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Christocentrism:
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As all reality is a cosmos--a single stream that goes out from God and tends back to Him--so too the Catholic teaching which sets this cosmos before us should be characterized by unity and order. A simple catechism can, at first glance, give an outsider an overwhelming sense of the cohesion and unity of Catholic doctrine. But Catholic theology is not merely the development of a single concept, even that of God Himself. It is rather the presentation of a way which unites heaven and earth.
We are directed, then, to an examination and understanding of the progressive character of this way. There are various possibilities for an over-all view of the total plan that the Creator has followed with regard to man, and within which we must fit our lives. Thus, a starting point might be found in the Trinity, or in divine life--as found in God and communicated through creation--or in the supernatural vocation of mankind, or in the Church, or in the Mystical Christ.
The Mystical Christ sets forth most clearly the luminous center from which the whole of faith grows together unto clear unity, since it is from the radiance of Christ that God's merciful plan, as well as its concrete realization, is rendered immediately intelligible. Christ is the pivotal point of all God's ways-those by which His mercy descends to His creation and those by which the creature mounts back to its Source. All dogmatic treatises converge about Christ. His person and work form the true core of the Christian message of salvation. In this sense, Christ may rightly be called the center of all doctrine, in fact, of all theological disciplines. All of theology is, then, intrinsically Christocentric.
Given the fact of this objective Christocentrism of Catholic doctrine, it does not follow that this doctrine-- dogma particularly--must be subjectively understood and accepted by the faithful according to that structure. Nor need it be so proposed by the Church. In Baptism the child receives grace-life without doctrinal knowledge of any sort. And all through life the weightiest concern is not the most exhaustive and adequate understanding of faith possible but rather the faithful preservation of this life of grace. This life cannot be lost by ignorance as such but only, practically speaking, by sin, since what an adult must know necessitate medii (as a necessary means of salvation) is so little that it is hardly possible for it not to be known in a Christian rnilieu. Besides, even the truths we are commanded to know under penalty of sin--what is demanded necessitate praecepti (as being of precept)--represent an extremely modest sum of religious knowledge. And in all this we never encounter a demand for any definite order or unified synthesis.
Even for a rich religious life there is no intrinsic necessity that the content of faith be understood in the light of its radiant core, no inherent demand that what is objectively central be put at the center of subjective consciousness or become the primary stimulus of moral effort. For St. Grignon of Montfort the service of Mary was all-dominating. St. Frances of Rome was taken up with thoughts of her Guardian Angel. In fact, it is not even necessary that a mystery of faith, properly so called, stand out in the foreground of one's religious consciousness. The thought of the nearness of God worked more powerfully on many mystics than the totality of Christological dogmas, and a St. Theresa actually found it necessary to lay stress on the point that even a mystically endowed soul should not turn aside entirely from Christ. Thus, too, in early monasticism the ideal of purity of soul before God--a concept of the natural order--was a widely prevalent directive norm.
In times when the atmosphere was Christian there was no need for concern about the fact that many or even the majority of people had no rounded, well-balanced conception of the full Christian message. As a matter of course, everyone was rooted in the nourishing, native soil of the Church, supported by her holy practices, protected by her lovingly-stern care. In her light and warmth everyone grew, without questioning and without carping criticism. But the situation today is different when so many have slipped away from the firm support of the Church's thought, though they still belong to her outwardly and juridically, and when wide-spread masses have been carried away by currents which take their rise in the chaotic and sweep on to folly. Today, then, we are faced with the problem of assisting those who have been caught up in these flood-streams to recover their bearings, so that they may once again discern their home-land and set firm foot upon it. As St. Clement Hofbauer remarked, we must really preach the Gospel all over again. It is our duty, then, to proclaim this sacred message as clearly and intelligibly as possible, developing it from its basic elements, carrying it forward step by step, until the full image emerges and Christ shines forth as the luminous core who illumines every question, every doctrine, every commandment.
Hence we are confronted once again in our day with the important task of bringing the objective Christocentrism of Catholic doctrine to the state of a vitally dynamic subjective representation. The task is not a new one. It was accomplished once in the springtime of the Church, in those centuries in which, as we saw, the message of the Good News was actually realized. However primitive and simple the means of presentation--the forms of instruction--at that time, it was nonetheless a blossom time of the Christian proclamation. We will do well, then, in the sections that follow to learn the lessons taught in this school of the pristine heralding of the Christian message.
That day is now over. This does not mean to imply, as was noted above, that the Church did not satisfactorily fulfill her duty of proclaiming the word of God in the centuries that followed. The plant had been made secure; it could now grow and develop on its own. It might have been quite sufficient, too, that the rough Germanic tribes learned to know Christ especially as the opponent of their heathen gods, as the one to whom they must hold fast; for they did vow loyalty to Him and grew unto the truth. The blossoming of Christian culture during the Middle Ages reveals how deeply religion had penetrated their hearts and minds.
On the other hand, however, there is no need to assert that the Church has fulfilled her duty of proclaiming the word of God in the best possible way throughout the centuries; that religious instruction, the form of divine worship, the direction of popular piety, might not have been different and even more perfect; that many developments might not have been better had they taken another course.
If anyone feels constrained to hold that the historical course of religious life and thought in the Church could only have been one of continuous progress, since the Church is under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, he would give this tenet a range that no theologian would support. The Spirit of God preserves the Church from error when decisions must be reached between what is true and false, and even then only unconditionally, as all know, in those cases in which there is question of decisions affecting faith and morals for the entire Church. Besides this, the Spirit of God stands by the Church so that in general she may satisfactorily discharge her duty of leading the faithful, particularly when there is question of measures which pertain to the entire Church. She has not the assurance, however, that particular decisions and practical measures which have been adopted by her officials, even when important religious developments and movements follow upon them, could not have been reached in a different and better way. Nor has she the assurance that among a variety of possible procedures only the most fortunate have been followed. For it is God's will that the seed of the Kingdom of God bring forth fruit in earthly soil and under the care of human powers. But these human powers can also prove deficient, as so many dark pages in the Church's history bear witness.
In dealing with the inner life of the Church and also with the presentation and understanding of the Good News we must take into account the periods of vigorous growth and the times of decline. In our religious inheritance we should gratefully recognize the treasures which the centuries have brought forth from the storerooms of God's Kingdom. But we must also reckon with structures and patterns which were more emergency measures than ideal forms. And we must always approach this heritage with filial respect, no matter how it has been created. Even the traditional way of proclaiming the faith is a structure which should not be changed in revolutionary ways nor by strong-arm methods.
Hence we do not want to go on to the stage where principles will be developed and duties outlined for the Christian proclamation in this our day without having previously examined history with all patience and having heard its answers to our present problems of proclaiming the Good News. Such a study will present us with exemplars in which we see the Good News being proclaimed with luminous clarity. It will also point out the forces which occasioned or even compelled a departure from such procedures, and show us the ways which have led to our present day forms of religious thought and life. Thus it will be easier for us to understand even less advantageous developments, to distinguish in them what is temporally conditioned and what is of enduring value, and finally to learn from the exemplars of our springtime, without at the same time doing injustice to what has been accomplished since that day.