Phrases from the CCC Worth Memorizing

As we look to a New Year, there is no greater prayer that a catechism teacher can have than for her students to come to know and love the Persons of Blessed Trinity, the central mystery of our Faith (CCC 261). Still, a wise teacher knows every student needs a challenge now and again to wrestle with new material and to, hopefully, learn to love it! In the new year, why not set out to do a little memorizing — not only of Scripture — but of key phrases from the Catechism that “speak” to you?

Imagine your growth if you found just 3 lines, from the list below, worthy of your memorization? That’s my challenge. Find 3 lines that speak to you, and memorize them. Ready? Set. Grow!

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) has over 2800 paragraphs; many are worth memorizing.

I have named, in my humble opinion, my favorite 25 lines that capture the essence of the first 1000 paragraphs of the CCC. (Certainly, if you’ve never read the Catechism before, I believe these 25 gems are great places to start!)

How did I select the 25? Other than being some of my favorites, each has plenty of room for one’s private meditation and contemplation. In other words, each provides a lot to chew on. Each universal truth has room for us to explore its personal application in our lives. How might we do this? By asking the following questions:

* Do I believe this? If not, ask for God’s help: “Lord, help my unbelief! (Mk 9:24)”
* How can I grow and live this truth in my own life?
* How can I share this?

What follows is a listing of some to best “one-liners” (or almost-one-liners) worth memorizing.

Here they are, in numerical order from the CCC, for your consideration:

1. CCC 1 God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life.

2. CCC 27 The desire for God is written in the human heart.

3. CCC 68 By love, God has revealed himself and given himself to man. He has thus provided the definitive, superabundant answer to the questions that man asks himself about the meaning and purpose of his life.

4. CCC 70 The Son is his Father’s definitive Word; so there will be no further Revelation after him.

5. CCC 80 Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out from the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing, and move towards the same goal.

6. CCC 163 Faith makes us taste in advance the light of the beatific vision, the goal of our journey here below. Then we shall see God “face to face”, “as he is” [1 Cor 13:12; 1 Jn 3:2]. So faith is already the beginning of eternal life.

7. CCC 221: God’s very being is love. By sending his only Son and the Spirit of Love in the fullness of time, God has revealed his innermost secret: God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange.

8. CCC 260 The ultimate end of the whole divine economy is the entry of God’s creatures into the perfect unity of the Blessed Trinity.

9. CCC 395 The power of Satan is, nonetheless, not infinite. He is only a creature, powerful from the fact that he is pure spirit, but still a creature.

10. CCC 397 Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God’s command. This is what man’s first sin consisted of. All subsequent sin would be disobedience toward God and lack of trust in his goodness.

11. CCC 420 The victory that Christ won over sin has given us greater blessings than those which sin had taken from us: “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Rom 5:20).

12. CCC 430 Jesus means in Hebrew: “God saves.” At the annunciation, the angel Gabriel gave him the name Jesus as his proper name, which expresses both his identity and his mission. Since God alone can forgive sins, it is God who, in Jesus his eternal Son made man, “will save his people from their sins” [Mt 1:21; cf. 2:7]. In Jesus, God recapitulates all of his history of salvation on behalf of men.

13. CCC 435 The name of Jesus is at the heart of Christian prayer.

14. CCC 480 Jesus Christ is true God and true man, in the unity of his divine person; for this reason he is the one and only mediator between God and men.

15. CCC 485 The mission of the Holy Spirit is always conjoined and ordered to that of the Son.

16. CCC 487 What the Catholic faith believes about Mary is based on what it believes about Christ, and what it teaches about Mary illumines in turn its faith in Christ.

17. CCC 621 Jesus freely offered himself for our salvation. Beforehand, during the Last Supper, he both symbolized this offering and made it really present: “This is my body which is given for you” (Lk 22:19).

18. CCC 658 Christ, “the first-born from the dead” (Col 1:18), is the principle of our own resurrection, even now by the justification of our souls (cf. Rom 6:4), and one day by the new life he will impart to our bodies (cf.: Rom 8:11).

19. CCC 682 When he comes at the end of time to judge the living and the dead, the glorious Christ will reveal the secret disposition of hearts and will render to each man according to his works, and according to his acceptance or refusal of grace.

20. CCC 683 To be in touch with Christ we must first have been touched by the Holy Spirit. He comes to meet us and kindles faith in us. By virtue of our Baptism, the first sacrament of the faith, the Holy Spirit in the Church communicates to us, intimately and personally, the life that originates in the Father and is offered to us in the Son.

21. CCC 780 The Church in this world is the sacrament of salvation, the sign and the instrument of the communion of God and men.

22. CCC 826 Charity is the soul of the holiness to which all are called: it “governs, shapes, and perfects all the means of sanctification [Lumen Gentium, 42].”

23. CCC 968 In a wholly singular way she cooperated by her obedience, faith, hope, and burning charity in the Savior’s work of restoring supernatural life to souls. For this reason [Mary] is a mother to us in the order of grace.

24. CCC 977 Baptism is the first and chief sacrament of forgiveness of sins because it unites us with Christ, who died for our sins and rose for our justification, so that “we too might walk in newness of life [Rom 6:4; Cf. 4:25].”

25. CCC 982 There is no offense, however serious, that the Church cannot forgive.

Source: Catholic Exchange

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