chicago studies
Dr. Massimo Faggioli
A Crisis in the Meaning of Catholic Tradition: The Fundamentalist Temptation of Canceling the Past
Dr. Harold (Bud) Horell
Integrated Christian Faith Formation: Holistic Catholic Education for Belonging, Becoming, Believing, and Beyonding
Dr. María Barga
The Word Made Flesh: The Interdependence of the Proclamation of the Word and the Eucharist
Rev. John Guthrie
Liturgical Formation for Today’s Priest: Toward a Greater Sacramental Imagination
Rev. John Guthrie
Liturgical Formation for Today’s Priest: Obedience, Chastity, and Simplicity
Rev. Marek Duran
In Defense of Priestly Fatherhood
Finding Christ Today: His Presence in Tradition, Formation, Sacrament, and Word
Chicago Studies
Melanie Barrett
Editorial Board
María Barga Emery de Gaál
Lawrence Hennessey Paul Hilliard John Lodge
Brendan Lupton
Kevin Magas David Mowry
Anthony Muraya Patricia Pintado-Murphy Juliana Vazquez Ray Webb
Founding Editor
George Dyer
CHICAGO STUDIES is edited by members of the faculty of the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary for the continuing theological development of priests, deacons, and lay ecclesial ministers. The journal welcomes articles likely to be of interest to our readers. Views expressed in the articles are those of the respective authors and not necessarily those of the editorial board. All communications regarding articles and editorial policy should be addressed to cseditor@usml.edu CHICAGO STUDIES is indexed in the ATLA Religion Database
Cover Design by Deacon Thomas Gaida
Copyright © 2026 Civitas Dei Foundation
ISSN 0009-3718
Finding Christ Today: His Presence in Tradition, Formation,
Sacrament, and Word
Editor’s Corner Volume 63.1, Fall 2024/ Winter 2025
By Dr. Juliana V. Vazquez, Ph.D.
Where can we find Christ today? We are gifted with his presence in tradition, formation, sacrament, and word. Accordingly, the articles in the current volume of Chicago Studies explore some of the promising paths that help us encounter him, such as the rediscovery of our shared Catholic tradition; truly integrated Christian education; liturgical formation for today’s priest; the relationship between the Word and the sacraments; and the spiritual fatherhood of the Catholic priesthood.
Among these articles, the reader will find two Paluch Lectures given at the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary, one from 2024 and one from 2023. The 2023 Paluch Lecture at the University of St. Mary of the Lake was given by Dr. Massimo Faggioli and is published here as “A Crisis in the Meaning of Catholic Tradition: The Fundamentalist Temptation of Canceling the Past.” Dr. Faggioli argues that we have lost a shared sense of the meaning of Catholic history and Catholic tradition at a time when we need it the most. The challenges of sexism, racism, and the abuse crisis pose truly disastrous consequences. We are now facing a fracture in ecclesial unity, an obscuring of effective Christian witness in the world, and great difficulties understanding, appreciating, and implementing Vatican II. Dr. Faggioli insists that a more authentic reception of Vatican II in a post-colonial world depends directly on having a truly shared memory of the riches of our tradition. We must rebuild a shared historical sense of the Catholic tradition at large, and of Vatican II in particular, if we wish to combat an all-pervasive “presentism.” Our obsession with the present and our tendency to either ignore the past or to read it along the lines of our own present self-concerns have resulted in distorted readings of Vatican II. As alternatives to this anti-historical mindset, Dr. Faggioli points to the ongoing generativity of the tradition and the importance of loving the Church as it exists now. We must resist the temptation to cancel the past and rediscover our shared tradition instead.
The 2024 Paluch Lecture at the University of St. Mary of the Lake was given by Dr. Harold (Bud) Horell and is published here as “Integrated Christian Faith Formation: Holistic Catholic Education for Belonging, Becoming, Believing, and Beyonding.” Dr. Horrel’s innovative “4Bs” model for integrated Christian faith formation emphasizes the transformational power of belonging in a community; becoming more rooted in one’s identity as a beloved child of God in all developmental stages; believing in the convictions that bring our relationship with God and others to life; and moving beyond (beyonding) to serve the wider world and to bring God’s kingdom closer. Dr. Horrel’s dynamic and hopeful article invites students, parents, ordained and lay pastoral ministers, and other committed learners to integrate the message of salvation and the teachings of the Church into a truly holistic educational experience that increases self-understanding, self-gift, and meaningful community.
We come next to an insightful and inspiring vision of the interconnections between Scripture and sacrament in Dr. María Barga’s “The Word Made Flesh: The Interdependence of the Proclamation of the Word and the Eucharist.” She unveils the sacramentality of the Word as an important but often neglected theme in Vatican II documents, and shows that there is a mutually impactful interrelationship between the sacramental nature of the Word of God, especially as it is proclaimed in the Mass, and the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Eucharist. She traces the
development of this interrelationship in the twentieth-century biblical, ecumenical, and liturgical movements, and then closes with invaluable suggestions on how to ensure our hearing of the Word is a real encounter with Christ, leading to a deepened union with him in the Eucharist.
In his first article, entitled “Liturgical Formation for Today’s Priest: Toward a Greater Sacramental Imagination,” Fr. John Guthrie highlights the precious resources for living a greater sacramental imagination that we can find in the Mass itself, especially its Trinitarian and Eucharistic dimensions. In his second article, entitled “Liturgical Formation for Today’s Priest: Obedience, Chastity, and Simplicity,” he outlines how priests can cultivate a greater appreciation and embodiment of the vows of obedience, chastity, and simplicity by looking to the Church’s liturgy. The volume closes with Fr. Marek Duran’s passionate and studied defense of spiritual fatherhood as integral to the identity of the Catholic priest. He proposes that priestly fatherhood can become a purposeful, joyful aspect of priestly spirituality that can strengthen and nourish this critical role in the Church.
A Crisis in the Meaning of Catholic Tradition: The Fundamentalist Temptation of Canceling the Past
By Massimo Faggioli, Ph.D.
Dealing with a Complicated (Church) History
The relationship with the past is central in the Christian and Catholic tradition. But which past? In the last few years, the news about the Church has been dominated by stories on the abuse crisis, financial scandals, and intra-ecclesial polarization. Even in the midst of endless news cycles that populate the very long chronology of the modern and contemporary abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, these events say something about our times and our sense of the past and of the tradition including the Second Vatican Council.
There is the issue of the interrelationships between Christian theology, racism, and Western colonialism. 1 The twenty-first century is a key moment in the rise of the consciousness of the Church under pressure from outside cultural forces. These include its role in the history of colonialism and of racism, coming to the fore in a much-delayed metanoia, some two decades after St. John Paul II’s call for the preparation for the Great Jubilee of 2000 in his Tertio Millennio Adveniente of 1994. This happens at a time when there is a massive narrowing of the world of “white men” in global Catholicism 2 This new sensibility to the role of the race issue and of racism in the Church must be linked to a new attention to the participation in, and reception of, Vatican II in the post-colonial world. But this shift involves the hermeneutics of the tradition, beginning with a de-colonization of the biblical narratives, of the Fathers of the Church, of the liturgy, and of the magisterium. 3 Vatican II now is read through a post-colonial or de-colonial lens in ways that were not practiced just ten years ago.
There are the issues of sexism and patriarchy and of women and gender more broadly in the Church. Halfway through the Second Vatican Council, Cardinal Leo Jozef Suenens suggested the appointment of women auditors to the Council while reminding his fellow bishops that women constituted half of humanity. 4 Following this provocative statement, in October of 1963, twenty-three women were invited to attend select sessions at the Second Vatican Council as auditors. Since then, much has changed in the Church, but the issue of the role of women in ministry remains on the table, especially in Catholicism in the US and in the Anglosphere.
The Church’s past, Vatican II included, cannot be studied without considering the sexual abuse scandal. To claim or to do otherwise is to misunderstand the nature and scale of the crisis. After passing through the crucible of the crisis for decades, one develops a far-reaching hermeneutic of suspicion which can turn dark, but which can also shed light. This raises important methodological questions for Church history as a whole. The abuse crisis has radically changed our perception of the Church and of reform in the Church in a way that diverges not only from Congar’s in 1950 but also from perceptions at Vatican II and in the early post-conciliar period. 5 It is much more than just “a dark chapter” in the history of the Church. At the same time, the historiography of Vatican II must be aware that demonizing our collective past may leave us unrooted in the present. The focus on the abuse crisis as the only interpretive lens is part of “presentism,” our modern habit of weighing the past against the social concerns and moral categories of the present.
These three racism, sexism, and the abuse crisis are just the tip of the iceberg with which the Barque of Peter and our sense of the tradition are apparently on a collision course, unless
we have hit the iceberg already and we have not noticed it yet. These are issues of a catastrophic nature for the Church. They have direct consequences for those who work for the Church and contribute professionally to its thinking, not only for members of academic institutions of higher education, but also for all those who teach and preach in the Church.
These three issues are part of what Pope Francis described in his more general comment on the relations between the Church and the world, as “not an era of change, but a change of era.”6 They are part of profound movements involving Catholicism today: the movement of the new global dimension of the Church away from one single historical, cultural, and theological paradigm; the theological and cultural rifts within the European-Mediterranean-Western space and the shrinking of the dominance of European white males; the rise of a post- or anti-institutional mindset; and the marketization of cultural identities.
In all this, the clashes on the hermeneutics of Vatican II between liberal progressives and traditionalist conservatives, between “continuity and reform” versus “discontinuity and rupture,”7 are more like the tidal waves than the tsunami waves following the deep and massive movement of tectonic plates crashing into each other. We are no longer in the Pangea-like Catholic Church of the early centuries and late antiquity, of medieval Christendom, or of the modern colonial past. We have a shared past, but we do not have a shared memory, and we do not have a shared historical sense of Vatican II or even of the Catholic tradition at large. This article is a contribution toward a more authentic theology of the history of Vatican II and of the Catholic tradition at large.
Ecclesial Crisis and the “Presentist” Regime of Historicity
Henri de Lubac said that Christianity is not one of the great things of history; history is one of the great things of Christianity. 8 But the crises of sexism, racism, and sexual abuse affect the Church and compel us to deal with a new “regime of historicity” in the Catholic Church, or a crisis in the existing regime of historicity. Either way, we are faced with a different concept of the interrelationships among the past, the present, and the future. 9 This is one of the least acknowledged ruptures between Vatican II and today. The old adage historia magistra vitae tends to operate today, especially in some cultural contexts like North America, in a negative way, in an “ecclesioclastic” view of the Church’s past, present, and future. As French historian François Hartog wrote: “Le passé est, par principe ou par position, dépassé ” 10 The past passed away. This is clearly problematic for a healthy relationship with history, not only theologically, but also spiritually. This disruption of the sense of history and tradition is evident in Europe and the West, in the context of the redefinition of the past until colonialism in a post-colonial global Church. The situation has different features in other areas of the world, and this would deserve a separate analysis. But the non-European and non-Western world is not immune from that. What is typical is the context of the “culture wars” in which religion plays a central role, leading to more temptations to relate with the past ideologically, to make history serve one specific cause and function as the definitive argument in partisan political battles for which academia serves as a stage. This use of the past tends to see history as a call to situate oneself naively and arrogantly “on the right side of history.” This is a formidable challenge against the effort to engage with the Church’s past in order to see something of the Church’s future. 11
This temptation to read history in reaction to immediate political-mediatic concerns affects the Church’s relationship not just with Vatican II, but also with its entire sense of the tradition. We still must approach the texts of our theological tradition without either distorting or patronizing them. A correct hermeneutics presupposes the knowledge of the historical context in which those
texts were drafted, discussed, amended, and approved; the growth in our understanding of the Gospel message; and the dynamism of the living tradition.
We have a shared past, but we do not have a shared memory, and we do not have a shared historical sense of Vatican II or even of the Catholic tradition at large. This is not just a theological problem but also an ecclesial one, because history and memory are part of making and keeping the tradition. This is one of the effects of ecclesial polarization often fueled by the media, social media, and fragmentation in like-minded virtual communities on our sense of the past, history, and the tradition. I would suggest that the “presentist regime of historicity” takes on at least two predominant forms in the Church today: what I will call “the neutralizing monumentalization” of Vatican II and what I will call the “damnatio” of Vatican II.
The “Neutralizing Monumentalization” of Vatican II
What we have seen in recent years is a certain crisis, especially in the Anglo-American world, in the historical consciousness of Vatican II, with divided memories taking over the history of Vatican II. 12 Historiography of the event of the Second Vatican Council and theological commentaries on its texts have been supplanted by a different kind of effort. On the one side, the memorialization and “monumentalization” of Vatican II is an effort to neutralize the discontinuities as continuities, and the sentimentality of the veterans (“we who were there”) as a page from the civil religion book in the theological-political narratives of the post-World War in the West. This neutralizing monumentalization matches, in its own way, a post-ecclesial form fitting a neo-liberal political and economic order. In this form, Catholic narratives on the Church and on Vatican II run the risk of fragmenting knowledge and social life in a series of incommunicable points of view in which each group is walled within its own relationship with the world. 13 As Italian historian Enzo Traverso has noted, the “we” any “we” falters and tends to dissolve. There is only the individual alone and before the individual there is, omnipotent, the ramified structure of technoscience. This solitude then becomes all the more definitive as it also extends into the past. Memory now serves the “new economy of the identity of me.” Memory is an instrument for presentism. 14 This has to do with the autobiographical turn in historiography, which has affected and continues to affect Catholic reflection on the past and the sense of who we are as a Church.
The “Damnatio” of Vatican II
On the other side, there are the naive attempts to blame secularization and deChristianization on Vatican II as the efficient cause of decline. This view is a retroverted sense of the tradition. Benedict XVI’s December 2005 speech on the “two hermeneutics” of Vatican II sought to intervene against the modifications of the sense of history that tended to make of the past an unusable past. 15 His speech was a reaction against a modern sense of history where, if there is a lesson from history, it comes from the future, not from the past. And it is a lesson from a future which is considered as a rupture from the past, different from the past. But the hermeneutical battle following that 2005 papal speech had, among its many effects (some of them unexpected), not just a revival of apologetics, but in some cases a real damnatio of Vatican II and its effects. This damnatio of Vatican II came in the form of an acceptance of the traditionalist narrative on the Council, which was, paradoxically, one of the polemical targets of Pope Benedict’s speech.
For those who deal with the past of the Church, the options seem to be narrow: An apologetical defense of the past as immune from deviation? A criminological approach to the past as the black legend of the Church? Working for a posthumous rehabilitation of the Christian past?
The “Damnatio of the Past” as a Dead End
Without a truly shared memory and a truly shared historical sense of Vatican II, it is hard to see where any common sense of destiny is present today in the Catholic sense of history and of the Council in it. In the early 2000s, Vatican II was still called “the forgotten future” of the Church. 16 The memory of Vatican II was still fresh during the Great Jubilee of 2000. 17
There is a different sense, in the Church of today, of Vatican II as having a place in the future of the Church. It is the twenty-first-century Catholic version of the tyranny of the future, which also has effects on the past, that is, it has given it an opacity and made it an unpredictable past. 18 Today, the past of the Church (both distant and recent) is on the stand as a defendant, and the future is already a prime suspect, a possible criminal in the making. And on the stand of the defendants, there is also, symbolically, Vatican II and if it is not there, often it is just because of the statute of limitations.
The problem is bigger than a lost sense of the tradition in Catholicism where, insofar as the past had been transmitted as tradition, it possessed authority; insofar as authority presented itself historically, it could become tradition. Now there is more than the usual reticence of Catholics to think about our history and the past, including Vatican II.
There is clearly a problem of intellectual and cultural sustainability. The polycrisis has produced in Catholicism a hard-to-reverse disenchantment, if not contempt or rage, with the magisterium’s attempt to send a positive message about sexuality or on much else. 19 The polycrisis has produced tectonic shifts, and Catholics not just the bishops and the Vatican are still struggling to find their footing.
It is also an emotional struggle. It has created a climate of suspicion against genuine relationships and, in the Church, against spiritual direction and close contacts between members of the Church (not just clergy and young people). This has instilled anxieties not only about our Church leaders and fellow Catholics but also neighbors, co-workers, even family members. This feel is more typical of a totalitarian police state than of a liberal-democratic society, and even less of a Christian community. It feels closer to The Lives of Others than Babette’s Feast.
Vatican II is often seen as a failed revolution and not just by traditionalists. 20 In contrast to a post-Vatican II era that found one of its most powerful expressions in a hopeful theology of liberation, we now seem to find ourselves in a despairing “theology of victimization” from which the Church would need to emancipate itself. The process of de-theologization is understandable not just as the result of different career choices by young Catholics, but also of a refusal of moral co-responsibility for sexism, racism, and abuse. A certain stagnation in the studies on Vatican II is part of this Catholic moment.
The Anti-Historical Mindset and New Forms of Fundamentalism
This temptation to erase the past as congenitally defective has profound effects on Christianity, both on our sense of belonging to the Church and on the work of theologians. For a certain kind of Catholic thought today, leaving the Church behind in doing theology, or leaving the Church tour court, seems to be the only possible spiritual homecoming. We are not all Simone Weil or Leo Tolstoy It is a form of spiritual tourism that can easily lead to homelessness. Our SiliconValley-fueled futurism refuses to acknowledge the limits of technology within social goals or structures. This approach to tradition and the future translates into an “unmooring from history,
that is, like telling history ‘Step aside because I’m not interested’,” as a sign of “no respect for the patience of God’s steps in history.”21
This urge to see ourselves as more moral, more sensitive, more Christian than the Church is a step further from the surge of dissent in recent decades: “mater si, magistra no. ” Now it has become often more radical: “mater no, magistra no ” It is not just a problem for the Catholic Church or for Christianity or for religion: what is happening or could happen to Christianity today is an example and a symptom of larger movements in our culture and society.
But there is a specific problem for Catholicism: this detachment from the past of the Church and its history is always very selective. As Pierre Gisel wrote recently: “History is always a structured, and therefore particular, bearer of an objective that goes beyond a given situation. It is only here that singularities take shape and that the narratives intertwine, with their texts and their moments of reference, against a background that is always already there configured and in which we subscribe, extending it or marking inflections, distances or frank dissidences.” 22 The exclusion of entire periods of Church history from our canon of sources has enormous consequences: “We cut out of this or that story, withdraw from it and escape it. […] The result is a reinterpretation and, in fact, a sorting. Repudiating some figures and magnifying them […] We make a selection, exercising our ‘right of inventory’ […] In essence, we are not engaged in an encounter with the real history, but we intend to be we would like to be and we think we must be directly tied to the truth or to the ideal.” 23
This excision of entire sets of ancient, medieval, and early modern or pre-postmodern sources creates a problem not solely of completeness of our theological repertoire. It claims to create also a self-absolutory anthropology of tabula rasa: “There is no innocent present because immaculate, but there is always a past determined with whom only a structuring relationship can be established (concretely, this past reaches us through traditions and canons). And this past is given in a scenario of differences, first of all because it is different but the temptation to reduce it to oneself is strong and it is instructive because it shows us that there are different ways of being humans, each with its strengths and risks.” 24
This creates the dangers of new forms of fundamentalism, of a different kind from the ones that we are used to in Catholicism. 25 Catholic theology is called to resist against, and to respond to, the uncritical acceptance of these new forms of fundamentalism in the guise of contemporary historiographical trends biblical, dogmatic, and also economic and libertarian fundamentalisms that are rooted in an anti- and non-historical view of the past of the Church. 26
The Ongoing Generativity of the Tradition and the Importance of Loving the Church that Exists Now
In light of all this, what are we to do with the Catholic tradition? What are the remains of the magisterial, theological, and spiritual tradition? Has it still something to say?
