By DON FIER
Having completed our journey through the first two major parts of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) — The Profession of Faith” (which considered each of the 12 articles of faith that make up the Creed) and “The Celebration of the Christian Mystery” (which examined the Church’s liturgical and sacramental life) — we will now reflect on the teachings presented in Part Three.
Entitled “Life in Christ” and textually comprising about 27 percent of the Catechism, this section is principally concerned with Christian morality. Central to its content is a detailed treatment of the Ten Commandments, or the Decalogue.
In its essence, this portion of the Catechism provides instruction on how Christians are called to live in order to achieve the fullness of life and the happiness that each of us yearns for in our innermost being (and which corresponds to God’s will for all people).
The heading “Life in Christ” is most appropriate because our perfect model for living a virtuous, moral life is the example of the Incarnate Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, God Himself in human form.
Fr. Peter Stravinskas suggests in A Tour of the Catholic Catechism (TCC) that “some observers of the order of things in the catechism will express surprise that the section devoted to Christian morality comes so late in the game” (p. 117).
Would it perhaps be better to begin by instructing the faithful on how they are required to live? Its placement, however, is intentional.
Moral living can flow only from a correct understanding of doctrine, which is imparted through catechesis on the Creed. Similarly, living a moral life is possible for fallen mankind only with the aid of divine grace, which comes to us through the Church’s sacramental system.
“What faith confesses [in the Creed],” says the Catechism, “the sacraments communicate” (CCC, n. 1692). Having become “children of God” (John 1:12; 1 John 3:1) and “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4) through the life-giving grace of the sacrament of rebirth, Christians are thereafter called to respond by living a life “worthy of the Gospel of Christ” (Phil. 2:27). It is only within such a framework that morality can be integrated and fully lived.
Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, however, makes a telling observation in volume 3 of Living the Catechism of the Catholic Church. He submits that the very mention of “Christian morality” evokes a negative connotation in the modern world — the term is often associated “with things that are outmoded, antiquated, narrow, out-of-touch, and counterproductive. It is especially associated with prohibitions, in particular those falling under the sixth commandment” (p. 11).
In slightly different terms, Dr. Peter Kreeft describes the image of “Christian morality” propagated by the secular media establishment, which forms the minds of so many people, as that of a “joyless, repressive, dehumanizing, impersonal, and irrational system, something alien and inhuman and often simply stupid” (Catholic Christianity, pp. 157-158).
As Dr. Alan Schreck adeptly explains in The Essential Catholic Catechism, so many people “miss the whole point of the Christian life” (p. 264). Too often they lose sight of the goal or ask the wrong questions. Their focus is simply on the letter of God’s Law: What can we do and what can we not do? They fail to see that the call of the Gospel “is basically a positive one: a call to love, a call to true freedom. It is primarily a call to become like Jesus Christ, not just to avoid sin or vice, or even just to practice certain virtues” (ibid.).
It might be said that the goal of the moral life is “to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (Eph. 4:15).
The proof of this can best be illustrated in that the Church produces saints. Evidence that true happiness can be found by becoming Christ-like is signally apparent by observing those who are closest to Him — happiness and joy virtually radiate from holy, saintly people, even in the midst of the most intense trials and sufferings.
Just think of two recently declared saints, Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Pope John Paul II: Anyone who encountered them could not help but sense a deep inner peace and joy. Indeed, it is the saints who are the Church’s most effective evangelists. With these introductory remarks, we will begin unpacking the Catechism’s teaching on morality.
The Catechism commences its treatment of the Christian moral life with an excerpt from a magnificent Christmas homily delivered by Pope St. Leo the Great in the year 440:
“Christian, recognize your dignity and, now that you share in God’s own nature, do not return to your former base condition by sinning. Remember who is your head and of whose body you are a member. Never forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of the Kingdom of God” (Sermon 21.3; as cited in CCC, n. 1691).
