Procatechesis: Or Prologue To The Catecheses
PROCATECHESIS: or Prologue to the Catecheses
1 Already, dear candidates for enlightenment, the scent of blessedness has come upon you; already you are gathering spiritual flowers to weave into heavenly crowns; already the perfume of the Holy Spirit has breathed over you. You are already outside the outer hall of the palace; I pray that the king may lead you inside. The blossom can now be seen on the trees; I pray that the fruit may follow. So far your enrolment has taken place; and your call to military service. We have had the bridesmaids’ lamps, a yearning for the heavenly city, good intentions and the hope which accompanies them; for he who said ‘for those who love God everything works together for good’, does not lie (Rom 8.28). For God is a generous benefactor, but he waits for each one's decision. This is why the Apostle went on to say: ‘to those who are called according to their purpose’. It is a true purpose which makes you one of the called; for if you are here in body but not in mind, you gain nothing.
2 Once upon a time Simon Magus came to the font. He was baptized but not enlightened; he dipped his body in the water, but did not enlighten his heart with the Spirit. As far as his body was concerned, he went down into the water and came up from it; but his soul was not buried with Christ or raised with him. I give you examples of falls to save you from falling. For these things ‘happened to them as a type, and are recorded as a warning’ (1 Cor 10.11) to those who come forward to this day. May none of you be found to tempt grace; may no root of bitterness spring up to trouble you. Let no one come here saying: ‘Come on, let's see what the Faithful do. Let me go in and watch, so as to learn what goes on.’ Do you expect to see without being seen? Do you think that you can be curious about what is going on without God being curious about your heart?
3 There once was a man in the Gospels (Mt 22.8ff) who was curious about the wedding. He went in without a proper garment and sat down and ate, because the bridegroom allowed him to do so. But having seen that everyone else was wearing white, he should have dressed in the same way himself. He had an equal share of the food; but he was not equal in his dress or in his disposition. Now, though the bridegroom was generous, he was not undiscriminating. As he made a tour of inspection round each of the guests, he was not concerned with what they were eating but with their behaviour. When he saw a stranger without a wedding-garment, he said to him: ‘Friend, how did you get in here, in a garment of that colour and in that frame of mind? I realize the doorkeeper did not keep you out, because of the host's generosity. I realize you didn't know what you should be wearing for the banquet. But when you came in, you could see the guests’ robes shining like lightning. Shouldn't you have learnt from what was before your eyes? Shouldn't you have gone out while there was still time so as to come back when the time was right? As it is, you have made a disorderly entrance only to suffer a disorderly ejection.’ And he gives orders to his servants: ‘Bind his feet which presumed to enter, bind his hands which didn't know how to put on a white garment, and throw him out into the darkness outside, for he doesn't deserve the wedding-torches.’ You see what happened to the man in the story; put your own affairs in order.
4 We are the servants of Christ. We welcomed you. We had the responsibility of doorkeepers, but we left the door open. Perhaps you came in with your soul spattered with the mud of your sins and with your intentions soiled. You came in; you were admitted; your name was recorded. Can you see the solemn arrangement of this assembly? Can you take to heart its order and its discipline, the reading of the Scriptures, the presence of the clergy, the programme of instruction? The very place should put you to shame; be taught by what you can see. Leave now in good order, and come back tomorrow in better. If your soul is dressed in avarice, change your clothes before you come in; take the garment off; don't cover it up. Take off fornication and impurity, and put on the shining white garment of chastity. I am giving you a warning, before Jesus, the bridegroom of souls, comes in and sees what you are wearing. You have ample notice. You have forty days for repentance; you have plenty of time to take your clothes off and wash them and come back properly dressed. But if you persist in your ill will, the preacher is not to blame. Don't expect to receive grace. The water will receive you, but the Spirit will not. If anyone is aware of a wound, he should put ointment on it. If anyone has fallen, he should pick himself up. Let there be no Simon among you, no hypocrisy, no idle curiosity about what is going on.