Certainly, there is a problem of preservation and defense at least defense of the idea of the theological and intellectual tradition against a certain anti-intellectualism. Denying that the Catholic polycrisis affects our relationship with the tradition would signal a dangerous imperviousness to the signs of our times. The polycrisis not only poses serious questions to the doctrinal order set by the tradition but also challenges the reformulation of the relations between Church and state and of the role of the Church in culture, society, and Catholic schools and universities.
It is a challenge for all Catholics, no matter their ideological or theological positioning toward Vatican II. There are clear limits in the teachings of Vatican II, and in the way they were implemented, that must be subject to scrutiny. 27 Addressing those limits is already part of the path of the Church, and must continue to be. This is one of the strategically unstated, but theologically evident, assumptions driving synodality. It is the end of the idea that Church reform stopped (or should stop) at and with Vatican II. We do not know how synodality after the “synodal process” will unfold, or if and how it will help the Church find its way into the future.
Clearly, we have entered a new phase not just in the reception of Vatican II, but also in the history of its perceived authority both ad intra and ad extra. And this new phase is not just limited to the decades-long traditionalists’ attempt to delegitimize Vatican II. At this same time, this is also a challenge for those who have memorialized and monumentalized Vatican II as a page from our civil religion book which, in the present political-economic global order, sees history and tradition not just as passé, but as depassé. 28
Dealing with the polycrisis from a theological and religious point of view requires an extremely delicate operation, both intellectually and ecclesially. There is no doubt that the fight against all forms of corruption and abuse must be centered on the victims, and must do so from the operative, cognitive, and emotional points of view.
There are reasons to caution against an historical-theological narrative that sees the crisis as an exclusively criminal phenomenon, because the result is to see the Christian past itself as a pantheon of terror which makes oppression ineluctable and history irredeemable. Here we see the perverse effects of our systems of social communication, boosted by digital and social media. If we start from the premise that the knowledge of the tragedies of sexism, racism, and abuse constitutes a fundamental element of public pedagogy, it is not long until the reading of history as a succession of catastrophes compresses what is also, and above all, a minimally viable sense of our living together not only as a Church, but also as a civil and political community.
Giving justice and seeking truth are paramount. But there are serious risks if our approach to Church history becomes a reversal of the history of salvation and takes instead the shape of the history of perdition and, at the same time, a “tribunalization of history” becomes an “anthropodicy” which has replaced theodicy and absolves men and women from their responsibilities. 29 This would void the meaning of the story of the human person (not just the story of Catholics or Christians) and would paralyze any fight for justice and peace, including our shared quest for the divine, for the God who as the constitution Dei Verbum of Vatican II says in the second paragraph “in his great love speaks to humankind as friends (see Ex. 33:11; John 15:14-15) and enters into their life (see Bar 3:38), so as to invite and receive them [us] into relationship.”30
We must consider the sense of powerlessness entailed in the historical determinism of seeing the story of the Church in exclusively criminal terms. Christian action, which includes our action for justice and truth, also involves intellectual and theological work, spiritual discernment, and pastoral care. These tasks require a minimum of shared meanings about our past.
A commonly shared assumption is now that the Catholic tradition was part and pillar of a system culturally blind and impervious to the sins that now look not only unforgivable, but also typically Catholic. But the theological and historiographical question to address here is whether the theological, magisterial, and spiritual tradition is still generative for the future of the Church and of humanity. Provided that we avoid a “magisterial fundamentalism” and see it open to further development, the Catholic tradition is still generative, despite its historical faults, for a more authentic life of the Church in the contemporary world and for a more authentic life of humanity. 31
An historically and theologically complete understanding of the tradition requires taking seriously the polycrisis of sexism, racism, and sexual abuse. There is an undeniable history and a disturbing present: this is not debatable. But if we were to say that the Church is irredeemable and cannot change, then we leave behind not just our sense of the Church, but also of our humanity. In other words, it is important to know how to love the Church that already exists, not just the one that will come or that once was.
1 For a wide panorama of the issues, see Bernard Cholvy & Luc Forestier, Un catholicisme sous pression: Vatican II et nos questions d'aujourd'hui (Salvator, 2022).
2 See Massimo Faggioli and Bryan Froehle, Global Catholicism: Between Disruption and Encounter, Studies in Global Catholicism vol. 1 (Leiden: Brill 2024).
3 See, for example, the series De-Colonising the Biblical Narrative (Adelaide: ATF, 2022-); Carlos MendozaÁlvarez and Thierry-Marie Courau, Decolonial Theology: Violence, Resistance, and Spiritualities, in Concilium 2019.
4 Cardinal Leo Jozef Suenens, intervention in aula, October 22, 1963, in Acta Synodalia Sacrosancti Concilii Oecumenici Vaticani II, vol. 2/III (Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1972), 177: “inventur ut auditores etiam mulieres quae, ni fallor, dimidiam partem humanitatis constituent” (emphasis in the original).
5 See Yves Congar, True and False Reform in the Church, transl. Paul J. Philibert (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2011), first original edition in French (Paris: Cerf, 1950).
6 Pope Francis, “Speech to the members of the fifth national conference of the Catholic Church in Italy” (Florence, November 10, 2015) https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/november/documents/papafrancesco_20151110_firenze-convegno-chiesa-italiana.html (translation from the original Italian mine).
7 See Massimo Faggioli, Vatican II: The Battle for Meaning (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 2012, also in Italian and Portuguese).
8 See Rowan Williams, Why Study the Past? The Quest for the Historical Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), 6.
9 See François Hartog, Régimes d'historicité. Présentisme et expériences du temps (Paris: Seuil, 2003); Regimes of Historicity: Presentism and Experiences of Time, transl. Saskia Brown (New York: Columbia UP, 2015), 26-27 and 37.
10 Hartog, Régimes d'historicité, 117.
11 See Williams, Why Study the Past, 101-103.
12 See Paul Ricoeur, La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli (Paris: Seuil, 2000); Memory, History, Forgetting, transl. Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004).
13 See Enzo Traverso, Singular Pasts: The “I” in Historiography, transl. Adam Schoene (New York: Columbia UP, 2022, original French 2020), especially 139-43.
14 Hartog, Régimes d’historicité, 138.
15 Pope Benedict XVI, Christmas Address to the Roman Curia, given on December 22, 2005.
16 See Vatican II: A Forgotten Future?, eds. Alberto Melloni and Christoph Theobald, Concilium 2005/4 (London: SCM Press, 2005).
17 See, for example, Il Concilio Vaticano II. Recezione e attualità alla luce del Giubileo, ed. Rino Fisichella (Cinisello Balsamo: San Paolo, 2000).
18 See Hartog, Régimes d'historicité, 160.
19 For one of the earliest uses of the term polycrisis, see Edgar Morin and Anne Brigitte Kerne, Terre-Patrie, (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1993); English translation Homeland Earth: A Manifesto for the New Millenium, transl. Sean Kelly and Roger Laing (Michigan University: Hampton Press, 1999).
20 About the trajectories of the ideas of revolution (and social-political change), see Enzo Traverso, Rivoluzione. 1789-1989: un'altra storia (Milano: Feltrinelli, 2021); Revolution: An Intellectual History (London: Verso, 2021).
21 Italo Mancini, Tornino i volti (Genova: Marietti, 1989), 34, 35 (translation mine).
22 Pierre Gisel, «Le christianisme aux prises avec la cancel culture. Occasion d’une revision critique, sur fond d’enjeux instructifs pour le social de tous», in Christianisme, wokisme et cancel culture. Quel rapport au passé en
société contemporaine?, ed. Gabriel Palasciano (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2024), published in Italian with the title “La trappola del nuovo inizio”, in Il Regno – attualità, 2/2024, 53-65, cit. 64. Translations into English are mine.
23 Pierre Gisel, «Le christianisme aux prises avec la cancel culture», 59.
24 Pierre Gisel, «Le christianisme aux prises avec la cancel culture», 64.
25 See Mark S. Massa, SJ, Catholic Fundamentalism in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2025).
26 About this, see Massimo Faggioli, Theology and Catholic Higher Education: Beyond Our Identity Crisis (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2024).
27 See The Legacy and Limits of Vatican II in an Age of Crisis, eds. Catherine E. Clifford, Kristin M. Colberg, Massimo Faggioli, and Edward Hahnenberg (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2025).
28 See Roberto Calasso, The Unnamable Present, transl. Richard Dixon (New York: FSG, 2019, original Italian Milano: Adelphi, 2017); Massimo Cacciari, Il lavoro dello spirito. Saggio su Max Weber (Milano: Adelphi, 2020).
29 This is the critique of contemporary historiographical trends made by German philosopher Odo Marquard (1928-2015) (voir Odo Marquard and Alberto Melloni, La storia che giudica, la storia che assolve, Roma-Bari: Laterza, 2008).
30 Vatican II, “Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation,” Dei Verbum (1965), no. 2, https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_deiverbum_en.html, translation mine.
31 See, for example, Leonardo Paris, L’erede. Una cristologia (Brescia: Queriniana, 2021); The Heir: A Christology, transl. Michael Tait and Maria-Caterina Sighel (Leiden: Brill, 2024); and Florian Klug, Beyond the Visible Church: The Motif of the ecclesia ab Abel from Augustine to James Alison (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2024).
Integrated Christian Faith Formation: Holistic Catholic Education for Belonging, Becoming, Believing, and Beyonding
By Harold (Bud) D. Horell, Ph.D.
For students, parents, ordained and lay pastoral ministers, and persons committed to living out their faith in everyday life, this article offers a pastoral approach for being intentionally aware of the dynamics of life experiences and reflecting on them, and guiding others to do the same, so that life experiences are learning experiences. For those serving in designated catechetical ministries, such as teaching religion or theology in a Catholic school or teaching a parish religious education class, this article offers a holistic and integrated approach to teaching and learning for use in structuring classroom time, assignments, and learning assessments This approach is the 4Bs Religious Education Process, an integrated and holistic learning process designed to nurture lifelong education in faith. The 4Bs are education for belonging in a community, becoming a more fully developed person, developing beliefs to guide us in our lives, and learning to look beyond the present to build a better world. As discussed below, the 4Bs are conceptually related. Still, a person or group may experience them unfolding in any order in a learning experience (such as experiencing them as beyonding, becoming, belonging, and believing; or believing, beyonding, belonging, and becoming).
In the first section, I discuss why an integrated, holistic approach to faith education is needed in the Church today. In the second section, I offer a personal story from my experience as an educator to illustrate the value of integrated, holistic education and invite readers to reflect on the valuable, holistic learning experiences in their own lives. In section three, I introduce the 4Bs approach. The fourth section presents stories to illustrate and discuss key aspects of the learning dynamics of the 4Bs. This is followed by a concluding reflection on how the 4Bs are grounded in my core life commitments. The concluding section suggests that while the 4Bs can be presented conceptually, to grasp and use them, we must, to draw insight from the poet W. B. Yeats, go beyond “those thoughts men think in the mind alone,” and foster understanding that gives rise to “a lasting song” that “thinks in a marrow bone.” 1
Education in Faith in the Church: Mixed and Confusing Messaging
To begin, the Catholic Church offers mixed and often confusing messages about catechesis, religious education, faith formation, and other forms of education in faith. Teaching, as well as personal and spiritual formation, are essential aspects of Jesus’s ministry, and catechesis has always been a central ministry of the Church. However, in the contemporary era, the Church often fails to embrace fully this essential ministry.
On the one hand, the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Christian Education discussed education as a universal right. It also affirmed the importance of a holistic education in faith that nurtures a deeper relationship with God, fosters moral values, guides people to seek fullness of personal and social life, and prepares them for their final destiny. 2 Building on the insights of the Council, in To Teach as Jesus Did, the US Catholic bishops emphasized the importance of a comprehensive approach to education in faith that focuses on proclaiming the
Gospel message, guiding people to live in Christian fellowship based on Gospel values, and supporting individuals in discerning and responding to God’s call to service within their faith community and the broader world community. 3 Then, in Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us, the US Catholic bishops affirmed that while faith formation must be age appropriate, it should guide people from their present stage of faith toward the development of mature, adult faith and a commitment to ongoing and lifelong learning that promotes knowledge of Christian beliefs, a relationship with Jesus grounded in personal and communal (liturgical) prayer, moral living, participation in community, and active, missionary discipleship. 4 Additionally, since the Second Vatican Council, the Church has issued a universal catechism and three universal catechetical directories. 5 The Directory for Catechesis (DC), issued in 2020, teaches that catechesis should lead people to embrace the Gospel message so that it resounds in their hearts and transforms their lives. The DC adds that catechesis involves “accompaniment, education, and formation in the faith and for the faith, an introduction to the celebration of the Mystery, [and] illumination and interpretation of human life and history.”6 More recently, in Listen, Teach, Send, the US bishops posit that youth and young adult ministers should engage and listen to young people, teach in ways that deepen young people’s understanding of the Gospel, and lead them to imitate Jesus by living as His disciples in the world. 7 Popes, Vatican offices, and local conferences of bishops worldwide have issued numerous other documents on education in faith. 8
On the other hand, many seminaries and graduate programs in ministry do not offer even one course in religious education/catechesis. As a result, in many instances, ordained and lay pastoral ministers lack knowledge of the integrated, holistic approach to education in faith presented in Church teaching, and encounter difficulties in educating in faith in ways that are attentive to people’s age and stage of development. They struggle to guide people in integrating the study of Christian traditions, practices, and theology with personal development, the formation of social consciousness, and an attentiveness to God’s guiding presence in their lives. Additionally, while Vatican II recognized the need to foster an integrated, adult faith, many discussions of the Council ignore the importance of its Declaration on Christian Education. 9
In my experience, many pastoral ministers are unprepared to carry out the educational aspects of their ministry, and many Catholic school religion/theology teachers adopt an overly cognitive approach. For instance, I recently worked with a parish that has a reputation for having one of the best youth ministry programs in its diocese. The youth minister at the parish was educated at one of the country’s finest seminaries and was also a student in a nationally known graduate program in ministry. In working with him, I observed his superb abilities as a pastoral caregiver and preacher. However, he was not an effective religious educator. He has a reputation in his parish for being “a boring teacher.” Not surprisingly, his seminary and ministry education included excellent courses on spirituality, prayer, and pastoral care, but he never took a course on religious education/catechesis. Additionally, in my experience, high school religion/theology teachers often focus on presenting content or intellectual knowledge about Christian faith. They are frequently ill-equipped to guide students to reflect on their lives in the light of the wisdom of Catholic faith traditions. As one of many possible examples, one diocesan office of education staff person told me that she never hires a person to teach math, science, or literature unless they are educated in both a designated field of study and curriculum theory, pedagogy, and instructional practices. In contrast, she lamented that when she hires a theology teacher, she expects to have to share with them the primary catechetical documents of the Church and provide tutoring or workshops on how to offer an integrated, holistic education in faith.
Embracing Integrated, Holistic Education in Faith
Providentially, one of my first experiences as an educator led me to appreciate the value of integrated, holistic educational experiences. I stepped into a college classroom as a teacher for the first time when I was twenty-three. It was an Introduction to Philosophy course, and I was in an MA in Philosophy degree program. When the Chair of the Philosophy Department invited me to teach, she said, “You’re a good student; you’ll be a good teacher.” She didn’t mention anything about the challenges of teaching. I experienced those challenges in abundance in teaching that course. The thirty-three enrolled students were taking it as a required course for all undergraduates. Most of them had little to no interest in learning anything about philosophy. One day early in the semester, I walked into class to find one of my students blowing on his book. I asked, “What are you doing?” He replied, “This stuff is so dry there is sand in my book.”
For another class, the students read a selection from Augustine of Hippo’s Confessions. In the selection, Augustine quotes Exodus 3:14 in the Old Testament. (The quotation is found in Confessions, Book 7, Chapter 10 ) In Exodus 3, Moses asks God what name for God he should use when he speaks to the Israelites. God replies in verse 14: “I am who I am.” This is the verse Augustine quotes: “I am who I am.” After I introduced the reading from Augustine, I noticed two students in the back of the classroom laughing. I invited them to share what they found to be so funny.
When these two students read the phrase “I am who I am,” they thought of the comic book, cartoon, and movie character Popeye the Sailor Man. One of Popeye’s taglines is “I yam who I yam, and that is all that I yam.” To engage these students and the others in the class, I went to the blackboard and wrote “God” on one side and “Popeye” on the other. I then invited them to compare God to Popeye. Soon, all the students became engaged in the discussion. We had a good conversation about the possibilities and limitations of knowing God from a philosophical perspective, and I contributed key insights from the reading by Augustine. During our discussion, many students shared insights from Augustine’s work that resonated with their own lives.
During that class, I felt the conversation was taking place in slow motion, and I knew that something memorable was happening. As I reflected on that class after it was over, I asked myself: “How can I teach in a way that fully engages students, enables them to relate their lives to the theme of a class, and leads them out to new insights? How can I teach in ways that engage the mind, heart, and will of students?” Reflecting on that class and the question it raised sparked a sixyear vocational discernment process that led me to embrace a professional vocation as both a pastoral theologian and a Catholic religious educator.
When I encountered and read the catechetical documents of the Catholic Church, I was able to appreciate the vision of religious education and faith formation they presented, thanks to my own personal experiences as an educator and reflections on the dynamics of education in Christian faith. Moreover, I suggest that for people to begin to appreciate the integrated, holistic understanding of faith formation presented in the Church’s catechetical documents, it can be helpful for them to reflect on their own personal experiences. They might pause and recall if there were times when, for example, as a parent, classroom teacher, homilist, youth or young adult minister, or pastoral caregiver, they were able to connect with the life experiences of those they serve by inviting them to reflect on their lives in the light of the collective resources of the Church and the broader society, thereby helping them come to new insights that they could then incorporate into their lives. To begin to get a sense of the importance of the integrated, holistic approach to education in faith presented in catechetical documents, people can also recall learning experiences
from their educational journey that profoundly influenced them and during which they experienced the integration of intellectual, affective, and volitional learning, that is, learning that engaged the mind, heart, and will head, heart, and hands in a process of discovery and learning.
As I have reflected on the dynamics of teaching and learning over the past forty years, I have become increasingly convinced of the importance of recognizing education as a human universal. From birth onwards, in all social, cultural, and personal contexts, we as human beings have an existential need to learn and grow in every aspect of our lives. Such learning can enable us to develop and utilize our talents and abilities and contribute to society. Moreover, we need to be involved in ongoing and lifelong educational processes if we are to live fully human lives. To be truly beneficial, education must be more than a process of acquiring cognitive knowledge or developing technical skills. It must be a process that contributes to our existential development that is, our development as humans who construct a sense of the meaning and value of life by cultivating an interior life and fruitful relationships with others, and who connect their personal and communal lives with a broader and transcendent horizon and purpose.
The Church’s catechetical documents provide holistic, integrated approaches to education in faith. However, in my experience, people today often fail to appreciate the value of holistic, integrated education, including education in faith, because of the influence of individualism, consumerism, and the fast-paced nature of social life, which too often leaves little room for personal and social reflection and growth. Of course, the ever-present reality of human sinfulness can also stymie the universal impulse to grow toward maturity, holiness, and full human development. Additionally, when people recognize the need for holistic, integrated personal, social, and spiritual development, they may be hindered by the lack of models or approaches to guide them in continuing to develop or in fostering the development of others.
