Posted on 05/31/2013 2:44:05 PM PDT by NYer
Do our Catholic children and most adults know what these images teach?
All of us know one of the elephants in the room of the Catholic Church. Our religious education programs are not handing on the essence of our Catholic Faith, our parents are befuddled about their role in handing on the faith and the materials we use are vapid or if good do not make an impression on young minds. We are afraid of asking for memorization and thus most don't remember anything they've learned about God and Church other than some niceties and feel good emotions.
I teach each class of our grades 1-6 (we don't have 7th or 8th) each Thursday, rotating classes from week to week. For the last two years I have used Baltimore Catechism #1 as my text book. It is wonderful to use with children and it is so simple yet has so much content. If Catholics, all Catholics, simply studied Baltimore Catechism #1, we would have very knowledgeable Catholics.
These past two years I've used Baltimore Catechism #2 with our adult religious program which we call Coffee and Conversation following our 9:30 AM Sunday Mass, which coincides with our CCD program which we call PREP (Parish Religious Education Program).
This #2 book has more content and is for middle school, but upper elementary school children must have been more capable of more serious content back when this book was formulated and used through the mid 1960's because it is a great book to use with adults and not childish at all. We all use this same book as a supplemental book for the RCIA because it is so clear, nobly simple and chocked full of content!
Yes, there are some adjustments that need to be made to some chapters, but not that many, in light of Vatican II and the new emphasis we have on certain aspects of Church that are not present in the Baltimore Catechism. But these are really minor.
What is more important though is that when the Baltimore Catechism was used through the mid 1960's it was basically the only book that was used for children in elementary and junior high school. It was used across the board in the USA thus uniting all Catholics in learning the same content. There was not, in other words, a cottage industry of competing publishing houses selling new books and different content each year.
The same thing has occurred with liturgical music, a cottage industry of big bucks has developed around the sale of new hymnals, missalettes and new music put on the open market for parishes to purchase. It is a money making scheme.
Why do our bishop allow this to happen in both liturgical music and parish catechesis? The business of selling stuff to parishes and making mega bucks off of it is a scandal that has not be addressed.
In the meantime, our liturgies suffer and become fragmented because every parish uses a different resource for liturgical music and the same is true of religious formation, everyone uses something different of differing quality or no quality at all.
Isn't it time to wake up and move forward with tried and true practices that were tossed out in favor of a consumerist's approach to our faith that has weakened our liturgies, our parishes and our individual Catholics?
What's this .. ?
Anne Rice and Oscar Wilde also had this same attraction to the outward beauty of Catholicism, but the latter of which is likely still in hell despite his death bed pleas, and Rice ended up leaving once her appreciation for the outward pomp of religion lost to her inward self-righteousness.
Here, I shall give you something so repulsive, so horrible, so nightmarish in its teachings, that if you do not similarly agree, then become a Roman Catholic immediately. But if you are only thinking on the superficial level of Catholicism, without a firm understanding of their teachings (or if you yourself are unfirm in your scripture reading, which I recommend you read everyday), then this will shake you up from your slumber.
I found this work referenced and endorsed by the Pope from the Vatican website. It is all about Mary and the glory of the Rosay. Read it from start to finish:
http://www.rosary-center.org/secret.htm
Here is an excerpt. Take special attention to how they depict God, and how Mary is depicted, and how salvation is accomplished, and compare this to the scripture:
“One day the King fell seriously ill and when he was given up for dead he found himself, in a vision, before the judgement seat of Our Lord. Many devils were there accusing him of all the sins he had committed and Our Lord as Sovereign Judge was just about to condemn him to hell when Our Lady appeared to intercede for him. She called for a pair of scales and had his sins placed in one of the balances whereas she put the rosary that he had always worn on the other scale, together with all the Rosaries that had been said because of his example. It was found that the Rosaries weighed more than his sins.
Looking at him with great kindness Our Lady said: “As a reward for this little honor that you paid me in wearing my Rosary, I have obtained a great grace for you from my Son. Your life will be spared for a few more years. See that you spend these years wisely, and do penance.”
