Ideas

The Catechism's New Synthesis - a fuller overview

In reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church (BUY) we can perceive the wonderful unity of the mystery of God, his saving will, as well as the central place of Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, sent by the Father, made man in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit, to be our Savour. Having died and risen, Christ is always the source of our faith, the model of Christian conduct and the Teacher of our prayer.

The Outline of God's Plan
(The opening paragraph of the Catechism)

The life of man - to know and love God

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 Saviour.

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. (1)

The Meaning of Creation - The Glory of God in Christ

Creation is for the glory of God

God willed the diversity of his creatures and their own particular goodness, their interdependence and their order. He destined all material creatures for the good of the human race. Man, and through him all creation, is destined for the glory of God. (353)

Man is by nature a religious being

Man is by vocation a religious being. Coming from God, going toward God, man lives a fully human life only if he freely lives by his bond with God. (44)

Creation finds its goal in Christ

God freely wills to communicate the glory of his blessed life. Such is the "plan of his loving kindness", conceived by the Father before the foundation of the world, in his beloved Son: "He destined us in love to be his sons" and "to be conformed to the image of his Son". (257)

This plan is a "grace [which] was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began", (2 Tim 1:9-10) stemming immediately from Trinitarian love. It unfolds in the work of creation, the whole history of salvation after the fall, and the missions of the Son and the Spirit, which are continued in the mission of the Church. (257) (Catechism - part 1)

Christ in the Profession of Faith

Jesus of Nazareth is the eternal Son of God made man

We believe and confess that Jesus of Nazareth, born a Jew of a daughter of Israel at Bethlehem at the time of King Herod the Great and the emperor Caesar Augustus, a carpenter by trade, who died crucified in Jerusalem under the procurator Pontius Pilate during the reign of the emperor Tiberius, is the eternal Son of God made man.

He ‘came from God’ (Jn 13:3), ‘descended from heaven’ (Jn 3:13), and ‘came in the flesh’ (I Jn 4:2). For the ‘Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father....And from his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace’. (Jn 1:14, 16) (423)

Christ at the centre of catechesis

‘At the heart of catechesis we find, in essence, a Person, the Person of Jesus of Nazareth, the only Son from the Father...who suffered and died for us and who now, after rising, is living with us forever.’ To catechise is ‘to reveal in the Person of Christ the whole of God’s eternal design reaching its fulfilment in that Person. It is to seek to understand the meaning of Christ’s actions and words and of the signs worked by him.’

Catechesis aims at putting ‘people in communion with Jesus Christ: only he can lead us to the love of the Father in the Spirit and make us share in the life of the Holy Trinity.’ (426)

In catechesis Christ, the Incarnate Word and Son of God...is taught - everything is taught with reference to him - and it is Christ alone who teaches - anyone else teaches to the extent that he is Christ’s spokesman, enabling Christ to teach with his lips...Every catechist should be able to apply to himself the mysterious words of Jesus: ‘My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me’. (427)

Christ living in his Church

Christ ‘is the head of the body, the Church’. He is the principle of creation and redemption. Raised to the Father’s glory, ‘in everything he is pre-eminent’, especially in the Church, through whom he extends his reign over all things. (792)

Christ in the Liturgy and Sacraments (Catechism- part 2)

The mysteries of Christ’s life are the foundations of what he would dispense in the sacraments

Jesus’ words and actions during his hidden life and public ministry were already salvific, for they anticipated the power of his Paschal mystery. They announced and prepared what he was going to give the Church when all was accomplished. The mysteries of Christ’s life are the foundations of what he would henceforth dispense in the sacraments, through the ministers of his Church, for ‘what was visible in our Saviour has passed over into his mysteries’. (St Leo the Great) (1115)

Sacraments are ‘powers that come forth from the Body of Christ’

Sacraments are ‘powers that come forth’ from the Body of Christ , which is ever-living and life-giving. They are actions of the Holy Spirit at work in his Body, the Church. They are ‘masterworks of God’ in the new and everlasting covenant. (1117)

Christ in the Moral Life (Catechism - part 3)

When we keep the commandments the Saviour comes to live in us

Jesus says: ‘I am the vine and you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing’. (Jn 15:5) The fruit referred to in this saying is the holiness of a life made fruitful by union with Christ.

When we believe in Jesus Christ, partake of his mysteries and keep his commandments, the Saviour himself comes to love, in us, his Father and his brethren, our Father and our brethren. His person becomes, through the Holy Spirit, the living and interior rule of our activity. ‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you’. (Jn 15:12) (2074)

Prayer as Communion with Christ (Catechism - part 4)

Christ prays for us as our priest, prays in us as our Head, and is prayed to as our God

Prayer to Jesus is answered by him already during his ministry, through the signs that anticipate the power of his death and Resurrection: Jesus hears the prayer of faith, expressed in words (the leper, Jairus, the Canaanite woman, the good thief) or in silence (the bearers of the paralytic, the woman with a haemorrhage who touches his clothes, the tears and ointment of the sinful woman). The urgent request of the blind men: ‘Have mercy on us, son of David’ or ‘Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!’, has been renewed in the traditional prayer to Jesus known as the Jesus Prayer: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’ Healing infirmities or forgiving sins, Jesus always responds to a prayer offered in faith: ‘Your faith has made you well; go in peace’.

St Augustine wonderfully summarises the three dimensions of Jesus’ prayer: ‘he prays for us as a priest, prays in us as our Head, and is prayed to by us as our God. Therefore let us acknowledge our voice in him and his in us’. (2616)

In brief - In the creation of the world and of man, God gave the first and universal witness to his Almighty love and his wisdom, the first proclamation of the plan of his loving goodness which finds its goal in the new creation in Christ. (315)
Jesus Christ is true God and true man, in the unity of his divine person; for this reason he is the one and only mediator between God and men. (480)