Saturday, September 20, 2008

Dei Verbum

This is a reflection I started for a Ministry in Catechesis class. Then I re-read the assignment and realized that I'd done the wrong reading. Anyway, it is a reflection on Dei Verbum, which you can find on the Vatican website.

Catechetics must participate and aid in God’s Self-revelation throughout time, imparting and explaining the stages of revelation, from the fundamental truth of God’s existence, (“ I am”), through the moral exhortations of the prophets (“I desire mercy and not sacrifice”), and into the Incarnation, Teaching, Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ. The agent of true catechesis must be the Church, the Bride of Christ born out of His side on Calvary.

Just as Christ gave both Blood and Water from His side, He left the two springs of living water, Sacred Scripture and Tradition, which, used in concert on the fertile soil of the faithful, cause it to bear abundant fruit. Because one cannot give what one does not have, however, those who would instruct others must themselves “hold fast to the Sacred Scriptures through diligent sacred reading and careful study” (Dei Verbum 25).

In all of this, the catechist must remember that the goal is not to give people an intellectual understanding only of the two sources mentioned. Praiseworthy as memorization of scriptural passages and Traditional dogmas is, such knowledge alone is insufficient for Christian life: the Christian must be in relationship with the Word of God, Jesus Christ. This relationship is fostered through private devotions and by the example of priests, religious, and laypeople, but it is fundamentally a gift from God.