When the King regained consciousness he cried out: “Blessed be the Rosary of the Most Holy Virgin Mary, by which I have been delivered from eternal damnation!”
After he had recovered his health he spent the rest of his life in spreading devotion to the Holy Rosary and said it faithfully every day.
People who love the Blessed Virgin out to follow the example of King Alphonsus and that of the saints whom I have mentioned so that they too may win other souls for the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary. They will then receive great graces on earth and eternal life later on. “They that explain me shall have life everlasting life.” [1] Ecclus. 24:31”
Hmmm ... I have studied the Bible, and did so as a child, and believe it.
I am Catholic.
Your assertion is refuted.
So, after your children have read the Bible, you don’t ever have to explain what it means?
By reading the Bible without any instruction from you, your children were able to empirically infer the doctrine of, say, the Holy Trinity?
Sounds like ... there aren’t any ... you’re all alone
Too many parents and too many Faith Formation personnel believe that Confirmation means graduation from catechism and we are losing people at the most critical time in their formation, their teen years. Too often we don't see them again until they are shopping for a parish that will marry them and then not again until Grandma insists that the babies get baptized.
When we look at the religious education materials, as compared to the high school texts and materials we see the equivalent of comic books, concentrating on "hip" imagery and void of any real theological content. Banners and Balloons are not what young adults need when they are first learning about and struggling with the temptations of all of that new hard ware they just grew and the social and peer pressure to take it for a test drive.
Make another Catholic friend. That one is too depressing. I can’t imagine which rules you are talking about. Go to Church every Sunday? Well, that’s not too much to ask. Go to confession at least once a year? Well, examining your conscience once a year is not a huge commitment, either. Any Christian would do that.
My Catholic friends and the people I see at Mass are enjoying living their faith. Your friend can do better than she is doing.
To ALL who think that Catholics don’t read the Bible. CATHOLICS WROTE THE BIBLE! If you read the Bible you will become a Christian...if you read the Early Church Fathers you will become a Catholic. May God Bless you all.
One word ... parents. The primary responsibility for passing on the faith, rests with the parents, not VCII, not homiletics. As I pointed out to another poster, it doesn't take a degree in rocket science to pick up a book and instruct children in their faith. I'll bet the parents are more than eager to provide their kids with iPods, iPads, computer, handheld games ... but when it comes to God, they transfer that responsibility to the church.
AB, The Baltimore Catechism is available from several sources, including Amazon:
It is also available from Seton Homeschooling, and others.
(If that’s why you were asking NY to scan the books...)
Regards,
It seems pretty straightforward. Go to Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation. If you miss Mass on one of these days, go to confession. I was being a little facetious in my reply that it’s okay if you don’t feel like doing it, just as long ad you do it.
Didn’t read!
It doesn't help that the new Pope is constantly endorsing those socialist views. Whether he means to come of this way or not, Pope Francis sounds like a typical South American populist, left wing Jesuit. The Catholic church could do us all a big favor and stop blathering on about how we can't morally cut this or that social welfare program, and stick to what's actually in the bible. Good grief, it's the very free markets the RCC criticizes that pull people out of poverty - not forced charity via government confiscation.
“Did God himself say that?”
Why don’t you get down on your knees and ask Him yourself. He’s listening.
(-:
I take issue with Mary being free of original sin. Where in the Bible or any of quotes of Jesus would lead you to believe that? Also the idea of Christmas being Jesus’ birthday seems like a stretch as well. That’s what skimming over the BC left me with.
“To ALL who think that Catholics don’t read the Bible. CATHOLICS WROTE THE BIBLE!”
Moses was a Catholic? Since when?
I’m suggesting that the existence of a galaxy of denominations, all claiming to be “Bible believing”, is an indication of how “sola Scriptura” is insufficient.
From Moses to John, they were all Catholics? Is that what you would have us believe? From rosary beads to confession booths to indulgences to bowing before a Pope? I just find this incredulous that they would be considered Catholic.
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