TRADITIONAL CATHOLIC CATECHISM
for the Ecclesiastical Province of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Lesson 1
Religion and the Purpose of Man's Existence

Man's high destiny is to go to God, because man comes from God, and belongs entirely to God.

Our reason tells us that Someone created us. That Someone is God.

God created us to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this life, and to be happy with Him forever in the next.

God made us for Himself. The end of man, as of all creation, is the glory of God; to manifest the Divine perfections, to proclaim the goodness, majesty, and power of God.

Through glorifying God, man is destined to share His everlasting happiness in Heaven. Man was created chiefly for the life beyond the grave; this present one is merely a preparation for the life to come in eternity.

God requires us, 1. To know Him, because He is the eternal Truth; 2. To love Him because He is the most bountiful and lovable God; and 3. To serve Him, because He is the sovereign Lord.

We belong to God. Since we are His creatures, we have certain duties towards God that we must fulfill. Religion teaches us what these duties are.

Religion is the virtue by which we give to God the honor and service due to Him alone as our Creator, Master, and Supreme Lord.

In order to practice this virtue:

We must believe all the truths revealed by God.

And we must perform our duty to God in our daily lives as we have learned it from His Revelation and His Commandments. Mere knowledge is not Religion, and will avail us nothing. The Devil has knowledge, but he has not the virtue of Religion. Religion includes serving God through obedience to His holy Will. Religion is not a feeling; it is a matter of will and action.

It is absolutely necessary for us to practice Religion; God gives us no choice in the matter.

Our chief business in life, the business that God commands us to attend to, is to go to God. And this depends upon our practice of Religion.

In this life the most necessary thing is that we should know, love and serve God, and thereby obtain eternal life. "For what does it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, but suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Matt. 16:26)

The things of this world cannot make us happy because all earthly things are vain and perishable, and because man is made for God and for everlasting happiness in Heaven.

The things of this world were given to us that we might use them for the purpose of knowing, loving, and serving God. "But seek first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be given you besides." (Matt. 6:33)

God will cast them from Him forever.

We learn to know, love, and serve God from Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Who teaches us through the Catholic Church.

The study in which Jesus Christ teaches us about God, and how to know, love, and serve Him, is the study of Religion. It is the most important study anyone can undertake. The neglect of this is the root cause of the present wickedness in the world. Without a right knowledge of God, men live enslaved to their basest passions.

Culpable ignorance is failure to know God through our own fault; but which does not excuse us from loving and serving Him as we should, and a strict punishment for such ignorance will be exacted from us when we come to be judged.

This study requires thoughtfulness and attention. We have need of a wise teacher, who possesses the authority to teach in the Name of Christ. We cannot very well learn the truths of eternal salvation by ourselves alone.

Right reason proves that the Protestant sects do not possess nor teach the true doctrines of Christ that lead to eternal life.

Those that advocate no study of Religion are generally called Freethinkers, Agnostics, Skeptics, and Rationalists.

These "thinkers" claim that all questions can be answered by the use of the intellect alone, without needing any principles, law, dogma, or authority.

Freedom of thought is an evident contradiction; we are not free to believe what is not the truth. There are fundamental laws that bind the intellect.

The intelligent man, in order to attain the kind of freedom that is humanly possible, should endeavor to discover that supreme authority to which he should submit his mind; he must attain to a knowledge of the Law. And this is why the rational man studies Religion, to attain to a knowledge of this fundamental Law of God.

To save our souls we must worship God by Faith, Hope, and Charity, that is, we must believe in Him, hope in Him, and love Him with all of our hearts.

We must believe, because it is only by faith that we attain a right knowledge of God. We must keep the Commandments, because by keeping them we serve God, in which consists true charity. We must also use the means of grace, because by using them while maintaining an earnest hope in the fulfillment of His promises to us, we receive the Divine help necessary for salvation.

We receive a right knowledge of God, of His Commandments, and the means of His Grace, that is, the Christian Doctrine, in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Catechism treats first of Faith (what we are to believe), secondly of the Commandments (what we are to do), and thirdly of the Means of Grace (how we are to do it), namely, the Sacraments and Prayer.

We shall find the chief truths taught to us by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, through the Catholic Church, in the Apostles' Creed.

The Apostles’ Creed is conveniently divided into twelve articles that form the divisions of this first part of the Catholic Catechism.

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Lesson 2
The Apostles’ Creed

1. I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth.
2. And in Jesus Christ, His Only Son, Our Lord;
3. Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary;
4. Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
5. He descended into Hell; the third day He rose again from the dead;
6. He ascended into Heaven, sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty;
7. From thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.
8. I believe in the Holy Ghost;
9. The Holy Catholic Church; the Communion of Saints;
10. The forgiveness of sins;
11. The resurrection of the body;
12. And life everlasting. Amen.

1. Where do we find the chief truths taught by Jesus Christ through the Catholic Church?

We find the chief truths taught by Jesus Christ through the Catholic Church in the Apostles Creed.

A creed is a summary or statement of what one believes. "Creed" comes from the Latin credo, which means I believe; that is, I accept or as hold true something on the word of another.

"I believe," in relation to the Apostles' Creed, means that I firmly assent to everything contained in it. I believe it exactly as if I had seen those truths with my own eyes. I believe it on the authority of the word of God, Who cannot deceive nor be deceived.

The Apostles' Creed is so called because it was composed by the Apostles, and contains a summary of the principal truths which they taught.

From ancient times the Apostles' Creed has been recited before Baptism, as a Profession of Faith, and as a sign of fitness for reception into the true Church of Christ.

The Apostles' Creed has come down to us intact, except for a few clauses added later by the Church, in order to refute various heresies which had arisen. These additions, however, are not new doctrine, but a clarification of what the Creed already contained.

Thus the words "Creator of Heaven and earth" were added to counteract the Manichaean heresy that the world was created by the principle of evil; and the word "Catholic" (Greek for universal) was added, to distinguish the True Church from particular churches springing up around it. As Our Lord said, "And you also bear witness, because from the beginning you are with Me." (John 15:27)

There are several other Creeds used by the Church, whose substance is the same as the Apostles’ Creed.

The Nicene Creed, which is said at Holy Mass, was drawn up at the Council of Nicæa, in the year 325 A.D. The Athanasian Creed is said by the clergy in the Divine Office for Sunday. As the name suggests, it was composed by St. Athanasius the Great (d. 373 A.D.), the famous Bishop of Alexandria at the time of the Arian heresy.

2. Into how many articles may the Apostles' Creed be divided?

The Apostles' Creed may be divided into twelve articles.

All the articles are absolutely necessary to faith: if even one article is omitted or changed, true faith would be destroyed. That is because to doubt or deny even one truth revealed by God, is to question His authority and truthfulness.

It is symbolical to divide the Apostles' Creed into twelve articles, because the Apostles numbered twelve; thus we are reminded that the Creed comes to us and was taught by the Apostles of Our Lord. The twelve articles of the Apostles' Creed contain the Mystery of the Blessed Trinity, One God in Three distinct Divine Persons—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—with the particular operations attributed to each Person. The Creed contains three distinct parts. The first part teaches us about God the Father and Creation; the second part teaches us about God the Son and our Redemption; and the third part teaches us about God the Holy Ghost and our sanctification.

3. What act of Religion do we make when we say the Apostles' Creed?

When we say the Apostles' Creed we make an act of faith.

True Christian faith is a supernatural gift of God which enables us to believe firmly whatever God has revealed, on the testimony of His word. By it we believe in the truth of many things which we cannot grasp with our limited human understanding.

For example, we believe in God, although we cannot see Him. We believe in the Trinity, although it is beyond our understanding. "Without faith it is impossible to please God." (Heb. 11:6)

Faith, as some would have us believe, does not require us to believe in anything that is contrary to reason. When we believe what we cannot perceive or understand, we are acting according to reason, which tells us that God cannot err, lie, or deceive us. We therefore put our trust in God's word. On the other hand, those who would deny the authority of God's word are acting against reason.

In many natural things we often believe what we do not see, such as sound waves and tiny atoms, on the human testimony of scientists who have studied them. Thus we act within reason; but how much more reasonable it is to believe on the word of God!

A great reward in Heaven awaits those who suffer persecution or die for the Faith or for Christian virtue. The number of martyrs who have died for the Catholic Faith is estimated at more than sixteen millions.

All the Apostles suffered persecution, and all except St. John the Beloved suffered death by martyrdom for their Faith. St. John the Baptist was beheaded because he rebuked Herod for violating the law of marriage. St. John Nepomucene was put to death because he refused to violate the seal of Confession. "Therefore, everyone who acknowledges Me before men, I also will acknowledge him before My Father in Heaven." (Matt. 10:32)

Neglect of the study of the truths of our holy Religion is the most frequent cause of lukewarmness, a wicked life, and final apostasy from the Faith and impenitence. If we are to avoid damnation, we must be zealous in studying the Christian doctrine, from the Catechism and in Religion classes, in Sermons, spiritual conferences, and retreats.

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