5 Perhaps you have another reason for coming. Perhaps some man among you has come because he wants to win the approval of his girl-friend; the same can apply to women too. Perhaps a slave has wanted to please his master or someone has wanted to please a friend. I accept this as bait for my hook and let you in. You may have had the wrong reason for coming, but I have good hope that you will be saved. Perhaps you didn't know where you were going or recognize the net waiting to catch you. You have swum into the Church's net. Allow yourself to be caught; don't try to escape. Jesus is fishing for you, not to kill you but to give you life once you have been killed. For you have to die and rise again. You have heard the Apostle say: ‘dead to sin, alive to righteousness’. Die to your sins and live to righteousness. Make today the first day of your life.
6 Consider the honour that Jesus is bestowing on you. Up till now you have been called a catechumen, one who hears from the outside. You heard hope, but you didn't know it. You heard mysteries, but you didn't understand them. You heard the Scriptures, but you didn't understand their depth. But now you are not hearing a sound outside you but one within, for now the Spirit lives in you and makes your mind God's home. When you hear what is written about the mysteries, then you will understand things which you didn't know. And don't imagine that you are to receive something trivial: pitiful human being that you are, you are to receive one of God's own titles. Listen to what Paul says: ‘God is faithful.’ And listen to another text: ‘God is faithful and just’ (1 Cor 1.9; 1 Jn 1.9). It was with foreknowledge of this, since human beings are destined to receive one of God's own titles, that the Psalmist, speaking for God, declared: ‘I said you are all Gods and sons of the Most High’ (Ps 81 (82).6). So take care not to have the title ‘faithful’ but an unfaithful disposition. You have entered the contest: keep going for the whole race. You won't have another opportunity like this. If your wedding-days were approaching, wouldn't you drop everything else and concentrate on preparations for the celebration? Well then, as you are shortly to make your soul holy for your heavenly Bridegroom, won't you take a rest from material things for the sake of gaining spiritual ones?
7 You are not allowed to receive baptism twice or three times; in that case you could say: ‘If I fail once, I can succeed the second time.’ But if you fail once, you can't put matters right. There is ‘one Lord, one faith, one baptism’ (Eph 4.5). The only people who are rebaptized are some heretics, and only because their first baptism wasn't a baptism at all.
8 For God requires nothing more of us than a good intention. Don't say: ‘How can my sins be wiped off?’ I will tell you: by desire, by faith. How could I put it more simply than that? But if your lips declare your desire but your heart says the opposite, your Judge can read hearts. From today give up every unworthy occupation. Don't let your tongue speak any unholy words; don't let your eye go astray and rove after unwholesome sights.
9 Be eager to attend the catechetical classes. Be earnest in submitting to the exorcisms. If you are blown upon and exorcised, the process brings you salvation. Imagine an unworked lump of gold that is adulterated and combined with a variety of other substances, like bronze, tin, iron and lead. We are trying to get pure gold. Can the impurities be removed from it without fire? In the same way, the soul can't be purified without exorcisms. They are sacred, for they have been taken from holy Scripture. Your face is veiled to leave your mind at rest, to prevent a wandering gaze from making your heart wander too. Though your eyes are veiled, your ears are free to receive salvation. As goldsmiths achieve their effect by directing their breath into the fire through narrow pipes and blowing on the gold hidden in the retort and stimulating the flame underneath, so too the exorcists inspire fear through the Holy Spirit and, so to speak, rekindle the soul inside the retort of the body. Our enemy the devil departs, but salvation and the hope of eternal life remain. Purified of its sins, the soul henceforth possesses salvation. So, brethren, let us persevere in hope, and offer ourselves, and be hopeful, so that the God of all things, seeing our intentions, may cleanse us of our sins, inspire us with good hope of our welfare and give us the repentance which leads to salvation. God has called; you have been called.
