Questions on the Forgiveness of Sins, Resurrection of the Body, and Life Everlasting (¶976-1065)

1. Why is the sacrament of Penance necessary if Baptism fully cleanses us from all sin?


2. What is the nature of the body in the resurrection? How is it similar or different from ours?


3. When will the resurrection of the all the dead occur?


4. How is human death transformed by Christ?


5. Why is Christianity opposed to Gnosticism?


6. What is the “beatific vision”? How does it differ from a deep spiritual insight or vision?


7. Why is Purgatory necessary if one is already assured of eternal salvation?


8. What makes hell a punishment?


9. What does the Church mean by the final “consummation”? How does this differ from the resurrection of the dead?


10. How does the teaching about the “new heavens and new earth” inform how we live today?

Week 9: One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church (¶748-975)

“The Kingdom”
By R. S. Thomas

It’s a long way off but inside it
There are quite different things going on:
Festivals at which the poor man
Is king and the consumptive is
Healed; mirrors in which the blind look
At themselves and love looks at them
Back; and industry is for mending
The bent bones and the minds fractured
By life. It’s a long way off, but to get
There takes no time and admission
Is free, if you will purge yourself
Of desire, and present yourself with
Your need only and the simple offering
Of your faith, green as a leaf.

1. The Trinity and the Church

The Church is connected to each of the three Persons of the Trinity. According to the Catechism, the Church is “born in the Father’s heart,” is “instituted by Christ Jesus,” and is finally revealed and sanctified by the Holy Spirit (¶759, 763, 767). Later, the Catechism speaks of the Church as (1) the People of God, (2) the Body of Christ, and (3) the Temple of the Holy Spirit. Here again we see the Trinity reflected in the Church’s identity.

2. The Marks of the Church

2.1. Visible and Invisible (¶771): The Church is both visible and invisible, because while she is “in history,” she also transcends history. The combination of visibility and invisibility means that the Church is both a social institution and a spiritual community. As a social institution, the Church is hierarchically structured with physical buildings and social orders. In its visibility, then, the Church is made up of many individual congregations who all join in one liturgy and share in the basic physical tasks of evangelization, feeding the hungry, and carrying on the work of the Apostles, for example. As a spiritual community, the Church is bound together by the Spirit in the person of Jesus Christ. The invisible Church is united in both time and space. While we commune physically with those who are in our immediate community, we commune spiritually with those who are on the other side of the world as well as with those who have already died and those who have yet to be born. The Church, as the Catechism tells us, “is essentially both human and divine, visible but endowed with invisible realities.”

2.2. One (¶813-22): The Church is one because God is one. The oneness or unity of the Church is truly and primarily a mark of the visible Catholic Church, but it is also a spiritual reality which includes those who have been incorporated into Christ through Baptism. While the Church condemns past division, she also celebrates the common faith in Christ.

2.3. Holy (¶823-29): The Church is holy because God is holy. The Church is holy by being sanctified in Christ and by living in love. The holiness of the Church does not mean, however, that those in the Church are not still sinners, and in this sense we have to distinguish between the Church as pilgrim and the Church as the final eschatological Kingdom, represented by Mary.

2.4. Catholic (¶830-56): The Church is catholic because God is catholic. The word “catholic” means “universal,” but it has a particular nuance: whereas “universal” suggests spreading out, “catholic” suggests gathering together. Universal suggests the spread of something everywhere; catholic suggests the connection of all things to a particular center. Both words thus identify the nature of the Church: she is sent out to the whole of the human race, but she then gathers them together and binds them to a specific center, namely, Jesus Christ.

2.5. Apostolic (¶857-65): The Church is apostolic because God is apostolic and has founded the Church on Christ’s apostles. Jesus is Father’s Apostle (¶858), who then instituted human apostles to carry on his mission of reconciliation through the proclamation of the gospel and the celebration of the sacraments.

2.6. Sacrament of Union and Unity (¶774-76): A “sacrament” is a visible sign and instrument of an invisible mystery. Christ himself is the primary sacrament, whose saving work is made present through the sacraments of the Church. But the Church herself is a sacrament, in that she is the sign and instruments of our union with god and our unity together as the human race. The Church binds us together and binds us to God, and thus she is the sacrament of God’s invisible grace.

