The Catechetical Review - Communicating Christ for a New Evangelization

Catechizing for Trust's Sake

Authored by Dr. Joseph Hollcraft in Issue #33.2 of The Sower
I recently found myself in conversation with a non-denominational friend about the many attacks on the Christian faith in the world today. During the course of our conversation, she said many times, ‘I just trust in my personal Lord and Savior Jesus Christ’. At the time I didn’t think much about this point, but later I concluded: in the end, my faithful friend is right - it is about being in relationship with Jesus Christ and trusting that He will care for us in all of our needs. In fact, I thought, this truth concerning relationship and trust is what we ought to be catechizing for. Blessed John Paul II had famously made a similar point: the sum goal of all catechesis is ‘to put people not only in communion with—but in intimacy with Jesus Christ’.[i] It is Christ who leads us into the Trinity. Is there a foundational way which we are called to follow as Christ summons us to share in the life of the Trinity? Blessed John Paul II suggests that it is poverty: ‘The Church feels ever more strongly the impulse of the spirit to be poor among the poor, to remind everyone of the need to conform to the ideal of poverty practiced and preached by Christ, and to imitate Him in His sincere and active love for the poor.’[ii] John Paul wants us to conform to ‘the ideal of poverty practiced and preached by Jesus Christ.’ And so, what kind of poverty was ‘practiced and preached by Christ?’ For our answer we can turn to the great charter for holiness in the Beatitudes, and in particular to the first Beatitude: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’.[iii] For it is in this Beatitude that we discover the mystery of our call to surrender to God. The Catechism reminds us that spiritual poverty is the ‘abandonment of ourselves to the providence of the Father in heaven who frees us from the anxiety about tomorrow’[iv]; it is an entrustment of ourselves to God in all things. Trust, placing ourselves in the care of life-giving providence, is the most concrete act of our living sonship with God. And if we wish to imitate Christ’s pedagogy we will catechize for a deeper understanding of what it means humbly to unite ourselves in trust to the will of the Father.

The rest of this online article is available for current subscribers.

Start your subscription today!


This article is from The Sower and may be copied for catechetical purposes only. It may not be reprinted in another published work without the permission of Maryvale Institute. Contact [email protected]

Articles from the Most Recent Issue

Encountering God in Catechesis: “Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread” 
By Catechists' Personal Testimonies
How tempting it is to want the Lord to provide grace far in advance! Yet, in the Our Father we have the petition and the promise that our loving Father will give us our daily bread. While there are many layers of meaning, one implication in these words is that he will provide the grace we need in the specific circumstances of our day. In a world... Read more
Children's Catechesis: Teaching Children to Pray the Rosary
By Joseph D. White
Free The Rosary is arguably the most widely prayed, most enduring devotion in Catholic history. Many have spoken about the power and beauty of the Rosary. Pope St. Pius X said, “Amidst all prayers, the Rosary is the most beautiful, the richest in graces, and the one that most pleases the Most Holy Virgin.” [1] October, the month of the Rosary, is the... Read more
The Stewardship Way of Life
By Steven Farley
Free Monsignor Thomas McGread , the pastor of St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Wichita, Kansas from 1968 to 1999, had great confidence in his plan for parish revival when he asked parishioners to trust in the Lord and tithe their fair amount. He promised that when they looked back at the end of the year, if they hadn’t received more out of the... Read more

Pages

Watch Tutorial Videos

We've put together several quick and easy tutorial videos to show you how to use this website.

Watch Now