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New Testament 
• 
In 

Religion Courses 

BY 

REV. JOSEPH L. LILLY 
C.M., S.T. D., S. S.L. 

Assistant Professor of Sacred Scriptm'e, 
Catholic University of America; Secretary, 
Catholic Biblical Association of America 

An Address Delivered to the Diocesan 
Directors of the Confratemity of Chris-
tian Doctrine at Saint Mary' s College, 
Notre Dame, Indiana, August 24, 1943. 

The Confraternity of Christian Doctrine 
1312 Massachusetts Avenue, N. W. 

Washington 5, D. C. 



COPYRIGHT, 1943, BY 

CONFRATERNITY OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 

Nihil obstat. 

HENRY]. ZOLZE R, 

Censor. 

Imprimatur. 

»Ie THOMAS H. MCLAU GHLIN , 
Bishop of Paterson. 

October 1, 1943. 

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

BY ST. ANTHONY GUILD PRESS, PATERSON, N. J. 

Deacfdlea 



The New Testament 

in Religion .Courses 

7{ COME before you not as a salesman 
;.n for Confrate;nity Publications. Neither 
do I come to advocate the reading and study 

of the Word of God. If you really believe 

that the New Testament is the Word of 

God, "living and efficient and keener than 

any two-edged sword" (Heb. 4, 12), nothing 

that I or any other human being can say will 

increase your appreciation of the forceful-

ness and finality of that written revelation. 

But I come before you simply to propose and 

to attempt to prove the thesis that THE 

BEST WAY TO TEACH RELIGION 

IS THROUGH THE MEDIUM OF 

THE BIBLE. 

The Catechism is an excellent summary 

of Catholic doctrine but it is an abstract 

thing. The abstract lacks the warmth and 

appeal of the living thing. Human beings 

really love only living things, and the higher 

their life, the deeper and stronger is the at-

tachment which binds us to them. Abstract 

statement of principle will mean little and 

1 



will scarcely move us at all unless in addition 

to seeing its reasonableness we bring our-

selves to love it as a part or an emanation 

from one whom we love. 

Our religion is not a religion of a book. 

(Evangelical Protestantism would seem to 

be largely that.) I dare say, however, that 

some children, from the emphasis put on 

learning the Catechism, often get the idea 

that Catholicism is a religion of a book-

the Catechism. Ours is the religion of a Per-

sonality - a divine Personality - and the ob-

ject to be striven after and realized in the 

teaching of religion is union with that divine 

Personality. "Yet not for these ~nly do I 

pray, but for those also who through their 

word are to believe in Me, that all may be 

one, even as Thou, Father, in Me and I in 

Thee; that they also may be one in Us" 

(]n. 17,20-21). 

Our Lord states this in a different way in 

the words: "If anyone wishes to come after 

Me, let him deny himself, and take up his 

cross, and follow Me. \ For he who would 

save his life will lose it; but he who loses his 

life for My sake will find it" (Mt. 16, 

24-25) . In these words the Master calls for 

the denial of self, not the denial to self of 

some creature comfort, but the utter, com-

2 



plete, total abnegation of self, absolute self-

lessness, the entire living out of self and the 

total submersion of self in the divine Person-

ality of Christ_ He further demands as a 
condition for being His follower that we go 

with Him to complete self-immolation and 

death_ That only can be the meaning of 

carrying one's cross_ The audience to whom 

these words were first addressed had fre-

quently seen those whom the Roman rulers 

of Palestine had condemned to death, trudg-

ing to the place of execution and carrying 

the instrument of their execution on their 

shoulders. To carry one's cross, then, meant 

to go to death. He who seeks to save his 

physical life by fleeing from the hardships 

and self-denial which Jesus Christ demands 

of His followers, is doomed to lose the 

higher life of eternal blessedness in heaven. 

Thus Jesus Christ makes of His disciples 

supreme demands, than which there can be 

no greater. 

