Since 1994, I have had a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on my bookshelf. In my teaching and my writing, it has been used as a reference from time to time, but I had never attempted to sit down and read it cover-to-cover until this past January when I began listening to Ascension’s Catechism in a Year podcast with Father Mike Schmitz.
I have found these 15-minute segments very informative and insightful. The first section outlines “what we believe.” Beginning with divine revelation and moving into the Creed and the Church, listeners are currently well past the hundred-day mark of a 365-day journey.
Father Mike begins each segment with a prayer and short introduction, followed by a section of the Catechism. Then he explains what he has read.
Father Mike is passionate about the faith, and his energy is contagious. He makes me want to return each day to read the next section and hear what he has to say about it. As inspiring and interesting as Father Mike is, however, I must say that it is the voice of God that keeps drawing me back.
I have often made connections with daily Bible readings. I may have heard the same reading a hundred times before, but while doing my morning Gospel reflections or attending Sunday Mass, I will feel as though the words of Scripture are speaking directly to me and the situations I am facing at that particular time in my life. This is not an accident; God’s Word is intended to speak to everyone.
My connections with the Catechism podcast are similar to this. In the winter I took a Christian anthropology course at St. Mark’s College. I was constantly amazed at how the readings and topics in my course were so often completely in sync with the messages I heard in Father Mike’s podcast.
Discussions on original sin and the invitation of God to humanity, revealed through Christ and the Holy Spirit, would be heard in the podcast on the same days we were discussing these topics in class. These subjects also seemed to arise in daily Mass readings, which likewise fit in perfectly with the discussions I was having with the Confirmation students I teach.
I was not the only one who felt this way. Fellow classmates who were also listening to the podcast made similar comments to me. They were amazed that the Sunday Gospels were so aligned with everything we were hearing on our phones and reading in our coursework. Many times, the “nuggets” of the Catechism (as Father Mike calls them) would connect with the papers I wrote for my course and would make their ways into my lessons at school.
These connections continue with the current Catechism readings on the Church, which line up perfectly with my present St. Mark’s course on the ecclesiology of Vatican II. Each day, I continue to read something which matches a class reading or discussion, and I am in awe. While I find the connections meaningful – and exciting – I likewise realize that any “coincidence” with God is never truly coincidental, but divine revelation.
I realize that the syllabi for my courses, the Catechism, and the Scriptures chosen for each liturgical year in our Church were not all planned in the same room and executed by the same people. They were not designed “just” for me; and, yet they were, for our one God inspired each of them.
God reveals himself in word and in the Church in ways that are both universal and individual.
God, our Creator, has issued an invitation for everyone to join in communion with him, even though the ways in which we receive that invitation may vary. Some may be more inclined to find God in liturgy or private prayer, others in art, music, nature, or in Scripture. Some, like me, may discover him in multiple areas.
The Catechism is a wonderful companion to the Bible, to build a relationship with God, and to appreciate the rich and solid foundation on which our Church is built. The fact that the Church continues to exist, over 2,000 years after Christ walked the earth, surely can’t be a “coincidence” either.
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