It is thus that the Catechism establishes the necessary context to allow a fruitful examination of what will be our topic for the next several months, of what we must come to know in our hearts in order to efficaciously undertake the demands of a Gospel-centered life.
“If believers truly understood their incredible dignity,” says Fr. Stravinskas, “they would never diminish or even destroy it by sinful acts or patterns of behavior” (TCC, p. 117-118).
The Vatican II fathers explain why this is true: “Sacred Scripture teaches that man was created ‘to the image of God,’ is capable of knowing and loving his Creator, and was appointed by Him as master of all earthly creatures (cf. Gen. 1:26, Wisdom 2:23) that he might subdue them and use them to God’s glory (cf. Sirach 17:3-10)” (Gaudium et Spes [GS], n. 12 § 3).
The Old Testament Book of Psalms is beautifully expressive of the great dignity which the Creator accorded man: “Thou hast made him little less than God, and dost crown him with glory and honor. Thou hast given him dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet” (Psalm 8:5-6).
Being created in the likeness of God reveals that “the human person ‘is the only creature on earth that God willed for its own sake’ (GS, n. 24 § 3)” (CCC, n. 1703).
How, then, do we realize our great dignity? The Catechism returns to Scripture in reminding us that our perfect model, Jesus Christ, “always did what was pleasing to the Father (cf. John 8:59), and always lived in perfect communion with him” (CCC, n. 1693).
We, as His disciples, are likewise “invited to live in the sight of the Father ‘who sees in secret’ (Matt. 6:6), in order to become ‘perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect’ (Matt. 5:48)” (ibid.). In the words of the fathers of Vatican II, all true disciples of Christ “must follow in His footsteps and conform themselves to His image seeking the will of the Father in all things” (Lumen Gentium, n. 40 § 2) in order to attain the longed-for objective: the fullness of life and the perfection of charity.
We can see, then, that our responsibility as “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4) through Baptism “is nothing less than to become dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ, The Faith [TF], p. 147). We are called to “be imitators of God, as beloved children and walk in love” (Eph. 5:1-2) by “conforming our thoughts, words, and actions to the mind of Christ, and by following His example (cf. John 13:12-16)” (ibid.).
Moreover, “Christians have become the temple of the Holy Spirit” (CCC, n. 1695), for as St. Paul writes, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own” (1 Cor. 6:19).
The Holy Spirit dwells in our souls, explains Fr. Hardon, in order to heal the wounds caused by our sins; to renew us by transforming our spiritual lives; and to enlighten our intellect and strengthen our will as children of light “in all that is good and right and true” (Eph. 5:9) (cf. TF, p. 147).
Two Choices
The Catechism next makes reference to a famous text from the Didache (“The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles”), an early Christian treatise that is dated by most modern scholars to the late first century: “There are two ways, one of life and one of death, and there is a great difference between the two ways” (Didache 1.1; as cited in CCC, n. 1696).
The moral decisions we make during our lifetimes will ultimately lead us down one of these two paths: “Every moral decision,” states The Didache Bible, “either contributes to or impedes salvation and holiness” (p. 1272).
In both the Old and New Testaments, Sacred Scripture puts these two choices before us (see Deut. 30:15-20 and Matt. 7:13-14). Likewise, the Catechism clearly pronounces the difference in outcomes which are consequent to the free moral choices we make during our life on Earth: “The way of Christ ‘leads to life’; a contrary way ‘leads to destruction’” (CCC, n. 1696).
Clearly, “the Law of the Gospel requires us to make the decisive choice between ‘the two ways’” (CCC, n. 1970), and it is for this reason that clear, authentic moral teaching is indispensable.
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(Don Fier serves on the board of directors for The Catholic Servant, a Minneapolis-based monthly publication. He and his wife are the parents of seven children. Fier is a 2009 graduate of Ave Maria University’s Institute for Pastoral Theology. He is a Consecrated Marian Catechist.)
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