Family matters have obliged me to cancel my planned trip to Honduras next month, but I’m consoling myself with expanding my vocabulary and working on my verbs. One fantastic (macanudo) idiom I’ve been taught is the Latin American expression for giving birth, dar a luz. (To give to light.) What a great poetic expression, that each new person coming into the world is a gift from a mother to a world very much in need of more light.
Sunday, April 15th, 2012
Daily Archive
15 April 2012
15 April 2012
Sacra Tridentina 9-10
Posted by catholicsensibility under pre-conciliar documents, Sacra Tridentina 19051 Comment
Our document wraps up its overview of history. It wasn’t all bad in the times leading up to the turn of the 18th/19th century. Sacra Tridentina lauds the testimony of some who thought frequent Communion would bear fruit:
On the other hand, there were not wanting men endowed with learning and piety who offered an easier approach to this practice, so salutary and so pleasing to God. They taught, with the authority of the Fathers, that there is no precept of the Church which prescribes more perfect dispositions in the case of daily than of weekly or monthly Communion; while the fruits of daily Communion will be far more abundant than those of Communion received weekly or monthly.
Which brings us to 1905, and the situation is presented plainly, acknowledging that some heat and bile were still expended on this matter.
In our own day the controversy has been continued with increased warmth, and not without bitterness, so that the minds of confessors and the consciences of the faithful have been disturbed, to the no small detriment of Christian piety and fervor. Certain distinguished men, themselves pastors of souls, have as a result of this, urgently begged His Holiness, Pope Pius X, to deign to settle, by his supreme authority, the question concerning the dispositions required to receive the Eucharist daily; so that this practice, so salutary and so pleasing to God, not only might suffer no decrease among the faithful, but rather that it increase and everywhere be promoted, especially in these days when religion and the Catholic faith are attacked on all sides, and the true love of God and piety are so frequently lacking. His Holiness, being most earnestly desirous, out of his solicitude and zeal, that the faithful should be invited to the sacred banquet as often as possible, even daily, and should benefit by its most abundant fruits, committed the aforesaid question to this Sacred Congregation, to be studied and decided definitely (definiendam).
O yes: the church felt persecution even before modern ideologies flowered. The desire to restore a practice of frequent Communion is justified in part by the hope that the faith witness of the laity be firmed and strengthened in difficult times. A rather optimistic view, don’t you think?
This matter was studied in the months and certainly years leading up to this document. In the next post or two, we’ll wrap up by looking at the particular prescriptions Pope Pius X placed on the Church.
15 April 2012
GDC 219: “The ministry of catechesis in the particular Church”
Posted by catholicsensibility under General Directory for Catechesis, post-conciliar catechetical documentsLeave a Comment
Four important characteristics of catechesis:
219. In all the ministries and services which the particular Church performs to carry out its mission of evangelization, catechesis occupies a position of importance. (The expression ministry of catechesis is used in Catechesi Tradendae 13) In this the following traits are underlined:
a) In the Diocese catechesis is a unique service* performed jointly by priests, deacons, religious and laity, in communion with the Bishop. The entire Christian community should feel responsible for this service. Even if priests, deacons, religious and laity exercise catechesis in common, they do so in different ways, each according to his particular condition in the Church (sacred ministers, consecrated persons and the Christian faithful). (Catechesi Tradendae 16: “Shared but differentiated responsibility”. Cf. also note 54, as well as note 50 for a clarification of the term “ministry of the Word”) Through them all and their differing functions, the catechetical ministry hands on the word in a complete way and witnesses to the reality of the Church. Were one of these forms absent catechesis would lose something of its richness as well as part of its proper meaning;
b) On the other hand it is a fundamental ecclesial service, indispensable for the growth of the Church. It is not an action which can be realized in the community on a private basis or by purely personal initiative. The ministry of catechesis acts in the name of the Church by its participating in mission.
c) The catechetical ministry—among all ministries and ecclesial services—has a proper character which derives from the specific role of catechetical activity within the process of evangelization. The task of the catechist, as an educator in the faith, differs from that of other pastoral agents (liturgical, charitable and social) even if he or she always acts in coordination with them.
d) In order that the catechetical ministry in the Diocese be fruitful, it needs to involve other agents, not specifically catechists, who support and sustain catechetical activity by performing indispensable tasks such as: the formation of catechists, the production of catechetical material, reflection, organization and planning. These agents, together with catechists, are at the service of a single diocesan catechetical ministry even if all do not play the same roles or act on the same basis.
*It is important to underline the nature of the one service which catechesis has in the particular Church. The subject of evangelizing activity is the particular Church. She proclaims and transmits the Gospel, which celebrates… The agents of catechesis “serve” this ministry and work “in the name of the Church.” The theological, spiritual and pastoral implications of the ecclesial nature of catechesis are considerable.
There is a lot on which to comment here. In trait (a), the Church clearly intends that the catechetical ministry be a team effort, and that the various elements of the team acknowledge and respect this. From this, we read that catechesis is not a private enterprise, but one aligned with the evangelical mission of the Church (b) as well as one that cooperates with the Church’s aspects of worship, service, and the sense of community.
The last mentioned trait extends the team effort beyond people who are actually “doing” catechesis. Rather than label authors, mentors, typists, and other support people as “ministers,” I think the Church is accurate to say that all these people are part of an overarching ministry, “even if all do not play the same roles.”
Thoughts on this?
