This compendium of The Catechism of the Catholic Church is just that: a compendium. It concentrates all the essentials of the catechism in question-and-answer form…Why the publication of this compendium? In order to provide a reliable digest of all the main areas covered by The Catechism of the Catholic Church. Another reason is to offer, in clear and simple language, a reference source for what the larger catechism treats at greater length and in more detail.

The liturgy proclaims and celebrates the mysteries professed in the Apostles’ Creed, notably the paschal mystery by which Christ redeemed the world. Liturgy literally means a public service by and for the people. Theologically, the liturgy is both a participation of the Christian faithful in Christ’s work of redemption, and Christ’s continuing His work of our redemption in, with, and by the Church…Liturgical catechesis is instruction in the liturgy on two levels: as mystery and celebration in general, and as sacraments and sacramentals in particular.

Before the coming of Christ, there was one divinely revealed religion, Judaism, whose members were the Chosen People of God. With the Incarnation, Judaism was replaced by Christianity, whose believers became the New Israel, the New Chosen People, or, in the language of the Second Vatican Council, the People of God.

Our faith is a great mystery. The Church professes and celebrates this faith in the Apostles’ Creed. She celebrates this faith in the sacraments and the liturgy. The faithful live out this faith in their following of Christ. These were the first three parts of The Catechism of the Catholic Church. Now we are to see how the following of Christ is to be a vital and personal relationship with the living and true God. This relationship is prayer.

We commonly think of the Church’s teaching authority in connection with controversies that arise among Catholic scholars or when some issue touching on faith or morals threatens the integrity of the Christian religion. No doubt the Church is called upon to exercise her magisterium (teaching authority) in circumstances that externally are controversial or that practically are dangerous to the spiritual well being of the faithful. On closer analysis, however, these occasions when the Church, as it were, steps in with her hierarchical authority are really situations in which some aspect of faith and reason is involved.

"There are four logical features in this passage from the Gospel of Matthew, each one of which deserves not a few minutes, but months of prayerful meditation. First, Peter's profession of faith in Christ; then, Christ's acceptance of this profession; third, Christ's promise to make Peter the visible foundation of His Church; and finally, the awesome description of the power of papal authority." - Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Faith therefore in the Holy Eucharist is THE TEST of whether a person is a Catholic or not. And no one cheats here because God knows whether a person believes or not. Given this foundation, the faith in the Holy Eucharist is the test of being a true Catholic." - Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Faith in the Life of a Priest (Alt)

What is Faith? Why is Faith important in the life of a Christian? How is "Faith imperative in the life of a Catholic priest? We can give summary attention to the first two questions and concentrate on the third; yet I do not think that, given the state of things in the Church today, we should glide over either the meaning of faith or its importance in the life of every Catholic Christian." - Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

"If there is one lesson that we need to learn in life it is that our stay here on earth is a probation. We commonly speak of the trials of life. We should say that our life on earth is a trial. It is a test. It is God’s way of enabling us to prove our loyalty to Him. That is what life, or we correctly say, is - a valley of tears. It is an opportunity to prove our fidelity to the God from whom we came and the condition for our eternity with the God for whom we were made." - Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

The family as a group of persons of common ancestry began with the human race. But if we are to understand the meaning of the Christian family, we should know something of the family in pre-Christian times. The reason is that Christ elevated the family to a dignity and stability that simply did not exist before He came into the world.

Stated in one sentence, parents have the right to give their offspring a share in their own life of the spirit, corresponding to the share they have given the children in their life of the body. Or, in more concrete terms, parents have the right to communicate their own religious beliefs and practices to the sons and daughters to have whom they have already communicated their physical existence as human beings.

Our plan here is to prayerfully reflect on three areas of a subject that is as broad and deep as the ocean. We shall ask ourselves: What are the challenges facing the family in our day? Why does the Catholic Church offer the only solution to these challenges? How are we to respond to these challenges?

Father Benedict Groeschel, CFR, internationally known for his writing, lectures, and retreats is a profound lover of the Eucharist. He is a modern-day advocate of Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration. Through his ministry and communications, he encourages all to grow closer to Our Living God through the habits of daily prayer, reception of the sacraments and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

Father Damien, known the world over as the priest of the lepers on the island of Molokai, was truly an apostle of the Eucharist. This love he had for the Eucharist was transmitted to the lepers. He brought them to closer union with their Maker through the beautiful liturgies he organized, frequent Benediction, and Eucharistic Processions.

