grades from slipping off the dean’s list. So by the time I was a junior, I mostly blew them off anyway. Today’s crowd seems a lot more serious. Maybe a lot more is on the line for them than it was in the heady days of the 70′s.
Anyway, I will be praying during each drip of pancake batter. Our patron saint here might have a word or two of assistance:
Grant me, O Lord my God,
a mind to know you,
a heart to seek you,
wisdom to find you,
conduct pleasing to you,
faithful perseverance in waiting for you,
and a hope of finally embracing you.
A small part of the Mass between the Preparation of the Gifts and the Eucharistic Prayer:
77. Once the offerings have been placed on the altar and the accompanying rites completed, by means of the invitation to pray with the Priest and by means of the Prayer over the Offerings, the Preparation of the Gifts is concluded and preparation made for the Eucharistic Prayer.
At Mass, a single Prayer over the Offerings is said, and it ends with the shorter conclusion, that is: Through Christ our Lord. If, however, the Son is mentioned at the end of this prayer, the conclusion is: Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.
The people, joining in this petition, make the prayer their own by means of the acclamation Amen.
We’ll take some time with GDC 85 and 86, and spread out our examination over the next week.
These sections get into a bit more detail on the “fundamental tasks of catechesis.” These are described as knowledge of the faith, liturgical education, moral formation, teaching to pray (GDC 85) as well as “education for community life” and “missionary initiation.”
One piece at a time. Today, knowledge of the faith:
Who has encountered Christ desires to know him as much as possible, as well as to know the plan of the Father which he revealed. Knowledge of the faith (fides quae) is required by adherence to the faith (fides qua). (Cf. General Catechetical Directory (1971) 36a) Even in the human order the love which one person has for another causes that person to wish to know the other all the more. Catechesis, must, therefore, lead to “the gradual grasping of the whole truth about the divine plan”, (Cf. General Catechetical Directory (1971) 24) by introducing the disciples of Jesus to a knowledge of Tradition and of Scripture, which is “the sublime science of Christ”. (Dei Verbum 25a) By deepening knowledge of the faith, catechesis nourishes not only the life of faith but equips it to explain itself to the world. The meaning of the Creed, which is a compendium of Scripture and of the faith of the Church, is the realization of this task.
GDC 85 speaks of the fundamental stance of the believer: “to know, to celebrate, to contemplate the mystery of Christ.” Knowledge is not just the absorption of information. A believer or disciple would see the knowledge of tradition and Scripture as being a means to a greater end: nourishment for the “life of faith” as well as a tool to introduce others to Christ.
Do you think Catholics schools, children’s religious education, and adult formation have this two-pronged objective in mind?
