Throughout many of his essays, father stressed the importance of reviving the 'Penny' (UK) and 'Baltimore' Catechisms. Based on his prompting, I purchased the Baltimore Catechism 'One' from Tan Classics, as basic as could be found. I turned to the first lesson and a question on the first page stood out:
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Q: Why did God make you?
A: God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in Heaven.
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Looking back on my catholic school-time catechesis, not too long ago, how I wish I had been taught such a simple, but direct and profound expression of our faith, instead of learning definitions of 'ecumenism', 'sectarianism' and 'the eightfold path'.
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Fr. Jaki reminds us that simple catechisms remain 'the best means of implementing the only metamorphosis that results in human dignity as acted out in the daily lives of individuals. Anything else is largely a waste of time'. Having read quite widely about the catholic faith at this stage, I find that the simple statements are genuinely the most profound and memorable ones.
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Human dignity is precious yet so easily and routinely violated. This is all the more tragic when it occurs in the fields of religious care, scientific advancement, and (of increasing concern) ecological conservation, where noble aims are corrupted because people forget the answer to yet another simple question on the first page of the simplest catechism:
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Q: Why did God make you?
A: God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in Heaven.
.
Looking back on my catholic school-time catechesis, not too long ago, how I wish I had been taught such a simple, but direct and profound expression of our faith, instead of learning definitions of 'ecumenism', 'sectarianism' and 'the eightfold path'.
.
Fr. Jaki reminds us that simple catechisms remain 'the best means of implementing the only metamorphosis that results in human dignity as acted out in the daily lives of individuals. Anything else is largely a waste of time'. Having read quite widely about the catholic faith at this stage, I find that the simple statements are genuinely the most profound and memorable ones.
.
Human dignity is precious yet so easily and routinely violated. This is all the more tragic when it occurs in the fields of religious care, scientific advancement, and (of increasing concern) ecological conservation, where noble aims are corrupted because people forget the answer to yet another simple question on the first page of the simplest catechism:
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Q: What is man?
A: Man is a creature composed of body and soul, and made to the image and likeness of God.
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Fr. Jaki diagonoses the historical precedents of the loss of that dignity and what is required to reignite a genuine respect for who man is.
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~JT.
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On the intellectual level nothing definite about human dignity is generally shared any longer in spite of profuse references to it. The Enlightenment spread the illusion that man was pure reason, thereby putting human dignity on a pedestal befitting angels. Once on that pedestal man looked out for perspectives suitable for beasts and obtained them through Darwinism. The physics of relativity and of quantum mechanics created the widespread belief that all is relative and mere happenstance. In both cases the individual is the measure of all things as he frantically measures everything. The September 2003 issue of Scientific American suggested to its readers that they were mere holograms because the universe itself may be just a hologram. Computers are used to celebrate the idea that man's mind is an artificial intelligence machine, hardly a dignified perspective, except for some rabid hackers. Environmentalism transfers the dignity which only humans deserve to have to meadows, rivers, lakes, and a clean atmosphere. Microbiology is used for justifying the view that human nature is an agglomerate of "selfish genes". The dictates of instant gratification set the tone of cultural discourse about human dignity while modern man is robbed of the last traces of traditional Christian views about that dignity.
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The lessons of history turn against man unless he learns them thoroughly. One of these lessons is that ethics must be lived by a society's individuals, before society can discourse about ethics to any and all. No different will be the lesson about a bioethics which focuses on genes and genomes. In the absence of a society, where individuals steeped in genuine ethics set the tone of discourse, the focusing will resemble the amusement of children who let sunlight pass through their magnifying glasses, focus it on a piece of paper, and shout with joy when it catches fire, at times with devastating consequences. The question is whether society wants to risk being devoured in a conflagration or rather wants to secure proper warmth for its well being. Both are a process of metamorphosis. Only one of the two means life.
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[S.L. Jaki, 'The Metamorphoses of Human Dignity' in 'A Late Awakening and Other Essays', pp. 147-148]
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