In pursuing my professional vocation, I have developed several holistic approaches to education in faith. These approaches integrate central insights from ecclesial documents and theological analyses concerning catechesis and faith formation with insights from educational research, and with insights on teaching and learning in other fields of study that shed light on education as a universal dimension of human life. In doing so, I have sought to articulate the underlying existential dynamics of education as an essential human activity. The specific focus of my work has been on education in faith. Overall, I have sought to understand the complex dynamics of education in faith as fully as possible, while attempting to express them simply and clearly. I have tried to develop faith formation models that express the simplicity on the far side of complexity that is, that are simple and clear without being simplistic. 10 In this article, I will share one of those approaches, the 4Bs approach to teaching and learning: Belonging, Becoming, and Believing, leading out to Beyonding. I envision the first 3Bs as overlapping and leading out to the fourth B. 11
Religious Education and the 4Bs Approach
The First B: Belonging
I contend that to be holistic, education in faith should always be grounded in a faith community’s ongoing efforts to nurture a sense of Belonging among the people of a community. The DC affirms this aspect of faith formation. It states: “Catechesis is an ecclesial act,” that is, it is an act of a faith community that forms people in the faith of the community. 12
I propose that education for Belonging should focus on 1) learning to participate in the practices and rituals of a faith community, 2) nurturing relationships, and 3) fostering a sense of
communal identity. Regarding the first of these, parents, as the primary educators of their children in faith, may teach them to pray before meals and recite morning and evening prayers. They may guide them in learning to participate in Mass and other rituals of the Church. Examples of education for Belonging are also found in Catholic grade and high schools, where students learn a code of conduct and are expected to follow it as members of that school community. In a parish Advent or Lenten adult religious education program, people may learn how to reflect on their lives as members of the Church. Additionally, in many seminaries, seminarians spend time in parishes from their first year onward, developing a sense of what it means to belong to a faith community in a position of pastoral leadership.
In learning faith practices within families, schools, parishes, and other contexts, people develop the ability to relate to others, both within and beyond their faith communities, in ways that respect them as persons created in the image and likeness of God. Additionally, in learning to relate to others in the light of their faith, Christians can develop a sense of Christian communal identity, that is, a sense of being members of a Christian community called to carry on Jesus’s mission of welcoming and working to bring about the fuller realization of God’s Kingdom, God’s Reign, in the world. Stated differently, they learn to be members of a community called to consecrate the world to Christ. Drawing on educational language from the social efficiency theory of curriculum, religious education for Belonging should cultivate capabilities for action that enable individuals to be productive members of their faith community and society. 13
The Second B: Becoming
Overlapping efforts to nurture Belonging, Christian faith formation should encourage Becoming, that is, personal development within a community. An educational focus on personal development can be grounded in the conviction that every person is a unique individual created in God’s image and likeness, and that God reaches out to each person, calls them to conversion, and offers redemption from sin. The DC also affirms this aspect of faith formation. It remarks that “the Gospel is not intended for humanity in the abstract, but for each human being, real, concrete, historical, rooted in a particular situation and marked by psychological, social, cultural, and religious dynamics…” and that “every person, created in the image and likeness of God, is unique and has an intrinsic and inalienable dignity.” 14
So that it is holistic, education for Becoming should focus on 1) gift actualization, 2) lifespan development, and 3) personal identity development. First, religious education should support gift actualization. As Karl Rahner points out, each person is a fully formed human being of inexpressible value from the beginning of life onward, possessing unique God-given talents. Faith communities should encourage people, starting in childhood and continuing throughout their lives, to discern their vocational call from God, thereby developing and using their talents to contribute to their faith community and the common good of society. 15
Second, James Loder posited that lifespan development is the result of the “interaction between the person and her environment, with the interaction giving rise and shape to structured potentials within the personality.” 16 Loder and other lifespan developmentalists divide the human life cycle into stages. They posit that there are opportunities at each stage for potentials within a person to be activated, thus enabling the development of new capabilities for thinking, feeling, and acting. Developmental growth occurs when an existing way of knowing is subsumed within a broader and deeper way of knowing. Religious education should guide individuals to recognize and actualize the developmental potentials within themselves at each stage of life, helping them
integrate the ongoing unfolding of these potentials with their vocational call to utilize their Godgiven talents and gifts.
Third, religious education should cultivate personal identity development. Religious educators should consider how gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, social and economic background, religious and spiritual beliefs, and other contextual factors intersect in people’s lives, influence their development, and shape their formation of distinctive identities. A person’s sense of identity can enable them to have a uniquely insightful view of life and the world, but also inevitably marks them with specific personal limitations. (The concept of intersectionality is a valuable tool for thinking about how the various individual and social factors shaping a person’s life can intertwine and shape the development of their self-identity.) 17 Viewed from the perspective of the learnercentered theory of curriculum, religious education for Becoming should foster the selfactualization of persons in faith. 18
The Third B: Believing
As education in faith nurtures Belonging and Becoming, it must, to be holistic, be integrated with an effort to guide people to forge beliefs or convictions about the world that can provide a grounding for their lives. Theologian Bernard Cooke referred to such grounding beliefs as “basic Christian understandings.” 19 In discussing this aspect of education in faith, the DC states: “Catechesis has the task of fostering knowledge and exploration of the Christian message ” The DC also states that religious educators should strive to integrate “the cognitive dimensions of faith” with the “experience of faith.”20 Stated differently, those involved in education in faith should adopt a “sapiential approach” that includes but goes beyond acquiring intellectual knowledge. 21 I propose that we envision such a sapiential approach as having three aspects: 1) a search for truth, 2) the development of a life orientation grounded in a commitment to seeking what is true, and 3) the refining of information into usable knowledge. First, faith formation should guide people to draw insight from Christian Scriptures and Tradition, as well as knowledge about the world from the various fields of scholarly inquiry. In doing so, it should strive to guide people in discovering and developing a true and accurate understanding of the world, of which they are a part. Second, to move beyond presenting information as abstract knowledge, a faith formation process should direct people to recognize how theological and other knowledge can provide a grounding orientation for their lives. Third, religious educators should strive to guide participants in a learning process to develop usable knowledge. They should teach theology/religion in ways that encourage the development of deeply held beliefs or convictions that can guide persons in forming life-giving relationships with God and others, and then in reflecting on the issues they face in their lives from a faith perspective. 22
Drawing insight from curriculum theory, there should always be a scholarly-academic component to faith formation. Faith formation should involve learning about and from the Scriptures, Tradition, theologies, and practices of the Church, and learning relevant knowledge from other fields of scholarly study such as insights about humanity and how humans learn from the fields of psychology, philosophy, and biology and then integrating what has been learned into everyday living as usable knowledge that serves as grounding beliefs or convictions about the world. 23
The Fourth B: Beyonding
For education in faith to be as holistic as possible, the first 3Bs should lead outward toward Beyonding. More fully, education for Belonging to a community of faith should direct persons outward to witness to the transformative power of faith in the world. Educational nurture for Becoming should encourage people to develop their talents and gifts and use them to contribute to the betterment of the world. Educating for Believing should involve learning to integrate a faith community’s fundamental convictions into everyday life as grounding convictions for reflection and action.
In discussing this aspect of education in faith, the DC states: “The Church, in her pilgrimage toward the fulfillment of the Kingdom, is an efficacious sign of the end toward which the world is directed....The word of God, mediated by catechesis, illuminates human life, conferring its deepest meaning upon it.” In the following paragraph, and referring to the social ministry of the Church, the DC adds, “The ultimate horizon of the proclamation of salvation...will always be eternal life. Only in this will the commitment to justice and the desire for liberation find complete fulfillment ”24
I envision Beyonding as a threefold overlapping process. First, to spark Beyonding, educators should encourage participants in a learning environment to step back from their faith communities, their self-understanding, and their beliefs, subject them to critical scrutiny, and name their limitations. 25 Second, to ensure that critical reflection does not push a person toward destructive doubt, despair, and social conflict, religious educators should encourage learners to envision critical thinking as being grounded in the imagination. They should help learners envision critical reflection as the imaginative activity of questioning established ways of perceiving and understanding the world to see beyond them and, ultimately, to transform present modes of living to realize new possibilities for greater personal and social flourishing. From a Christian faith perspective, Beyonding is a process of imagining and then living out ways of welcoming and working to bring about the fuller realization of God’s Reign, God’s Peace and Justice, in our faith communities and in the world. 26 Third, when it unfolds fully, Beyonding can become a contemplative practice. That is, it can lead a person to be open to the goodness and beauty of creation with a sense of wonder and awe, and to be open to the sustaining grace of God that propels one to action in the world. 27 Using educational language, religious education for Beyonding should encourage social reconstruction in the light of faith.
Ultimately, however, Beyonding brings people back to Belonging, Becoming, and Believing. It leads them to consider how, in the time and place in which they live, to which they belong, they can become more fully the person God calls them to be
So far, I’ve discussed the 4Bs from a theoretical perspective. To illustrate the dynamics of the 4Bs, I offer the following stories.
Stories of Integrated, Holistic Education
Rose Learns about Family Life
The first story is about how my daughter Rose’s bedtime routine became a learning experience for our family. From the time my daughter Rose began sleeping through the night until she was through middle school, she had an established bedtime routine: snack, bath, pajamas, story, evening prayers, lights out, and then a song. Some evenings, my wife accompanied Rose through her bedtime routine, and some nights, I did. One night when Rose was in pre-school, I went through the bedtime ritual with her. We reached the end, and she asked me to sing The Little Blue Man,
which is a song my wife had recently added to the list of songs she would sing at bedtime. When Rose asked me to sing the song, I responded, “Honey, that’s a song your mother sings. You can ask her to sing that song tomorrow night. I don’t know that song.”
Rose looked at me and asked, “You’re kidding me, right?” I responded, “No, Rose, I am not kidding. I don’t know the words to The Little Blue Man ” Rose said, “But Daddy, if Mommy knows something, then you know it. And if you know something, then Mommy knows it.” I replied, “No, Rose, that’s not the case. Your Mom knows lots of things that I don’t know. Your mommy and daddy are different people.” Rose looked up at me again and asked, “You’re kidding me, right?”
Before we started this conversation, Rose was ready to drift off to sleep. However, at this point, she sat up in bed, her eyes widened, and said with a surprised tone: “Mommy and Daddy are different people.” So, I turned on the light, and we talked briefly about her mommy and daddy being different people. I read Rose another story, turned out the light, sang her a song, and left the room. Ten minutes later, I peeked into Rose’s bedroom, and she was lying in bed, wide awake, staring up at the ceiling, and muttering to herself, “Mommy and Daddy are different people.”
The next day, I spent a few hours with Rose after school, before her mother came home. When my wife entered the house, Rose ran up to her and asked her a question. Later that evening, I said to Rose, “You know that question you asked your mom after she got home, you could have asked me that question.” Rose smiled and said, “I thought that would be a better question for Mommy.” Rose knew she was more likely to get the answer she wanted to the question from her mother than from me.
In that experience, Rose learned something important about our family, which is for her a primary community of Belonging. Viewed in terms of Becoming, after that experience, Rose’s perspective-taking skills advanced significantly, and she developed personally because she began to think more intentionally about how the important people in her life are different from one another. From the perspective of Believing, Rose learned a new truth: the truth that her mom and dad are different people. This truth shaped her orientation to family life and provided usable knowledge that she began to apply the next day. Looking at the story in terms of Beyonding, in learning to distinguish Mommy from Daddy, Rose developed a more complex view of the world that enabled her to go beyond the ways of thinking and acting she had developed to that point in her life. More generally, learning at every stage of life involves learning to make distinctions that enable a person to have a more complex view of the world.
Learning from Rose’s Bike-Riding Adventure
Here’s another story to illustrate the 4Bs. It is a story about when my wife and I taught our daughter Rose to ride a bike. One summer, I took Rose to a beautiful, wooded bike and walking trail several days a week to teach her to ride. We started with training wheels on the bike. When I took the training wheels off, I jogged along beside Rose. The next step was for me to help Rose get started, and she would then ride up the trail, stop, turn around, and come back. One day, Rose took off as she was riding down the trail. She rode farther up the trail than she ever had before. However, a group of people was coming down the path toward her. Rose saw them and steered the bike over to the side. She turned her front wheel at too sharp an angle and went off the trail, down an embankment, and into a muddy swamp. When I ran to where she went off the path, I could see Rose trapped underneath her bike, sinking into the swamp, and struggling to keep her head above the muddy water
I climbed down the bank, threw the bike up onto the trail, scooped up my daughter, made sure she was not injured, and climbed back up the embankment. When we returned to the path, I reached down and took hold of the bike. Rose said, “You can leave the bike. I’m NEVER riding that thing again.” I said, “Oh, honey, what happened to you was terrible, but we can’t litter. We must take the bike with us.” So, we went back to the car. I wiped the mud off Rose the best I could, wrapped her in a blanket, and got her settled in the car. I left the car door ajar as I put Rose’s bike on the bike rack. Rose yelled out, “Leave the bike by the trash bin. I’m NEVER riding that thing again.” I responded, “Oh, Rose, what happened to you was terrible, but this is a good bike. If you don’t want to ride it, we can give it to someone who will.”
We went home, took showers, and I told Rose, “Now we need to clean your bike ” She said, “Dad, you can do it. I’m NEVER riding that thing again.” However, with a bit of coaxing, Rose agreed to help me clean the bike. Then I said, “Look, Rose, the seat is bent to the side. I’ll have to fix that.” I adjusted the seat and asked Rose to sit on the bike to test the seat. Next, I said, “Look, Rose, the front wheel is out of alignment. You hold the bike steady, and I’ll adjust the front wheel.” After that, I asked Rose to ride the bike back and forth at the top of the driveway to see if the wheels were aligned correctly. As she rode, I said, “I had fun teaching you to ride on the bike trail. Was it fun for you, too?” In the end, Rose agreed to give bike riding another try It became one of our favorite activities that summer.
In reflecting on this story, I will begin at the end and focus on Beyonding When she began to overcome the fear she had experienced and carried with her after riding over the edge of the bike trail, Rose was ready to embrace biking as an enjoyable activity that could expand the horizons of her life Next, Believing: While teaching Rose to ride her bike, I discussed the history of biking, the mechanics of how a bike works, and how biking can be a reliable and safe mode of transportation, as well as a fun activity. After her accident, as Rose rode her bike back and forth at the top of our driveway, she began to reconnect with the belief that bike riding can be a worthwhile activity. Additionally, she began to recognize again (at the level of Becoming) how biking could be a personally renewing and rewarding activity for her. Throughout that experience, I focused on Becoming by affirming Rose’s experience of riding into a swamp as a terrible tragedy and then inviting her to move forward in life. Of course, if Rose had decided that she did indeed never want to ride her bike again, I would have respected that decision.
At the level of Belonging, there was something essential I failed to teach Rose in helping her learn to ride a bike. I forgot to consider the social context. I focused on teaching Rose the mechanics of riding a bike. I should have also talked with her about what she should do while riding when she encounters people and dogs coming the other way on the trail. I should have spoken with Rose about what it mean s to belong to the community of people who use the biking and walking trails in our town. Because I hadn’t prepared Rose to interact with others on the path, she panicked and ended up riding into a swamp, where she got trapped under her bike.
I often recall the bike story when preparing syllabi. For instance, in revising one of the youth and young adult ministry courses I taught in the past, I added material on the increasing disaffiliation of young people from membership in faith communities, the rise in anxiety disorders among young people, youth and young adult suicide, social and political polarization, and other issues. I did so to prepare youth and young adult ministers in formation to address issues they would likely encounter in ministry I was seeking to prepare them to address frequently encountered challenges in their communities of belonging, in the hope that they would be able to address them without veering off the path of ministry and into the swamps of failure. If we
overlook the Belonging aspect of education, we fail to prepare learners to address the realities they are likely to face when they seek to make use of what they have learned in a learning experience.
Learning to Teach
As a final story, I offer one told to me by a colleague. She related the tale of a person who completed his doctorate and was hired to teach at a university. When the person moved into his assigned office, he found that the office on one side of his office was occupied by a faculty member who had been teaching at the university for thirty years, while the office on the other side was assigned to a professor hired the year before him. He thought, “I can learn about how to teach from the colleague with thirty years of teaching experience, and I’ll share the trials and tribulations of being a new teacher with the colleague who was hired the year before me.” So he made arrangements to visit the classes of his two colleagues during the first week of the semester.
When he went to the class taught by the professor with thirty years of experience, he arrived early and selected a seat on the side where he could observe both the teacher and the students. He said his colleague came into the class, sat down, pulled out a notebook, and began reading, and then read for the next fifty minutes, without ever looking up or making eye contact with students. By the end of the class session, the energy level in the room was very low, and the students’ faces revealed that they knew this was going to be a class they would dread attending. After class, the young professor went to his colleague and asked, “Can I talk to you about your teaching?” His colleague replied, “Well, I don’t have much to tell you about teaching. I came here thirty years ago. My first semester, I prepared my lecture notes, and every year since then I come in and give the lectures I have prepared.”
A few hours later, this young professor attended the class of his colleague who had been hired a year before him. His colleague opened the class with introductions and a story, asked a few reflection questions, and then related the discussion of these questions to the syllabus and what they would be studying that semester. By the end of the session, there was a lot of energy in the room. He heard the student next to him tell another student that he was looking forward to doing the reading for the next class, and the students’ faces showed that they expected to enjoy the class and get a lot from it. Although this teacher had only been teaching for a year, it was evident that he was already an effective teacher.
After the class, the new professor approached his colleague and said, “I would like to talk to you about your teaching.” His colleague said, “I can’t talk now, but I have office hours this afternoon. If you want to come by my office then, I will be glad to discuss any questions you have about the class.” The new professor said, “That was a great class. Can I ask just one question?” His colleague said, “No,” and walked out of the room.
When the new professor knocked on his colleague’s office door later that day, the colleague greeted him warmly and said, “I hope you didn’t think I was rude earlier. I didn’t take the time to talk with you after my class because I have a practice that I adhere to whenever I can. That practice is to spend fifteen to thirty minutes after every class reflecting on the teaching of that class and thinking about what I can learn from having taught it.”
The new professor then got an insight that profoundly shaped his professional career. That insight is that we can have many years of experience doing something and never learn anything from it. However, if we reflect on our experiences, then we can learn from them.
I share this study to highlight the importance of Beyonding. In many educational settings, participants focus, on the one hand, on knowledge and beliefs, and on the other, on application A teacher presents material and then tests the students to see how well they have absorbed it and can
apply what they have learned. In such educational environments, students learn about a subject and integrate insights from their studies into present modes of thinking and acting. However, to learn deeply from any situation, we need to take time for reflection, imagining, and contemplating, which can enable us to appraise the strengths and limitations of present models of personal and social life and then go beyond them
Concluding Reflection
I noted at the beginning of this article that the Catholic Church teaches that holistic, integrated faith formation and religious education are essential, but that this teaching is often not embodied in the Church’s practices. As a way of embracing Church teaching on education in faith, I outlined the 4Bs of religious education: Belonging, Becoming, Believing, and Beyonding. They provide an integrated, holistic approach to Christian faith formation, offering a comprehensive and unified way to educate in faith, including in designated catechetical ministries. My analysis is grounded in core vocational and life commitments. I believe that the Church needs pastoral leaders, lay and ordained, who are committed to supporting and being part of the educational ministry as one of the primary and essential ministries of the Church. I believe that all baptized believers must make a commitment to ongoing and lifelong education in faith if they are to develop the insights and abilities needed to faithfully and effectively address the complex realities of contemporary life and global culture in the light of the Gospel. I believe that God calls all people to respond to God’s presence in their lives, and so all Christians are called to ministry. In concluding, I invite readers to consider the question: In your everyday life and ministries, how might you use the 4Bs or some other holistic, integrated approach to guide your ongoing faith formation and help nurture the faith of others?
