Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith
by Bishop Robert Barron
From the Back Cover
“What is Catholicism? A 2,000-year-old living tradition? A worldview? A way of life? A relationship? A mystery? In Catholicism, Bishop Robert Barron examines all these questions and more, seeking to capture the body, heart and mind of the Catholic faith.”
“Whether discussing Scripture or the rose window at Notre Dame, he uses his distinct and dynamic grasp of art, literature, architecture, personal stories, theology, philosophy, and history to present the Church to the world.
Paired with his documentary film series of the same title, Catholicism is an intimate journey, capturing “The Catholic Thing” in all its depth and beauty. Eclectic, unique, and inspiring, Father Barron brings the faith to life for a new generation, in a style that is both faithful to timeless truths, while simultaneously speaking in the language of contemporary life.”
My summary
Here are my informal notes and some important passages from the book. I come back to these notes when I’m in a religious debate with someone, or if I’m asked a question that I couldn’t possibly be able to remember. I’m not a theologian by any stretch and am nowhere near as articulate as Bishop Barron. Note that I am only summarizing the first three chapters of the book. To summarize the entire book would end up being an opus, and if you find the summary of the first three chapters interesting and want to explore further, I would urge you to purchase the book and read it in its entirety.
- “Catholicism is a matter of the body and the senses as much as it is a matter of the mind and the soul, precisely because the Word became flesh.”
- “… Another way to formulate this is to say that we become what we worship … When we worship money, we become money men; when we worship power, we become power brokers; when we worship popularity, we become popular men, and so on.”
- “As we saw, the Old Testament writers anticipated that Yahweh would gather the tribes, cleanse the Temple, fight the final battle, and finally would reign as Lord of all the nations.” My thoughts: It just wasn’t the temple they were thinking (the temple building). Jesus was the final temple. They were expecting a soldier, but ended up getting a sacrificial lamb. In the book of Ezekiel, “he prophesies that one day Yahweh himself will return to the Temple and cleanse it of its impurities, and on that day water will flow forth from the side of the Temple for the renewal of the earth.”
- “In April of 2005 the newly elected pope Benedict XVI came onto the front loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica to bless the crowds. Gathered around him on the adjoining balconies there appeared all of the cardinals who had just chosen him. The news cameras caught the remarkably pensive expression on the face of Cardinal Francis George of Chicago. When the cardinal returned home, reporters asked him what he was thinking about at that moment. Here is what he said: “I was gazing over toward the Circus Maximus, toward the Palatine Hill where the Roman Emperors once resided and reigned and looked down upon the persecution of Christians, and I thought, ‘Where are their successors? Where is the successor of Caesar Augustus? Where is the successor of Marcus Aurelius? And finally, who cares? But if you want to see the successor of Peter, he is right next to me, smiling and waving at the crowds.’ ” Jesus Christ is Lord. That means that neither Caesar nor any of his descendants is Lord. Jesus Christ, the God-man risen from the dead, the one who gathered the tribes, cleansed the Temple, and fought with the enemies of the human race—he is the one to whom final allegiance is due. Christians are those who submit to this Lordship.”
- “Would the end of slavery have happened without Jesus’s command to love one’s neighbor as oneself? Would the civil rights movement in the United States have gotten under way without Jesus’s teaching about loving one’s enemy? Would Gandhi’s liberation of India or the collapse of Communism have been possible without Jesus’s summons to nonviolence?”
On the Beatitudes (or in layman’s terms, how to attain True Joy)
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In reference to the Beatitudes where Jesus repeatedly uses the word “Blessed”, Bishop Barron clarifies that in today’s english speaking world, “The Greek term in Matthew’s Gospel is makarios, which is probably best rendered with the simple word “happy.” The law that the new Moses offers is a pattern of life that promises, quite simply, to make us happy.” The opposite of happy is misery.
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If we read the Beatitudes in this light and substitute the word “happy” in place of “blessed”, they might be able to take on a more practical meaning. I’m attempting to show that below and have removed the extra wording to make it simpler to understand.
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“Happy are the poor in spirit … Happy are they who mourn … Happy are the meek (ie. humble) … Happy are the righteous (ie. moral/virtuous) … Happy are the merciful … Happy are the pure of heart … Happy are the peacemakers … Happy are they who are persecuted for the sake of rightousness … “
- “For those who love freedom as choice, the law is, at best, something grudgingly accepted. For instance, we know that traffic rules are necessary for the relatively good order of our streets, but deep down most of us would prefer not to have them so that we could drive as we please. The same is true in regard to moral restrictions, which are accepted by many as a sort of lesser of two evils: not really desirable in themselves, but necessary for social order. But let us consider another way of construing freedom, one more in line with biblical sensibilities. On this interpretation, freedom is not primarily a choice, but rather the shaping of desire so as to make the achievement of the good first possible and then effortless.”
- “What is joy but the experience of having attained the true good? Therefore in this more biblical way of looking at things joy (beatitude) is the consequence and not the enemy of law. What Jesus gives us in the Sermon on the Mount, therefore, is that new law that would discipline our desires, our minds, and our bodies so as to make real happiness possible.”
- Coming back to the beatitude about the poor in spirit, Bishop Barron clarifies: “This is neither a romanticizing of economic poverty nor a demonization of wealth, but rather a formula for detachment. Might I suggest a somewhat variant rendition: how blessed are you if you are not attached to material things, if you have not placed the goods that wealth can buy at the center of your concern?”
- “One of the most fundamental problems in the spiritual order is that we sense within ourselves the hunger for God, but we attempt to satisfy it with some created good that is less than God. Thomas Aquinas said that the four typical substitutes for God are wealth, pleasure, power, and honor.”
- The last of the “negative” beatitudes is “Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5:10). We must read this, once again, in light of Thomas Aquinas’s analysis. If the call to poverty holds off the addiction to material things, and the summons to mourn counters the addiction to good feelings, and the valorization of meekness blocks the addiction to power, this last beatitude gets in the way of the addictive attachment to honor. Honor is a good thing in the measure that it is a “flag of virtue,” signaling to others the presence of some excellence, but when love of honor becomes the center of one’s concern, it, like any other finite good, becomes a source of suffering. Many people who are not terribly attracted to wealth, pleasure, or power are held captive by their desire for the approval of others, and they will, accordingly, order their lives, arrange their work, and plot their careers with the single value in mind of being noticed, honored, and endowed with titles. But this again involves the attempt to fill up the infinite longing with a finite good, and it produces, by the laws of spiritual physics, addiction.
- Thomas Aquinas said that if you want to see the perfect exemplification of the beatitudes, you should look to Christ crucified.
- To be in right relationship with God, therefore, is neither to grasp at him nor to hide from him (for both are finally impossible), but rather to surrender to him in love.
That brings an end to chapter 3. Other chapters and topics include:
- Our Tainted Nature’s Solitary Boast: Mary, the Mother of God
- The Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary
- Mary in the Life of the Church
- The Indispensable Men: Peter, Paul, and the Missionary Adventure
- A Body Both Suffering and Glorious: The Mystical Union of Christ and the Church
- Word Made Flesh, True Bread of Heaven: The Mystery of the Church’s Sacrament and Worship
- Discussion on the Real Presence
- Communion
- A Vast Company of Witnesses: The Communion of Saints
- Thérèse of Lisieux
- Edith Stein
- Mother Teresa of Calcutta
- The Fire of His Love: Prayer and the Life of the Spirit
- Thomas Merton
- John of the Cross and Contemplative Prayer
- Teresa of Avila
- Prayer of Petition
- World Without End: The Last Things
- Hell
- Purgatory
- Angels and Devils
- Heaven
