THE P RTAL
July 2015
Page 21
The Christian Faith
– a Mini-Catechism
for Catholics
Laura Magson has been reviewing this wonderful little booklet
by Father Stephen Wang
Fr Stephen
Wang’s 73 articles which were first published in The Portal as “An A-Z of Catholic
Faith” in 2013 have now been collected into this booklet and published by the CTS.
This has similarities to the
“Catechism of Christian Doctrine”
reviewed last month, in that
it is another mini-catechism
summarising the most important
elements of the Christian faith
in a small booklet providing
a pointer of what to look up
in more detail, but is in a very
different style, as a series of selfcontained articles about 2-300
words each.
No longer in A-Z format
as they were when published
here, the articles have been
arranged into eight parts by
subject. The first of these,
“The meaning of faith”, begins
with an article about God,
telling us why believing in
God is “not a superstition or
irrational belief ”, a little about the nature of God, and
concludes with one entitled “Theology”, giving us both
a literal definition and a discussion of it as an ongoing
search for understanding.
“The Christian Story” summarises the Christian
faith and includes articles on the angels and the devil,
and what it means to be human, and a chapter on
“Church, Tradition and the Bible” follows, telling us
about the Church, the Apostles and the Papacy.
The sacraments are split into two parts. “Sacraments
of Initiation and Healing” introduces the sacraments
and has articles on Baptism, Confirmation, the
Eucharist, the sacrament of penance and the anointing
of the sick; “Sacraments and the Christian Vocations”
covers marriage, consecrated life, single life, and
ordination in its three “degrees” – to the diaconate,
contents page
priesthood and episcopate.
“The Vocation to Love” –
is a series of articles related
to our vocation in daily
life. The chapter begins
with “The universal call to
holiness” – telling us how
the fundamental human
vocation is the call to be a
saint, and reminding us that
we already have a vocation,
however unsatisfactory our
current situation seems. Later
articles tell us how we are called
to love our neighbour, whoever
that may be at the time. We are
told how we should have special
concern for the poor and seize
opportunities to evangelise.
“The Spiritual Life” – consists
of articles about prayer, including
one each on the Our Father and the rosary, and one
entitled “Other key prayers” which lists some of the
“most important and useful Christian prayers”.
The final chapter – “The Last Things” – covers death
and the saints and concludes with articles on the
Blessed Virgin Mary and Marian payers
In his own words Fr Wang has “squeezed as much
as possible into each article”, and he says in his
introduction “the right words can point us to this
richness and beauty ”. He does appear to
have found the right words, and has managed to
compress a lot into these short, easy to read articles.
Published by the Catholic Truth Society,
ISBN 978 1 78469 063 2