1 W. B. Yeats, “A Prayer for Old Age,” accessed June 2, 2025, https://allpoetry.com/A-Prayer-For-Old-Age. Thomas H. Groome brought this poem to my attention. He cites the poem in his book Sharing Faith (New York: Harper San Francisco, 1991), 5.
2 Second Vatican Council, “Declaration on Christian Education,” Gravissimum Educationis, https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_gravissimumeducationis_en.html
3 National Conference of Catholic Bishops, To Teach as Jesus Did: A Pastoral Message on Catholic Education (Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 1973).
4 United States Catholic Conference, Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us: A Pastoral Plan for Adult Faith Formation in the United States (Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 1999), https://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/how-we-teach/catechesis/adult-faith-formation/our-hearts
5 Sacred Congregation for the Clergy, General Catechetical Directory (Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 1971), https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cclergy/documents/rc_con_cclergy_doc_11041971_gcat_en.html ; Congregation for the Clergy, General Directory for Catechesis (Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 1997), https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cclergy/documents/rc_con_ccatheduc_doc_17041998_directoryfor-catechesis_en.html; and Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, Directory for Catechesis (Washington, DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2020).
6 Pontifical Council, Directory, no. 55.
7 United States Catholic Conference, Listen, Teach, Send (Washington, DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2024), https://www.usccb.org/resources/National%20Pastoral%20Framework%20YYA%20APPROVED5.pdf.
8 See, for example, Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi [Apostolic Exhortation], The Holy See, December 8, 1975, https://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_p-vi_exh_19751208_evangeliinuntiandi.html; John Paul II, Catechesis Tradendae [Apostolic Exhortation], The Holy See, October 16, 1979, https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_16101979_catechesitradendae.html; Francis, Evangelii Gaudium [Apostolic Exhortation], The Holy See, November 24, 2013, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazioneap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html; and United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, United States Catholic Catechism for Adults (Washington, DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2006), United States Catholic Catechism for Adults
9 See, for example, Catherine E. Clifford with Stephen Lampe, Vatican II at 60: Re-Energizing the Renewal (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2024) and Alberic Stacpoole, ed., Vatican II Revisited (Minneapolis, MN: Winston Press, 1986). In the forward to Vatican II Revisited, Joseph Bernardin writes, “the Council’s emphasis on liturgy, on the scriptures, and on the nature of the Church has led to many programs of spiritual renewal ” (xiii) He does not mention the Declaration on Christian Education’s call to pastors and parents to recognize their obligations to provide a Christian education that can enable Christians to bear witness to the hope within them as people of faith and to contribute to the good of society, which are necessary to support and sustain ongoing spiritual renewal in the Church and society.
10 Conversations with Dr. Linda Couri, a University of Saint Mary of the Lake faculty member, have deepened my understanding of the importance, as an educator, of striving to express the simplicity on the far side of complexity.
11 The 4Bs education process is also discussed in Harold D. Horell and James Crookston, “Pillars of a Holistic Religious Education Curriculum: Belonging, Becoming, Believing, Leading to Beyonding.” Unpublished manuscript, 2025.
12 Pontifical Council, Directory, no. 55. On the communal dimensions of faith formation, see also Maria Harris, Fashion Me a People (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1989); Charles R. Foster, Teaching in the Community of Faith (Nashville: Abingdon, 1982); and Boyung Lee, Transforming Congregations through Community (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 2013).
13 Michael Steven Schiro, Curriculum Theory, 2nd ed. (Los Angeles: SAGE, 2013), 15-55.
14 Pontifical Council, Directory, nos. 136 and 379, respectively.
15 Karl Rahner, “Ideas for a Theology of Childhood,” in Theological Investigations, vol. 8, trans. David Bourke (London/New York: Darton, Longman & Todd/Herder and Herder, 1971), 33-50; see also Brendan Hyde’s Children and Spirituality (London and Philadelphia: Kingsley) on nurturing children’s natural spiritual gifts, and Anne Streaty Wimberly’s Soul Stories, rev. ed. (Nashville: Abingdon, 2005), on the development of personal spiritual gifts in a Christian community.
16 James Loder, The Logic of the Spirit (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998), 20; see also James Fowler, Stages of Faith (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1981). On moral development, see Lawrence Kohlberg, The Psychology of Moral Development (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1984) and Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982). On self-development, see Robert Kegan, The Evolving Self (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982) and Marcia B. Baxter Magolda, Making Their Own Way (New York: Routledge, 2001). There are, of course, significant differences in the focus and theoretical assumptions among the various developmental theorists. Yet they share the presupposition that human development is a gradual process of change that leads a person to become more fully a unique person.
17 See Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex,” University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989, Iss. 1, Art. 8, 139–67, and Vivian M. May, Pursuing Intersectionality (New York: Routledge, 2015)
18 Schiro, Curriculum Theory, 99-149.
19 Bernard J. Cooke, “Basic Christian Understandings,” in Education for Citizenship and Discipleship, ed. Mary C. Boys (New York: Pilgrim, 1989), 80.
20 Pontifical Council, Directory, no. 80.
21 Pontifical Council, Directory, no 101.
22 Cooke, “Basic Christian,” 79-81; see also Mary Elizabeth Mullino Moore, Teaching as a Sacramental Act (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim, 2004) and Thomas H. Groome, What Makes Education Catholic (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2021).
23 Schiro, Curriculum Theory, 15-55.
24 Pontifical Council, Directory, no. 172.
25 The foundational modern analysis of critical reflection in public reasoning is, of course, Immanuel Kant, “What is Enlightenment?”, https://www.columbia.edu/acis/ets/CCREAD/etscc/kant.html For a seminal discussion of expanding critical reasoning to incorporate a focus on the ways social factors affect human life, see Max Horkheimer, “The State of Contemporary Social Philosophy and the Tasks of an Institute for Social Research,” in Critical Theory and Society, eds. Stephen Eric Bronner and Douglas MacKay Keller (New York: Routledge, 1989), 25-36, and Herbert Marcuse, “Philosophy and Critical Theory,” in Bronner and Keller, Critical Theory, 58-74. For a paradigmatic discussion of critical reflection from a Christian perspective, see John Paul II, Faith and Reason, https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091998_fides-et-ratio.html
John Paul II argues that the guidance of both faith and reason is necessary for reflection that leads to a truthful understanding of the world.
26 See Richard Kearney’s The Wake of Imagination (London: Routledge, 1988). Kearney traces the evolution of understandings of the imagination in the Western world from ancient Greece to the postmodern cultural era. He argues that developing the imagination can enable people today to counter experiences of a loss of coherent personal and social identity. On the educational and religious educational imagination, see Kieran Egan and Dan Nadaner, eds , Imagination and Education (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1988); Sharon Parks, Big Questions: Worthy Dreams (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2019), 146-176; and Maria Harris, Teaching and Religious Imagination (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987).
27 See Evelyn Underhill: Essential Writings, comprised of selections with an introduction by Emilie Griffin (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2003). Underhill discusses contemplation as the art of reflecting on life until one achieves communion with Reality. In a remark that highlights the limitations of Cartesian and Kantian models of reflection, she writes: “Wisdom is the fruit of communion; ignorance the inevitable portion of those who ‘keep themselves to themselves,’ and stand apart, judging, analyzing the things they have never truly known,” 25. In discussing why we need to teach the art of contemplation in guiding people to grow spiritually, Underhill wrote: “So many Christians are like deaf people at a concert. They study the program carefully....They have no notion at all of the mighty symphony which fills the universe to which our lives are destined to make their tiny contribution, and which is the self-expression of the Eternal God,” 29. Underhill’s work can help people develop or renew a sense of the importance of contemplation. However, we can appreciate her insights and equally value modern modes of individual and social reflection.
The Word Made Flesh: The Interdependence of the Proclamation of the Word and the Eucharist
By María Enid Barga, Ph.D.
Word Within the Liturgy: Is It There?
There are many theological issues that Vatican II sought to address through its documents, but the general lack of emphasis on the Bible and its role within the Church was one of the main points of discussion. In fact, so great was the need to clarify the function and character of Sacred Scripture that the Council saw fit to write a dogmatic constitution, Dei Verbum, synthesizing some of the main points of the theology related to the Word of God. This article will explore how Vatican II shed light on the sacramentality of the Word of God, especially when it is proclaimed within the context of the Mass, and how this insight has been applied to the Church following Vatican II. For Catholics today, the structure of the Mass provides a familiar context within which they worship. They know that there are two main parts of the Mass: the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist. Unfortunately, while the congregation might recognize the shift between the two Liturgies, they do not always understand the significance of having both Liturgies. As Paul McPartlan noted, there has been a tendency to place the emphasis on the Eucharistic celebration while casting the Liturgy of the Word as the prelude to the “real” purpose of the Mass: “Moreover, the balance of the liturgy was decisively skewed towards the presence of Christ in the transformed elements of bread and wine to the detriment of his presence in any other form…”1 In doing so, the Word has taken the “backseat,” so to speak, in the Mass, instead of leading the congregation to a richer, fuller experience of the Eucharistic sacrifice.
This tendency overflows into the personal prayer life of the parishioners with what seems to be a disconnect between the congregation and the Bible. The lack of biblical knowledge makes it extremely difficult to explain Church teachings or the history and significance behind its traditions and rites. As the US Bishops’ Committee on Priestly Life and Ministry noted in their 1982 document on the homily, Fulfilled in Your Hearing, “If we are able to hear a word which gives our lives another level of meaning, which interprets them in relation to God, then our response is to turn to this source of meaning in an attitude of praise and thanksgiving.”2 If the congregation does not recognize the importance of listening to God’s Word during Mass, then they cannot truly respond to God’s presence in the Eucharistic celebration or in their daily lives: “Listening is not an isolated moment. It is a way of life. It means openness to the Lord’s voice not only in the Scriptures but in the events of our daily lives….Attentive listening to the Scriptures and to the people is, in essence, a form of prayer….” 3 While Fulfilled in Your Hearing was written with priests and preachers in mind, the Council documents reveal that this essential connection between Scripture and life holds true for all who participate in the Mass.
In order to comprehend the impact of Vatican II on the Church’s understanding of the role of the Bible in the liturgy, we must first establish the significance of the sacramentality of the Word and how this realization developed leading up to Vatican II. By separating Word and Sacrament, the Church risked reducing the importance of each as well as detracting from their natural unity. The end result is that the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist are often separated in general Catholic thought, and their interdependence is lost: “The Liturgy of the Eucharist, culminating in communion, arises in response to the Liturgy of the Word; it has no other
prompt. Likewise, the Liturgy of the Word would be frustrated unless it flowed into the Liturgy of the Eucharist and communion.” 4 Once the significance of the Word, and the ramifications thereof, has been established, this article will address how this “renewed” approach to the Word emerged through the biblical, ecumenical, and liturgical movements prior to Vatican II, particularly through Catholic theologians and their efforts to bring the Word back to the forefront of theology.
The crux of the article will be the way the sacramentality of the Word found expression in Vatican II and its documents, which will demonstrate how the biblical, ecumenical, and liturgical movements influenced the theological insights that emerged from Vatican II. Additionally, Orthodox theologians contributed to the assertions of Catholic theologians in these movements and influenced Vatican II documents through their emphasis on the importance of the Word in the liturgy in Eastern Churches.
Finally, this article explores how the teachings of Vatican II concerning the relationship between the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist have or have not found their way into modern Catholic thought. There is an attempt to bring the Word back into focus in relation to the Liturgy of the Eucharist, albeit a hesitant one for some Catholics. However, work remains to be done in implementing the teachings of Vatican II documents on a parochial level.
Sacramentality of the Word
In order to understand the significance of the terms “Word” and “Sacrament” in the theological milieu of the Vatican documents, the first step is to consider the meaning of these terms within the context of the Catholic Church. According to Louis Bouyer’s Dictionary of Theology, “[m]odern psychologists and philosophers have underlined the importance – even in the merely human word – of the act: the word is not merely the communication of thought, but the personal intervention of the one speaking in the life of the one addressed.” 5 In other words, the “word” is not a two-dimensional element in theology but is of import to the dynamic, living Church. This concept also found expression during Vatican II through Cardinal Meyer and was later summarized in Alberigo’s History of Vatican II:
Words have a threefold function: (1) to describe something (name an object, disclose a thought, communicate a fact); (2) to reveal the person who speaks and show the person’s inner feelings and desires; and (3) to address another person, elicit a reaction, and call for a response. In sum, a word can be described as an action in which a person expresses himself or herself and approaches another person in order to communicate himself or herself to that person. 6
With these definitions in mind, it can be seen that, within the theological context, “word” is an action, a verb. This has immediate implications in Catholic theology since the second Person of the Trinity is frequently referred to as the “Word made flesh.” It is not merely a noun describing Jesus or a simple title. It is God actively revealing himself to humanity, and “since the God who speaks to man is all-powerful, with Him, unlike with man, there will be no disagreement or gap between the word and effective action.”7 The Word made flesh came into the world to make known God’s plan for humanity. This action reveals God’s mercy and desire for union with His people and calls for a response from humanity. Thus, all three functions of “word” are found in the Word made flesh.
Sacrament also carries great significance. Sacraments are characterized as “sacred signs instituted by Christ, and insofar as his sovereign will is expressed in them they are of themselves sources of grace…. a framework of grace that is inseparable from the life of the Church to which it gives it structure.”8 The Catholic Church recognizes seven sacraments including the Eucharist, which is seen as “the source of the whole sacramental order because it contains the Saviour himself.” 9 It can be said that Jesus, the Word made flesh, is substantially communicated to us in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. In this way, it is in the Word made flesh that both “word” and “sacrament” as defined above are fully realized. Alexander Schmemann, an Orthodox priest and theologian, participated in the Council as an observer and later shared some of his viewpoints in his book The Eucharist. In this book, he stated that in western thought
…word and sacrament long ago lost touch with each other and became subjects of independent study and definition. However, this rift constitutes one of the chief deficiencies of the western doctrine on the sacraments….I daresay that the gradual ‘decomposition’ of scripture, its dissolution in more and more specialized and negative criticism, is a result of its alienation from the eucharist – and practically from the Church herself – as an experience of a spiritual reality. 10
Here it can be seen how the connection between the Word and the Eucharist are seen as interdependent realities in the Orthodox Church. Schmemann also proposed that the “Church alone knows and keeps the meaning of scripture, because in the sacrament of the word, accomplished in the church assembly, the Holy Spirit eternally gives life to the ‘flesh’ of scripture, transforming it into ‘spirit and life.’” 11 Once again, the active role of the Holy Spirit in Sacred Scripture is important to understanding the sacramentality of the Word of God. John Breck, another Orthodox theologian, explained that in “the thought of the Eastern Fathers, grounded as it is in the wholistic nature of the apostolic vision, Word and Sacrament are inseparable. Together they form a unique and unified medium of communion between God and man, a reciprocal participation between divine and human life.”12 It is for this reason that the “continuing challenge to Orthodoxy, therefore, and one of its most important contributions to ecumenical discussion, is to preserve and affirm what we may call the ‘kerygmatic’ character of the Sacrament and the ‘sacramental’ character of the Word.”13 This challenge was taken up during the Second Vatican Council and can be seen in its first promulgated document Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium) in December of 1963 and in subsequent documents that followed. It is important to connect Jesus understood as a Sacrament to the Church with Jesus understood as the Word made flesh in order to underscore the sacramentality of Sacred Scripture, because prior to Vatican II, Word and Sacrament were seen as two independent entities within western Catholic theology. Schmemann explains that “[t]his ‘rupture’ between word and sacrament has pernicious consequences also for the doctrine of the sacraments. In it, the sacrament ceases to be biblical and, in the deepest sense of the word, evangelical.”14 This directly affects the Sacrament of the Eucharist for the “word presupposes the sacrament as its fulfillment, for in the sacrament Christ the Word becomes our life…. In separation from the word the sacrament is in danger of being perceived as magic, and without the sacrament the word is in danger of being ‘reduced’ to ‘doctrine.’” 15 Therefore, in the Liturgy of the Mass, the two subdivisions of the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist are inherently interdependent. It is no coincidence that Sacred Scripture is also referred to as the Word of God. It is in conjunction with the Sacramental Celebration of the Eucharist that the Word of God is a source of grace. The Liturgy
is a framework that makes reception of the Eucharist intelligible to the community of faithful that gathers to worship in Mass. The Word of God fulfills the definition of “sacrament” as an effective encounter with Christ. In Fulfilled in Their Hearing, the bishops clearly emphasize the “unity of Word and Sacrament [that] is thus symbolized in the person of the presiding minister of the Eucharist.” 16
This unity of Word and Sacrament, illuminating the presence of Christ who himself fulfills both, is also experienced in the Liturgy of the Word. The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council emphasized this in Sacrosanctum Concilium, noting Christ’s presence in the person of the minister, in the Eucharist, in the sacraments, in the Word, and in the assembly. 17 Regarding Christ’s presence in the Scripture proclaimed at Mass, they write that “He is present in His Word, since it is He Himself who speaks when the holy scriptures are read in the Church.” 18 In ritual practice, an awareness of this reality can be seen in that before and after the Gospel reading, the congregation directly addresses Christ, saying, “Glory to you, O Lord” and “Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.” With these words, they acknowledge that it is Christ who speaks to them and establishes a real encounter with His people through the Word of God. In order to highlight the significance of the Word in the Liturgy, reference is often made to the story of the two disciples journeying to Emmaus in Luke 24:13-35. 19 Jesus utilized Sacred Scripture to explain the significance of the events of His passion, death, and resurrection. However, it was not through Scripture alone that the disciples came to understand the paschal mystery and the good news, the Gospel, which Jesus proclaimed to them. It was in the breaking of bread after hearing the words from Sacred Scripture that the disciples recognized Jesus and they were able to understand what he had said. Only then did they say to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32), and they returned to Jerusalem “to relate their experiences on the road and how he was recognized by them in the breaking of the bread” (Luke 24:35).
Both events are interdependent, and the sacramental nature of the Word of God is further established since “it is the communicated knowledge (q.v.) of God himself, a knowledge where through his revelation of himself he hands himself over, and in some way binds himself, to those whom he thereby leads into his intimacy.” 20 This is precisely what occurs with the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist; Christ speaks to his people in the Word of God in preparation for their acceptance and reception of his invitation to union with him in the Eucharist: “In this light, the Eucharist shows itself as the source and apex of the whole work of preaching the Gospel.” 21
Development of the Sacramentality of the Word in the Biblical, Ecumenical, and Liturgical Movements
Given the sacramentality of the Word described in the preceding section, the question remains as to why the connection between Word and Sacrament remains somewhat elusive in Catholic consciousness today. The answer to this question can be found by taking a brief survey of the Catholic theological field prior to Vatican II. It was during this time that Catholic theologians began an introspective study of the Church. In his article on Henri de Lubac, Joseph A. Komonchak observed that the Church had begun to feel pressure from the culture of the day, which was promoting new philosophical and religious trends. 22 The result was a determination by some theologians to find stability in the idealized past of the Church, for example, in the neoscholasticism of the sixteenth century. 23 As Louis Bouyer noted in his book Liturgical Piety, “no
reconstructions of the past – however excellent the period one chooses to try to bring to life – can be achieved without a large admixture of the products of one’s own fancy.” 24 Consequently, a return to any ideal period of the past was not the answer to the problems posed by the culture surrounding them.