What right has He to make such terrific 

demands on any human being? It is reason-

able to ask that question and to expect a 

satisfactory answer to it. He has the best 

possible right. He is God, our Lord and 

Creator upon Whom we depend for all we 

are and all we possess. We belong by right 

3 



of creation entirely to Him. His demand 

could not possibly be better grounded. For 

God is the Summum Bonum, Summa Veri-

las, Summa Sapienlia, Summus Amor. 

Therefore, whatever demand He makes on 

us, proceeds from and is inspired by His 

infinite Truth, infinite Goodness, infinite 

Wisdom and infinite Love. 

We do not expect the first-grade child to 

grasp the Scholastic arguments which are 

brought forward in proof of the divinity of 

Christ, but if the sacred Personality of Jesus 

as described and set forth in the pages of the 

simple Gospel story is presented to the child 

with the utmost graphic vividness and sim-

plicity, the child will conclude, of itself al-

most, that such a Personality is more than a 

mere man. Let the teacher tell the Gospel 

stories with vividness and enthusiasm - the 

story of how Jesus commanded the winds 

and the waves, the story of the mul~iplication 
of the loaves, of the change of water into 

wine, to illustrate His power over material 

things and the natural elements; the story of 

the cure of the lepers _ . a vivid description 

of the symptoms of this dread disease will 

not be out of place - the story of the cure 

of the lame, the blind, the paralyzed, the 

fevered, to illustrate His power over the hu-

4 



man body; the story of the calling back of 

Lazarus to life, to illustrate His power over 

death. 

The extraordinary kindness, sympathy, pa-

tience of Jesus with poor, weak human na-

ture, as evidenced in the accounts of how He 

dealt with sinners, with the poor, the afflicted, 

the outcast, cannot but produce a profound 

impression on the child, and draw it to love 

Him tenderly. And loving the divine Per-

sonality of Jesus, the child will also love 

whatever He has taught for our guidance 

. and sanctification, and will accept that teach-

ing as the only rule of life, to be followed 

at all costs. 

Each point of dogma, each sacrament, 

each religious practice, the commandments, 

the Church with its legislative, teaching and 

sanctifying power - all these points of doc-

trine should be presented as the teachings of 

Jesus, the Man-God; and since the child has 

been brought to love and admire Jesus, he 

will by that fact love and accept the teach-

ings and example of Jesus and will -wish to 

guide his life according to them. 

I am inclined to think that the teaching 

of religion has been in many cases too theo-

retical, and that we have relied too much on 

the false dictum that knowledge is power. 

5 



Knowledge, theoretic knowledge at least, is 

not power; it is light. It plays the same rela-

tive role in man's life as do the headlights 

on an automobile. They light the way, but 

they do not furnish the motive power to pro-

pel the automobile on its course. So theo-

retic knowledge shows us what is to be done 

and what direction to give to our lives, but 

something else is required to drive us for-

ward on the way to life. That something 

else is love. Without it our faith, our knowl-

edge, is like that of the devils who "believe 

and tremble" (J ames 2, 19). "If I should ' 

speak with the tongues of men and of an-

gels, but do not have charity .. . I am noth-

ing" (1 Cor. 13, 1) . We must put heart into 

our religious teaching and get the heart of 

the child active, aflame with love, if we ex-

pect him to follow in the way lighted by the 

theoretical knowledge afforded by catecheti-

cal instruction. 

Now love is directed to persons, and there-

fore we must present to the child the sacred 

Person of the God made Man in such a way 

as to render that sacred Person supremely 

attractive and lovable. Love means loyalty, 

love begets the crusading spirit which makes 

its possessor an active apostle in the cause 

of- Jesus Christ. 

6 



I contend that if religion is presented 

through the medium of the Scriptures the 

child cannot but come to love Him Whose 

lovable Personality is so simply yet so force-

fully presented in the Gospels. 

Of course not all points can be presented 

in the language of the New Testament. For 

creation and the commandments we shall 

have to have recourse to the Old Testament. 

The first chapter of Genesis, if properly un-

derstood and presented to the ~hild, will 
make a most vivid and lasting impression. 

