Traditional Catholic Teaching - Lesson 21 - The Daily Life of a Catholic

Lesson 21 - The Daily Life of a Catholic

We have now covered all the main points of the Catholic Faith. We have endeavoured to show that the Catholic religion is not just a series of facts that we learn by heart. It is a way of life. In fact it is the way of life which God has designed for all men. We have tried to show how the Catholic Church is not just an organisation but a living thing, the means by which Christ Our Lord still lives and works among men.

In this last lesson I want to give some idea of what the daily life of a good Catholic is. What are the ideals he reverences?

Prayer

In the first place the Catholic life is a life of prayer. A Catholic says his prayers when he gets up in the morning. He says them again before he goes to bed at night. He will make the Sign of the Cross and say a short prayer before and after meals. And from time to time during the day he will turn to God with short prayers such as:

Jesus mercy, Mary help.

Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.

In time of temptation he will say:

Lord, save me or I perish.

Maybe he does not put these into words. It may be that they simply pass through his mind and his heart goes up to God. But prayer for a Catholic is a perfectly natural thing. It does not need any ceremony or solemnity. He learns to talk to God, to Our Lord, to the Blessed Virgin, to the Saints with an easy yet respectful familiarity as a man talks to the members of his own family.

The Rosary

In many Catholic households it is the custom to say the Rosary together each evening. In fact one of the most characteristic Catholic prayers is the Rosary, You’ve probably seen a rosary. It is a string of beads, Soldiers and sailors often wore them round their necks, We use the beads to reckon time while we are praying in this way.

We take some incidents in the life of Our Lord. His birth in the stable, His death on the cross, for example. We think about these incidents, picture them to ourselves, see ourselves as present at them. Then our heart goes out to God in love, sorrow, appeal. While we ponder on each episode we say once the Our Father, ten times the Hail Mary, and once the Glory be to the Father,

The repeated prayers act as a kind of background music. The beads passing through our fingers mark off, so to speak, the rhythm of our thoughts. So for example, suppose we are saying that part of the Rosary which deals with the birth of Our Lord. We picture to ourselves the stable of Bethlehem, the new-born Child Who is God and Man lying in the manger; Mary His Mother beside Him, Joseph standing by, the shepherds coming in, the angels singing: "Glory be to God on high". We see ourselves kneeling there too. And with the murmur of the prayers making background music our heart goes out to the Child Who is God.

The Rosary is divided into fifteen incidents or mysteries.

The five Joyful Mysteries:

The Annunciation (the angel announces to Mary that she is to be the Mother of God).
The Visitation (Mary visits her cousin St. Elizabeth),
The Birth of Our Lord.
The Presentation in the Temple.
The Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple. (See St. Luke's Gospel, chapters 1 and 2 quoted in Lesson 18.)

The five Sorrowful Mysteries:

Christ's Agony in the Garden.
The Scourging at the Pillar,
The Crowning with Thorns.
The Carrying of His Cross.
The Crucifixion and Death on the Cross.

The five Glorious Mysteries;

The Resurrection of Christ from the Dead.
His Ascension into Heaven
The coming of the Holy Ghost on the Apostles (Acts. chapter 2).
The Assumption of Mary into Heaven
The Coronation of Mary in Heaven and the glory of all the Saints.

And so by saying the Rosary a Catholic becomes intimately familiar with the life of Our Lord and patiently over the years does his best to model his own life on His.

Then there is what is called the liturgical prayer of the Church when a Catholic attends Holy Mass and prays there and offers the Sacrifice in union with the whole Church of God. The Mass is the very centre of the Catholic Faith and of every Catholic life. But of this we have already written fully in lessons 10 and 11.

Penance and Self-Denial —"Fish on Friday"

Penance and self-denial must also be an essential element of every Catholic life.

It any man will come after Me, said Our Lord, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me: (Luke 9, 23.)

The Church gives us a minimum standard of self-denial when she tells us, for example, to abstain from meat on Friday. What is the point of this?

It is to train ourselves to say "no". The body must learn to obey the soul. There will be times of temptation when the body will be pulling towards sin and the soul must command the body to obey. In the same way an athlete trains for a race so that when the day comes and the exhausted body is crying out to be allowed to give up the race and lie down, the spirit will be strong enough to compel the body to continue on to the end.

So by training our body to go from time to time without certain perfectly good things for example meat, we ensure that the soul's commands will be obeyed when the body is pulling towards evil.
We practise self-denial and penance to atone for sin. By every sin we take some satisfaction to which we have no right. By self-denial we give up some legitimate satisfaction and so make up for the unlawful pleasures that we have taken.

Moreover, since we are all one body in Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 10), our self-denial can atone far the sins of others and obtain grace and help from God both for the living and the dead.
Self-denial and suffering willingly borne is a way in which we follow in the footsteps of Christ Our Lord an share His sufferings.

St. Paul puts it this way:

I rejoice in my sufferings for you. I fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ in my flesh for His body which is the Church. (Col. 1: 24.)

Christ suffered for us and we by suffering and self denial help one another. Suffering is a mystery but has an essential role to play in every life as God showed us when He suffered Himself on the cross.

Many a Catholic dying in agony will repeat over and over again:

All for Thee, O Jesus,

knowing that in saying this he unites his sufferings to the sufferings of Christ on the cross.

