Mini-Masterpieces
For many Catholics looking for a succinct and clear explanation of Church doctrine, the Catechism of the Catholic Church is not the first book that comes to mind. But the size and extent of the Catechism’s contents should not obscure its amazing economy and lucidity. Those qualities are due in large part to the scholarship of its general editor, Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, archbishop of Vienna.
Cardinal Schönborn, a Dominican priest, is one of the finest theologians writing today, although his colleague Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, prefect of the Office of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, often overshadows him. Cardinal Schönborn’s works include Loving the Church (Ignatius Press, 1998), which contains the spiritual exercises he was asked to preach to Pope John Paul II in February of 1996. In addition to his abilities as a homilist, author, and catechist, he has been mentioned as a possible successor to John Paul II, which speaks of both his pastoral abilities and the high regard in which he is held within the Church.
All of these qualities shine forth in the second volume of Living the Catechism of the Catholic Church. While the first volume focused on the opening part of the Catechism, “The Profession of Faith,” this recent release from Ignatius contains a series of meditations on the sacraments and the second section of the Catechism, “The Celebration of the Christian Mystery.” Originally published as weekly commentaries in Vienna’s archdiocesan newspaper, these fifty-two short pieces (about two pages each) are mini-masterpieces of catechetical instruction. Together they form an accessible and logical excursion through the sacramental life, beginning with the question “What is liturgy?” and finishing with a meditation on the whole of the sacramental economy.
Cardinal Schönborn examines the nature of sacraments, their relationship to Christ, the meaning of worship, the liturgical year, and the inner life of the seven sacraments themselves. “Instruction about the meaning of the sacraments,” the Archbishop insists, “is imperative. . . . Ultimately our whole life contributes to the fruitfulness of our reception of the sacraments and to whether or not our hearts are open to what Christ wants to give us.”
Since these pieces were originally written as meditations, this book is ideal for use in personal devotion and spiritual reflection. But it would work equally well as an RCIA or religious-ed text since it is filled, not surprisingly, with references to and quotes from key passages in the Catechism as well as selected passages from Scripture, Church fathers, and theologians such as Aquinas and Romano Guardini. Schönborn gets to the heart of complex issues with directness and warmth, providing both the layman and the trained theologian food for mind and spirit.
One of the pleasant surprises of this slender volume is Cardinal Schönborn’s gift for apologetics. He addresses the claim that Catholics are idolatrous in their use of statues and icons, explains infant baptism, sheds light on transubstantiation, and defends the priesthood. He also takes on thorny issues such as liturgical music (“I have experienced many so-called ‘folk Masses’ at confirmations. These contain much that is moving but also much that is too cheap, lacking in quality.”), liturgical experimentation (“It is not in the first place we who ‘fashion’ the liturgy. No, it is Christ who is the ‘liturgist,’ the ‘principal celebrant’ of our divine worship.”), and ecumenism at the Lord’s Supper (“For Holy Communion to be true and fruitful, it must not be isolated from the totality of the eucharistic celebration.”).
The core of all catechetics, religious education, and apologetics is, Cardinal Schönborn reiterates, a true encounter with the risen Christ. The sacraments cannot be understood or lived without recognizing that they are rooted in the mystery of the Incarnation, exist through the reality of the Resurrection, and are wholly oriented towards God: “The final goal of all God’s works is that we, and through us the whole of creation, be taken up into the communion of the triune God (CCC 260). To achieve this goal, God send his Son ‘to unite all thing in [Christ]’ (Eph. 1:10).”
This encounter with Christ through the sacraments “is not primarily a question of an experience, but of a ‘profound effect’, something of which we may very well have a ‘sense’ but which is really g.asped only by the depths of the soul, what is innermost in man.” Cardinal Schönborn does us a service by continuing to present such fundamental truths with clarity, brevity, and firmness.