Similarly, there were Catholic theologians who thought that this new approach of returning to past periods of Catholicism was not, in reality, a true return to ideal Christianity, but rather was an artificial concept of what makes the Church. One such theologian was Henri de Lubac, a French Jesuit priest who was one of the main proponents of the patristic and liturgical movements. 25 He agreed with the need to look back into the Church’s history to find the way to respond to modern quandaries. In fact, de Lubac sought to extend the theological introspection to early Christianity and not complacently stop at the scholastic period, as did some of his contemporaneous theologians. However, he opposed the methodology of imposing earlier structures, such as that of scholastic Catholicism, to the present-day Church and theological study, and he also opposed doing the same with early Christianity: “Because it will not suffice to copy ancient Christianity more than to copy the Middle Ages…. We have to give it our own style, that is to say that which responds to our necessities, to our problems.” 26
De Lubac also emphasized the need to return to the writings of the early Church fathers and especially to Sacred Scripture, so that the Church could be renewed and re-enlivened by its christocentric foundation. He reminded the Church that “if all that comes to Christ comes also to the Church, ‘all that comes to the Church also comes to each Christian in particular’…. all that Scripture says to us finds in each one of us its accomplishment,” 27 for the “Bible in its entirety contains no other logos than He Whom we adore in the flesh.”28 De Lubac recognized the significance of the connection between Sacred Scripture and the Word made flesh.
An additional benefit to Catholic theology from de Lubac was his work toward a better understanding of liturgy, especially in reference to Sacred Scripture. He made this clear in his book Catholicisme in which he demonstrated the need for “an internalization of the Liturgy, that is to say an application to the life of the soul of the vital rhythm of the Church. The same essential Mystery fills all of Scripture and the Liturgy, outside of which participation in the Mystery of God is not possible.” 29 It is within the context of the sacred liturgy that Scripture can best be understood and fulfills its purpose of revealing God to humanity.
Another French theologian whose work brought the Bible to the foreground was Yves Congar. He influenced the liturgical and ecumenical movements that were gaining attention simultaneously with the biblical movement. Congar came to be known as the father of intellectual ecumenism:
Between the 1930s and the 1950s a more positive attitude toward ecumenism developed within Catholicism, thanks to…Yves Congar (with his book Chrétiens désunis, 1937); a growing convergence of scholarly work in the areas of Bible and patristics; some shared aims in the domain of liturgy; pastoral collaboration in the circumstances of the Second World War; common cultural challenges in a rapidly changing postwar world. 30
In his article “Early Ecumenism, Early Yves Congar…,” Alberic Stacpoole noted that Congar gave “the first satisfactory theological basis for Catholic ecumenical activity.” 31 This was important to the biblical movement because it would lead the Catholic Church to recognize that she could learn from her Protestant and Orthodox brothers and sisters in Christ, especially with regard to her
approach to Sacred Scripture. Congar’s efforts were in distinct contrast to contemporaneous theologians who criticized churches outside of Roman Catholicism and even criticized the Eastern Rites with “the idea being emphasized that these Liturgies should no longer be allowed to remain within the Catholic Church unless definite changes were made in their rites.” 32 By opening the way for ecumenical discussion, Congar prepared the theological field for Vatican II. Congar’s contributions would also help the Church to realize that it was her reaction to the Reformation that influenced her approach to Sacred Scripture:
For centuries Catholics and Protestants have been enmeshed in controversy over the relative importance of the two [Word and Sacrament], indicating by the very nature of their arguments that both confessions consider Word and Sacrament to be separate, if complementary, realities that together constitute the esse of the Church. 33
As will be seen in the following section, this approach would come into play during the discussions that took place during Vatican II.
Another of Congar’s contributions post-Vatican II was his emphasis on the role of the Holy Spirit within the Church since, of the three Persons of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit was the one most often overlooked. Congar insisted that the Holy Spirit remains active within the Church, giving life and meaning to the work done in and through her:
…the Holy Spirit who, [the] soul inhabiting and vivifying the Church… remains transcendent to the Church which he inhabits; he is not only a divine force giving to the ministry as to the sacraments a supernatural efficacy; he is a Person autonomously active and free. One does not dispose of him, but it is he who directs the play. 34
Yet, Congar made it clear that the Holy Spirit resides in the Church for a purpose: “…the Holy Spirit does not have a radical autonomy but is sent to do the work of Christ, in order to recall what he had said; the gifts caused by the Spirit have no other goal than to edify the body of Christ.” 35 This “Spirited” reality is essential to understanding the dynamic movement between the Word of God, sacramentality, and the mission of the Church. Schmemann affirms this reality in stressing how “proclamation of the Word, therefore, is an in-Spirit-ed eschatological event – the experience of the parousia.”36 Thus, the proclamation of the Word creates a community whose mission “is manifested in her unique nature: being simultaneously both the eschatological fullness of and growth (here and now) into the life of the Kingdom as growth in holiness or Christ-likeness.” 37 By highlighting the real presence and activity of the Holy Spirit, Congar paved the way for a renewed look, in particular, at His influence in and through Sacred Scripture. This would significantly influence the Vatican II documents, especially Dei Verbum, and would lead to a more robust understanding of the missional directive of the proclamation of the Word.
Vatican II: Rediscovering the Word
The interrelation of the Word and the Sacrament was further developed during the course of Vatican II and can be seen in the documents that were the fruit of the prayers, discussion, and work of the participants of the Council. The focus of the first of the constitutions issued,
Sacrosanctum Concilium, was “the reform and promotion of the liturgy” which “is the outstanding means whereby the faithful may express in their lives, and manifest to others, the mystery of Christ and the real nature of the true Church.” 38 Recall how the Council emphasized the presence of Christ in the various aspects of the liturgy: “Christ is always present in His Church, especially in her liturgical celebrations. He is present in the sacrifice of the Mass…. He is present in His word, since it is He Himself who speaks when the holy scriptures are read in the Church.”39 It is in the liturgy that Christ communicates himself to the community through the Word and the Eucharist, for “in the liturgy God speaks to His people and Christ is still proclaiming His gospel.” 40 For this reason, the Council states that “the liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows.” 41
As a result of the acknowledgment of Christ’s presence in the Word, the significance of Sacred Scripture is highlighted by the Council and made explicit:
Sacred scripture is of the greatest importance in the celebration of the liturgy. For it is from scripture that lessons are read and explained in the homily, and psalms are sung; the prayers, collects, and liturgical songs are scriptural in their inspiration and their force, and it is from the scriptures that actions and signs derive their meaning. Thus to achieve the restoration, progress, and adaptation of the sacred liturgy, it is essential to promote that warm and living love for scripture to which the venerable tradition of both eastern and western rites gives testimony. 42
In Chapter II of Sacrosanctum Concilium, which is titled “The Most Sacred Mystery of the Eucharist,” reference is made to the two tables from which the faithful are nourished: “Christ’s faithful….should be instructed by God’s word and be nourished at the table of the Lord’s body,” and “The treasures of the bible are to be opened up more lavishly, so that richer fare may be provided for the faithful at the table of God’s word.” 43 While this distinction is made between the table of “the Word” and the table of “the Lord’s body,” the Council makes it clear that the “two parts which, in a sense, go to make up the Mass, namely, the liturgy of the word and the eucharistic liturgy, are so closely connected with each other that they form but one single act of worship.” 44
In October of 1964, the Melkite Archbishop of Edessa, Neophytos Edelby, spoke in reference to the third schema of what would be called, in its final form, Dei Verbum. His speech reflected the significance of Orthodoxy’s view of Scripture to the understanding of the liturgical significance of the Word delineated in the Council documents. Edelby emphasized the role of the Holy Spirit in the Church working in conjunction with the Word made flesh: “One cannot separate the mission of the Holy Spirit from the mission of the incarnate Word.”45 He also highlighted Orthodoxy’s emphasis on Sacred Scripture as a
…liturgical and prophetic reality. It is proclamation rather than a written book. It is the witness of the Holy Spirit to Christ. The principal and privileged time for this witness is the celebration of the eucharistic liturgy….the eastern church sees rather in sacred scripture under the appearances of a human word a certain consecration of salvation history which cannot be separated from the eucharistic consecration in which the whole body of Christ is summed up (‘recapitulated’). 46
He further stated that without the action of the Holy Spirit “sacred scripture remains a dead letter.” 47 For Edelby, the role of Scripture in the liturgy was clear: “Hence, it appears that tradition,
or the church, in handing on the outpouring of the saving plan (‘economy’) of the Word, is essentially liturgy.” 48 Thanks to Congar’s earlier writings on the work of the Spirit in the Church, Edelby’s insights on the role of the Spirit in the Church and in Scripture found a more amenable atmosphere in the discussions taking place during Vatican II.
Also of consequence was Edelby’s point that the Western Church’s handling of Scripture was a direct result of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, since “the conviction that the meaning of Scripture is the doctrine of the Church is used not so much to guide the interpretations of Catholics, as to rebut the exegesis of Protestants.” 49 Once the Church recognized this, she would be able to reevaluate her approach to Scripture, which was often to use it to promote a certain theological position, as noted earlier, and instead to devote herself to studying the rich history of salvation that is revealed in the Word of God.
In Unitatis Redintegratio, the Decree on Ecumenism which was published in November of 1964, the Council recognized “with what great love the Christians of the East celebrate the sacred liturgy, especially the eucharistic celebration,” and that “[w]here the authentic theological traditions of the Eastern Church are concerned, we must recognize the admirable way in which they have their roots in Holy Scripture, and how they are nurtured and given expression in the life of the liturgy.”50 The Council also acknowledged in Protestantism the “love and reverence of Sacred Scripture” which “leads our brethren to a constant meditative study of the sacred text…. Sacred Scriptures provide for the work of dialogue an instrument of the highest value in the mighty hand of God for the attainment of that unity which the Saviour holds out to all.”
51 In the Council documents, Sacred Scripture is often referred to in light of the Eucharistic Sacrament. As stated earlier, the natural end of Scripture is to lead to the understanding of the mission of the Word made flesh and, in turn, to reception of Him under the Eucharistic species.
In Lumen Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Christ as the Word is stressed when speaking of the structure of the Church. It is not a coincidence that Christ as the Word made flesh should be emphasized when addressing the nature of the Church; as seen above, the action implied in the Word is what brings salvation to the world:
For this reason, by no weak analogy, [the Church] is compared to the mystery of the incarnate Word. As the assumed nature inseparably united to Him, serves the divine Word as a living organ of salvation, so, in a similar way, does the visible social structure of the Church serve the Spirit of Christ, who vivifies it in the building up of the body. 52
Christ brings salvation to the Church, and the Church, in turn, proclaims this salvation to the world. In Lumen Gentium, the community’s gathering around the altar to receive nourishment is vital to liturgical worship, which Sacrosanctum Concilium likewise established:
…the faithful are gathered together by the preaching of the Gospel of Christ, and the mystery of the Lord’s Supper is celebrated, that by the food and blood of the Lord’s body the whole brotherhood may be joined together…. For the ‘partaking of the body and blood of Christ does nothing other than make us be transformed into that which we consume.’ 53
Therefore, when describing the structure and aim of the Church, the Word and the Sacrament are inseparable realities which need to be acknowledged and addressed.
In the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes), the evangelical nature of the Church is accentuated and supported by the repeated references to Sacred Scripture. It states unequivocally that the Church’s “purpose has been to adapt the Gospel to the grasp of all…. Indeed this accommodated preaching of the revealed word ought to remain the law of all evangelization.”54 In other words, preaching and receiving the Word of God is an obligation for all members of the Church. This concept also found a home in the Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests (Presbyterorum Ordinis) which was promulgated in 1965 on the same day as Gaudium et Spes. In this document, the Council teaches that
…the preaching of the word is needed for the very ministering of the sacraments. They are precisely sacraments of faith, a faith which is born of and nourished by the word. This is especially true of the Liturgy of the Word in the celebration of Mass, in which the proclaiming of the death and resurrection of Christ is inseparably joined to the response of the people who hear, and to the very offering whereby Christ ratified the New Testament in his blood. In this offering the faithful are united both by their dispositions and by their discernment of the sacrament. 55
As can be seen throughout the Vatican II documents, the interdependency of the Word and the Eucharist within the Liturgy of the Mass, through the activity of the Holy Spirit, is what sustains and gives life to the Church.
In 1965, about a month prior to the promulgation of Presbyterorum Ordinis and Gaudium et Spes, the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum) was issued. This document, wholly dedicated to the nature of divine revelation, much of which deals with Scripture, had the most significant impact on Catholic thought regarding the sacramentality of the Word: “The Church has always venerated the divine Scriptures just as she venerates the body of the Lord, since especially in the sacred liturgy, she unceasingly receives and offers to the faithful the bread of life from the table both of God’s word and of Christ’s body.” 56 Once again, the Council explicitly established the double nourishment of the faithful in the Liturgy through both the Word and the Eucharist.
This is also seen in paragraph 13, in which the similitude between the Word of God and the Word made flesh is maintained: “For the words of God, expressed in human language, have been made like human discourse, just as the word of the eternal Father, when He took to himself the flesh of human weakness, was in every way made like men.” In true Trinitarian form, it was also affirmed that “the Holy Spirit, through whom the living voice of the Gospel resounds in the Church, and through her, in the world, leads unto all truth those who believe and makes the word of Christ dwell abundantly in them.”57 God actively reveals himself to the faithful through Sacred Scripture and the Council took pains with Dei Verbum to show how all three Persons of the Trinity participate in this act of revelation. Special notice should be given to the reference to the “living voice of the Gospel” in paragraph 13. As stated in Sacrosanctum Concilium no. 7, it is Christ “himself who speaks when the holy scriptures are read in the Church,” and so it behooves the Church to remember this each time she celebrates the sacred liturgy.
The Word in Post-Vatican II Catholic Consciousness
While the concept of the sacramentality of the Word was already present in Catholic thought, Vatican II brought it to the foreground through its various documents. The result was a
reshaping of Catholic theology to bring the Word back into focus in the liturgy. Analysts of the results of Vatican II note that “the ‘theology of the word’ was restored to its ‘quasi sacramental’ importance. The revival of the liturgy of the word in general and particularly in the eucharist is its logical consequence.” 58 They also perceive the end of “Catholicism’s ‘counter-reformation’ attitude” 59 and how the Council “discovered the connection between life and doctrine, because it took as its guide the connection between word and action in God’s revelation.”60
Despite the fact that Vatican II made significant headway in comprehending the importance of the Word in sacred liturgy, “it was not made sufficiently clear that sacred scripture is the soul not only of scientific theology but also of catechesis, preaching, pastoral practice, and the theology of the mission, as it is of the liturgy and especially also of mystical theology.” 61 It is crucial to note this deficiency, for it explains why some of the faithful fail to recognize the significance of the Liturgy of the Word in the Mass. Simply put, the Liturgy of the Word has not found its way into the hearts and minds of the faithful, whose religious instruction is limited to a few years of faith formation in their youth and the homily of Sunday Mass. While acknowledging the increase in Scripture study groups and other means of incorporating Scripture into personal prayer, 62 the Bishops’ Committee on Priestly Life and Ministry noted this very problem in their document on preaching, Fulfilled in Your Hearing: “Doesn’t regular Sunday preaching have to take into account the ignorance of the Scriptures on the part of large numbers of Catholics, even those who participate regularly in the Sunday Eucharist, and deal in some systematic way with the fundamentals of the faith?” 63 Such was the catechetical concern of the bishops that in 2013 they put forth another document on preaching geared toward “addressing a congregation that is more culturally diverse than previously, one that is profoundly affected by the surrounding secular agenda and, in many instances, inadequately catechized.” 64 This disconnect affects not only the reception of the Word but the proper reception of the Eucharist. As Schmemann explained, “Inasmuch as all our worship is structured in a ‘biblical’ key, this ultimately leads to incomprehension of the services, to a rupture between liturgical piety and the genuine meaning of the lex orandi, the rule of prayer.”65 The Word and the Sacrament flow into each other and provide the basis for the life of the Church. Therefore, the challenge that the Word of God gives to human beings is that of assuming their proper relationship not only with God and with one another, but also with the wider creation. In this sense, too, the proclamation of the Word must flow into the celebration of Eucharist, because the Liturgy of the Word itself does nothing for the elements of creation; it is the sacraments and especially the Eucharist that take up those elements and thereby initiate their own salvific transformation. 66 The realization of the interdependency of the Word and the Sacrament in the religious consciousness of parishioners is necessary in order for the Church to live out its kerygmatic mission through “a scriptural interpretation of human existence which enables a community to recognize God’s active presence, to respond to that presence in faith through liturgical word and gesture, and beyond the liturgical assembly, through a life lived in conformity with the Gospel.” 67
The question remains of how to bring this realization home to Catholics on a parochial level so that they can carry out the mission of the Church in their daily lives. The document Preaching the Mystery of Faith notes that “Catholics should be encouraged to prepare themselves beforehand for a fruitful encounter with God’s word read and proclaimed in the context of the liturgy.”68 How then might the pastor work toward raising the scriptural consciousness/biblical literacy of his parishioners? Perhaps one way of doing so is more intentionally and more explicitly making the connection between Word, Sacrament, and Christian life in his homily. The simple act of repeating these words together across several homilies can prime the parishioners for
considering the sacramentality of the Word and its impact on their daily lives. Speaking of the transformative power of attending to the Word of God and reception of the Eucharist together can help parishioners integrate this belief into their liturgical frame of mind.
After laying this cognitive groundwork, there could be workshops for both lectors and extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist that explore particular passages, such as the encounter on the road to Emmaus in Luke’s Gospel. These workshops could later be expanded and adapted as one-day or multiple-day retreats for other parishioners. Another possibility would be to run Bible studies relevant to the liturgical season in which they occur, helping parishioners be more attuned to the readings in the Liturgy of the Word and reinforcing how they lead into the reception of the Eucharist.
At the end of the day, there is not a one-size-fits-all approach. In order to know the best approach for making the connection between the Liturgies of the Word and of the Eucharist, the pastor needs to be attuned to the particular spiritual charism and needs of his parish. What form of instruction do the parishioners respond to best? What spiritual needs have they expressed in conversations? Are there other aspects that need to be developed simultaneously, such as a sense of Christian community and mission? Toward the end of the Second Vatican Council, the bishops exhibited humility when they acknowledged that the “Church guards the heritage of God’s word and draws from it moral and religious principles without always having at hand the solution to particular problems.” 69 We would do well to emulate the Council’s humility when discerning how to bring the teachings of the Council documents to everyday life, and specifically the importance of the Word within sacred liturgy. As can be seen sixty plus years after the promulgation of Dei Verbum, the answer is not clear-cut and straightforward. However, thanks to the Second Vatican Council the Church now has the benefit of the Council documents to help her achieve this goal. It is through these documents that we can begin to address the implementation of the theology set forth by the Council.
1 Paul McPartlan, “The Eucharist: Word and Sacrament,” Scripture Bulletin 33 (2003): 82.
2 Bishop’s Committee on Priestly Life and Ministry, Fulfilled in Your Hearing: The Homily in the Sunday Assembly (Washington, DC: USCCB, 2002), 7.
3 Bishop’s Committee on Priestly Life and Ministry, 10.
4 McPartlan, “The Eucharist: Word and Sacrament,” 80.
5 Louis Bouyer, Dictionary of Theology, trans. Charles Underhill Quinn (New York: Desclee Co., 1966), s.v. “Word of God.”
6 Guiseppe Alberigo and Joseph A Komonchak, eds., History of Vatican II, vol. 4 (Maryknoll: Orbis; Leuven: Peeters, 1996-2006), 220-21.