3. The Relation Between Christ and the Church

3.1. Prophet, Priest, and King (¶783-86, 901-13)

3.2. Body and Bride of Christ (¶790-96)

3.3. The Missionary God and the Missionary Church (¶849-55)

4. The Relation Between Mary and the Church

4.1. Mary the Mother of the Church (¶964-70)

4.2. Mary the Icon of the Church (¶972)

5. The Relation Between the Church and the World

5.1. The Church and Other Religions (¶836-44)

5.2. The Call to Evangelism (¶846-48)

5.3. The Church and the World’s Future (¶845)

Week 8: The Holy Spirit—The Power of New Life (¶683-747)

1. “On the Holy Spirit”
By Scott Cairns

If, upon taking up this or any scripture,
or upon lifting your one good eye to inspect
the faintly green expanse of field already
putting forth its late winter gauze of grasses,

you come to suspect a hushed conversation
under way, you may also find sufficient grounds
to suspect that difficult disposition
we call the Ghost, river or thread drawn through us,

which, rippled as any taut rope might be, lifts
or drops us as if riding a wave, and which fends
off, for brief duration, our dense encumberment
—this flesh and its confusions—if not completely,

if only enough that the burdens be felt, just
shy of crushing us.


2. The Self-Effacing Spirit

While the Father and the Son are both very “public” persons of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is “self-effacing.” Whereas the Father and the Son call attention to themselves, so to speak, the Spirit calls our attention away from himself and toward the Son. Like John the Baptist, the Spirit points away from himself to the person of Jesus Christ. The Spirit does not speak about himself but about the Word made flesh. But the Spirit’s self-effacement is also the occasion for the Spirit’s ubiquity. The Spirit is ever-present as the one who directs us to Christ and, through Christ, to the Father. The Spirit is involved in every dimension and aspect of the gospel—from creation to Israel to the prophets to Christ to the Church to the new creation—and we see this ubiquity reflected in the Spirit’s presence throughout the Catechism. Like a stagehand who keeps a theater running, the Spirit is essential to the drama of salvation, though never as the main actor on the stage.

3. The Work of the Spirit

The Spirit’s work falls into the following broad categories:

(1) preparation,
(2) revelation,
(3) communication,
(4) participation,
(5) actualization, and
(6) consummation.

4. The Trinitarian Mission of God

St. Irenaeus writes: “For those who bear God’s Spirit are led to the Word, that is, to the Son, and the Son presents them to the Father, and the Father confers incorruptibility on them. And it is impossible to see God’s Son without the Spirit, and no one can approach the Father without the Son, for the knowledge of the Father is the Son, and the knowledge of God’s Son is obtained through the Holy Spirit.” (¶683)

Week 7: Jesus Christ—Savior of the World (¶571-667)

1. How It Was
By St. Melito of Sardis (Scott Cairns, Love’s Immensity)

The earth trembled; its foundations
shook like silt; the sun, chagrined,
fled the scene, and every mundane
element scattered in retreat. The day
became the night: for light could not endure
the image of the Master hanging on a tree.
All creation was astonished, perplexed
and stammering, What new mystery is this?
The Judge is judged, and yet He holds his peace;
the Invisible One is utterly exposed, and yet
is not ashamed; the Incomprehensible is grasped,
and will not turn indignant; the Immensity
is circumscribed, and acquiesces; the absolutely
Unattainable suffers, and yet does not avenge;
the Immortal dies, and utters not a word;
the Celestial is pressed into the earthen grave,
and He endures! What new mystery is this?
The whole creation, I say, was astonished;
but, when our Lord stood up in Hades—
trampling death underfoot, subduing
the strong one, setting every captive free—
then all creation saw clearly that for its sake
the Judge was condemned, et cetera.
For our Lord, even when He deigned
to be born, was condemned in order
that He might show mercy, was bound
that He might loose, was seized
that He might release, suffered
that He might show compassion, died
that He might give life, was laid in the grave
that He might rise, might raise.

