You may remember at about November-time I posted of my desire to attempt to read the Catechism of the Catholic Church from cover-to-cover. (My RCIA leader also prescribed the YouCat, but I’m less keen on the style of writing in that – I feel the actual Catechism explains and touches on the Faith in a much deeper way than the YouCat fundamentally can. Sorry. Not complaining.) This is deemed a huge challenge for me, since I’ve not even read The Bible from cover-to-cover.
Sure, I can recite and explain many of the stories, but I also have giant gaps in my knowledge (called the prophets. I do wish they’d taught us more about the prophets in school, or at least covered a great variety of The Bible. I don’t mind having an acute knowledge of Luke’s Gospel – indeed, it has helped me greatly during my conversion to Catholicism – but I dislike the feeling that I’ve missed parts of this wealthy text that tell me as much and more about God than reading the Gospel over and over does).
Anyway, as you can see, I get distracted. By life. And the blaring sounds my brain. “How,” I asked myself, “am I going to get through a book that is, arguably, longer and more complex, and more directly relevant to modern life, than The Bible?”
The answer came whispered: perseverance.
A few nights ago, I looked at my position through the book as I sometimes do after reading (I hasten to add that this, far from being the sense of ‘how much more do I have to read’, is due to a case of habit when it comes to print books) and was surprised to see that I was no longer at a random slice of the beginning. I’ve managed to read a quarter of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Now, I didn’t set myself specific targets. I didn’t think “quarter way through the year I should be at the quarter mark of the Catechism”, nor did I push myself to complete it before my confirmation – because I know that’s not going to happen. But one ‘bit’ per night. One paragraph, one page, one section. Just something read.
And I’m surprised how well that works.
Although I’m not getting confirmed at the Easter Vigil (and due to where I’m living at the moment, I probably won’t even be able to attend any Easter Vigil, which is fine because my attempt to make any Midnight Mass on 24/12 failed as well…), I’m getting really excited about my confirmation and the union of others into our Church. Events haven’t unfurled the way I expected, but I grit my teeth, I wipe away my worried tears and I continue. Because I must.
I read on.
Alexandrina Brant 