10 Persevere with the catechetical classes. If we have a lot to say, don't relax your attention. You are being given weapons to use against the powers ranged against you, weapons against heresies, against Jews and Samaritans and pagans. You have many enemies; take a good supply of weapons, for you have to shoot against many adversaries. You must learn how to shoot down the Greek, how to fight against the heretic, the Jew and the Samaritan. Your arms are ready, above all the sword of the Spirit. You must stretch out your right hand for the good cause to fight the Lord's fight, to conquer the powers ranged against you, and to become invincible to any heretical force.
11 Let this be your order of the day: learn what you are told and keep it for ever. Do not imagine that these are ordinary homilies, which are good and deserve credence, but if we do neglect them today, we have tomorrow to learn. But the instructions on the font of rebirth are given in sequence; if they are neglected today, when will the loss be made good? Imagine it is the season for planting trees. If we haven't dug deep, when else can the tree that has once been badly planted be planted properly? Think of catechesis as if it were a house. If we don't use clamps in the right order to hold the structure together and to prevent gaps appearing so that the building becomes unsound, even our earlier efforts will be wasted. Stone must follow stone and corner fit corner in the right order. We must smooth away irregularities if the building is to rise. In the same way we bring you, so to speak, stones of knowledge. You must learn about the living God; you must learn about judgment; you must learn about Christ; you must learn about the resurrection. I shall have many things to say in order: first I must explain them point by point, and only later in their mutual connections. If you don't join them together into a single whole, remembering what comes first and what second, I will have performed my task of building, but the structure you have will be unsound.
12 When an instruction is given, if one of the catechumens asks you what the teachers have said, say nothing to the outsider. We are entrusting you with a mystery and the hope of the life to come. Keep the mystery safe for the One who will reward you. Be warned in case someone says to you: ‘What harm does it do if I get to know as well?’ The sick are like that when they ask for wine. If it is given when it is bad for them, it makes them delirious and has two harmful results: the patient dies and the doctor is blamed. It is like that with the catechumen if he learns from one of the Faithful. The catechumen is delirious because he doesn't understand what he has heard; he criticizes the subject-matter and despises what he is told; while the Faithful is condemned for betraying the secret. You are standing now between two frontiers. Make sure that you don't talk carelessly, not because what you are told isn't fit to talk about, but because your listener isn't fit to hear it. You used to be a catechumen yourself, and I didn't explain to you then what the future had in store. When you learn from experience how sublime the teaching is, then you will understand that catechumens are not fit to hear it.
13 Now that you have been enrolled you have become sons and daughters of the same mother. When you enter the church before the time of the exorcisms, you should only talk about things that are conducive to devotion. If one of you is missing, go to look for him. If you had been invited to a dinner-party, wouldn't you wait for your fellow-guest? If you had a brother, wouldn't you look for what was good for him? Don't gossip any more about unprofitable subjects, —‘What has happened in the city?’ ‘What has happened in the village?’ ‘What has the Emperor been doing?’ ‘What has the bishop been doing?’ ‘What has the priest been doing?’ Fix your thoughts upwards; that is what your moment of opportunity requires. ‘Be still and know that I am God’ (Ps 45 (46). 10). If you see the Faithful taking part in the service in an off-hand way, they are safe, they know what they have received, they possess the grace. But you are still in the balance: are you to receive or not receive? Don't imitate those slack people. Try to experience a reverent awe.
14 When the exorcism takes place, while you are waiting for the others to arrive for their exorcism, the men and the women are kept apart. At this point I could do with Noah's ark, to separate Noah and his sons from his wife and his sons’ wives. There was only one ark, and the door was shut, but things were arranged decently. So too, although the church is closed and you are all inside, there are separate places, the men all together and the women all together, to prevent a means of salvation turning into an occasion for damnation. Even though there may be a good reason for sitting together, it is better to keep the passions at a distance. So let the men sit together and have a good book; one man can read and the rest listen. If there isn't a book available, one man might pray, and another speak a few helpful words. The unmarried women should be kept together in the same way, either singing or reading silently, so that their lips move inaudibly, ‘for I do not allow a woman to speak in church’. Married women should observe the same practice, praying and moving their lips silently, so that Samuel can come and your barren soul can conceive salvation, for God will hear you, which is what the name Samuel means.