2. The Redemptive Mission of Christ

2.1. Incarnation (¶456-83)
2.2. Life (¶516-21, 606-07)
2.3. Passion and Death (¶608-30)
2.4. Descent into Hell (¶631-37)
2.5. Resurrection (¶638-58)
2.6. Ascension (¶659-67)
2.7. Return/Second Advent (¶668-82)

3. The Atonement

3.1. Metaphors for the Atonement

- recapitulation
- ransom
- satisfaction
- victory (of Christ)/defeat (of Death)
- sacrifice (Paschal Lamb)
- Suffering Servant

3.2. Conceptual Models

- Legal: the Lawgiver who fulfilled the Law
- Forensic: the Judge who was judged
- Cultic/Priestly: the High Priest who was sacrificed
- Royal: the King who became the servant and was victorious in death

4. The Cross as an Event of Love

“It was as a humanly dead man that the Son descended to the dead, and not as a victorious living one with an Easter banner, such as is depicted in Eastern icons through an anticipatory projection of the Resurrection onto Holy Saturday. The Church has forbidden the singing of hallelujahs on this day. And yet this new dead man is different from all the rest. He has died purely from love, from divine-human love; indeed, his death was the supreme act of that love, and love is the most living thing that there is. Thus his really being dead . . . is also an act of his most living love. Here, in the utmost loneliness, [his love] is preached to the dead, indeed, even more: communicated (1 Pet. 3:19). The redemptive act of the Cross was by no means intended solely for the living, but also includes in itself all those who have died before or after it. Since this love-death of our Lord, death has taken on a quite different meaning; it can become for us an expression of our purest and most living love, assuming that we take it as a conferred opportunity to give ourselves unreservedly into the hands of God. It is then not merely an atonement for everything that we failed to do, but, beyond that, an earning of grace for others to abandon their egoism and choose love as their innermost disposition.” (Hans Urs von Balthasar, Credo, 53-54)

5. Closing Prayer

Gracious God, give to us a renewed understanding of the salvation accomplished through the death and resurrection of your Son and our Savior, Jesus Christ. Grant to us joy as we live our lives in faithful obedience to your calling. And give us peace through your Holy Spirit as we recognize our own mortality. Help us to live in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, in whose name we pray. Amen.

Week 6: Jesus Christ—True God and True Man (¶422-570)

“On the Mystery of the Incarnation”
By Denise Levertov

It’s when we face for a moment
the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know
the taint in our own selves, that awe
cracks the mind’s shell and enters the heart:
not to a flower, not to a dolphin,
to no innocent form
but to this creature vainly sure
it and no other is god-like, God
(out of compassion for our ugly
failure to evolve) entrusts,
as guest, as brother,
the Word.

“Who do you say that I am?” (Matt. 16:15; Mark 8:29; Luke 9:20)

1. Jesus, Christ, Only Son of God, Lord (¶430-55)

a. Jesus: He is the Savior of the world who delivers us from sin
b. Christ: He is the Messiah who fulfills the promise of redemption
c. Son of God: He is the eternal Son of the Father
d. Lord: He is the divine and sovereign king

2. Both divine and human, God and man (¶464-83)

a. The mystery of the incarnation is entirely rooted in the question of salvation. What must be true about Jesus for us to be saved by his life, death, and resurrection? This is the question that the church was forced to ask by the various controversies in the church.

b. On the one hand, Jesus must be truly divine, truly God in the flesh, because God alone is able to save. The church rejected Arianism, therefore, because it resulted in a Christ who is incapable of redeeming humanity. There are many different ways that the church has understood this mystery of salvation, and none of them has been accepted as the official doctrine of the church, so we can and should make use of them all. One view is that in Jesus, God conquered Satan and the forces of sin and evil. Another view is that in Jesus, God paid the debt of our sin. Another is that in Jesus, God reversed the disobedience of Adam and inaugurated a new humanity. These are all views that we find in Scripture, and they are just a few of the ways that the church has thought about the mystery of salvation. The important element is that in each view, salvation can only be accomplished by God. Humanity needs to be saved, and God alone is the Savior.

c. On the other hand, Jesus must be truly human, truly God in the flesh. The reason for this is expressed well in an axiom of the early church: “That which is not assumed is not saved.” Only what is brought into union with Christ is redeemed by Christ. If he only appeared human (Docetism), then our humanity is not healed. If he only took on a human body but not a human soul (Apollinarianism), then the center of our human identity is not healed. If he only indwelled in a human person but did not assume humanity to be his very own (Nestorianism), then our humanity is not healed. If human nature is dissolved into his divinity or if the divinity and humanity combine to form a composite nature (Monophysitism), then our humanity is not healed. If his human nature does not have its own activity and will (Monenergism, Monothelitism), then our humanity is not healed.

