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PAGE 5—September 20,1973
Catechesis
And Self-Image
BY FATHER CARL J. PFEIFER, S.J.
“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day. “Real isn’t how
you are made,” replied the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that
happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time,
not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become
Real.”
As a new school year begins, another fresh start as parents
and teachers toward better religious education, I can’t help
thinking of these words. This dialogue between two toys occurs
in Margery William’s classic for young and old, THE
VELVETEEN RABBIT. It is a kind of parable of what is at the
heart of effective religious education.
Later in the story the toy rabbit meets two live bunnies who
chide him for not running and jumping - for not being real! “I
am Real!” said the little Rabbit. “I am Real! The Boy said so!”
And he nearly began to cry.
Sometime later the Rabbit met the beautiful nursery magic
fairy, and talks with her about his condition. “Wasn’t I real
before?” asked the little Rabbit. “You were real to the Boy,”
the fairy said, “because he loved you. Now you shall be Real to
every one.”
Years of teaching children and adults in normal situations and
in penal institutions have convinced me of the wisdom of the
magic fairy’s insight. People literally become who they have the
potential to become when someone cares about them.
Youngsters and adults actually come to see themselves as likable
when someone else looks at them with genuine love.
While it is certainly true that religious education has other
tasks than helping people recognize their own potential, few of
these can be effectively accomplished if people are not helped
to appreciate and love themselves. The catechist shares in the
work of God, which St. Augustine described 16 centuries ago in
words that still have meaning: “You make us lovable, 0 God,
because you love us.”
There is a very real sense in which one’s imaee of God is
related on one’s self-image. To help people, young or old, to
know and love God necessarily involves helping them know and
love themselves. The most effective way of enabling someone to
develop a more positive self-image is that described by the magic
fairy: to really love that person.
Louis Evely, in his beautiful book, THAT MAN IS YOU,
reflects on the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ ministry. After
examining how Jesus approached people, Evely concludes:
“Loving people means summoning them forth with the loudest
and most insistent of calls; it means stirring up in them a mute
and hidden being . . .a being so new that even those who carried
him didn’t know him, and yet so authentic that they can’t fail
to recognize him once they discover him.”
As I read these words, I recalled the delinquent boy with
whom I sat in silence for a solid hour. At the end of the hour he
said to me, “Why did you waste an hour sitting with a bum like
me?” Or the little fourth grade girl in a fine suburban school,
who asked in wonderment after two previous teachers had given
up on their class and quit: “Why did you keep coming. We’re
such a bad class.” These youngsters needed to know they were
loving. They could open to God’s love then.
“OUR SELF-IMAGE actually affects how we’ll do. If the boy can see himself hitting well, he will.” A boy with a determined look hits a baseball and takes off for first base.
Christians Must Become “Other Christs”
Evely adds a thought with which we might well approach the
new year of religious education. His words are based on Jesus’
example. They carry the same message as the magic fairy. “To
love someone is to bid him to live, invite him to grow. Since
people don’t have the courage to mature unless someone has
faith in them, we have to reach those we meet at the level where
they stopped developing . . .They have to feel they’re loved very
deeply and very boldly before they dare appear humble and
kind, affectionate, sincere and vulnerable.”
BY FATHER JOSEPH M. CHAMPLIN
The Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy and its Secretariat
staff deserve a word of commendation for publishing the first in
a new educational series simply entitled “Study Texts.” This
initial volume, “Holy Communion,” contains the Roman decree
“Immensae Caritatis” on “Facilitating Sacramental Communion
in Particular Circumstances” and an extensive commentary
covering each section of it.
That document from the Holy See touches upon special
ministers of Holy Communion, Holy Communion twice on the
same day, mitigation of the eucharistic fast for the sick and the
aged, plus Communion in the hand.
The American commentary with its handsome cover, clear,
clean layout and readable style contains valuable theological,
liturgical, historical and pastoral background material.
BY DR. THOMAS FRANCOEUR
A man’s “personal life” consists of those things lying deep
within him, urging him on, guiding, giving energy, making life
worthwhile. For the Christian, such forces are basic, because
they come from Christ who spoke to all men.
A boy stands in the batter’s box; how will he hit? A little girl
gets out milk and eggs and flour; how will the cake turn out?
Mother tries shaping up her day, and dad his; How will they
Similarly, their justification for Communion in the hand, a
matter of Church discipline, not doctrine, looks to the truth
that “all matter has been taken up in the new creation of
Christ’s Incarnation.”
“The Christian, therefore, has been sanctified by his
participation in Christ in a very special way through Christian
initiation. In the living waters of baptism he has been cleansed,
consecrated, and made to share in the eternal priesthood of
Jesus Christ.”
“Christians today have a renewed awareness of their
individual sacredness and realize that no part of their being is
less sacred than another. Thus for many people to reach out in a
gesture of wanting and grateful receiving expresses deep
Christian faith.”
perform? A great deal depends on how they picture themselves,
that is, their self-image.
We say “depends” because our self-image actually affects how
we’ll do. If the boy can see himself hitting well, he will. The
little girl’s cake will be fine if she clearly imagines herself
successfully completing the necessary steps. Mom and dad will
put in a fine day if they “know what they are about.”
“OF PARTICULAR NOTE IS the reformed rite for
distribution of Communion to the sick. It introduces
several new elements into that liturgy ...” A chaplain
in a Philadelphia hospital gives Holy Communion to a
woman clutching her Rosary.
An effective self-image does not come into being by magic.
Rather it results, progressively, from awareness and learning,
and this over a lifetime. We must live courageously and lovingly
with what we know we are, yet expect ever greater things of
ourselves because of the possibility of constant improvement. It
is like living with the knowledge that Jesus was being real and
honest with us when he said, “Be perfect just as your heavenly
Father is perfect.”