7 Bouyer, Dictionary of Theology, s.v. “Word of God.”
8 Louis Bouyer, Dictionary of Theology, trans. Charles Underhill Quinn (New York: Desclee Co., 1966), s.v. “Sacrament.”
9 Bouyer, s.v. “Sacrament.”
10 Alexander Schmemann, The Eucharist: Sacrament of the Kingdom, trans. Paul Kachur (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1988), 66.
11 Schmemann, 79.
12 John Breck, The Power of the Word (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1986), 13.
13 Breck, 13.
14 Schmemann, The Eucharist, 67.
15 Schmemann, 68.
16 Bishop’s Committee on Priestly Life and Ministry, Fulfilled in Your Hearing, 2.
17 Vatican II, “Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy,” Sacrosanctum Concilium (1963), no. 7.
18 Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 7.
19 See Bishop’s Committee on Priestly Life and Ministry, Fulfilled in Your Hearing, 24; Thomas J. McGovern, “The Interpretation of Scripture ‘in the Spirit’: The Edelby Intervention at Vatican II,” Irish Theological Quarterly 64 (1999): 253-54.
20 Bouyer, Dictionary of Theology, s.v. “Word of God.”
21 Vatican II, “Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests,” Presbyterorum Ordinis (1965), no. 5.
22 Joseph A. Komonchak, “Theology and Culture Mid-Century: The Example of Henri de Lubac,” Theological Studies 51 (1990): 579-81.
23 See Paul McPartlan, Sacrament of Salvation: An Introduction to Eucharistic Ecclesiology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995), 46-47; and, McGovern, “The Interpretation of Scripture ‘in the Spirit’,” 247.
24 Louis Bouyer, Liturgical Piety (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1955), 12.
25 He was also closely associated with the biblical movement, in part due to his advocacy of patristic exegesis as well as his renowned multi-volume study on medieval exegesis, Exégèse Mediévale (1959-1964), published just before and during Vatican II.
26 Henri de Lubac, Catholicisme: Les aspects sociaux du dogme, 2nd ed. (Paris: Les éditions du cerf, 1941), 249 : «Car il ne suffira pas plus de copier l’antiquité chrétienne que de copier le moyen âge…. nous avons a lui donner notre style à nous, c’est-a-dire celui que répond à nos nécessités, - à nos problèmes.»
27 de Lubac, 151: « Car si tout ce qui arrive au Christ arrive aussi à l’Église, «tout ce qui arrive à l’Église arrive aussi à chaque chrétien en particulier….tout ce que nous dit l’Écriture trouve en chacun de nous son accomplissement.»
28 de Lubac, 131: «La Bible tout entière ne contient aucun autre logos que Celui que nos adorons dans la chair…»
29 de Lubac, 158: «…une intériorisation de la Liturgie, c’est-à-dire une application à la vie de l’âme du rythme vital de l’Église. Un même essentiel Mystère emplit tout dans l’Écriture et dans la Liturgie, hors duquel il n’est pas de participation possible au Mystère de Dieu.»
30 Matthew L. Lamb, Matthew Levering, eds., Vatican II: Renewal within Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 417.
31 Alberic Stacpoole, “Early Ecumenism, Early Yves Congar, 1904-1940: Commemoration of the HalfCentury of the Beginnings of the World Council of Churches, 1937-1987,” The Month 21 (1988): 507.
32 Bouyer, Liturgical Piety, 12-13.
33 Breck, The Power of the Word, 12.
34 Yves Congar, Esquisse du mystère de l’Église (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1966), 131 : «…le Saint-Esprit qui, âme habitant et vivifiant l’Église…demeure transcendant à l’Église qu’il habite ; il n’est pas seulement une force divine donnant au ministère comme aux sacrements une efficacité surnaturelle, il est une Personne souverainement active e libre. On ne dispose pas de lui, c’est lui qui dirige le jeu.»
35 Congar, 128: «…le Saint-Esprit n’a pas une autonomie radicale, mais est envoyé pour faire l’œuvre du Christ, pour rappeler ce qu’il a dit, les dons suscités par l’Esprit n’ont d’autre but que d’édifier le corps du Christ »
36 Daniela C. Augustine, “Word, Sacrament, and Mission: Reflections on the Spirit and the Eschaton within Alexande Schmemann’s Sacramental Theology,” St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 64:1-2 (2020): 153.
37 Augustine, 157.
38 Sacrosanctum Concilium, nos. 1 and 2.
39 Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 7.
40 Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 33.
41 Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 10. Emphasis added.
42 Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 24. Emphasis added.
43 Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 48 and 51, respectively.
44 Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 56.
45 Gerald O’Collins, Retrieving Fundamental Theology (New York: Paulist Press, 1993), 175.
46 O’Collins, 175.
47 O’Collins, 175.
48 O’Collins, 176.
49 McGovern, “The Interpretation of Scripture ‘in the Spirit’,” 248.
50 Vatican II, “Decree on Ecumenism,” Unitatis Redintegratio (1964), nos. 15 and 16, respectively.
51 Unitatis Redintegratio, no. 21.
52 Vatican II, “Dogmatic Constitution on the Church,” Lumen Gentium (1964): no. 8.
53 Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 26.
54 Vatican II, “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World,” Gaudium et Spes (1965): no. 44, emphasis added.
55 Presbyterorum Ordinis (1965), no. 4.
56 Vatican II, “Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation,” Dei Verbum (1965), no. 21.
57 Dei Verbum, no. 8.
58 Edward Schillebeeckx, The Real Achievement of Vatican II, trans. H.J.J. Vaughan (New York: Herder and Herder, 1967), 28.
59 Schillebeeckx, 41.
60 Alberigo and Komonchak, History of Vatican II, 202.
61 Alberigo and Komonchak, 227.
62 Fulfilled in Your Hearing, 2.
63 Fulfilled in Your Hearing, 25.
64 Bishop’s Committee on Priestly Life and Ministry, Preaching the Mystery of Faith: The Sunday Homily (Washington, DC: USCCB, 2013), 5.
65 Schmemann, The Eucharist, 74.
66 McPartlan, “The Eucharist: Word and Sacrament,” 88.
67 Bishop’s Committee on Priestly Life and Ministry, Fulfilled in Your Hearing, 29.
68 Bishop’s Committee on Priestly Life and Ministry, Preaching the Mystery of Faith, 72.
69 Gaudium et Spes, no. 33.
Liturgical Formation for Today’s Priest: Toward a Greater Sacramental Imagination
Rev. John Guthrie, S.T.L.
Introduction
One Sunday a few years ago, I drove to Mass with my sister and two of her granddaughters, Eleanor and Francine. Eleanor was going into sixth grade and Fran into fourth; I baptized them both when they were infants. As my sister prepared them for Mass by discussing the Gospel (the parable of the pearl of great price!), I thought of my hopes for them that they would find that pearl in their lives, the pearl we have found in ours: Jesus Christ. This is, after all, the hope we have for each person we encounter and to whom we minister.
We also know how challenging this can be, not just in the formation of young people but in our own lives as well. Staying centered, with our eyes fixed on and our hearts rooted in the “the surpassing value of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:8), has its own challenges in our contemporary culture. In this light, I would like to offer a short reflection on the importance for disciples of Christ to cultivate a sacramental imagination and how this cultivation is rooted in and enhanced through the celebration of the Eucharist. While these thoughts apply to all members of the Church, I write also with a specific focus on strengthening the sacramental imagination of today’s priests and seminarians. 1
The Importance of Imagination
St. John Henry Newman knew that for most people the crucial battleground between faith and unbelief lies not in disputes over creeds and dogmas but at a much more fundamental level, the level of what he termed the “imagination.” In Grammar of Assent, Newman wrote: “The heart is commonly reached, not through the reason, but through the imagination….No man will be a martyr for a conclusion.”2 By imagination, he meant the pre-conceptual level of intuitive activity which we inhabit instinctively. 3 If the reader is uncomfortable with the word “imagination” because it connotes make-believe, a few other terms or images may be of help:
• Imagination is the horizon within which we unconsciously live out our lives.
• It is our default sensibility.
• It is the way we instinctively see the world.
• It is the inner space we inhabit.
I was recently reading an article about St. Pius X. He was the one, you might remember, who opened the way for children to receive Communion at the age of seven. Why? Recently, one catechist from New York, Mrs. Patricia Sadlon, ventured an opinion. She wrote:
Pius X realized the ability of children to grasp Mystery. Once I brought a first-grade class into church and showed them the sanctuary lamp and tabernacle, and a little boy exclaimed ‘awesome.’ After that it was so easy to teach them to genuflect. It
was a teaching moment [for them]. Children understand the desire and need to be with those who love you, so they get it that the Eucharist is Jesus being with us all the time. 4
I think we are born with an innate divine imagination and that imagination can be nurtured as the catechist did with her first graders or seriously dulled and even lost. There are so many obstacles that people today face in this struggle for their imagination. To name but two: we are faced with a consumerism that too easily objectifies and promotes the value of controlling reality, and with a technocratic worldview where the imagination becomes digitized. As Fr. Michael Gallagher observes: “Perhaps secularism has its most subtle victories in this battleground of imagination not through outright militancy or violent attack but rather a hijack of the heart into secondaries.” 5 This is what my great-nieces already face. We face it as well.
Cultivating Our Symbolic Literacy
In the Church of the United States, we recently celebrated a Eucharistic revival. This is about many things, of course: a reiteration of our belief in the Real Presence, adoration, processions, the national gathering in Indianapolis. Much of this is already a part of the lives of seminarians and priests. But doing all these things will only go so far unless we as a Church are willing to go to an even deeper and more foundational level.
In 2022 Pope Francis released his Apostolic Letter Desiderio Desideravi on the importance of liturgical formation. At the center of this formation, its “first task,” is helping the believer to become “capable of symbols.” 6 In this, he was quoting Romano Guardini, the great twentiethcentury priest, philosopher, and theologian. One of the formative experiences for Guardini was his visit to the cathedral of Palermo during the liturgy of Holy Saturday (what is today the Easter Vigil). He wrote that he “felt the full attention with which the people followed the liturgy …without a book or any other explanatory word….The gaze of the people was itself an act, in itself a participation in the sacred event.”7 The gaze is an act: “the meaning is not said or done in addition to the act, but is realized in the act itself…The liturgical act is realized in watching.”8 Liturgical gazing presumes a certain symbolic literacy. It requires the development of our ability to see symbolically, analogically, sacramentally. This is what Dr. Kevin Magas means when he encourages us to “put on our mystagoggles.” 9 “Symbols are not things people invent and interpret, but realities that ‘make’ and interpret a people….Symbols are places to live, breathing spaces that help us discover what possibilities life offers.”10 Symbols help us see; they form our horizons, our pre-conceptual intuition, our imagination. Our symbolic literacy or lack thereof has wide-ranging implications:
• It affects how we perceive and interact with the created world (cf. Laudato Sí). Do we objectify it and abuse it or recognize its sacramental nature?
• It affects how we understand the human body. Do we seek to control and manipulate it? Do we objectify others or recognize their sacramental nature?
• It affects how we experience time and history. Do we experience it as an endless succession of discreet moments or as sanctified, as holy?
Shaping Our Sacramental Imagination
The celebration of the Eucharist is at the very center of the shaping of our sacramental symbolic imagination. It is important for seminarians and priests to deepen their capability of symbol so that they can administer the sacraments more effectively and help people in this technocratic and consumeristic world to deepen it as well. During the Ordination Rite of Priests, the bishop hands the gifts to the newly ordained, saying: “Receive the oblation of the holy people to be offered to God. Understand what you do, imitate what you celebrate, and conform your life to the mystery of the Lord’s Cross.” I love the verbs (all in the imperative!): receive, understand, imitate, conform. This receiving, understanding, imitating, and conforming must be active and ongoing throughout the life of a priest.
We are formed every time we celebrate Mass. If our liturgical gaze is acute, there are many seemingly small and insignificant liturgical actions in the Mass that have profound depth. Let’s look at three: the placement of the Book of the Gospels on the altar; the placement of the paten and chalice on the altar; and a final liturgical symbol in the Mass silence.
The Placement of the Book of the Gospels on the Altar
“The gospels containing the words of Christ are to be placed upon the altar [GIRM, no. 173] signifying Christ [GIRM, no. 298], thus unifying two primary symbols of the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist.”11 In this simple act, the entire economy of revelation is summarized. This resonates well with Vatican II’s Dei Verbum (DV): Christ, who is himself completed and perfected revelation (no. 4), is present in the Book of the Gospels and in the altar, in what is in the Book and what will happen on the altar. As DV, no. 2, emphasizes, the economy of revelation is realized in deeds and words, which are intrinsically bound up with each other. 12 It should be noted that “in the course of the Mass, the altar and the Book of the Gospels are the only objects kissed by the deacon and priest [GIRM 273].”13
The Placement of the Paten and Chalice on the Altar
During the “Preparation of the Gifts,” the gifts are received and God is praised for them. In the rubrics, the instruction states that the priest holds the paten and chalice “slightly raised above the altar” and then places them on the corporal. All this is significant:
• They are “slightly raised.” While there is certainly an element of offering here (“the bread we offer you …the wine we offer you”), the primary offering is not here. That happens during Eucharistic Prayer at the anamnesis and oblation after the institution narrative and the consecration. In Eucharistic Prayer III, the words explicitly refer to a mutual offering: the offering of Christ in the sacrifice (“…we offer you in thanksgiving this holy and living sacrifice”) and the offering of ourselves in Christ (“May he make of us an eternal offering to you”).
• The key action here is the placing by the priest of the gifts on the center of the altar after God has been praised for them. The emphasis is on the descending motion, on the placing. Here, one commentator suggests, the gifts receive an initial sanctification when they come in contact with the altar, the basic architectural symbol of Christ. 14 As Jesus said: “The altar makes the gift sacred” (Mt. 23:19).
The symbolism of the simple downward placing of the gifts on the altar has rich spiritual implications. It reminds the believer who gazes upon this liturgical action of the humility of God. Our mind goes to the early christological hymn in Philippians 2 which speaks of Christ emptying himself by becoming man and humbling himself by dying on a cross. It is an action that grounds the spirituality of all the baptized: “I came to serve and not be served” (Mt. 20:29). It is an invitation to appreciate the profound intuition of St. Terese of Lisieux that “redemption is not best seen as an act of divine power. The heart of it is the helplessness of God in the face of his own love for us.” 15 It is worth noting that this divine condescension reaches a crescendo of sorts at the reception of Holy Communion when the Lord himself is placed in our hand or on our tongue.
This liturgical action has profound implications for the spirituality of the priest. It shows what a good pastor does: he lays down his life for his sheep. He serves. As Pope Benedict XVI wrote in Sacramentum Caritatis, no. 88: “In the Eucharist Jesus makes us witnesses of God’s compassion towards all our brothers and sisters. The eucharistic mystery thus gives rise to a service of charity towards neighbor.”16 The placement of the gifts is a moment when we are trained in compassion.
A Final Liturgical Symbol in the Mass: Silence
As the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, no. 45, states: “Sacred silence, as part of the celebration, is to observed at the designated times.” 17 It names those times:
• before the celebration a time to prepare one’s heart to be properly disposed
• in the Penitential Act a time to acknowledge our sins
• at the invitation to pray before the Collect a time to “collect” our thoughts and prayers
• after a reading from Scripture a time to ponder God’s sacred word
• after the homily a time to reflect on the insights of the homilist
• after Communion a time to praise and thank God for the gift received
We know from Scripture that God is present in silence. We recall the reading from 1 Kings that describes God’s presence coming to Elijah in the “tiny whispering sound” (19:12) or, what another translation (NRSV) renders, the “sound of sheer silence.” Henri Nouwen wrote of the spiritual significance of silence:
Deep silence leads us to realize that prayer is, above all, acceptance. When we pray, we are standing with our hands open to the world. We know that God will become known to us in the nature around us, in people we meet, and in situations we run into. We trust that the world holds God’s secret within and we expect that secret to be shown to us. Prayer creates that openness in which God is given to us. Indeed, God wants to be admitted into the human heart, received with open hands, and loved with the same love with which we have been created. 18
Silence is all about making space for God. It is about letting go of the control and giving him permission to work in our lives. This allowing God to work, this openness, is a central disposition for worship. As Pope Francis writes of silence in Desiderio Desideravi, no. 52: “It is a symbol of the presence and action of the Holy Spirit who animates the entire action of the celebration.” As a final note on silence, I want to call to mind that the laying on of hands at ordination is done in silence as the Pontifical Rubric notes, “without saying anything.” God does some of his most amazing work in silence.
Entering into the Liturgical Gaze and into God’s Imagination
When Catholics enter into the sacred mysteries at each Mass, the focus is not “being overcome in the face of an obscure reality or a mysterious rite. It is, on the contrary, marveling at the fact that the salvific plan of God has been revealed in the paschal deed of Jesus, and the power of this paschal deed continues to reach us in the celebration of the ‘mysteries,’ of the sacraments.” 19 We enter precisely through the marveling, the watching, the liturgical gaze not in pure passivity but actively. The Mass is to be celebrated with a “noble simplicity,” as the Second Vatican Council phrased it in Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 34, so that the words and symbols might speak with greater clarity and force. 20 In perceiving the depth of the underlying reality of the words, symbols, and actions, we are formed by the liturgy.
As William Cavanaugh says so beautifully, “To participate in the Eucharist is to live inside God’s imagination. It is to be caught up into what is really real, the body of Christ.”21 My hope for my great-nieces, for seminarians, for priests, and for each of us is that we allow ourselves to live more eucharistically, to live more and more inside God’s imagination, to have our horizons stretched to divine dimensions. That should be the core of any Eucharistic revival.
1 This article was originally presented by Rev. John Guthrie, current Director of Liturgy at USML, as an address on liturgical formation to the seminarians of the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary, in Mundelein, Illinois, on September 5, 2023. In this same issue of Chicago Studies, immediately following this article, you will find another article by Rev. Guthrie on liturgical formation for today’s priest: Reverend John Guthrie, “Liturgical Formation for Today’s Priest: Obedience, Chastity, and Simplicity,” Chicago Studies 63.1 (Fall 2024/Winter 2025). Another article on liturgical formation by Rev. Guthrie was featured in the previous issue of Chicago Studies: Reverend John Guthrie, “Liturgical Formation for Seminarians & Priests: Toward Greater Participation, Communion, & Mission,” Chicago Studies 62.2 (Spring/Summer 2024)
2 Newman, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), 89.
3 Please see Michael Paul Gallagher, An Introduction to Faith and Culture (New York: Paulist Press, 2003), 134. The author draws heavily on Gallagher’s insights here.
4 Maurice Tim Reidy, “What Can We Learn from Children about the Eucharist?,” August 21, 2023, America
5 Gallagher, An Introduction to Faith and Culture, 135.
6 The quote from Romano Guardini is taken from his Liturgische Bildung (1923) in Liturgie und liturgische Bildung (Mainz 1992), 36, and is quoted in no. 44 (and referenced in no. 45) of Pope Francis, Desiderio Desideravi, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_letters/documents/20220629-lettera-ap-desideriodesideravi.html.
7 Guardini, letter entitled “The ‘Liturgical Act’ Today,” originally published in the July 1964 issue of Herder Correspondence, reprinted in Antiphon 5.3 (2000): 46–48, paraphrased from material on page 47.
8 Guardini, letter entitled “The ‘Liturgical Act’ Today,” paraphrased from material on page 47.
9 The work of Dr. Kevin Magas, Associate Professor of Sacramental and Liturgical Theology at the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary in Mundelein, Illinois, can be found in several journals, including Adoremus, Worship, and Antiphon.
