Читать книгу Do God's Will - DJ Ph.D. Love - Страница 4

With all due respect, the Catholic Church does a lousy job of teaching itself to its own. Most lay Catholics grow up with little understanding about why we do what we do. The sacraments, which are the lifeblood of the Church, often become mindless rituals empty of any meaning to their participants.

FOCUS, the Fellowship of Catholic University Students, estimates that 50% of all Catholic college students stop going to Mass by Christmas of their freshman year. By senior year this figure is 70%. It is a reflection of the poor foundation so many Catholic youth receive at home, in parochial schools and in their parishes. At the heart of this problem is that those who teach them -- their parents, CCD teachers and parochial school faculty -- often know almost as little about what the Church teaches and why as those who they teach by word and example.

Among the Documents of the Second Vatican Council is the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation. It explains that in order to understand Scripture we must keep it in its contexts. These include textual, historic and cultural. To them I would add linguistic as well. Trained in history among other disciplines, it is from this standpoint that I endeavor to explain many of the concepts included herein.

I am not a theologian, nor a member of the clergy. I possess no academic degree in theology. Then again, neither did any of the Apostles. In some ways, this can be an advantage over academic theology, since the latter sometimes overlooks what is so obvious to the historian. Besides, if I have listened to God and written what He wants then no credentials are necessary; and by the same token, if I have not listened well to God and written what He wants then no credentials would help.

This book is written by a layman for laymen in terms they can readily understand. It covers only the basics but does go in depth into them. I am no expert, nor would I be comfortable being called one. I can only relate how God has shaped and taught me, to the extent that I have allowed Him to do so.

Hopefully, this book will help Catholic parents and educators to give Catholic youth a better grounding in our faith tradition. It may also be useful for people who come from other traditions, especially those who are considering becoming Catholics, since so much misunderstanding exists among various other Christian denominations about the Catholic Church. I have used this same material for many years to teach those who wished to convert to the Catholic faith, as well as cradle Catholics from early teens to elderly adults.

It is always with trepidation that I agree to teach. In the Letter of James it says, “Few of you should be teachers because those of us who are teachers will face a stricter judgment.” I am too much of a sinner to make it even harder on myself to accept the gift of salvation. My consolation, though, is that the same letter also assures us that if we lead someone else to God then it will cover a multitude of our own sins. Therein lies hope…

There are two conventions which this book will follow. When giving Scriptural citations, I will provide only the chapter rather than specific verse. This is because we should always strive to keep passages from the Bible in all of their contexts. If you want to look them up, read the whole chapter. Secondly, I will at times repeat some of those quotes in more than one chapter, when applicable to each.