PART TWO

THE SEMINARY

III.   HOW CAN THIS AIM BE ACHIEVED IN CONCRETE TERMS?

       Note: When a person listens to a lecture he usually takes down notes - but his notes are in outline form. The outline is supposed to remind him of what he has heard in the lecture. No other person can understand that outline unless he, too, has listened to the lecture. In the same way, the first Christians listened to the lectures of the apostles and Fathers. And in their desire to have an aid to recall the lectures, they made an outline - and this is the New Testament. No one can understand this outline unless he has first listened to the lectures of the apostles and Fathers.

       While Scriptures contain the commands of Christ, they do not have much on "how" to obey them. The Apostolic Epistles have a little on "how" to obey the commands of Christ. But it is the Fathers of the Church who gave us a detailed explanation on how to obey the commands of Christ. The works of the Fathers, thus, contain both the commands of Christ and how to obey them. To study the Fathers, one does not have to go to Scriptures anymore. Thus the Congregation on Catholic Education emphasized the study of the Fathers in its "Instruction on the Study of the Fathers of the Church in the Formation of Priests" (1989).

       Needless to say, the commands of Christ contains all the knowledge we need to know ourselves, to know the Will of God and to know how to go to heaven. And knowing how to go to heaven, we will know how to lead others to heaven. For how can we lead others there if we, ourselves, do not know the way?

(updated 01-02-02)