Trevor Hart on the Apostle’s Creed and the Christian imagination: “But bullet pointed though it may be, the Apostles’ Creed is nonetheless a power-packed summary designed precisely to capture our imagination and, far from shutting it down or rendering it otiose, to send it into paroxysms of visualization, curiosity, and exploration, and its brevity and clarity make this particular creed far more useful in practical terms than some others.”
Impressive Catechesis
Gregory of Nazianzus’ credal cardiological calligraphy: “If your heart is written upon in some other way than as my teaching demands, come and have the writing changed. I am no unskilled caligrapher of these truths. I write that which is written upon my own heart; and I teach that which I have been taught, and have kept from the beginning up to these gray hairs. Mine is the risk; mine also is the reward of being the director of your soul, and consecrating you by baptism. But if you are already rightly disposed, and marked with the good inscription, see that you keep what is written, and remain unchanged in a changing time about the unchanging Reality.”
Rufinus of Aquileia's Pro-Nicene Catechesis
Lewis Ayres on Rufinus of Aquileia’s Commentary on the Apostles’ Creed: “Rufinus wishes his catechumens to hear scriptural discussion of Father and Son as inviting the deployment of a notion of mystery shaped by pro‐Nicene principles. Rufinus attempts to shape his catechumens' imaginations to hear the words of Scripture both in the light of pro‐Nicene principles and as a text comprehensible only in the light of a particular spiritual transformation. Thus it is not precise enough to say that Rufinus wishes the text to be heard as pro‐Nicene in theology: he wishes the text to be heard and read as a particular type of text, a text whose meaning is intertwined with a spiritual ascent that it itself teaches.”
Getting Catechesis Back On Track
Fr. Lee Nelson on restoring catechesis: “Lastly, we can see in the ancient catechumenate the expectation that God’s prevenient grace moves sinners to growth in holiness and ultimately maturity, and that the Church is responsible for feeding and equipping. There is also not the presumption that we can baptize the uninstructed and let God take care of the rest. No! The Ancient Church believed that they had been given a sacred task, and that even though the instruction was basic and elementary, they had a duty to convey it with passion and joy. Saint Augustine remarked that the most important thing for a catechist is that he “enjoy catechizing.” May we find that joy in this remarkable vocation yet again!”