TIME FOR GOD AND CATECHESIS

Time for God and Catechesis

Time to be with Jesus    A fundamental priority of priestly life is to be with the Lord and thus have time for prayer.  St. Charles Borromeo always used to say, “You will not be able to care for the souls of others if you let your own soul perish, and you will no longer do anything even for others. You must always have time for being with God.”  “I would therefore like to emphasise: whatever the demands that arise, it is a real priority to find every day, I would say, an hour to be in silence for the Lord and with the Lord, as the Church suggests we do with the breviary, with daily prayers, so as to continually enrich ourselves inwardly, to return...to within the reach of the Holy Spirit’s breath.” (Benedict XVI, August 6, 2008). This advice on prayer is useful for all the faithful, as Benedict XVI reminded the youth during his trip to the United Kingdom (September 18, 2010): “Every day we have to choose to love, and this requires help, the help that comes from Christ, from prayer and from the wisdom found in his word, and from the grace which he bestows on us in the sacraments of the Church. This is the message I want to share with you today. I ask you to look into your hearts each day to find the source of all true love. Jesus is always there, quietly waiting for us to be still with him and to hear his voice. Deep within your heart, he is calling you to spend time with him in prayer. But this kind of prayer, real prayer, requires discipline; it requires making time for moments of silence every day.” (September 18, 2010)

Teaching the Catechism             As a teenager, John Mary Vianney taught the Catechism to the village children. Today the teaching of the Catechism remains a concern of the Church. In his preface to the Catechism published for World Youth Day in Madrid this August 2011, the Holy Father invites young people to “study the catechism with passion and perseverance.” “Youth”, he states, “is not as superficial as it is accused of being; young people want to know what life truly consists of...This book is fascinating because it speaks to us of our very destiny and that is why it concerns each one of us very closely.” Holy Father adds, “This supplement to the catechism does not flatter you; it does not offer easy solutions; it calls for a new life on your part...You must know what you believe; you must know your faith with the same precision with which a specialist in information technology knows the working system of a computer...Yes, you must be much more profoundly rooted in the faith than the generation of your parents, to be able to resist forcefully and with determination the challenges and temptations of the time. You have need of divine help, if you do not want your faith to dry up as a dewdrop in the sun, if you do not want to succumb to the temptation of consumerism, if you do not want your love to be drowned in pornography, if you do not want to betray the weak and the victims of abuse and violence.”

A conscientious student pays full attention to his professor/teacher who conveys the subject matter through well chosen words, but he is not satisfied until he meets his teacher in a one-to-one encounter with a view to imbibing the mind of the teacher. We can recall how Jesus often met with his disciples in a close circle in order to explain his mind more personally and give their questions a closer hearing, even questions about Jesus himself personally. As a result they came to know their Teacher’s inner reality a little better and what he expected of them. Apart from catechesis we need to encounter the Author of truth.