It’s Never too Late to Learn from the Baltimore Catechism

My father made my sisters and I study the Baltimore Catechism when we were children – you know, that slim volume every Catholic family had at home prior to the new, massive Catechism of the Catholic Church? I memorized answers in fourth grade while preparing for Confirmation back in the 1960’s. What has stuck with me all these years is my childhood recollection of the answer to the question, “Why did God make me?”  Throughout my entire life, the answer sustained me through every existential crisis. “God made me to know, love, and serve Him in this world and be happy with Him in the next.”

 Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 

1 John 4:7

While the answer was simple and memorable and kept me from despair, I can’t say I have always understood exactly how to know, love and serve Him.  That part took many long spiritual journeys with twists and turns and lots of stumbling.  The path to understanding began with reading and learning to love scripture, participating in parish retreats and bible studies, receiving the sacraments and even straying from the faith for a while -only to come running back when I realized the emptiness inside without the Holy Eucharist and the catharsis of reconciliation. 

We love because he first loved us.

1 John 4:19

In the decades before my father passed away, he sent copies of the new Saint Joseph Baltimore Catechism (©1964 by Catholic Book Publishing Co., N.Y. – United States and Canada) and encouraged my sisters and I to teach it to our children. I picked it up recently and discovered that the new edition answer to “Why did God make me?” states “God made us to show forth His goodness and to share with us His everlasting happiness in heaven.” The next question “What must we do to gain the happiness of heaven?” provides the rule for living, “To gain the happiness of heaven we must know, love and serve God in this world.”  I missed out on a critical element: God did everything for us FIRST and we obtain the ability to share in His everlasting happiness when we follow His example on Earth.

For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.

Mark 10:45

Had I paid attention, I might have saved years understanding that God knew me, loved me and served me before I ever reciprocated. But it was three special Psalms learned at three stages in my life, that came together to tell me how much God knows, loves and guides me.  Growing up, I was in awe of the night skies and everything in nature; I sensed my smallness in comparison, and yet somehow knew God must love me amidst His awesome creation.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.

Psalm 8:3-5

Later in life, I didn’t always love myself. But a kindly priest gave me Psalm 139 to study after confession.  It was a reinforcement I needed to remember that God knows and loves me.

O Lord, you have searched me and known me.  You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely.

Psalm 139:1-4

Finally, some twenty years ago, I was able to give witness to how God lit my way and guided me to Him.  These words from Psalm 119:105 are a continual reminder of how He serves us and is available to us every moment: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”

It’s been a lifetime since I first picked up the Baltimore Catechism, and had I paid closer attention, I might have realized much sooner that we come to know love and serve God by following His example of knowing, loving, and serving His people.

Copyright 2022 – Paula Veloso Babadi