10 Nathan Mitchell, “Symbols Are Actions, Not Objects,” Living Worship 13/2 (Feb. 1977): 1-2.
11 Paul Turner, Let Us Pray: A Guide to the Rubrics of Sunday Mass (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012), no. 164.
12 Vatican II, “Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation,” Dei Verbum (1965), no. 2.
13 Turner, Let Us Pray, no. 164.
14 Dennis C. Smolarski, How Not to Say Mass: A Guidebook on Liturgical Principles and the Roman Missal (New York: Paulist Press, 2015), 83.
15 Simon Tugwell, Ways of Imperfection: An Exploration of Christian Spirituality (Springfield, IL: Templegate, 1985), 224.
16 Benedict XVI, Sacramentum Caritatis [Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation on the Eucharist as the Source and Summit of the Church’s Life and Mission], February 22, 2007, https://www.vatican.va/content/benedictxvi/en/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_ben-xvi_exh_20070222_sacramentum-caritatis.html, nos. 52-63, at 52.
17 See USCCB, available online at General Instruction of the Roman Missal (2003), no. 45.
18 Henri Nouwen, With Open Hands (Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 1972), 56, with wording slightly adapted.
19 Pope Francis, Desiderio Desideravi, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_letters/documents/20220629-lettera-ap-desideriodesideravi.html, no. 25.
20 Vatican II, “Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy,” Sacrosanctum Concilium, December 4, 1963, https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19631204_sacrosanctumconcilium_en.html, no. 34.
21 William T. Cavanaugh, Torture and Eucharist: Theology, Politics, and the Body of Christ (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998), 279, as quoted in Walter Brueggemann’s The Prophetic Imagination (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2001), xx.
Liturgical Formation for Today’s Priest: Obedience, Chastity, and Simplicity
Rev. John Guthrie, S.T.L.
Introduction
Attending presbyteral ordinations over these last years, I have been especially struck and moved by the words that the bishop speaks to the newly ordained priest as he hands him the bread and wine: “Receive the oblation of the holy people to be offered to God. Understand what you will do, imitate what you celebrate, and conform your life to the mystery of the Lord’s Cross.” If we realize how serious and all-encompassing those words are, they should stop us in our tracks. In a real way, these are the marching orders for all priests, no matter the age:
• RECEIVE Before you give, before you offer, you must receive. This requires a heart and spirit that are receptive, totally open, as was Mary’s when the angel asked for her service to the Word. Notice also the dignity the People of God they are already called “holy.” And so they are, because of their baptism.
• UNDERSTAND Know and be aware not only of what you are doing in the celebration of the mysteries but also of the far-reaching implications that the celebration has for every aspect of your priestly life.
• IMITATE The Eucharist is about taking, blessing, breaking, and giving. The life of a priest must be about those famous Eucharistic verbs.
• CONFORM Our very existence as priests must be cruciform, taking the shape of the Cross, following the one who came to serve and not be served, to give his life as a ransom for the many. Christ’s totally generous and generative act is to be modeled in and by us.
Receive, understand, imitate, conform: a set of verbs which deserve more contemplation from the ordained and, I believe, in those preparing for ordination.
In Desiderio Desideravi [hereafter DD], Pope Francis states: “the Liturgy is the priesthood of Christ, revealed to us and given in his Paschal Mystery…so that the Spirit, plunging us into the paschal mystery, might transform every dimension of our life, conforming us more and more to Christ.” 1 Every dimension of our life is and must be formed by the celebration of the Eucharist. As the Program for Priestly Formation discusses at length, and I trust each of us is aware, the commitment to obedience, celibate chastity, and simplicity of life is at the center of every priestly vocation (as it is in the vocation of every one of the baptized). In this short reflection, I would like to pose the question: How does the celebration of the Eucharist contribute to our understanding of and commitment to obedience, celibate chastity, and simplicity of life? Let us consider each of them in turn. 2
Obedience
The first and the last promises of the Elect at the Ordination of a Priest center on obedience. The first calls attention to being “a trustworthy co-worker with the Order of Bishops,” while the last, made kneeling before the bishop, commits the Elect to “respect and obedience” to the bishop and his successors. Obedience is not about servility but affection affection for the bishop and
affection for the Church. The recently promulgated Sixth Edition of the Program for Priestly Formation [hereafter PPF6] speaks of obedience as “a spirit of joyful trust, open dialogue, and generous cooperation with those in authority.”3 This is much more than mere intellectual adherence to doctrines. Rather, it is an integrated response of intellect, affect, and will; it involves thinking, feeling, and judging with the Church. It involves having what one writer refers to as an “ecclesial disposition.” 4
How does the celebration of the Eucharist support obedience a spirit of thinking, feeling, and judging with the Church as an ecclesial disposition in the priest?
Much has been made about how the priest acts in persona Christi at Mass, and rightly so. It is essential that when he speaks the words of consecration, he speaks in Christ’s name, or else the Mass loses its significance. But we should remember that there are many prayers that the priest says in persona Ecclesiae. The Collect is a perfect example. This prayer is given voice physically by the priest in the name of all gathered (a prayer that they make their own in their hearts), a prayer through Christ to the Father. Then, there are the prayers for the Church embedded in each Eucharistic Prayer: “Remember, Lord, your Church” (EPII); “Be pleased to confirm in faith and charity your pilgrim Church on earth” (EPIII). These prayers can move us toward docility and an ecclesial disposition. It is hard to pray honestly for the Church day after day and not be moved to love her and feel with her more and more. Praying in persona Ecclesiae should help us become what we pray: quite literally, a person of the Church. It should form within a habitus of thinking, judging, and feeling with the Church.
And when the pope and the bishop are specifically named and prayed for in the Eucharistic Prayer, a priest needs to ask himself: Does it change me? Does it have an effect in the rest of my life? My outlook? My attitude? Do I embody it? Does it lead to “a spirit of joyful trust, open dialogue, and generous cooperation with those in authority” (PFF6, no. 220) or not? These are questions the liturgy poses to us priests.
Docility is central to the liturgical act’s efficacy within our lives. There needs to be an openness of spirit. The Holy Father speaks of this when he writes (again, in Desiderio): “The celebration concerns the reality of our being docile to the Holy Spirit who operates through it until Christ be formed in us” (DD, no. 41). The good news is that the celebration itself gives us the grace to be more docile, more obedient, in the full sense of those words.
Celibate Chastity
The commitment to celibacy, of course, is made at the Diaconate Ordination: “Do you resolve to keep the commitment of celibacy perpetually as a sign of the dedication of your life to Christ the Lord for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven, in service to God and others?” The question emphasizes the commitment to celibacy as a highly intimate relational reality:
• First of all, celibacy is understood within relationship to Christ: “a sign of the dedication of your life to Christ the Lord.” I am reminded of the wonderful quote from Peter van Breemen that “celibacy does not mean that one has lost something, but rather that the celibate has found Someone,”5 and of the equally wonderful statement from George Aschenbrenner that “only the infinite beauty of a God who is more in love with us than we are with ourselves can attract a human heart to wholesome celibacy.” 6
• But celibacy is also understood within relationship to the People of God: “in service to God and others.” That is, celibacy is also an intimate gift of self to the people whom we are called to serve.
Within the celebration of the Eucharist there are gestures and words that remind us of the intimate relational reality of celibacy and allow the gift of celibacy to deepen within our priestly hearts. First, there is the kiss, both of the Altar and of the Book of the Gospels or the Lectionary. At the entrance and recession, the priest “venerates the Altar with a kiss.” Then, after the proclamation of the Gospel, “he kisses the book.” The Altar and the Book of the Gospels are symbols of Christ. In the practicum class that I teach to our students here at Mundelein Seminary in preparation for the diaconate, many speak of how moved they are when they kiss these christic symbols for the first time. And rightly so. In kissing them, one can and should feel affection for and intimacy with the Lord.
Next, there are the Words of Institution: “This is my Body” and “This is the chalice of my Blood.” As was mentioned above, the priest speaks these words in persona Christi. But secondarily, he also speaks the words in his own name: “This is my body; this is my blood.” He is renewing his commitment to lay down his life in service of Christ and Christ’s Body, the Church. As a priest, it is one of the most intimate parts of the Mass for me. I am joining myself completely to Christ, Head and Body. It is a privileged moment of ongoing configuration. It reminds me of the Lord’s words about marriage: “and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh” (Mark 10:8). There is something nuptial going on here: a nuptial, covenantal relationship with Christ, to be sure, but also a nuptial, covenantal relationship with the Church. When a bishop is ordained to the episcopate, he receives a ring. The principal consecrator instructs him: “Receive this ring, the seal of fidelity: adorned with undefiled faith, preserve unblemished the Bride of God, the holy Church.” Priests, as co-workers with the bishops, share in the bishop’s covenantal relationship with the people. The speaking of the words “This is my Body” has all these dimensions of intimacy.
And finally, as a last example of words that remind us of the intimate relational reality of celibacy, we cite the dialogues between the priest and the people within Mass, of which there are many. We recall here only two such instances:
• The Greeting “The Lord be with you” and “And with your spirit.”
• The Preface “Lift up your hearts” and “We lift them up to the Lord.”
We see here that the people are not just bystanders, onlookers. The Mass establishes an intimate bond between priest and people. Self-gift in service to others is at its heart. Here, the mystery of the Cross is evident and the commitment made both at baptism and ordination is renewed.
Simplicity of Life
The last promise of the Elect at the Diaconate Ordination is made in response to the question: “Do you resolve to conform your manner of life always to the example of Christ, whose Body and Blood you will handle at the altar?” One of the ways we conform our lives to the example of Christ is simplicity of life. Gospel simplicity is tied to the poverty of Christ: “God’s choice of the poor is so complete and absolute that he does not limit himself to being God-for-the-poor or even God-with-the-poor, but in Jesus ‘God-was-made-poor.’” 7 Gospel simplicity includes
“cultivat[ing] personal self-discipline and asceticism” and developing “a sound and balanced perspective about earthly goods and possessions” (PPF6, no. 217). It also enhances our connection with the poor and with all creation. In the one specific reference to seminaries in the encyclical Laudato Sí, Pope Francis writes: “It is my hope that our seminaries and houses of formation will provide an education in responsible simplicity of life, in grateful contemplation of God’s world, and in concern for the needs of the poor and the protection of the environment.” 8
If one reads the magisterial documents on the Church’s vision for priesthood, simplicity of life is emphasized repeatedly. How does the celebration of the Eucharist support and enliven our commitment to simplicity? Famously, the Second Vatican Council used the word “simplicity” in its discussion on the liturgy: “The rites should be distinguished by a noble simplicity. They should be short, clear, and free from useless repetitions. They should be within the people’s powers of comprehension, and normally should not require much explanation.”9 The idea is to let the sacramental signs speak clearly without becoming lost in a flurry of actions and words. Simplicity allows us to keep our focus on what is essential.
Of course, simplicity does not mean liturgy that lacks beauty. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal clearly calls for “the entire celebration [to be] resplendent with beauty and noble simplicity.” 10 The two go together. If you want to know one way that this is embodied, look to the Benedictines. In my view, it is hard to find a better expression of what the Roman Rite should be about. Their liturgies have a transcendent beauty; they are truly noble. And they are celebrated simply. Somehow noble simplicity in the liturgy should naturally carry over into noble simplicity in the way we live our priesthood.
Conclusion
“Receive the oblation of the holy people to be offered to God. Understand what you will do, imitate what you celebrate, and conform your life to the mystery of the Lord’s Cross.” Receive, understand, imitate, conform: these are instructions not just for liturgy but for the whole of the Christian life. They are at the very heart of priesthood, and so they must permeate each aspect of priesthood. The current Rector and President of the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary, Fr. John Kartje, likes to say that “grace looks like something. ” So do our commitments. Obedience, celibate chastity, and simplicity of life look like something liturgically. They also must look like something in our daily lives. The liturgy challenges us to make our commitments incarnate. They need to take flesh, to become concrete in our life. Through and in the liturgy, God reminds us of these commitments and, in addition, gives us the grace to live up to them. Such is his generosity, to which we can only respond with gratitude.
1 Pope Francis, Desiderio Desideravi, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_letters/documents/20220629-lettera-ap-desideriodesideravi.html, no. 21.
2 This article was originally presented by Rev. John Guthrie, current Director of Liturgy at USML, as an address on liturgical formation to the seminarians of the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary, in Mundelein, Illinois, on August 27, 2024. In this same issue of Chicago Studies, immediately preceding this article, you will find another article by Rev. Guthrie on liturgical formation for today’s priest: Reverend John Guthrie, “Liturgical Formation for Today’s Priest: Toward a Greater Sacramental Imagination,” Chicago Studies 63.1 (Fall 2024/Winter 2025). Another article on liturgical formation by Rev. Guthrie was featured in the previous issue of Chicago Studies: Reverend John Guthrie, “Liturgical Formation for Seminarians & Priests: Toward Greater Participation, Communion, & Mission,” Chicago Studies 62.2 (Spring/Summer 2024)
3 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Program of Priestly Formation, Sixth Edition: The Program of Priestly Formation in the United States of America (Washington, DC: USCCB, 2022), available online at https://www.clerus.va/content/dam/clerus/formazione/risorse/2024/-formazione-permanente-negli-usa/Programof-Priestly-Formation-6th-edition.pdf, no. 220.
4 Gill K. Goulding, A Church of Passion and Hope: The Formation of an Ecclesial Disposition from Ignatius of Loyola to Pope Francis and the New Evangelization (London: Bloomsbury, 2016). She uses the term throughout the book.
5 Peter G. van Breemen, Called by Name (Denville, NJ: Dimension Books, 1976), 245.
6 George A. Aschenbrenner, Quickening the Fire in Our Midst: Toward a More Contemplative Church (Chicago: Loyola Press, 2009), 114.
7 J.-M. R. Tillard, OP, Dilemmas of Modern Religious Life (New York: Paulist Press, 1976), 68.
8 Pope Francis, Laudato Sí, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papafrancesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html, no. 214.
9 Vatican II, “Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy,” Sacrosanctum Concilium, December 4, 1963, https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19631204_sacrosanctumconcilium_en.html, no. 34.
10 See USCCB, General Instruction of the Roman Missal, available online at https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccdds/documents/rc_con_ccdds_doc_20030317_ordinamentomessale_en.html, 2003, no. 42.
In Defense of Priestly Fatherhood
By Rev. Marek Duran, S.T.D.
Several years ago, a former colleague of mine on the faculty of the University of St. Mary of the Lake, Fr. David Olson, published an article in Chicago Studies called “Spiritual Fatherhood in Priestly Identity ” Fr. Olson was moved to write this article as a response to a talk show hosted by two young priests on a Catholic radio station. In that show, the two young priests used the notion of spiritual fatherhood, as Fr. Olson observed, “with a great deal of enthusiasm, but perhaps not sufficient amount of understanding or appreciation for that title within the Tradition.”1 In his article, Fr. Olson clarifies some key terms regarding priestly identity and launches a passionate attack against seeing spiritual fatherhood as a component of that identity. For him, priestly identity constructed and understood from the perspective of spiritual fatherhood breathes clericalism, infantilizes the laity, and is based on toxic masculinity and a flawed understanding of sexuality. I think Fr. Olson goes too far. In this article, therefore, I would like to answer some of the criticisms mentioned above and then clarify some issues to foster wholistic and healthy spirituality for diocesan priests. In this article, I will not try to develop a comprehensive vision of priestly identity. I will simply sketch a response to some of Fr. Olson’s claims.
According to Fr. Olson, the term “spiritual fatherhood” is used in the American Catholic environment carelessly, erroneously, and even dangerously. By digging into Catholic tradition, Fr. Olson discovers the origin of the term. In that tradition, a spiritual father is someone who either brings a person to faith or one who possesses a charism of leading others in faith. Furthermore, recent magisterial teaching employs the term only sporadically, preferring the notion of a shepherd or a friend of the bridegroom in talking about priestly identity. Fr. Olson sarcastically states that the two young priests hosting the talk show and by implication those recently ordained possess neither the charism nor the spiritual depth to be a spiritual father. More dangerously, in the American Catholic context “spiritual fatherhood” has roots in the Protestant denominations, especially those of the evangelical flavor that bemoan the loss of masculine identity and the feminization of men. From there, the corrupted concept of spiritual fatherhood entered the Catholic priestly mainstream via the Institute for Priestly Formation (IPF). 2 In the American Catholic context, spiritual fatherhood is a battle cry of “the conservative” clergy partaking in the raging culture war. Is that assessment, correct? I am afraid that Fr. Olson paints a caricature rather than the real picture of the genesis of the theology of the priesthood as fatherhood. What does the real picture look like?
A Brief Historical Survey
In his book Alter Christus, Fr. Ezra Sullivan, OP, writes: “From the beginning of the Church, Christians have recognized that spiritual paternity stems from ordination.”3 One sees the adequacy of that statement looking at the names given to priests in various European languages. In English all ordained priests are called “fathers.” The same is true in Spanish (el padre) and for the Eastern Catholic clergy (abouna). In Italian, German, and Polish, only consecrated religious priests are called “father” (il Padre, der Vater, ojciec). The diocesan priests are called Don in Italian, Herr Priester in German, and ksiądz in Polish. 4 French also makes a distinction between religious and diocesan priests. The diocesan priest is called père while the religious one is called abbé. It is important, however, to notice that the word abbé derives from the Aramaic abba. Consequently, both words are synonymous. From this brief survey one quickly gathers that only
English, French, and Spanish call all ordained male clergy fathers. This is not a trivial matter because in the English, French, and Spanish cultural settings, the contemporary theology of priestly identity as “father” has been developed. 5
Historically speaking, from the earliest times of the Church, the title “father” was used to describe Christian religious leaders. Until about the year 400, a bishop was called “father.” Later, this title was restricted to addressing the Roman Pontiff only. In an early form of his rule, St. Benedict designated the title “father” to spiritual confessors. In the Middle Ages, the term “father” was used to address the mendicant friars, that is, the Franciscans and the Dominicans. In modern times, the heads of male religious communities and the participants of ecumenical councils are given the title “father.” Pope Pius XII expanded the notion of paternity again to all clergy, saying, “By his law of celibacy, the priest, so far from losing the gift and duties of fatherhood, rather increases them immeasurably, for, although he does not beget progeny for this passing life of earth, he begets children for that life which is heavenly and eternal.”6
Priesthood as Fatherhood: Both Identity and Function
This linguistic and historical sketch of the theology of priestly fatherhood needs to be augmented, however, and put in the proper context of the post-conciliar crisis of priestly existence and priestly vocation. This context is critical in order to understand the genesis of the theology of priesthood as fatherhood. That theology is not rooted in the evangelical fight for the renewal of masculine identity, though, in the American cultural context, it coincides with that view and is frequently misunderstood in that way. Rather, the theology of priesthood as fatherhood is anchored in the desire to renew priestly life and ministry in light of St. John Paul II’s theology of the body and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s christology and relational anthropology.
Cardinal Ratzinger, when addressing the 1995 International Symposium on the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Promulgation of the Conciliar Decree Presbyterorum Ordinis, spoke of the post-conciliar crisis in the priesthood. The crisis, according to Cardinal Razinger, was not caused by the Second Vatican Council itself but by “a change in the meaning of life: the sacred was less understood while the functional was elevated to become the exclusively dominating category.”7 This caused the desacralization of the ministries in the Church. The functional vision “defined the nature of the priesthood as a service to the community in the fulfillment of a function at the service of the social body of the Church.” 8 The change in the understanding of the nature of priesthood thus caused a change in the understanding of the tasks of priests. The tasks of priests were laundered of their sacral meaning. The term “priest” was changed to the term of “minister” and his major function was preaching and community organizing. The new functional vision of the priesthood spread like wildfire in Lain America, Western Europe, and North America. The countries of Africa and of Eastern Europe, though for different reasons, were spared. The functional, secularized vision of the priestly life and ministry pushed aside the older ontologicosacramental vision supported and promoted by the magisterium. The ontologico-sacramental vision sees priesthood not as function but rather as an identity. In other words, the existence of the priest is determined above all by his ontological configuration to Christ in a sacrament granted to priests by Christ through the Church. So, one is a priest before one functions as a priest.