3. Fulfillment of the covenant (¶422, 489, 497, 522)

Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the Old Testament covenants, beginning with God’s covenant with Abraham and including the covenant at Sinai with Moses and the covenant with King David. Jesus came as the one in whom all the promises of God converged and found their ultimate fulfillment.

4. Born by the Spirit and of the Virgin Mary (§2: ¶484-511)

a. Christ’s birth “by the power of the Holy Spirit” affirms his eternal divine origin, as the Son of the Father within the eternal Trinity. The Spirit is involved through the life of Christ: at his conception, at his baptism, in his miraculous works of healing, and in his life of obedience unto death, and as the power of his Resurrection. The Spirit always accompanies the Son as the two “hands” of the Father.

b. Christ’s birth “of the Virgin Mary” is a mark of his purity and holiness, his freedom from corruption, and his redemptive mission. The virgin birth is also a sign of Christ as the New Adam: just as Adam came from virgin soil, so too Christ came a virgin woman. Mary herself is caught up in this redemptive reality of Christ. Her Immaculate Conception, her life of faithful obedience, and her final Assumption are all part of the overflow of Christ’s life to those around him—to Mary first and foremost, then to his disciples, his church, and to the whole world.

5. His whole life is the mystery of salvation (¶512ff.)

The Catechism very nicely tells the story of Jesus’ life by reading the Scriptures in the light of Christ’s incarnation, death, and resurrection. In other words, it reads the life of Christ in light of his beginning and end, his origin and telos. The Catechism thus affirms that his entire life is salvific, and not just the events captured in the creed. What the creed affirms is that the whole of Christ’s incarnate existence is integral to the mystery of our redemption.

6. Sacrament of salvation (¶515)

Jesus’ humanity is the first and true sacrament, in that his human nature is the visible manifestation of the invisible grace of our salvation. In his humanity, we encounter the “sign and instrument” of his eternal identity and divine mission. In the Eucharist, we partake of this humanity as Christ’s gift of grace to the church.

7. Revelation of God (¶516)

Jesus is the revelation of God. The Son reveals the Father, not only in his resurrection but in his entire life of obedience to the will of his Father in heaven.

8. Recapitulation of the human race (¶430, 518, 538-39)

Jesus is the New Adam, the recapitulation of human history, and the one who reverses our fall so that in him we might partake of the divine life.

9. “For us,” pro nobis (¶519-21)

According to Hans Urs von Balthasar, “The ‘pro nobis’ contains the innermost core of the interplay between God and man, the center of all theo-drama.” Only on the basis of the pro nobis is there a stage in the first place or actors upon this stage. The pro nobis stands at the center as the controlling principle of the Christ-event; it “sums up the covenant” as the basis for divine and human action “in a way that does not blur the distinction between Christ’s preeminence and his followers.” The christological pro nobis, moreover, does not merely indicate that what Christ accomplishes is “for our benefit,” but it also indicates that Christ achieves our reconciliation “from inside,” “in our place.”

Week 5: Sin and Evil (¶385-421)

Original Sin: A Disputation
By Edward T. Oakes
Copyright (c) 1998 First Things (November 1998).

No doctrine inside the precincts of the Christian Church is received with greater reserve and hesitation, even to the point of outright denial, than the doctrine of original sin. … [T]he doctrine of original sin is met with either embarrassed silence, outright denial, or at a minimum a kind of halfhearted lip service that does not exactly deny the doctrine but has no idea how to place it inside the devout life. Even the Universal Catechism of the Catholic Church, surprisingly enough, calls original sin a "sin" only in an analogous sense (#404), because unlike other (presumably real?) sins it is only contracted and not committed-a concession that would certainly have surprised Augustine, who had a vivid and almost physical/biological understanding of the First Sin.

