A disservice has been done to not only Catholic children, but adult Catholics as well. We’ve sold ourselves short. We’ve been dumbed down. We’ve come to believe that all we need to know we hear at Mass on Sunday. I mean in no sense to discredit the preaching of the Word, but in many cases the preaching in our parishes does little to instruct, little to teach, little to inspire, little to catechize—but that’s another post: Getting Your Homily Fix.
The point is that if we are to get serious about our faith, we’ve got to stop taking for granted the richness of our tradition. Or in Fr. Barron’s words:
“We will not tell our own story effectively if we turn away from that richness. We must stop dumbing down our tradition if we’re going to make this story compelling.”
~ Fr. Robert Barron
Intelligent & Faithful
In my own work as a catechist I have often had the feeling that people are just not willing to take their faith seriously. Asking someone to read a book is like pulling teeth. We’ve become lazy, tantamount to the deadly sin of sloth. I think of the biblical prophet Daniel, not a simpleton, but an extremely intelligent man.
“To these four young men God gave knowledge and proficiency in all literature and wisdom, and to Daniel the understanding of all visions and dreams.”
~ Daniel 1:17
So often we place people faith at odds with people of intelligence. Yet many of the most influential, intelligent people throughout history, even the forefathers of this great country were people of faith, of deep religious conviction. For more on this I recommend a book by Dr. Ben Carson called America the Beautiful in which he discusses in great detail the history of our country, especially the fact that its founders were intelligent, religious people.
The Solution to Our Problem
Well, in the video below Fr. Barron shares an anecdote about how his neice, who is a senior in Catholic high school, is reading some very advanced books (ie. Virgil’s Aneid, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Physics, etc.), yet for religion she is reading what amounts to a comic book.
Sadly, this tells a great deal about the effort we put into our religious education and also the little we are really challenging our youth and ourselves. In this case, Fr. Barron bought his neice what he calls “the Catholic versions” of these books (listed below).
The Smart Catholic Book Challenge
Although I empathize with Fr. Barron, I also identify with those who have fallen victim to dumbed-down Catholicism. Not to say that I haven’t studied the faith, but even as a 28 year-old, I can’t say myself that I have read any of the books he mentions. So, I have decided that in an attempt to thwart the spread of “dumbed-down” Catholicism—especially since I am a catechist tasked with instructing others in the faith—I am committing myself to read all of the following books within the next year.
St. Thomas Aquinas – Summa Contra Gentiles (Book One)
St. Augustine of Hippo – Confessions
Dante Alighieri – The Divine Comedy
G. K. Chesteron – Orthodoxy
St. Bonaventure – The Mind’s Road to God
William Shakespeare – Hamlet
Virgil – The Aeneid
Would you like to join me in this challenge? I invite you to take up the task. Most of these books are available on Kindle for free—which is why I would definitely recommend you get a Kindle if you haven’t already. Even if you don’t want to shell out $100, you can still download the Kindle app for your smartphone or tablet. So there is no excuse!
Pick up a book. Challenge yourself. Get serious about your faith. And help to stop the spread of “dumbed-down” Catholicism.