Fr. Hardon - A "One Man Army of God" (Wanderer)

Jesuit Fr. John Hardon, this country's foremost theologian and catechist, died December 30 at the Colombiere Retreat House in suburban Detroit. He was 86. "He was a one-man army of God," said Wanderer publisher Al Matt, Jr., on hearing the news of the theologian's death after a long illness. "He was a model priest and his parish was the world."

Fr. Hardon - His Impact (Credo)

The experience of the Eviches illustrates, probably as well as any other, the dramatic — and largely untold — story of Fr. Hardon. The 85-year-old theologian and literary giant is most known for his prodigious output of 40 books, including his major opus, the 1975 Catholic Catechism: A Contemporary Catechism of the Teachings of the Catholic Church, published by Doubleday. That 623-page book is in its 26th printing by Doubleday and is still selling strongly at more than one million copies.

Monsignor Bray’s observations (in the May issue of your REVIEW) on the Methodists in The Protestant Churches of America were gratefully appreciated as showing a scholarly familiarity with the early religious history of our country. With due respect to the sources he quotes, I believe that documentary evidence confirms the three statements in my book which he felt were not fully supported by the historical context.

The longer you live the more important it is to be in contact with God through prayer. The prayers we offer for others are more powerful than any exchange of correspondence. With most of my correspondents this is what I have learned, prayer is the best way I can express both my affection and my readiness to be of service.

My three weeks in Calcutta this January were the experience of a lifetime. They were the answer to years of prayer, since my first inspiration to enter the Society of Jesus was St. Francis Xavier. In his ten years in India, he converted and personally baptized over 100,000 natives. My hope was to follow in his footsteps.

Father John A. Hardon, S.J. is considered one of the most prominent Roman Catholic theologians of our century. He, as does Pope John Paul II, advocated the laudable practice of Eucharistic Adoration.

Commit to spending an hour per week with Jesus!!!

Some twenty years ago, our Holy Father John Paul II asked Mother Teresa of Calcutta to train her Sisters, the Missionaries of Charity, to be catechists. At the same time, the Holy See asked Father John Hardon, S.J., to organize the catechetical training program for the Missionaries of Charity.

Father John A. Hardon S.J. died at the very end of the 20th Century, December 30, 2000. He was born in 1914, the same year that World War I began. He was ordained in 1947, just after the end of World War II. During his career as a Jesuit, he wrote over 40 books, led hundreds of retreats, founded several organizations and gave a huge number of lectures around the world.

Quotations from the early church fathers and documents, including the Didache, St. Ignatius, St. Justin the Martyr, St. Irenaeus of Antioch, Tertullian, Origen, St. Clement of Alexandria, St. Cyprian of Carthage, Council of Nicaea, Aphraates the Persian Sage, St. Ephraim, St. Athanasius, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Hilary of Poitiers, St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory of Nazianz, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Epiphanius of Salamis, Theodore of Mopsuestia, St. John Chrysostom, Apostolic Constitutions, St. Ambrose of Milan, St. Jerome, and St. Augustine.

Why…does God periodically communicate certain messages to the world, through such mystics as St. Francis of Assisi, St. Catherine of Siena and St. Theresa of Avila? He does this, not in order to reveal something unknown before, but to alert people to a revealed truth that had been ignored and that desperately needs to be met at certain periods of human history.

Feast of the Epiphany, 1998 - Fr. Hardon's Letter (Alt)

As we begin the New Year, we are all hoping that God will continue showering us with His blessings and providing us with the graces we need to do His will. We casually wish people a Happy New Year. But we know from experience that we can only be as happy as we surrender our wills to the mysterious will of God. By now we know that this Divine will can be very demanding. Faith tells us that the more our Lord asks of us, the more strength He gives us to respond faithfully to His loving demands.

