In its task of inculturating the faith, catechesis must transmit the Gospel message in its integrity and purity. Jesus proclaimed the Gospel integrally: "...because I have made known to you all that I have heard from my Father" (Jn 15,15) This same integrity is demanded by Christ of his disciples in his sending them on mission to preach the Gospel: "...and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you" (Mt 28,19). A fundamental principle of catechesis, therefore, is that of safeguarding the integrity of the message and avoiding any partial or distorted presentation: "In order that the sacrificial offering of his or her faith should be perfect, the person who becomes a disciple of Christ has the right to receive 'the words of faith,' not in mutilated, falsified or diminished form but whole and entire, in all its rigour and vigour". 380CT 30.
Two closely connected dimensions underlie this criterion. – The integral presentation of the Gospel message, without ignoring certain fundamental elements, or without operating a selectivity with regard to the deposit of faith. 381Ibid. Catechesis, on the contrary, "must take diligent care faithfully to present the entire treasure of the Christian message". 382DCG (1971) 38a. This is accomplished, gradually, by following the example of the divine pedagogy with which God revealed himself progressively and gradually. Integrity must also be accompanied by adaptation. Consequently catechesis starts out with a simple proposition of the integral structure of the Christian message, and proceeds to explain it in a manner adapted to the capacity of those being catechized. Without restricting itself to this initial exposition, it gradually and increasingly proposes the Christian message more amply and with greater explicitness, in accordance with the capacity of those being catechized and with the proper character of catechesis. 383DCG (1971) 38b. These two levels of the integral exposition of the Gospel message are called: intensive integrity and "extensive integrity". – The presentation of the authentic Gospel message, in all of its purity, without reducing idemands for fear of rejection and without imposing heavy burdens which it does not impose, since the yoke of Jesus is light. 384Cf. Mt 11:30. The criterion of authenticity is closely connected with that of inculturation since the latter is concerned to "translate" 385EN 63 uses the expressions "transferre" and "traslatio"; cf. RM 53b. the essentials of the Gospel message into a definite cultural language. There is always tension in this necessary task: "Evangelization will lose much of its power and efficacy if it does not take into consideration the people to whom it is addressed.". however "it may lose its very nature and savour if on the pretext of transposing its content into another language that content is rendered meaningless or is corrupted... 386EN 63c; cf. CT 53c and CT 31.
In the complex relationship between inculturation and the integrity of the Christian message, the criterion to be applied is a Gospel attitude of "a missionary openness to the integral salvation of the world". 387Synod 1985, II, D, 3; cf. EN 65. This must always unite acceptance of truly human and religious values with the missionary task of proclaiming the whole truth of the Gospel, without falling either into closed inflexibility or into facile accommodations which enfeeble the Gospel and secularize the Church. Gospel authenticity excludes both of these attitudes which are contrary to the true meaning of mission. A comprehensive and hierarchical message
This message transmitted by catechetics has a "comprehensive hierarchical character", 388CT 31 which expounds the integrity and organization of the message; cf. DCG (1971) 39 and 43. which constitutes a coherent and vital synthesis of the faith. This is organized around the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, in a christocentric perspective, because this is "the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them". 389CCC 234. Starting with this point, the harmony of the overall message requires a "hierarchy of truths", 390UR 11. in so far as the connection between each one of these and the foundation of the faith differs. Nevertheless, this hierarchy "does not mean that some truths pertain to Faith itself less than others, but rather that some truths are based on others as of a higher priority and are illumined by them". 391DCG (1971) 43.
All aspects and dimensions of the Christian message participate in this hierarchical system. – The history of salvation, recounting the "marvels of God" (mirabilia Dei), what He has done, continues to do and will do in the future for us, is organized in reference to Jesus Christ, the "centre of salvation history". 392DCG (1971) 41. The preparation for the Gospel in the Old Testament, the fullness of Revelation in Jesus Christ, and the time of the Church, provide the structure of all salvation history of which creation and eschatology are its beginning and its end. – The Apostles' Creed demonstrates how the Church has always desired to present the Christian mystery in a vital synthesis. This Creed is a synthesis of and a key to reading all of the Church's doctrine, which is hierarchically ordered around it. 393St Cyril of Jerusalem affirms with regard to the Creed: "This synthesis of faith was not made to accord with human opinions but rather what was of the greatest importance was gathered from all the Scriptures, to present the one teaching of the faith in its entirety. And just as a mustard seed contains a great number of branches in a tiny grain, so too the summary of faith encompassed in a few words the whole knowledge of the true religion contained in the Old and New Testaments". – The sacraments, which, like regenerating forces, spring from the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ, are also a whole. They form "an organic whole in which each particular sacrament has its own vital place". 394CCC 1211. In this whole, the Holy Eucharist occupies a unique place to which all of the other sacraments are ordained. The Eucharist is to be presented as the "sacrament of sacraments". 