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S1E10: Dawson, Culture & Catechesis Part 2 · Mentoring In Ministry

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  Welcome to the Mentoring in Ministry podcast. In each
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  episode, we approach various catechetical
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  topics from different perspectives.
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  Welcome back. I'm here with my good friend, Jim Gaston,
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  professor of humanities. Jim,
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  we've been talking about Christopher Dawson, his
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  understanding of the human person, his
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  understanding of culture and the way this really bears on
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  catechesis. There's a certain
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  principle in catechesis based on the old Latin maxim,
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  lex randi, lex credendi, lex vivendi,
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  which is to say, as the Church prays, so also she believes,
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  so also she lives. One of the
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  important points for the catechist is to understand that
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  whatever it is we're teaching,
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  whatever it is we actually profess to believe, it should
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  have a very certain direct impact
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  on how we pray, on how we receive God in the sacraments, on
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  how we live with one another.
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  So we're back to this understanding of this holistic
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  dimension of the human person, this
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  holistic imperative for catechesis, which seems to be
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  really essential also to Dawson's
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  understanding of Christian education.
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  That's an excellent point, Scott. The notion that how we
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  worship, we therefore, therefore
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  influences how we believe and then how we
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  live dovetails beautifully with Dawson. At
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  the core of all these things, a subject we'll come back to
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  here in a few minutes, is the
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  notion of the incarnation. Time and time again, with our
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  Lord, with our own personal spiritual
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  development, with cultures in themselves, we're talking
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  about a relationship of how man believes,
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  what he worships, what he considers his final end, the
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  important things in life, and how
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  those influence how he thinks about that
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  end and how he goes about living in order
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  to achieve that end. There's that tripartite structure and
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  almost everything that man does.
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  One of the great things about Dawson, who was such an
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  important advocate of a notion
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  of Catholic culture, that aspect informs almost everything
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  he thinks about. With that in mind,
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  if I might suggest, we probably should talk a little bit
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  more about culture. What is culture
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  whyis Catholic culture important, I think would be good
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  questions for us. From Dawson's point of
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  view, he's just reaffirming what we've already begun to
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  say, that a culture is a common way of
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  life by which a people adapts itself to the demands and
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  possibilities of a place or a region.
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  For Dawson, man is a composite being, spirit and matter,
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  that are intentioned, that are united.
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  What a culture is, is this attempt by people together, the
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  individual as well, obviously,
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  but in a culture, the people work together to try to
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  discern their end and figure out a way to live
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  that way, to reach that end. Dawson is constantly returning
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  to this key concept. As you know from
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  my teaching at Franciscan University, I've often suggested
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  to students that a good way to understand
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  that holistic structure is an acronym I've proposed over
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  the years called Ideas, Folk, Work,
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  Place. That very simply means that the ideas that a person
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  or a culture holds influences,
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  doesn't determine, but influences their folk or social
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  ways, how they organize themselves to work
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  together, and how they work together also is influenced by
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  the things they do to survive,
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  the material world in which they find themselves, the works
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  they do, and ultimately this all is
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  involved with a consideration of the environment, be it a
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  jungle or be it an urban area or be it a
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  Western culture or a Chinese culture. The important thing
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  Dawson's trying to convey to us is we can't
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  understand man, nor can we teach him well if we don't keep
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  this holistic structure in mind,
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  and this is what he's trying to convey to us. Let's go back
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  to this culture as a common way of
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  life, which is really striking today. We see so many
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  different individuals where the key,
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  I suppose, model might be, you know, do it your own way.
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  It's just you, yourself, and you, and by the
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  way, your yesterday has no connection to your today, has no
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  connection to your tomorrow, and by the
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  way, my today has no connection to your yesterday or to
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  someone else's tomorrow. We're just bubbles
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  in a boiling pot. We're very individualized. That's not the
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  way God made us. He made us to be in
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  community. He made us to be in common, and the way that we
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  know what kind of common life we're
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  meant to have is based on the common creed that we profess,
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  and so we're back to this Lexorandi,
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  Lexcredendi, Lexvivendi. There's in fact a very important
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  catechetical imperative that it really
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  jumps off from this point, which is whatever it is you're
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  teaching, you want to say where it is
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  located in the creed and then move to the next pillar of
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  the catechism. How is this celebrated?
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  For example, if you're teaching on mercy, and God reveals
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  his power at its height by freely
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  forgiving sins, we profess a merciful God, well, that
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  should impact the way we receive the
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  sacraments and come before our Lord through the sacramental
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  life to be forgiven, and God
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  forgives sins in and through the working of the priests, of
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  course, etc. But that's not enough.