Should We Believe in Original Sin?

Videtur quod peccatum originale non sit credibile: It would seem that original sin is not believable, and for the following three reasons. First of all, not only is the doctrine intolerably paradoxical, it is never once mentioned, as such, in the Bible, not even where it is taken to be most evident: in chapter 3 of Genesis and chapter 5 of St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Secondly, our understanding of both evolution and biblical science makes it even more obvious than before how far from the intent of the biblical authors was any doctrine of original sin (careful exegesis of Romans 5, for example, has led many scholars to hold that Augustine developed his view of original sin based on a mistranslation by the Vulgate of a verse in this chapter of Paul’s Letter to the Romans). Thirdly and finally, the doctrine damages souls. Belief in original sin leads to pessimism: it results in a resigned fatalism about changing those sinful structures that actually can be changed but which go unchallenged because they are all too lazily attributed to the effects of original sin, which by definition is a given and cannot be changed. (Hannah Arendt was rightly annoyed when she returned to Germany after World War II and discovered Germans were blaming Hitler, as well as their own romance with Nazism, on Adam and Eve, a subterfuge scarcely less vulgar than the common criminal’s pretext, "the devil made me do it.") …

Sed contra: on the contrary, the Psalmist says: "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me" (Psalm 51:5). Or, for those who would deny the authority of the Bible but need to be brought up short so as to question the seeming plausibility of all of the above, I cite Reinhold Niebuhr: "The truth is that, absurd as the classical Pauline doctrine of original sin may seem to be at first blush, its prestige as a part of the Christian truth is preserved, and perennially reestablished, against the attacks of rationalists and simple moralists by its ability to throw light upon complex factors in human behavior which constantly escape the moralists."

Respondeo: And therefore, to all of the above, I respond as follows: First of all, the doctrine of original sin is … an inference that arises from reflection on the reality of evil when considered in the light of ethical monotheism. John Henry Newman, for one, always insisted that original sin is the only way believers can make sense of the world when they contrast that world to their faith in God. … Ad primum: as for the first objection, it is not necessary for the Bible to mention the name of a doctrine for it either to be true or for it to be located there in so many other words. … Ad secundum: as to the second objection, as we have seen, the doctrine in its essence does not depend on the historicity of Genesis 1-3 (very few Christians in the world now refuse to admit the figural language of the first three chapters of the Bible). In fact, to historicize it, to read it "literally" (and it is doubtful that even fundamentalists think God takes afternoon strolls in His garden), distorts the point of the doctrine and forces Paul to contradict himself about the physical body being naturally mortal. … Ad tertium: as to the third objection, we must take seriously the testimony of those raised in, and later reacting against, Augustinian strains of Christianity who claim that a stress on original sin leads to a morbid preoccupation with and fear for one’s salvation. But this concern must be coupled with a sober reflection on the immense harm that has been unleashed on humanity by a denial of this doctrine. …

Finally and in conclusion, I would like to add my own version to this argument: to deny this doctrine is … to warp the very core of the Christian gospel: that God so loved the world that He sent his only Son to save that world from its sin.

Week 4: Creator, Creation, and Humanity (¶268-384)

1. The Mystery of the Triune Creator

1.1. The mystery of God’s power and will (¶270-72)

1.2. The mystery of God’s love and goodness (¶293-95)

1.3. The mystery of God’s transcendence and immanence (¶300)

1.4. The mystery of God’s providence and the reality of evil (¶302-314)

2. The Mystery of Creation

2.1. The mystery of creation’s origin and end (¶282-89, 345-49)

2.2. The mystery of “creation out of nothing” (¶296-98)

2.3. The mystery of angels (¶328-36)

3. The Mystery of Humanity

3.1. The mystery of the “image of God” (¶299, 356-57)

3.2. The mystery of human unity and distinction (¶344, 360-61, 369-72)

3.3. The mystery of body and soul (¶362-68)

3.4. The mystery of humanity as the mystery of Jesus Christ (¶359)