395Ibid. – The double commandment of love of God and neighbour is—in the moral message—a hierarchy of values which Jesus himself established: "On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets" (Mt 22,40). The love of God and neighbour, which sum up the Decalogue, are lived in the spirit of the Beatitudes and constitute the magna carta of the Christian life proclaimed by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. 396St Augustine presents the Sermon on the Mount as "the perfect charter of the Christian life and contains all the appropriate precepts necessary to guide it" (De Sermone Domini in Monte I, 1; PL 34, 1229-1231); cf. EN 8. – The Our Father gathers up the essence of the Gospel. It synthesizes and hierarchically structures the immense riches of prayer contained in Sacred Scripture and in all of the Church's life. This prayer, given by Jesus to his disciples, makes clear the childlike trust and the deepest desires with which one can turn to God. 397The Our Father is, in truth, the summing up of the entire Gospel (Tertullian, De oratione, 1, 6). "Go through all the prayers in the Scriptures and I do not believe that it is possible to find anyone, anywhere, that is not included in the Lord's Prayer. (St Augustine, Epistolas, 130, 12; PL, 33, 502); cf. CCC 2761. A meaningful message for the human person
The Word of God, in becoming man, assumed human nature in everything, except sin. In this way Jesus Christ, who is "the image of the invisible God", (Col 1,15) is also the perfect man. From this it follows that "in reality it is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of man truly becomes clear". 398GS 22a. Catechesis, in presenting the Christian message, not only shows who God is and what his saving plan is, but, as Jesus himself did, it reveals man to man and makes him more aware of his sublime vocation. 399Cf. Ibid. Revelation, in fact, "... is not... isolated from life or artificially juxtaposed to it. It is concerned with the ultimate meaning of life and it illumines the whole of life with the light of the Gospel, to inspire it or to question it". 400CT 22c; cf. EN 29. The relationship between the Christian message and human experience is not a simple methodological question. It springs from the very end of catechesis, which seeks to put the human person in communion with Jesus Christ. In his earthly life he lived his humanity fully: "He worked with human hands, he thought with a human mind, he acted with a human will, and with a human heart he loved". 401GS 22b. Therefore, "Christ enables us to live in him all that he himself lived, and he lives it in us". 402CCC 521; cf. CCC 519-521. Catechesis operates through this identity of human experience between Jesus the Master and his disciple and teaches to think like him, to act like him, to love like him. 403Cf. CT 20b. To live communion with Christ is to experience the new life of grace. 404Cf. Rm 6:4.
For this reason, catechesis is eminently christological in presenting the Christian message and should therefore "be concerned with making men attentive to their more significant experiences, both personal and social; it also has the duty of placing under the light of the Gospel, the questions which arise from those experiences so that there may be stimulated within men a right desire to transform their ways of life". 405DCG (1971) 74; cf. CT 29. In this sense: – in first evangelization, proper to the pre-catechumenate or to pre-catechesis, the proclamation of the Gospel shall always be done in close connection with human nature and its aspirations, and will show how the Gospel fully satisfies the human heart; 406Cf. AG 8a. – in biblical catechesis, it shall help to interpret present-day human life in the light of the experiences of the people of Israel, of Jesus Christ and the ecclesial community, in which the Spirit of the Risen Jesus continually lives and works; – in explaining the Creed, catechesis shall show how the great themes of the faith (creation, original sin, Incarnation, Easter, Pentecost, eschatology) are always sources of life and light for the human being; – moral catechesis, in presenting what makes life worthy of the Gospel 407Cf. Phil 1:27. and in promoting the Beatitudes as the spirit that must permeate the Decalogue, shall root them in the human virtues present in the heart of man; 408Cf. CCC 1697. – liturgical catechesis shall make constant reference to the great human experiences represented by the signs and symbols of liturgical actions originating in Jewish and Christian culture. 409Cf. CCC 1145-1152 concerning the importance of signs and symbols in liturgical action. Methodological principle for the presentation of the message 410Cf. part III, chapter 2.
The norms and criteria indicated in this chapter and those concerning the "exposition of the content of catechesis, must be applied in the various forms of catechesis, that is to say, in biblical and liturgical catechesis, in doctrinal summaries, in the interpretation of the conditions of human existence and so on. 411DCG (1971) 46. From these, however, it is not possible to deduce the order that should be observed in the exposition of catechetical content. Indeed, "it can happen that in the present situation of catechesis reasons of method or pedagogy may suggest that the communication of the riches of the content of catechesis should be organized in one way rather than another". 412CT 31. It is possible to begin with God so as to arrive at Christ, and vice versa. Equally, it is possible to start with man and come to God, and conversely. The selection of a particular order for presenting the message is conditioned by circumstances, and by the faith level of those to be catechized. It will always be necessary to elaborate with care that pedagogical method which is most appropriate to the circumstances of an ecclesial community or of those to whom catechesis is specifically addressed. Hence derives the need to investigate correctly in order to find those means which best respond to different situations. It is a matter for Bishops to draw up more particular norms for this and to apply them by means of Catechetical Directories and catechisms which cater for different ages and cultural conditions, as well as in other ways deemed more appropriate. 413Cf. CIC 775, §§ 1-3.