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  Then we want to move on to we ourselves are called to be
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  forgiving, and we ourselves are called to
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  ask for forgiveness, and now we've moved into part three of
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  the catechism, life in Christ. Of course,
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  all of this is sort of in a sense bundled up, taken into
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  consideration, impacted, manifested
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  through our prayer life, where we approach God through
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  prayer because Christ has made purification
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  for our sins. Whatever it is you're teaching, in this case,
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  the example was mercy, you want to show
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  how that really impacts all four pillars of the catechism,
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  which of course represent the four
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  pillars of this common way of life that we share. Let's go
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  back for a moment to this wonderful,
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  this beautiful synthesized understanding, this
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  interdisciplinary understanding that Dawson has
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  of culture, which is, of course, I think in one sense and
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  in some circles, he took a little bit
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  of heat for being so interdisciplinary, but he had a knack
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  both for seeing the tree, but also the
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  forest. He was very interested in relationships. As you
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  were just saying, I'll kind of repeat it,
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  maybe I'll go from bottom up since you went from top down,
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  where people live, where the geography
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  impacts what they might do for their economy, it impacts
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  the way that material exchange of goods,
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  that also will have some impact, their leisure, perhaps
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  what movies they watch, what they do for
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  fun, sport, recreation. All of these are related, but the
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  very top in a sense in its own category,
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  but uniquely impregnating the rest of these categories
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  regarding culture is the idea,
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  the philosophy, the theology, which is again, that which a
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  culture celebrates, understands regarding
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  God and themselves, their deepest identity will really
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  inform directly and necessarily every other
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  aspect of that particular culture. True, well said. And the
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  interesting thing is besides this,
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  is it's unitively dynamic. The ideas influence the culture
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  or the material or social structures,
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  which then in turn for the next
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  generation or even for that generation, depending,
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  will influence the ideas they hold. As you and I and our
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  readers and viewers know well,
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  following St. Thomas's notion that ideas come from things.
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  We may ponder them in our minds,
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  obviously, once we have them, but the teaching of the
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  Church and the Thomistic tradition is the
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  intellect is tabula rasa, blanket, we go out and we
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  investigate reality, we draw ideas into our minds.
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  Well, the ideas come from other ideas and they also come
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  from culture. They come from the
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  architecture, the art, the way of life, as you said, the
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  economy, the geography. So it's
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  interesting and it's good that we keep in mind that the
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  ideas that drive a culture themselves,
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  reveal themselves in the culture, which in turn are taken
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  up by others. And this brings us to the
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  important subject in a way of inculturation, the passing on
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  from one generation to the next of the
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  important ideas and the important ways of that culture. It
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  strikes me that we've talked about
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  the individual and a certain theological
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  anthropology, a certain epistemology. We've
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  talked about the culture, perhaps at large in Christian
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  culture. And now you're bringing in,
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  of course, in a related way, the Church, which also is at
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  one in the same time an invisible sacred
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  reality connected to heaven, the church triumphant, etc.
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  But also is a historical reality, which is to
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  say the Church herself, the people of God are meant to be
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  the certain milieu in which people
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  can be integrated, discipled, inculturated, which is to say
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  the Church herself is meant to be a
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  visible sign and in that sense of kind of sacramental gift
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  to the culture by which we can
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  see and understand and experience, sense and come to the
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  sure knowledge of God's presence,
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  not in some ethereal, theoretical, removed from history in
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  nature way, but right here, right in
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  the muck, right in the mire, right in those kind of mud
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  splashed reality of the culture that we're
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  in. And again, which just brings us back, I
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  suppose, to the reality of the incarnation,
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  the almost the scandalous reality that God himself has
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  entered history and has entered human nature.
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  Right, right. Yes, it's striking. The incarnational vision
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  is so important across the totality of the
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  life of the Church and man. The idea again, though, that of
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  the modernist, that things have
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  to be beautifully, systematically, rationally ordered when
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  we know well that the very heart
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  of Roman Catholicism is a living encounter with God
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  Almighty. And that beyond that, that what
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  that which follows from that encounter as, for example, in
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  the Church's teachings and in its
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  various structures and its architecture, its totality, our
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  images, icons of life that invite
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  and provide, in a sense, a means of encounter, including
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  the architecture and the art. There
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  are things that happen with man that are beyond the
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  reasonable in the sense that we can't reason
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  our way into an understanding of everything. And reason is
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  excellent, but it has a role to play
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  along with faith. It's always faith and reason that dynamic
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  interplay between the two, but
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  ultimately, faith is at the heart of everything. Well said.
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  And of course, faith doesn't leave
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  reason alone or start somewhere fresh, but faith builds on
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  reason, really penetrates the intellect,
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  transforms the intellect and allows the intellect to see
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  that which couldn't see by reason alone,
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  which might be a great place for us to take up our next
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  portion of this talk, which is how is it that
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  we as individuals and as a church will tend to evangelizing
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  this particular culture that we're in,
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  where faith itself has seemed so on the outs, so perhaps
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  meant for the weak-minded and doesn't
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  really have a place in post-modernity.
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  Thank you for listening to this episode of Mentoring
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  in Ministry. You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook,
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  and YouTube @ the Catechetical Institute
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  or join our online community of catechists at
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  franciscanathome.com/guild. Link
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  to all of those in the show notes. This podcast is an
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  outreach of Franciscan University of
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  Steubenville's Catechetical Institute.