— Carl E. Olson
Living the Catechism of the Catholic Church
Volume II: The Sacraments
By Cristoph Cardinal Schönborn
Ignatius Press (2000)
137 pages
$10.95
ISBN: 0-89870-727-7
Church as Kingdom
In the forward to Edward Sri’s Mystery of the Kingdom, Scott Hahn remarks that “to drain the Jewishness from Matthew is to drain the life from its pages. These opening pages of the New Testament concern themselves with the fulfillment of Israel’s messianic hopes, that a Son of David would come to establish a kingdom that would last forever. We cannot understand the first Gospel if we do not understand precisely what its author meant by the kingdom of heaven.” It is a vital point, Hahn notes, because there are many faulty ideas of what the Kingdom is, each leading to flawed beliefs about the true nature of the Church. And how could they not, since the Church, in the words of Lumen Gentium, is “the kingdom of Christ already present in mystery” (LG 3)?
In Mystery of the Kingdom, a slender but excellent study of the Gospel of Matthew, Sri has a goal and does not waver from it: He seeks to deepen the reader’s understanding of the Church as the Kingdom. “At the center of [Jesus’] plan,” he writes in the introduction, “is Jesus’ mission to build the kingdom of heaven on earth.”
While this statement should not be cause for controversy or puzzlement among Catholics, the reaction of many within the Church to Dominus Iesus demonstrates that this key truth is not being taught or understood. Most Catholics do not hear about the Church being the Kingdom “already present in mystery” or in any other form. It is considered too triumphalistic, too arrogant, and not properly ecumenical. All the more reason to dive into Scripture and study Matthew, the Gospel that John Paul II has called “the catechist’s Gospel.” As Sri remarks, “Indeed, Catholic readers will find this Gospel particularly helpful for training in Catholic doctrine and in understanding the Church as the kingdom of God.”
While the biblical studies found within the ivory towers of academia often descend into esoteric romps through Greek participles and woolly discussions of “communities, ” Mystery of the Kingdomis meant for those who possess a modest knowledge of Scripture or are even new to it. It is ideal for a small, informal Bible study, being broken into eleven accessible chapters, each ending with a series of helpful question pointing back to key Old Testament texts and requiring direct interaction with the text.
Sri’s “less is more” approach works. While he passes over many details—largely ignoring the second chapter of the Gospel, for example—he does a commendable job of tracing the theme of the Kingdom and showing how it is at the heart of all that Jesus said and did while on earth. This is, I think, an excellent approach, since people really should have a sense of the big picture before getting into the details. How helpful is it to be able to parse Greek verbs or explain the relationship between Herod the Great and Herod Agrippa II if you have no real idea what Jesus meant when he kept proclaiming the “Kingdom of heaven”?
Yet not all is broad-brushed strokes and panoramic vistas. Sri delves into key passages and emerges with fascinating, relevant details, such as the reason behind the three sets of fourteen generations in Jesus’ genealogy, the background to Jesus’ famous remarks to Peter in Matthew 16, and the deeper motivation for the cleansing of the Temple.
Like Hahn, Sri understands that the reality of covenant informs all of Scripture and the entirety of Jesus’ mission. This can be seen in the temptation of Jesus in the desert for forty days. The three temptations that Jesus resists represent sins that the wandering Israelites succumbed to in the desert, violating the Covenant and setting into motion a pattern of failure that would last for centuries. Jesus is shown to be the new Moses, the new Lawgiver, and the New Covenant personified in the Eucharist, demonstrating Augustine’s famous axiom: “The New Testament lies hidden in the Old, and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New.”
I have been using Mystery of the Kingdom in leading a small Bible study (occasionally supplementing it with the Navarre Bible for extra details), and I have been pleased with the results and response. The only annoyance is the occasional awkward stretch for puns in the subheads (e.g., “Don’t Make Essene!”), perhaps part of an ongoing contest Sri has with his friend Hahn. Otherwise, this book is an illuminating guide to the Gospel of Matthew.
— Carl E. Olson
Mystery of the Kingdom: On the Gospel of Matthew
By Edward P. Sri
Emmaus Road Publishing, 1999
160 pages
$10.95
ISBN: 0-9663223-5-5