Responding to the spread of the of the desacralized vision of the priesthood, John Paul II issued the apostolic exhortation Pastores Dabo Vobis in order to foster a renewal of the theology of priesthood, a renewal that would be ontological, sacramental, and evangelical. As a response to that call for renewal, the vision of priesthood as fatherhood was born. The vision of priesthood as
fatherhood desired to overcome the shortcomings of both of the above-mentioned theologies of the priesthood, while also drawing on their strengths. Thus, like the functional view, “fatherhood” emphasizes the relational, sacrificial, and service-centered existence. Yet, unlike its functional counterpart, the theology of fatherhood emphasizes the sacramental and ontological dimension. To put it succinctly, priesthood is not a job but rather an identity. On the other hand, like the ontological-sacramental vision, the theology of the priesthood as fatherhood emphasizes the christological foundation of priesthood. It speaks of priestly identity as anchored in a sacramental configuration to Christ who comes to reveal the Face of the Father. 9 A priest, who from his baptism is son in the Son, in ordination becomes configured to Christ, the head of the Church, who came “not to be served but to serve.”10 But unlike the ontological-sacramental model, which on the practical level often fostered clericalism, the model of the priesthood as fatherhood sees priestly identity as inherently relational. The priest exists within a community as its head and servant to foster the growth in Christian maturity of those entrusted to his care. 11
Resolving Objections to Authentic Priestly Fatherhood
Here we come to the second important charge in Fr. Olson’s article against the theology of priestly fatherhood, namely, that it leads to clericalism. Fatherhood, according to Fr. Olson, infantilizes the laity and “fosters a privileged sense for the priest who now tells his people what to do and what not to do, so he can take them to heaven.” 12 Fr. Olson postulates a return to the identity of shepherd. This charge is very potent. Priestly identity that would go against promoting the universal call to holiness or that would be based on any notion of dependency would be both erroneous and dangerous. It would be to assume a form of sectarian control rather than to help believers reach fullness of maturity in Christ. As Pope Francis succinctly puts it, priests are to guide the consciences of believers and not to replace them. Yet I do not know what infantilizes laity more, calling them children or sheep. Of course, the scriptural language cannot be set aside. Above all, in most countries of the world, those priests who oversee parishes are called “pastors.” Should that title, however, be dismissed as well? Following Fr. Olson’s logic, would “pastor” not only infantilize, but also dehumanize the laity? I do not advocate for that.
In order to properly function, every word and every title needs to be correctly understood and grown into. The term “father” is not different. However, I would argue that in the modern world, it is “easier” to grow on an existential basis and consequently to grasp fully the meaning of being a father rather than being a shepherd. How many people are familiar with shepherds? How many people are familiar with the habits of flocks? The answer is obvious. Very few are. On the other hand, everyone has the experience of a father, or a father figure. Even if the example is negative and one vows “I will do everything in my power to be a better father to my own children than my father was to me,” that would be a worthy goal to pursue. In a healthy setting, anyone growing up in a family is aware of the changing nature of the father-child relationship. The father relates differently when his child is an infant, small child, teenager, or an adult. Yet, at all stages, he has one goal, namely, to guide his child toward maturity and responsibility. Is that not a good example for the priesthood? I think the answer is also self-evident. German theologian, Matthias Scheeben, expresses the same truth, saying: “The activity of the priesthood in the Church…amounts to this: to fashion Christ in its members, to unite them to Christ, to conform them to Him, to build up the full measure the stature of Christ.” 13 This is only one reason for the appropriateness of thinking of the priesthood in terms of fatherhood. But there are more.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church begins its Third Part, called Life in Christ, with the famous quote of Leo the Great: “Christian, recognize your dignity and, now that you share in God’s own nature, do not return to your former base condition by sinning. Remember who is your head and of whose body you are a member. Never forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of the Kingdom of God.”14 In these words, both St. Leo and the authors of the Catechism encourage believers to realize their God-given dignity and grow into it. As the Catechism states, Christians are called to lead henceforth a life “worthy of the gospel of Christ.” The same can be said of fatherhood. There is an incredible dignity in fatherhood, but it needs to be grown into it. Fatherhood is a dynamic identity. One enters it from the moment either of conception or of adoption. A father, contrary to the child’s mother, needs to decide to accept the child as his own. By doing so, spiritual and psychological changes happen to him. He is summoned to die to bachelorhood, grow in responsibility, develop a new set of friends, and realize the value of safety. By successfully embracing these challenges, his life is enriched on the personal level and new motivations are provided for his professional endeavors. In facing innumerable challenges, sharing joys and sorrows, a father becomes more and more a father. The same, of course, could be said of a priest. The priest is also called to accept, die to bachelorhood, intercede, guide, support, grow in maturity, etc. With a vocation well-answered, a man is more a father when he physically dies than when his child was simply conceived or adopted. And so is a priest.
One of the key changes that I mentioned above while embracing the fatherhood is a new set of friends. I would like to say more about that. A natural or adopted father, due to the changing circumstances of life, is often forced to find a new circle of friends. I would argue that maybe for the first time in his life, he does not look for friends of pleasure or of utility but for true friends. In other words, he leaves behind his buddies to look for friends. His bachelorhood is over. The superficial pleasures of life give way to more profound relationships. Even if the old relationships are continued, they enter a more profound level. I would venture to say that the old friendships continue only with those of a similar stature. In other words, a committed man looks for a committed friend due to the similarity of life experience and interest. The relationships with the younger men assume the model of mentorship. Moreover, he devotes more time within the circle of one’s family and/or family of the spouse. The same happens with priests. Upon ordination, he becomes a cleric and enters a particular presbyterate. From now on, he devotes more time to develop relationships with his brother priests. Similar to a natural father, a priest spends more time and develops relationships with those already living within committed relationships and assumes the role of mentorship toward children and youth. Entering the presbyterate brings with it the danger of clericalism, but it does not have to. It only does so if priestly friendships are built upon contempt toward the laity. Most of the time, however, the purpose of those relationships is mutual support, venting, and/or relaxation. As the saying goes, birds of a feather flock together. In a situation where most of priests live alone, presbyterial gatherings and friendships are to be encouraged rather than discouraged.
Fr. Olson not only accuses priestly fatherhood of breathing clericalism, but also of a host of issues related to procreation and celibacy. He writes: “It overtly spiritualizes sexual union in some phantasmagorical relation of the individual priest with the Church and is a distortion of metaphorical language found in the tradition.” 15 This is a serious charge, and it needs to be taken seriously for two reasons. First, the Church must be very vigilant to eliminate even the slightest possibility of sexual abuse. Second, the temptation of spiritualization is very real especially in those priests suffering from hindered sexual development. In an overtly sexualized society in which the exposure to pornography happens early on, the process of healing and of integration is
long and arduous. The danger is to shorthand it. One must be careful as to not get deceived. Honest friendships and sound psychological help are both of utmost importance. The same could be said of the devotion to St. Joseph.
A priestly fatherhood is more like that of St. Joseph than that of natural fathers. The priest,like St. Joseph, is called to live in a chaste state, taking care of children that are not his own. St. Joseph cared for Mary and Jesus. Priests are called to care for the Church who is symbolically represented as Mary and for the people entrusted to their care. French theologian Jean-Pierre Battut expresses this thought writing: “If Mary is in her motherhood a figure of the Church, Joseph in his turn is a figure of the priest, who effaces himself before Him whom he represents (that is, both Christ the High Priest and the Father whom he makes present….and who, in effacing himself, communicates Him sacramentally to men.” 16 Furthermore, even though St. Joseph’s life was neither flashy nor easy, the greatest treasures in the history of the world were entrusted to him Jesus and Mary. The same is true for the Catholic priest. Finally, as Pope Francis reminds us, in his unnoticed, daily, discreet, and hidden presence, St. Joseph and priests “remind us that those who appear hidden or in the shadows can play an incomparable role in the history of salvation.”17
The Priest as Spiritual Father in Christ
At this point, we arrive at the most theological among Fr. Olson’s arguments against presenting “fatherhood” as the core of identity for the priest. Fr. Olson writes: “The Catholic priest is not conformed to God the Father. His identification is with Jesus the Christ, the mediator between God and mankind. While the providential function of a mediator in this context may look like the providential care of God the Father, the identification is distinct. Fr. Olson writes: “The Catholic priest performs the role of Christ and acts in the person of Christ, his identification is with Christ.” 18 This is true. St. Paul, for instance, claims that he acts as an ambassador of Christ (2 Cor. 5:19-20). St. Thomas Aquinas uses this text of St. Paul to claim that the priest acts in persona Christi. German theologian Heinrich Schlier points out “the priest is someone who receives the mission of representing the self-offering of Jesus Christ for the world.”19 In the same vein, Cardinal Ratzinger speaks of the essence of the Catholic priesthood as sharing in the kenosis of Christ. He remarks that “the fact the priest does not speak about himself, but bears the message of another, certainly does not mean that he is not personally involved, but precisely the opposite: it is a givingaway-of-the-self in Christ that he takes up the path of his Easter mystery, and leads to a true finding of-the-self, and communion with him who is the Word of God in person.”20 So, it seems that the claim of Fr. Olson is solid. For a priest to claim identification with God the Father would be theologically problematic and even heretical. Yet Spanish theologian José Granados in his 2009 article “Priesthood: A Sacrament of the Father,” claims that a priest acting in the person of Christ acts in the name of Christ as father. What does that mean?
In the above-mentioned article Fr. Granados desires to deepen the understanding of the Second Vatican Council’s claim that the priest acts in persona Christi capitis. The conciliar teaching belongs to the Pauline theology of Christ’s body as developed by St. Paul against the backdrop of the Old Testament notion of corporate personality. In this view, writes Granados, “the image of the body does not refer only to an organic connection of the members, but also expresses the deepest meaning of personal relationships. […] Relationship is seen in them from the outset as what it truly is: a constitutive part of human identity.” 21 But this is only the first step. At the root of Israel’s understanding of corporate personality lies the experience of fatherhood. In the Jewish mindset, the children are already present in their fathers. So, we were all present in Adam, the
children of Israel were already present in the patriarchs, and all Christians in Christ. In that vision, the human being is open from within to his offspring. Consequently, the Pauline image of Christ’s headship has paternal characteristics. Granados writes: “The sacrament, by identifying the priest with Christ the head, refers him to Christ’s fatherhood, that is, to his work inasmuch as he gives new life to humanity, and makes visible God the Father’s original love. The priest is identified with Christ as the source of eternal life.” 22 The priest becomes a minister of divine gifts only in virtue of his belonging to Christ.
Fr. Granados not only claims that the priest acts in the person of Christ as father but also that his acting flows out of his very identity. In other words, he understands the doctrine of sacramental character as that of spiritual fatherhood. As we know, the Church teaches that three sacraments baptism, confirmation, and holy orders cannot be repeated because they leave an indelible mark on the soul and in the life of the person that affects his or her very identity. Thus, in the sacrament of baptism the imprinted character communicates in a definitive way the divine sonship. From that point on, one is a son or daughter in Jesus Christ. The character also has an eschatological form. The same could be said of the priesthood. It also possesses an eschatological form and shares in the same definitiveness as baptism. From the perspective of the person as relational, the sacramental character is the participation in Christ’s fatherhood. The priest is identified with Christ as the source of life eternal. As a father his being is enlarged to include the children that are entrusted to his pastoral care. In other words, his spiritual fatherhood requires that the priest shares generously in the life of his brethren by sharing in their joys and sorrows.
In this short article, I tried to respond to Fr. Olson’s article, which heavily criticized the theology of fatherhood as the basis for the understanding of priestly identity. We need to be grateful to Fr. Olson for his criticism because it allows us to think deeper about the issue. Furthermore, Fr. Olson’s article springs from a deep-seated concern for the good of the Catholic priesthood. Fr. Olson wrote his article in order to promote a renewal of the priesthood that is deeply rooted in the Tradition of the Church. I am afraid, however, that he mischaracterizes the theology of the priesthood as “fatherhood.”
In this article I desired to show several ways in which Fr. Olson mischaracterized that theology and to provide some reasons for the attractiveness of this theology, especially for the generation of priests that came after Pastores Dabo Vobis. That generation of priests and seminarians desire to give themselves wholeheartedly to the mission of the Church in the midst of the raging storm of clergy sexual abuse. The theology of fatherhood allows them to weather the storm with a sense of purpose and dedication. Let me finish with one more observation. According to St. Ignatius of Loyola, one of the ways to discern the goodness or badness of a project or of an action is to see the fruits that it bears. In applying this criterion, the theology of priesthood as fatherhood bears fruits of renewal and of apostolic zeal. Consequently, I think it warrants at least a slow nod of approval, if not a round of applause.
1 Reverend David Olson, “Spiritual Fatherhood in Priestly Identity,” Chicago Studies 58.2 (Fall/Winter 2019/2020), 2937, 29.
2 Deacon James Keating, Spiritual Fathers: A Workbook for Priests and Dads (Omaha: IPF Publications, 2010).
3 Fr. Ezra Sullivan, OP, Alter Christus: Priestly Holiness on Earth and in Eternity (Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press, 2022), 35.
4 It is interesting to note that both words denote a leadership quality. The Italian word Don is an abbreviation of the Latin word Dominus, meaning Lord, and is a reminder of the Lordship of God. The same is true in Polish where the word ksiądz derives from the word książe, which means prince and lord.
5 See, among others, Carter Griffin, Supernatural Fatherhood through Priestly Celibacy: Fulfillment in Masculinity: A Thomistic Study (Washington, DC: Createspace, 2011); Jacques Philippe, Priestly Fatherhood: Treasure in Earthen Vessels (New York: Scepter, 2021); “Paternity” in Communio International Catholic Review 36 (Summer 2009); Msgr. Massimo Camisasca, “The Father, a Source of Communion: Fatherhood as the Generation of Life, Freedom, and Love” in Communio International Catholic Review 37 (Fall 2010) 539-547; Msgr. Massimo Camisasca, “Called to be Fathers in the Church,” in Communio International Catholic Review 37 (Fall 2010): 539-547.
6 Pius XII, Menti Nostrae (1950), §20.
7 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Life and Ministry of Priests, available at https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cclergy/documents/rc_con_cclergy_doc_24101995_prh_en.html
8 Ratzinger, Life and Ministry of Priests
9 John 14: 8-10: “Philip said, ‘Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.’ Jesus answered: ‘Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?’”
10 Matthew 20:28: “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
11 Ephesians 4:11-13: “Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”
12 David Olson, “Spiritual Fatherhood,” 33.
13 Matthias Joseph Scheeben, The Mysteries of Christianity, trans. Cyril Vollert (New York: Herder and Herder, 1946), 548.
14 St. Leo the Great, Sermo 22 in nat. Dom., 3:PL 54, 192C.
15 David Olson, “Spiritual Fatherhood,” 33.
16 Jean-Pierre Battut, “Calling Fathers ‘Father’: Usurping the Name of God?” in Communio: International Catholic Review 36 (Summer 2009): 295-308, 304.
17 Pope Francis, Apostolic Letter Patris Corde: On the 150th Anniversary of Proclamation of St. Joseph as Patron of the Universal Church, December 8, 2020, available at https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_letters/documents/papafrancesco-lettera-ap_20201208_patris-corde.pdf
18 David Olson, “Spiritual Fatherhood,” 31.
19 Heinrich Schlier, “Grundelemente des priesterlichen Amten im Neuen Testament,” in Theologie und Philosophie 44 (1969): 161-180, 166, 175.
20 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Life and Ministry of Priests.
21 José Granados, “Priesthood: A Sacrament of the Father,” in Communio International Catholic Review 36 (Summer 2009): 186-218, 206.
22 José Granados, “Priesthood: A Sacrament of the Father,” 210.
Authors’ Page
Dr. Massimo Faggioli
Massimo Faggioli is Professor in Ecclesiology at the Loyola Institute at Trinity College Dublin (Ireland). Between 2016 and 2025 he was Professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University (Philadelphia, USA). His recent publications include: The Liminal Papacy of Pope Francis: Moving Toward Global Catholicity (2020); The Oxford Handbook of Vatican II, co-edited with Catherine Clifford (2023); and Theology and Catholic Higher Education: Beyond Our Identity Crisis (2024). He is co-author of Global Catholicism: Between Disruption and Encounter (2024) with Bryan Froehle, with whom he co-founded and now co-edits the series “Studies in Global Catholicism” for Brill Publishers.
Dr. Harold (Bud) Horell
Harold (Bud) Horrell is currently the Margaret and Chester Paluch Chair of Theology at the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary in Mundelein, Illinois. His degrees include the following: B.A. (Political Science and Philosophy) and M.A. (Philosophy), University of Dayton; M.T.S. (Ethics and Society), Harvard Divinity School; and Ph.D. (Theology and Education), Boston College, Institute of Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry He has published extensively, including articles in Religion, Religious Education, and Contributions to the Christian Educators of the 20th Century Online Database. He is the co-editor with Donna Eschenauer of Reflections on Renewal: Lay Ecclesial Ministry and the Church from Liturgical Press (2011) and with Thomas H. Groome of Horizons and Hopes: The Future of Religious Education from Paulist Press (2003).
Dr. María Barga
María Barga is Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary. She received her Ph.D. in Biblical Studies from the Catholic University of America where her work included studies on the Qur’an and Neo-Assyrian prophecies. Her research and courses incorporate elements of comparative scripture as well as suffering in the Bible. She is a member of the Catholic Biblical Association and participates in a Catholic-Muslim Scholars Dialogue sponsored by the Archdiocese of Chicago, the American Islamic College, and the Catholic-Muslim Studies Program at Catholic Theological Union. Recent works include “Redeeming Zechariah: Silence as Mercy in Luke 1 and Q. 3 and Q. 19” in Routledge’s Reading the Bible in Islamic Context series and a co -authored chapter (“My/Our Servant Job: Creation and Temptation as a Guide to Understanding Job as God’s Servant”) in Brill’s Companion to Comparative Theology.
Rev. John Guthrie
Fr. John Guthrie is a priest of the Diocese of Bismarck, North Dakota. Ordained in 1990, he has served as pastor of several parishes in his home diocese as well as the Director of Continuing Education and Vicar General. He also served on the staff for the Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life, and Vocations at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington, DC. His latest assignment is serving as the Director of Worship at the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary in Mundelein, Illinois.
Rev. Marek Duran
Fr. Marek Duran is Associate Professor of Moral Theology at the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary in Mundelein, Illinois. He holds an M.Div. and S.T.L. from the University of Saint Mary of the Lake, and a S.T.D. from the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Rome. He is a certified spiritual director through the Institute for Priestly Formation in Omaha. His recent publications include “The Virtues of Christian Leadership” (2020); “Be Compassionate as your Father is Compassionate (Lk 6:36): Avoiding the Pitfalls of Compassion” (2019); “Edith Stein and the World’s Peace” (2019); and “Memory, Morality, and the Joy of the Gospel” (2016). He is a member of the Society of Christian Ethics and the Academy of Catholic Theology and currently serves as the President of the Pontifical Faculty of Theology at the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary.