ACAT 2: The Schematic Diagram

Here we are, Baltimore Catechism in hand, ready to start unpacking the components of the Catholic faith as they were laid out for the people in America in 1885.  The book reflects nearly sixty years of prior scholarly discussion aimed at creating a summary and explanation of Catholic doctrine easy enough to present to children and detailed enough to enliven the faith in those teaching it.  The resulting work remains a timeless starting point for those seeking to conceptualize what choosing to be Catholic is all about.

The twelve questions which comprise Lesson One act as our schematic, like the beginning of any good User’s Manual of today: What are we looking at?  What are the functions of the main components, and what is the overall purpose of having a Catholic faith?

First, we see the main characters of this faith: God, the Creator; and us, the people whom He created.  The rest of the manual will elaborate on several of the combinations and resulting functions of this relationship between God and us.  If we believe there actually is a God, or want to believe, or are in any way open to that possibility, then we’re good to start.

God is presented as the Creator of all things: the physical world and the laws of physics; the spiritual nature of beings and the spirit dwelling within each living creature; and every variation of species therein, of both things we see and invisible essences we experience.

People are a subset of God’s creatures who have both physical (body) and spiritual (soul) natures, made especially for the purpose of knowing God and experiencing Him in a direct and specific relationship.

  • Each person has a unique, essential spirit, characteristic of their “self,” that is invisible, intangible and immeasurable – but is expressed through all that we feel and all that we do.
  • This particular spirit is not simply an animating force, but also contains the person’s core identity, their soul, which, as the Catechism states, “will last as long as God Himself.” In other words, each person’s essence lives forever.
  • The soul is more than the energy enlivening the body; it has awareness of itself in relationship to God and the ability to make rational choices rather than encoding patterns purely on instinct or conditioned responses.
  • The soul is designed to seek after higher things, better understanding, ever greater knowledge; but the soul cannot know everything by its own power alone. The soul requires God to lead, guide, teach and nurture these yearnings in the relationship for which it was designed.
  • Every soul may freely choose to follow God’s order, or to go off on its own, risking the kind of harm that comes from disorder.

The main functional parts, then, are God, the Creator; and people, the creatures seeking knowledge through relationship with Him.  We’ve got the who, and the what.  So far, so good!

We need to pause here and reflect just a bit on the schematic as it relates to people on the autism spectrum.  No two people are exactly the same, but within those infinite variations of body and personal essence remains the same purpose, which is growing in knowledge of and relationship with God.  (We will get to that next week.)  Autistic thinkers tend to approach both knowledge and relationships in our own autistic way, sometimes finding our particular wiring helpful (for instance, in the ways we reflect on and record information) and sometimes needing a little more engineering to understand things as easily as nonautistic thinkers do (such as when our linear, wired-in-series thinking struggles to comprehend the infinite, abundant and parallel functioning of God).  Autistic wiring also seems to have unpredictably distributed areas of resistance, capacitance and conductivity, compared to the schematics of more typically wired thinkers.  Our energy flow may seem to diminish faster than others, especially when we are functioning in social (parallel-wired) situations.  The important point is to be aware of our own, individual wiring and to trust that it was designed that way by God – who did so deliberately, in hopes we would discover Him through that very way he wired us.  Comparing ourselves and our wiring to that of anyone else is futile and pointless.  If God had wanted us to think like someone else, He would have wired us that way.

There we go: the schematic diagram, the main players.  The WHO and the WHAT.  Next week, we continue Lesson One, looking next at WHY God created us in the first place.

(Here’s a tip: Any version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church can be thought of as the book proposal for God’s manuscript of the fatherly love story He intends to be told by and within each of our lives.)

The way God created each one of us reflects the delight He takes in each one of us.

ACAT 1: Basic Catholic Prayers

The Baltimore Catechism begins not with instruction but with the most frequently heard prayers in the Catholic faith.  Why start here?  What motivated the Catholic scholars to start with prayers before we even get into the premise of our faith?  Wouldn’t it make more sense to start by explaining God and what we know about Him before we dive straight into how to invoke Him and converse with Him?

When the Baltimore Catechism was first published in 1891, then again in 1921, the concept of a user’s manual did not exist yet in the common American vernacular.  Nowadays, manuals are passé.   Most consumer products are designed to be user-friendly, plug-and-play, unbox and go.  What we see more and more is a “Quick Start Guide” or reference card as an alternative to a more lengthy instruction book.

The choice to begin with prayer instead of doctrine is very much like a Quick Start Guide to the Catholic Faith.  One could see simply the words to be memorized in order to fit in and participate right off the bat, or one could see what these words represent and glean the fundamental summary of our faith right here.  In a sense, this echoes the experience of social skills instruction: we are taught basic stock phrases to use in certain situations and can skate by nicely if we learn to use each at the proper time, or we can more deeply consider what each means and why each evokes the response it does from those around us.

And so, the Baltimore Catechism introduces the prayers most frequently heard in the Catholic faith which also act to summarize the scope of our beliefs.  We have the Our Father, Hail Mary, Apostles’ Creed, Confiteor, and the Acts of Faith, Hope and Love as our Quick Start Guide.  No time to unpack the finer elements comprising our faith?  Then, become familiar with these prayers and recite them with sincerity to experience what being Catholic is all about.

It is greatly tempting to take any of these prayers and expound on their meaning; likewise, to write at great lengths about prayer itself, since that alone is a concept which confounds and has confounded people of all neurotypes from the beginning of time.  Some people find prayer natural, and others find it impossible.  Some pray primarily with words; others with actions; others with song; others by experience.  It is said there is no wrong way to pray.  Within the Mission of Saint Thorlak, we simplify prayer to mean: deliberate relationship with God.  For those of us on the spectrum, this makes a bold clarification, as everything with us seems to come down to “relationship” and “relationship deficit.”

“How do I know I am praying?”  If we are engaging, or sincerely intending to engage, our thoughts and emotions with God, we are praying.

“How do I know I am praying well?” If our attention is on God, or wanting to know God, or wanting to share ourselves with God, we are praying well.

“How do I know I am praying right?”  If we are showing honesty, sincerity, commitment of our attention and desire to increase the trust we feel that God is real, we are praying right.

In contrast, the following factors have nothing whatsoever to do with gauging the quality of our prayer:

  • How we feel before, during or after
  • How we compare to others
  • How loudly we pray
  • How long we pray

Here is where many autistics run into difficulty: Prayer is meant to be a mutual conversation between ourselves and God.  Sounds easy… if conversation is something that comes easy.  The advantage of having “prayers” (plural noun) is that they can assist our “prayer” (intentional action) in the same way reading scripted dialogue can help familiarize us with conversational skills, gradually leading us to where we can become more comfortable and more spontaneous.  Furthermore, scripted prayers make excellent study guides so that we can know more about God before we jump into spontaneous conversation.

The downside is that the literal words might become distracting.  For example:

Our Father – calls to mind our actual father and all the attributes we associate with him.  It can be hard to think of God in any other terms than the image we associate with “father.”

Who Art in Heaven – means we can’t see him, and can feel like God lives in an invisible castle somewhere.

Hallowed Be Thy Name – what does that mean?  (That the name of God itself stirs respect).

Thy Kingdom Come – is confusing to anyone not familiar with monarchy.  Again, it calls to mind imaginary castles from storybooks.

In their fuller context, these words mean:

God, who loves us as His own children, who exists in a realm beyond what we can see: may you be loved every time we say your name!  May your ways of love and mercy be known right here, right now!

If that is still not clear, one of the shortest, valid prayers we can say is: JESUS.

How is this so?

  • It calls Jesus to mind, which begins building a relationship.
  • It literally means “He will save us.” Saying his name, therefore, is a declaration of faith.
  • It brings Him present to us, the same way calling anyone else’s name gets their attention.

Still finding it confusing?  Don’t despair.  The fuller manual is still ahead. Not everyone can jump in with just the Quick Start Guide, especially if it’s something completely unfamiliar. By the time we’re done, it might make more sense.  Faith in God is something that will always leave people with more questions than answers, and that is, in many ways, reassuring.  After all, a quest we never fully complete can never become stale or stagnant.