The Approach of Augustine & Aquinas in Catechesis

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When we find the truth, we want to proclaim the truth. Having experienced the grace of God in truth and love as Christians, it is a natural desire to want to spread the joy that lives in our hearts. It is the catechist's job to do this effectively, for we work for the master Jesus, and the consequences of our work are eternal.

Men and women spend lifetimes studying the theological works of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine of Hippo to understand the deep insights they offer us about our faith. The genius of both saints in the field of catechetics was the ability to offer the laity simple, yet profound explanations of the faith. St. Augustine teaches us how to teach the story of salvation, while St. Aquinas gives brief and enlightening passages to teach new Christians the faith.

In St. Augustine's First Catechetical Teaching written to the Deacon Deogratias, Augustine recognizes the inadequacy of language to teach what is truly in the heart and that even in the inadequacy of language there is the universality of emotion, which reaches and moves man. St. Augustine was hardly satisfied in his own presentations of the faith, he considered his discourses "dull" despite his "burning with desire to help our hearer." Even among the saints and the masters of catechesis there exists a need to depend solely on the movement of the Holy Spirit in the lives of our students because it is God alone who can bring them to that point of metanoia.

Augustine then teaches the good deacon that the content of the story of salvation should be summed up from the time that God created the world to the present period of Church history. That it should always be Jesus who we teach, and while the teaching is often given in stages, it should always be whole and complete. Most important to Augustine is that we share the love that God is, and the love He has for us that He would send his only Son to die for us so that we might live and that his Son might live in us. The catechist is to express our love for those we are evangelizing as Christ loves us, and through our own transparency show Christ's love to others through us.

In Augustine it is through the inspiration of the scriptures the Catechist shares the love of Christ to others. He reveals that "in the Old Testament the New is concealed, and in the New the Old is revealed." Aquinas, like Augustine is concerned with delivering the Deposit of Faith to the world, whole and complete. Where Augustine has taught us the story of salvation, and its delivery, Aquinas fills in the doctrine of the faith by catechizing his audience outlining the Apostles' Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Sacraments, the Lord's Prayer, and the Hail Mary.

In "The Catechetical Instructions of St. Thomas Aquinas" the language he uses when catechizing is accessible. He is careful that his explanations are straight forward and apparent, so not to confuse anyone by terms they may not be familiar with. His explanations are usually short; he says what needs to be said about a given doctrine, offers practicality to the listener and then moves on. The effectiveness of this approach is clear. All of us have at one time or another been the victim of a cruel and deliberate act: a long, boring sermon or homily. The speaker may be brilliant and have profound insights in the Sacred Scriptures or other faucets of the faith, however, in his inability to teach with clarity he fails in his mission to catechize his audience. The catechist needs to be able to take complicated concepts and simplify them. The successful catechist does this so the listener remembers the truth that the catechist has communicated long after the lesson is completed.

As an example, when Aquinas teaches on the commandments, he defines that which is not obvious, illustrates his teaching using examples from everyday life such as the courtroom that a thief will face for violating the eighth commandment, and tells his student the specific ways in which they may violate the commandment, leaving little to the imagination.

These two Fathers of the faith then have a great deal yet to teach us today about catechesis. When they teach they are not concerned with theological speculation, with the hottest new trends in educational methods, or offering their own commentary on the truths communicated to us through revelation. Their catechesis teach us what John Paul II has echoed in Catechesi Tradendae, that we are called to the task of communicating the living mystery of God, not through abstract truth, but "the teaching of Jesus Christ, the Truth that He communicates or, to put it more precisely, the Truth that He is."