Uncovering the Riches of our Catholic Heritage
Introduction
In all ages the Catholic Church has been abundantly fruitful in sanctity and learning and has produced both Saints and outstanding theological and devotional writings. Catholics are the heirs of a truly rich tradition! Yet often enough, today's most-informed layperson is familiar only with the Saints and traditions of the last few centuries. The spiritual and theological wealth of the Church's earliest periods remains mostly hidden and unknown.
In Fall 2010, St. Charles Borromeo offered an eight-week course on some of the most important figures and documents of the earliest eras of the Catholic Christian faith. We studied various writings from ancient Saints and theologians such as St. Clement of Rome, St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Justin, and St. Irenaeus. These writings from the first and second centuries A.D. profoundly deepened our knowledge and understanding of the Apostolic and Scriptural roots of our Catholic faith.
Come join us as we start up again this winter and continue our journey through the third, fourth, and early fifth centuries, exploring the writings of Tertullian, Origen, St. Cyprian, St. Athanasius, and St. Augustine. We will also be learning about the beginnings of monasticism and the theological contributions of the first four ecumenical councils.
This group study is an initiative led by David Tedesche, the resident seminarian at St. Charles. It is provided primarily for parishioners of St. Charles, yet it is open to all Catholics in the diocese. Young adults of high school age are also welcome — as are Christians of other denominations. The first meeting of our renewed course will be Wednesday January 19th from 7:00-8:30 pm in meeting room 28 in the school building at St. Charles Borromeo. For more in-depth information about this course or for any changes, check the Saint Charles website. All who are interested in joining us, please call David Tedesche at 585-663-3230 (ext. 103) or email him at dtedesche@dor.org. Or just show up! Come join us and together we can uncover the riches of our Catholic heritage!
Some Primary Aims of the Course:
This course, in many ways, is really an introduction to patristic literature. "Patristic literature" is so called because it is literature written during the "patristic era." There are various ways to date the limits of the patristic era, but in general we are talking about the first five or six hundred years of the Church's existence. These early centuries are called "patristic" from the Latin word pater, which means "father." They are thus the centuries of the Church Fathers — the "Fathers" being the Church's earliest theologians responsible for passing on and articulating the body of doctrine that was revealed through Christ and the Apostles in the first century. Here follows a list of some of the patristic texts and authors from which this course will be drawing: The Didache, St. Clement of Rome, St. Ignatius of Antioch, the Epistle to Diognetus, The Shepherd of Hermas, St. Justin, The Martyrdom of Polycarp, The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity, The Martyrs of Vienne and Lyon, St. Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, St. Cyprian, Eusebius, St. Athanasius, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, The Life of Anthony, History of the Monks In Egypt, Palladius, Cassian, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, St. Epiphanius, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. John Chrysostom, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, St. Vincent of Lerins.
Another aim of this course — maybe the most fundamental one — is simply adult catechesis in Catholic doctrine and spirituality. Learning is not just for kids! As we grow up and progress through life, we never stop learning. We learn social skills and we learn household economics. We acquire the knowledge necessary to be successful in our trades or professions. Some of us even dedicate ourselves to a certain field of knowledge and become experts in the natural sciences or in the humanities for purposes maybe of research or teaching. But often enough, we Catholics never make equal progress in our religious knowledge. Yet, religious knowledge is the most important knowledge we can acquire in this life, and the Catholic religion is at least as and in many ways much more complex, multifaceted, and subtle, (and interesting!) than any other field of knowledge we could study. Canon 229 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law states, "Lay persons are bound by the obligation and possess the right to acquire knowledge of Christian doctrine appropriate to the capacity and condition of each in order for them to be able to live according to this doctrine, announce it themselves, defend it if necessary, and take their part in exercising the apostolate." Adult Catholics need to study their faith at an adult level. This course aims simply to be a tool interested Catholics can use to fulfill this duty of theirs. As we go through our various texts, we will have many occasions to discuss some of the following theological topics:
- apostolic Christianity and primitive Catholicism
- the ecclesial hierarchy, Apostolic Succession, the Episcopate
- the relation between Scripture, Tradition, Magisterium
- the Old and New Testament Scriptural canon
- authorship and canonicity of the New Testament Scriptures
- Old Testament prophecy and Christianity as the fulfillment of Judaism
- the Catholic method of accessing Christian revelation and the Protestant principle of sola scriptura
- the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist
- asceticism and celibacy
- the spirituality of martyrdom and monasticism
- spiritual charisms in the ancient Church
- the concept of "development of doctrine"
- the development of the penitential system
- the development of Christian liturgy
- Trinitarian theology and Christology in the pre-Nicene and Nicene eras
- the definitions and dogma of the first four ecumenical Councils
- the shift from primitive Catholicism to historical Catholicism in the 4th century
- the beginning of Christendom — Church and State issues
- the cult of the saints
- religious art and the veneration of icons
- Marian dogma: her perpetual virginity, unique sanctity, transitus
- primitive eschatology and millennialism
A final major goal of this course is to help deepen the participant's knowledge of Sacred Scripture. The Church Fathers can help us comprehend the Scriptures like nothing else. This is so because they were closer than us to the age when the Scriptures were written. They were closer than us to the era of revelation and were the immediate recipients of the traditions of the Apostles. In fact, some of them were the direct disciples of Apostles. This historical proximity to revelation places them in a position to know what they are talking about when it comes to what the apostles taught and wrote. As we read through these patristic texts, we will constantly be referencing the New Testament and the Bible in general. It will be Scripture as well as the Fathers that provide the basis of our study of Catholic doctrine.
What to Expect and What to Bring
Every week there will be a modest amount of reading that will be assigned at the end of the class in preparation for the next class. So for every meeting, the material will have been read before the participant shows up. We are talking about something like 10 pages of material a week. This amount, though, is very flexible and can be adjusted to match the interests and time of the individual participant. It might turn into a guided reading course for one person while for another the meetings alone are attended and there is only a very small amount of reading that is done outside the class.
The participant should bring the weekly reading material and a Bible. Pretty much any Bible will do, whether the translation is protestant or Catholic. However, I recommend the RSV Catholic Edition. Inter-linear Bibles or Bibles in the original Greek and Hebrew are welcome.