A Year with the Catechism. Petroc Willey, Dominic Scotto, Donald Asci, & Elizabeth Siegel

his eating with sinners, and his casting out of demons are the sacramentum that reveal the kingdom, the hidden reality, or mysterium, of salvation.

      From the very beginning of his ministry Jesus proclaimed this kingdom (541), for he was sent from the Father to “draw all men to myself” (Jn 12:32), and the proclamation of the kingdom was the entire focus of all that he said and did during his earthly life. The hidden work of salvation was achieved and revealed above all in the “Easter mystery,” the “Paschal mystery,” in which the sacramentum of the Cross and Resurrection express the mysterium of God’s redeeming love, and Jesus’ kingdom overthrows the kingdom of the devil (550).

      Today we enter into that kingdom, and are joined to the work of salvation, through the Church — the gathering of people around Jesus that the Son established through his appointment of Simon Peter and the Twelve. Jesus associated these men forever with his kingdom, and it is through them that he “directs the Church” (551).

      Day 77

       CCC 554-560

      The Transfiguration and Entry into Jerusalem

      The more we understand, the more God can show us. As soon as Saint Peter understood that Jesus was the Christ, Jesus could begin showing him what this really meant, the King of unconquerable love who would suffer and die but rise triumphant and undefeated.

      But every act of understanding is hard won, for the fallen mind is dull, the heart obtuse (see 37): “Peter scorns this prediction, nor do the others understand it any better than he” (554). As we saw, God’s pedagogy is gradual and in stages (53), and the Blessed Trinity works always to open the eyes of our mind to understand the true nature of reality. And now “for a moment Jesus discloses his divine glory” (555). Jesus reveals more of his divinity in order to help the disciples receive more fully the depths of love in God’s saving plan (see the quotation from the Byzantine Liturgy in 555). In the end it is only children, the angels, and “God’s poor” who will have the simplicity and insight to see Christ’s glory, revealed in his humility, and welcome him into Jerusalem as the true King, bringing salvation (559).

      All that the Father reveals to us, through Christ and the Holy Spirit, is for the sake of our own entering into the new life of grace made possible by the Son’s Incarnation. Jesus has united his life to ours so we might unite ours to his (521). In the Transfiguration we are shown a glimpse of our blessed future in Christ — the glorious resurrected body — and by this glimpse we are given the added strength we need now to follow the way that Christ has shown us. Again we notice the double way in which this whole section invites us to share in the life of Christ — through the events of everyday life in which the perfect will of the Father may be received and through the grace of the sacraments and the liturgical year (556, 559-560).

      Day 78

      CCC 571-573

      The Passion, Death and Burial of Jesus

      These short introductory paragraphs lead us to the center of the Good News. That center is the “Paschal mystery”: the events concerning Jesus that took place around the Jewish Feast of Pasch, or Passover — his passion, death and burial, and then his resurrection. We are at the very center here because, the Catechism tells us, these events mark the accomplishment of God’s saving plan. The final and definitive nature of this accomplishment is underlined by the phrase taken from the Letter to the Hebrews: “once for all” (9:26). With the death and resurrection of Jesus, God’s plan is complete. As Jesus said, “It is finished” (Jn 19:30). Jesus, having loved his own, has loved them to the end. Having been obedient to his Father, he has been obedient to the end. In the words of Saint Irenaeus, quoted in CCC 518, Jesus has now “experienced all the stages of life” and by this has made possible the gift of “communion with God to all men.”

      These paragraphs impress upon us that this accomplishment was achieved in a “historical, concrete form” (572). God’s plan is not accomplished in the realm of ideas or ideals; its accomplishment was achieved at a particular time and place. It took place in the flesh. There are historical records that record the events (573). In the pages to come, the Catechism will refer time and again to the factual nature of this completion of God’s plan.

      A final point worth noting is the reference to the Church’s faithfulness to the interpretation Jesus gave “of ‘all the Scriptures’” (572). We know that “all divine Scripture” speaks of Christ (134). We see here that he is also its interpreter. It is Jesus himself who taught the disciples, and it is the Church’s faithfulness to this interpretation that underlies her God-given teaching.

      Day 79

       CCC 574-576

      Jesus and Israel

      The paragraphs we read today explain the religious reasons for the conflicts which led ultimately to Jesus’ death. They center upon three points in particular, points which are summarized in CCC 576: Jesus’ attitude towards the Law, towards the Temple, and towards faith in the One God. As you can see, these are taken up as the main headings following these paragraphs, and we will spend time on each area over the next few days.

      We sometimes express doubt by saying that a message or an account sounds “too good to be true.” In each of the areas of conflict in Jesus’ life, those who opposed him were facing a reality that must, to them, have seemed too good to be true. God acted “far beyond all expectation” (422) in sending his own beloved Son. Because of who he is, Jesus sums up and fulfills all of the “institutions of the Chosen People” (576). Jesus is the priest, prophet, and king; he is the true Temple and the real sacrifice; he is the giver of the new Law, the meaning of every feast and celebration; he is the revealer of what it means to say that God is One, as a Trinity of Persons in an eternal communion of love.

      When Jesus came, sent from his Father, he acted in ways that made sense in the light of his identity and mission, but they were “far beyond all expectation” and so-called for a decision on the part of those who witnessed or experienced them. The Catechism lists some of his actions, signs of “contradiction” (Lk 2:34; CCC 575), that led to conflict (574). He called for a radical conversion in the light of these signs of the in-breaking kingdom he was establishing. The Catechism notes how understandable it was, in the face of “so surprising a fulfillment of the promises” (591), that many rejected him. In Jesus, they experienced the limitless nature of God’s love.

      Day 80

       CCC 577-582

      Jesus and the Law

      Jesus will not allow us to oppose law and grace, or the New Testament against the Old Testament. Jesus is not a “soft option” set against a stern, unyielding Old Testament law. He does not overthrow what has come before. He fulfills it, completes it, strengthens it, builds on it. Jesus keeps all the promises made in the time of the Old Covenant. He is the “Yes” of God (see 2 Cor 1:20), the Confirmation of the truth of what his Father has been revealing gradually by stages (see 53, 65).

      The Sermon on the Mount — the collection of Jesus’ teachings gathered in Matthew 5-7 — both affirms and radically deepens what was given to the People of God in the Old Testament. Jesus wants for us not only the good action but the pure motivation, not only what the hand can give but what the heart can release. His teaching is truly “radical” in the etymological sense of “going to the root.” We have already seen that in biblical and Christian teaching the heart is central to an understanding of the person (368, 478; see also 2562-2563).

      Jesus not only affirms the goodness of the whole Law, but keeps it fully and in every respect (578-580). In Jesus, God the Son lives the very Law that has its origin and source in him. He lives it in and through the human nature he assumed. Through his words and actions he shows what the true Law looks like.

      The conflicts over the Law lay in Jesus’ claim to be