Those of us who are charged to teach and preach the Faith need to accomplish two things: touch the hearts of those who listen; and to teach the doctrine of Jesus and His Church.
Now, some are of the opinion that focusing on doctrine will turn away those who might be apt to listen without it; others are saying that if we don’t teach doctrine, we are dumbing down the Faith and leaving it as a sort of pablum, or baby food for those who long for the truth.
Why is it so important to teach doctrine?
Because the whole purpose of doing so, in fact the whole purpose of doctrinal development, is love.
Love is the end to which all our preaching and teaching is oriented.
God is love.
To quote the Roman Catechism (Preface, 10): “The whole concern of doctrine and its teaching must be directed to the love that never ends. Whether something is proposed for belief, for hope or for action, the love of our Lord must always be made accessible, so that anyone can see that all the works of perfect Christian virtue spring from love and have no other objective than to arrive at love.”
What this is saying to us deacons, priests, bishops, catechists, parents and religious men and women is that our teaching and preaching must touch the hearts of all who hear us but in doing so, those affections of the heart must then be directed toward him who is truly good, Jesus, so that in him we may be taken up into the Trinitarian life of God himself.
To arouse the affections of love and piety in the people but then to leave them without the direction of doctrine is to abandon the people to their own devices. Many will get lost. Isn’t this what is happening today with so many wandering away from our Catholic faith following other paths that will ultimately lead them to dissatisfaction and unhappiness?
We speak to their hearts to arouse dormant spiritual and intellectual energy; we teach doctrine to show them the way. If we arouse without direction, we are poor shepherds. If we teach doctrine without first having touched the heart, we are philosophers, not shepherds, who can be freely contradicted.
