Counting down

Ten days from today, I will begin the meetings, in services, and advising sessions that precede the start of classes.  Classes officially begin on August 30, which seems very late to this former high school teacher, but the date stares me in the face with the force of...I don't know what.  I'm really excited about my classes, and also terrified.  Not terrified of the students - I might feel better once I see them face to face.  Terrified because there is so much to do to prepare and I'm not making the progress I'd like to and I don't know how I will ever keep up once school begins.

I've been reading the texts for the courses as I prepare the lessons, and have been fascinated by them.  Some of the texts I read as a grad student, and so they are quite invigorating to re-read with the perspective of 13 years experience behind me.  Some of the texts are new - either unassigned in my grad program or assigned but never quite read.  (Students are students no matter what level of education!)

A text I finished yesterday is A Map of Life by Frank Sheed.  I've read two of Sheed's other works:  Theology for Beginners  was the first book that ever explained to me the teachings of the Catholic Church, and To Know Christ Jesus beautifully tells the story of Jesus in a way that helped me not just know about Him, but know Him.  So when I learned that Map is a required text for one of my classes, I eagerly picked it up.  My students have to write a reflection on it; here's an abbreviated rough draft of my own.

In A Map of Life (aptly subtitled "A Simple Study of the Catholic Faith"), Sheed seeks to explain the most fundamental truths of the Faith from the perspective that Heaven is our destination, and the Faith is our road map for how to get there.  He explains that God made each of us for Heaven, but that we cannot get there on our own power.  We need God to show us the way to go, and to give us the power to get there.  When Jesus says, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life," He is telling us that He is fulfilling what we need Him to do.  Sheed then goes on to marvelously explain the tenets of the Catholic Faith in light of that reality.

One of the parts that struck me most was the discussion of how supernatural Life comes into the soul.  Sheed reminds the reader that this is sheer grace, total gift from God, not earned by us but given in love by Him who loves us infinitely.  He also reminds us that at Baptism, we become members of Christ's body, and Christ's life is given to us.  St. Paul said as much in saying "I live, yet now not I, but Christ lives in me."  Sheed goes on to beautifully explain how prayer directs our lives to God.  But then he pointed out:


Man is not an isolated unit, but a being linked by his very nature to other men.  He owes his coming into existence to a man and a woman; he owes his continuance in existence, the development of his powers of mind and body, the full life of his emotions, to a certain cooperation with others.  If prayer is to be a directing of his life to God, this necessary social element in his nature must not be excluded -- otherwise there would be a whole side of his nature not consecrated to God.  Therefore, not only must he pray for his fellow men, he must from time to time join with them in the worship of God.  

Huh.  I never heard such a clear explanation for the "why" behind the 3rd commandment!  But he goes on:

There is not only a prayer of the individual cell but a prayer of the whole body.  And if for its own individual prayer, the cell uses the life of the whole body, equally it joins in the prayer of the whole body and makes it its own.  [This prayer of the body] must be the prayer of the Head, of him whose Body it is..."Christ ever liveth to make intercession for us."...His intercession for us is not a thing done upon Calvary once and for all, but a continuous thing, a thing that never ceases.  In other words, Christ in heaven is unceasingly making intercession for us.  But the basis of our Lord's intercession is Calvary. ...Therefore, Christ in heaving is continuously offering his own death upon Calvary to his Father on our behalf.  That is the prayer of Christ himself.  The prayer of his Body is an earthly participation in that.  

And after several pages of explanation, he summarizes:


"Our situation as Catholics may be seen in its simplest elements.  By baptism, we are built into the Body of Christ, and as cells in the Body we are able to live with the life of the Body.  The condition of all life in God is prayer: our prayer in the Body culminates in the supreme prayer of the Mass, and from the Mass we receive Christ himself to be the food of our life in the Body.  Communion, then, is God's supreme gift to us upon earth.  Everything in our life is vitalized by it.  Baptism leads up to it, everything else flows from it."


None of this is new information for me.  But a new way of explaining and understanding something always helps me appreciate it more.  So I carried it with me, in my mind and in my heart, to Mass this morning.  And somehow, I experienced Mass far more beautifully than I have in quite some time.

A Map of Life is a short book that can be read quickly for information, or slowly for meditation.  I highly recommend it, whether you are Catholic and want a refresher on the faith or non-Catholic and just want a brief overview of what Catholics believe and why.

Meanwhile, please pray for me to make progress on these lesson plans so that I can stay sane this semester!