So we live with the double task of getting to know ourselves
better, and getting to know progressively God’s plan for us. This
double insight into what we are and what we are called to is our
self-image.
The boy and girl, man and woman, cannot just let things
happen. If they want a vigorously driving, joyful self-image,
they need guidelines for growth. Christ stated the aim clearly
for us. What of the means? Surely that is what St. Paul meant
when he told us to put on the mind of Christ.
This means understanding Christ’s own self-image: Son of
God, revealer of the Father’s love, attentive, tender constant
healer of men. Our consideration here does not permit a very
deep examination of this image but even a brief reflection lets
us see the things to which we are called, the delicate facets of a
special self-image, if we are to be “other Christs.” And this,
precisely, is the Christian’s self-image.
The truly modem man will know self-image as his source of
energy and will work tirelessly and constantly at its growth. He
will never settle for secondary goals. He will see Christ as a
model, as a model always many moves ahead of man’s most
up-to-date version of enlightened civilization.
Study Text on Holy Communion
Available from the United States Catholic Conference
Publications Office (1312 Massachusetts Ave., N.W.,
Washington, D.C. 20005; single copies $1.50, bulk rates on
request), it should prove helpful to priests, members of diocesan
or parish committees, special ministers of Holy Communion and
others who wish to understand more deeply current
developments in the liturgy.
The clergy will find an appendix especially useful since it
includes several rites prepared by the Congregation for Divine
Worship which are not otherwise easily available. Thus, there are
ceremonies for commissioning or designating extraordinary
ministers of Holy Communion and rituals for distributing the
Eucharist.
Influence of Essenes on Christianity
Of particular note is the reformed rite for distribution of
Communion to the sick. It introduces several new elements into
that liturgy, e.g. a penitential service similar to one employed at
Mass, eucharistically oriented scriptural selections (8 are given),
the Our Father (traditional in early Christian worship as a
Communion preparation prayer).
The Study Text’s explanation of special ministers for Holy
Communion and Communion in the hand repeatedly cites as a
basis for these procedures the essential dignity of every
Christian.
Lay ministers of the Eucharist receive no new “power,” are
not ordained. They do not consecrate the Blessed Sacrament;
they merely communicate it to others when the need exists.
Through their Christian baptism and initiation into the Church
they became sacred and holy, suitable persons for this sublime
task.
It was only around the ninth century that distribution of the
Eucharist became normally the “priest’s job.” Throughout the
first centuries lay persons frequently, perhaps ordinarily
fulfilled that function.
As practical consequences of this doctrinal truth about a
Christian’s fundamental dignity, the Bishops’ Committee sees no
need for the local bishop to prefer men over women when
designating such special ministers or to insist that they wear a
priest or deacon’s liturgical garb. Coat and tie for a lay man, to
illustrate, would be appropriate dress.
BY STEVE LANDREGAN
There are some striking parallels to be found between the
teachings and practices of the Essenes at Qumran and the New
Testament and early Christian communities.
The most striking parallels are between Qumran and the
writings of John. One of the best explanations of this can be
found in the Anchor Bible Vol. 29, p. LXII. In this article
Father Raymond Brown contrasts the dualism or struggle
between good and evil in John and the dualism found in the
Qumran scrolls.
In the Qumran literature there are two principles created by
God: the principle for good, called variously the prince of lights,
spirit of truth and holy spirit, and the principle for evil, called
the angel of darkness or the spirit of perversion. In the Essenes’
teaching the two principles are locked in a struggle to dominate
man until the time of divine intervention.
In John, Jesus has come into the world as light to overcome
the darkness (Jn 1: 4-5 9), and all men are called upon to
choose between light and darkness (Jn 3:19-21). Father Brown
explains that “Jesus is the truth (Jn 14:6), and after his death
the struggle to overcome the evil force is carried on by the Spirit
of Truth (or the Holy Spirit - Jn 14:17, 26).
Father Brown also feels there might be a relationship between
the water and the giving of the Spirit in John 3:5 and 7:37-38
and that found in the Qumran literature. However, his
conclusion is that th6 parallels found between John and
Qumran “are not close enough to suggest a direct literary
dependence,” but do suggest “a Johannine familiarity with the
type of thought exhibited in the (Qumran) scrolls.’
There are also some interesting points of contact between
another John, John the Baptist, and Qumran. The Baptist is a
man qualified to be a priest in the Temple of Jerusalem, who
goes to the desert to announce and await the messianic coming.
He is celibate. He has many adversaries within Judaism. His
principle area of activity near the mouth of the Jordan was
within sight of Qumran, making contact not only likely but
probable.
John the Baptist’s baptism to repentance, a one-time act,
differs from the repeated ablutions of the Essenes even though
there are parallels. John could conceivably have been a member
of the Essene fellowship for a short time, but the similarities
between his ministry and Qumran seem to be more an
agreement in basic attitude than anything deeper.
There were, of course, some equally striking contrasts
between the Essenes and the early Christians. Some examples:
-Clericalism played an important part in the Qumran
teachings while early Christianity had no ties with the Jewish
priesthood but rather emphasized a royal priesthood.
-The ritualism of Qumran was far more extensive than the
ritual prescriptions in the New Testament.
-Directions given in the Essenes’ Manual of Discipline to love
the Children of Light and to hate the Children of Darkness are
directly contradictory to the command of Jesus to love one’s
enemies (Mt 5:43ff, Lk 6:27ff).
-Qumran’s teachings repudiated the Temple cult at
Jerusalem, the members of the primitive Jerusalem Christian
community, on the contrary, prayed and worshipped in the
Temple (Lk 24:52, Acts 3:11).