Bp. Schneider’s new catechism. Wherein Fr. Z presents and rants about what’s going on.

Before anything else, again and again I get questions like:

“Things are going badly.  I feel like I have to do something, but I feel helpless.  I don’t have any power to stop what is going on.  What can I do?”

Do these things and you will be more at peace and you will be more effective in your particular vocation and sphere of influence.

• Strive to be in the state of grace: examine your conscience daily and GO TO CONFESSION
• Use the sacraments and sacramentals well.  You are baptized, which means you are incorporated into Christ’s Person. You are confirmed with the seal of the Holy Spirit.  Are you sacramentally married, ordained?  Call upon those sacraments with confidence.
• Do not forget that God called YOU into existence HERE and NOW, not somewhere else or in some other time.  You are part of “His team” whom He knew and chose before the creation of the cosmos.  God will give you all the actual graces you need to do His will according to His plan.
• God makes His works our own and gives us the strength to carry them out.  We live by grace and elbow grease.  Get to work.   Get to work and and let God judge your successes, because He knows more than you do.  You cannot fathom in the moment of the doing what fruits your grace-informed efforts will bear down the line.
• You cannot love or give what you do not know or have.  Therefore, you must learn your faith well.  Read a) Scripture, b) lives of the saints c) sound catechisms, d) tried and true spiritual and devotional writings and prayer books.  Always be ready to GIVE reasons for your faith.  This is the work of a lifetime, not just early years and then coast.

Speaking of catechisms and speaking of being at peace…

Last night I attended the Rome presentation of Bp. Athanasius Schneider’s catechism entitled Credo: Compendium of the Catholic Faith published by Sophia Institute Press.