15 I shall observe each man's earnestness and each woman's devotion. Your mind should be ardent in devotion, your soul wrought like bronze, the hardness of your unbelief hammered out; let the scales fall away from the iron and leave the metal clean; let the rust fall away and leave the metal pure. Soon God will show you that night, the darkness which is as bright as day which Scripture speaks of: ‘The darkness will not be dark for you, and the night will be made as bright as the day’ (Ps 138 (139).12). Then for each man and woman among you may the gate of paradise be opened. Then may you enjoy the Christ-bearing waters in all their fragrance. Then may you receive the name of Christ, and the power of things that are divine. Even now, I urge you, turn your mind's eye upwards: picture the choirs of the angels, and God, the Lord of all things, seated there, and his Only-begotten Son seated there with him at his right hand, and the Spirit there with them, and the Thrones and Dominations celebrating the heavenly liturgy, and each one of you, men and women, who is to be saved. Even now let your ears seem to ring with that glorious sound which the angels will raise when you gain salvation. ‘Blessed are those whose sins are forgiven’ (Ps 31 (32). 1), when, like the stars of the Church, you will come in with your bodies shining and your souls radiant.
16 The baptism which lies before you is a matter of great importance. For prisoners it means ransom; for sins forgiveness; the death of sin; new birth for the soul; a shining garment; a holy, indelible seal; a chariot to heaven; the food of paradise; the grant of royalty; the grace of adoption. Nevertheless a serpent is on the lookout for those who take this road; do not let him bite you and infect you with unbelief. He sees so many people being saved and ‘seeks someone to devour’ (1 Pet 5.8). You are approaching the Father of spirits, but you have to pass that serpent; how will you get past? Let your feet be shod in readiness with the gospel of peace, so that even if you are bitten, you will come to no harm. Have faith living within you, and sturdy hope like a strong shoe, so that you can get past your enemy and reach the Lord (cf. Eph 6.15). Prepare your heart to welcome your instruction and to share in the holy mysteries. Pray more frequently, that God may choose you to receive the heavenly, immortal mysteries. Do not be idle by day or by night. As soon as sleep falls from your eyes, let your mind be intent on prayer. If you notice any shameful thought coming to the surface of your mind, remember judgment and salvation. Concentrate your mind on receiving instruction, so as to forget unworthy thoughts. If you meet anyone who says: ‘So you are going to go down into the water? Aren't there baths in the city any more?’, imagine that this is the sea-serpent plotting against you. Pay attention not to what the man is saying but to what God is doing. Guard your soul so as not to be caught, but to remain in hope and become an heir to eternal salvation.
17 These, my friends, are my orders and instructions. Do not make your house of hay and straw and chaff, in case your handiwork burns down and we incur the loss. Make your work rather of gold and silver and precious stones. It is for me to say this, for you to undertake it, and for God to bring the work to completion (cf. 1 Cor 3.12–15; 3.6). So let us tighten the sinews of our minds, tense our souls, prepare our hearts. For the prize we are running for is our soul; we have our hopes set on heavenly things. God reads your hearts, he knows who is sincere and who is a hypocrite; he has the power to protect the sincere and give faith to the hypocrite. God has power even to give faith to the unbeliever, if only the unbeliever gives his heart. May he cancel the bond in force against you (cf. Col 2.14), grant you an amnesty for your past offences, plant you in the Church, enlist you in his army and put on you the ‘armour of righteousness’ (2 Cor 6.7). May he endow you with the heavenly realities of the new covenant and give you the indelible seal of the Holy Spirit for all eternity, in Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom is the glory for ever and ever. Amen.