The roots of the feminism, as we know, are at variance with Christian principles. It argues from a massive discrimination of women by men, and urges women to revolt against men. The most famous proponent of this ideology was Karl Marx and his disciple, Nikolai Lenin. They urged "a revolution depends upon the degree of participation by women." On these terms, women’s liberation is simply part of the larger struggle for the eventual creation of a classless society.

As narrated by Saint Matthew in Christ's several chapter discourse in the Sermon On the Mount, our plan is to look at this very simple but complex subject of our faith under five perspectives. First, just to hear the words of our Lord, then briefly to explain or comment, if you wish, on the meaning of what our Lord was saying when He gave us His version of the fifth commandment. Third, we will ask ourselves and explain in the Church’s language what is anger. Fourth, what are the recognized effects of anger and finally how are we to cope with our irascible tendencies. In a word, how are we to not merely master but actually profit from the sinful tendency that we all have to anger.

Our focus in reflecting on charity will be to see how our Lord elevated the Old Testament precept. There was a precept of charity already in the Old Law. In sequence, we will look briefly at the Old Testament precept of charity and then the four ways in which our Lord elevated the (what we now so casually call) Christian charity: by elevating the norm, elevating the means, elevating the scope and elevating the purpose of charity.

Our present meditation therefore, will be on envy, where the word itself comes from the Latin, envidia, for which we have the English equivalent "envidious", or more commonly, envious. We ask ourselves the following four questions: What is Christ’s teaching on envy? What is envy? What are some of the consequences of envy? And this being a retreat; what are the remedies for the vice? And it is a vice, the vice of envy.

The present meditation is on the fifth commandment, the first of seven meditations. The present is on the sanctity of human life. Never in the history of the world has there been more need to believe in the fifth commandment of God than today. The simple imperative, "Thou shall not kill" was already broken at the dawn of human history. Cain murdered his brother Abel out of envy. So the story of the human race goes on.

Fifty Years in the Priesthood (Alt)

"On the occasion of celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood, there is literally an ocean of thoughts that come to mind, on which I could speak and you could patiently listen. But I thought I would address myself to just three subjects, expressed in three words, gratitude, concern, and confidence." - Fr. John A. Hardon

"The subject of first Confession for children is a late development in Catholic thought. Until recently, about the only literature on the subject was an occasional reference in theological monographs on Jansenism in the nineteenth century. Since the Jansenists had restricted the reception of the sacraments for all the faithful, children were also affected. With the advent of Pius X, however, and his clear legislation in favor of frequent and early Communion and Confession, the moral rigorism of former days had subsided. And until the early sixties, it was taken for granted that children should receive both sacraments shortly after reaching "the age of discretion." But in the last ten years new ideas began to appear that indicate the rise of a problem which deserves the attention of parents, pastors and Catholic teachers." - Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

"We hope to see what have been the outstanding features of the Church's history in the New World in the past half millennium. Even more pertinently, we will ask ourselves: What lessons does the Church's experience teach us today, as we begin the next five hundred years of Catholic history in the New World." - Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

The Spiritual Exercises were written by St. Ignatius Loyola over a period of some ten years, from 1521 to 1533. They are based on three principal sources: Sacred Scripture, personal experience, and certain masters of the spiritual life, notably Thomas a Kempis, the author of Imitation of Christ.

Chapter 1 of Fr. John A. Hardon's prayer book.

Chapter 2 of Fr. John A. Hardon's prayer book.

Chapter 3 of Fr. John A. Hardon's prayer book.

Chapter 4 of Fr. John A. Hardon's prayer book.

Chapter 5 of Fr. John A. Hardon's prayer book.

Chapter 6 of Fr. John A. Hardon's prayer book.

Chapter 7 of Fr. John A. Hardon's prayer book.

Chapter 8 of Fr. John A. Hardon's prayer book.

Chapter 9 of Fr. John A. Hardon's prayer book.

Chapter 10 of Fr. John A. Hardon's prayer book.

Chapter 11 of Fr. John A. Hardon's prayer book.

Since the dawn of Christianity however, the Church has consistently interpreted the fourth commandment as prescribing obedience to all legitimate authority. Summarily, especially to three forms of authority: obedience of children to their parents in domestic society, the obedience of citizens to civil authority, and the obedience of the faithful to the authority of the Church in ecclesiastical society.