Satisfaction of Mind and Heart — Joy

From all this a Catholic draws a deep and tranquil joy because as a member of the Church he finds full satisfaction for mind and heart. He finds satisfaction of mind. The Church does not deny the intellect. On the contrary the Church tells a man that his intellect is capable by its own power of finding out that God exists, that God revealed Himself and founded a Church which is the Catholic Church.

The truths about God and man which are revealed to him in the Church form an endless field over which his mind can roam. Moreover all knowledge whether it is about religion or not is acceptable to a Catholic because all truth comes from God. And therefore there can never be any conflict for him between science and religion. If there seems to be a conflict it is because either the scientific truth is not properly understood or the religious truth is not properly understood. But truth cannot contradict truth. All knowledge can lead a man in some way or other to God.

The Catholic Church satisfies his mind again because it gives a man answers to the eternal questions.

Why am I here? Because God made me to know Him love Him and serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him forever in the next.

Where am I going? I am going to Heaven or Hell according to the way in which I lead my life here. I am a responsible person. I am not the plaything of fate. I make my life with the help of God. Eternal consequences hang upon my acts.

Why is there something wrong with the world? Because of the Fall of Man.

Why is the world ultimately unsatisfactory? Why do I never attain complete happiness in this life? Because I am made for God. There is a thirst in my heart that only the infinite can slake. A desire that only God can fill. And yet God made the world and with all its faults the world is good provided that I use it as God meant it to be used.

Pleasure — Temperance — Sacrifice

A Catholic has no superstitions about food or drink. God made it all. It is all good if it is used according to God's will. A Catholic, for example, will thank God as the Bible does, for Wine which maketh glad the heart of man. (Psalm 103.)

And yet he will recognise that good things can be abused, Therefore he will observe moderation in a good thing like wine because it may lead to drunkenness which is an abuse. A Catholic will rejoice in the beauty of the world. And that is why you will find that Catholic countries have usually been outstanding in their developments of music and the arts.

And yet at the same time a Catholic will recognise the nobility of character in many who willingly give up these good tidings in order to lead a life of penance and prayer. The cloistered monk who takes a vow of poverty, chastity and obedience does not deny the goodness of life. But he makes a sacrifice of some good things in order to serve God more perfectly and to atone for sin.

Love of the Church

In all his life the Catholic sees everywhere the grace of God. He recognises that God is with him, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, dwelling in his soul. In particular he sees Christ living in His Church. He knows that he enters into direct contact with the life of Christ through the graces dispensed in the seven Sacraments.

He knows that the Church speaks with the voice of Christ when it blesses his home, his children and the hundred and one things that he uses. He knows in particular that the Church speaks with the voice of Christ when it gives him guidance and teaching in matters of faith and morals.

And so he has a great loyalty to his Church and is ready to lay down his life rather than deny his Faith.

The Church for Sinners

All those are the ideals of a Catholic. And yet at the same time the Catholic is a realist. He knows that we are not born saints. We have to work out our salvation. (Phil. 2)

That is what the Church is for.

He recognises that he is always liable to fall into sin. When he does fall into sin he is ready to say with the man in the Gospel: Lord have mercy on me a sinner.

And he knows then that he has the Sacrament of Penance in which God will give him assurance of pardon and peace if he is truly sorry for the sins he has committed.

He does not expect to find that all Catholics are saints. On the contrary he expects to find in the Church all sorts and conditions of men. He is not shocked if he finds that there are disreputable characters and sinners attending Mass. He recognises that he himself is in many ways a very disreputable character and he will not be guilty of the smugness and pride of setting himself up as a model and despising others.

Only God can judge the heart of man. The Catholic thanks God He lets him live on in His Church and use the means of grace although he so often falls short of the ideal which is there before him, lie has to school himself in Humility.

Faith

And so in all the chances and changes of life a Catholic has an inner content, a strength and security which springs from his loyalty to and love of the Church of God. He sees that Church enduring throughout the ages. He sees it satisfying the mind and heart of men of all kinds, of all classes, of all colours, of all times. He sees it attacked and yet never ultimately defeated and he knows from his every day experience how it satisfies the deepest aspirations of his soul.

All this springs from the gift of Faith, For Faith is a gift. It is something which God gives to us freely of His goodness with no claim on our part to demand it as a right, We cannot achieve Faith by our own powers.

We can remove the obstacles to Faith by finding out as much as we can about the Church. We can pray to God to give us Faith, and we may be sure that God will not despise the prayer of a humble heart.

To the Reader

You who read this have shown your good will by doing your best to find out what are the claims, what are the teachings of the Catholic Church. Pray to God now to show you what He wants you to do. There may come a moment when you are convinced that the Catholic Faith is the truth. And yet you hesitate to take the step which will lead you into the Church. God gives you His grace. But He will not compel you. In the last analysis your step and your decision must be free.

Pray to God for light to see what He wants you to do. Pray to God for courage to do it. Ask yourself these questions: Did Christ found a Church? Is that Church the Catholic Church and no other? If you are convinced that the answer to those questions is Yes, then in the name of God step forward and put your trust in Him. You will find that peace of mind and heart which passes all understanding.

God Bless you.

End of Lesson 21

Supplement A

Supplement B: "Listen To the Parable of The Sower"

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