The story of the giving of the Ten Com-

mandments on Mount Sinai amid the grandi-

ose setting described in Exodus will also 

deeply impress the child. But for most of 

the sacraments there are corresponding inci-

dents connected with their institution in the 

N ew Testament. All the sacraments should 

be presented as the institutions of Jesus 

Christ. 

Similarly the Christian virtues can all be 

presented in the setting of New Testament 

incidents which inculcate or illustrate these 

virtues. The vices too can often be depicted 

in their undesirable results in connection 

with New Testament incidents. Avarice and 

stealth stand out prominently in the charac-

ter of Judas, and no doubt had much to do 

7 



with his downfall. Lying was the sin of 

Ananias and Sapphira, who dropped dead. 

The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha 

can be described in connection with the vice 

of impurity. The parable of the Rich Fool 

or of the Rich Man and Lazarus will illus-

trate the folly of a selfish hard-heartedness, 

insensible to the needs of one's poverty-

stricken fellow-beings. 

Thus I believe our -teaching of religion 

will be Christo-centric. We shall thus pre-

sent Catholicity as Christ still active and liv-

ing in the world, and thus on every indi-

vidual rests the obligation of embracing it 

as being the continuation through time and 

space of Him of Whom St. Peter said: 

"There is no other name under heaven given 

to men whereby we must be saved" (Acts 

4, 12). 

The teacher who would thus present the 

Catechism must be thoroughly familiar with 

the Bible, particularly with the Gospels. 

Daily reading and study of them, along with 

a good commentary or a good life of Christ, 

is the way to get that knowledge. In this 

connection I recommend A Commentary on 

the New Testament, prepared by the Cath-

olic Biblical Association, and any of the 

authentic lives of Christ which have appeared 

8 



In recent years: Fillion, Goodier, LeBreton, 

Lagrange, Will am, Fouard, O 'Brien are all 

excellent, and if read in connection with the 

Gospels will be fo und to throw great light 

on them. 

I believe that if this ~ethod is followed, 

there will be no danger that the child will 

get the idea that ours is the religion of a 

book. The Personality of Christ, ever kept 

in the foreground , will make that impossible . . 

For Daily or Weekly Study of 

THE NEW TESTAMENT 

THE NEW TESTAMENT, Confraternity Revision, 
776 pp., g lossary, full color maps, Temple of 
Jerusalem: 

Students' Edition, 41,8" x 6", $1.00; 

Confraternity Edition, 5" x 81/2", $1.25. 

THE NEW TESTAMENT SERIES, outlines based on 
the Gospels and Acts, 25c each : 

Part I, The Life of Christ (1941) : Annuncia· 
tion to las t weeks of the public life, llO pp., 
34 pictures in color. 

Pm! II, The Life of Christ (1942): l ast weeks 
of the public life to the Ascension, 96 pp., 43 
pictures in color, map of Jerusalem. 

Part Ill , Th e Apostolic Church (1943): Acts of 

the Apostles, 84 pp., 26 pictures plain plus p lan 

of T empl e (Herod 's ). 

9 



Each part contains 15 lessons, 2 reviews. Each 
lesson outlines in 5 divisions: I. Map Work; 
II. Picture Study; III. New Testament Readings; 
IV. Liturgy; V. Practices - the application of 
Christ's words to ' one's own life at home, at 
work, in civic and social contacts. 

ADDITIONAL AIDS FOR THE INSTRUCTOR: outlined 
. lesson developments with thought questions, 

dramatization, dialogue and study assignments, 
20c each: ' 

Leade,J s or I nslfuctor' s Manual for The Life of 
Christ, Part I, 28 pp. 

Leade,ls 0" Instmctor's Manual for The Life of 
Christ, Part II, 32 pp. 

Leader's or Instructor's Manual for The Apostol. 
ic Church, Part III (in preparation). 

Religious Instruction of Catholic Students At· 
tending Secular High Schools: organization 
methods, subjects for study, 14 pp., 5c. 

Religious DisclIssion Clubs for High School and 
Adult Groups (1942): organization and method, 
16 pp., 5c. 

New Testament Readings for Part I, Part II 
and Part III: three separate volumes containing 
the required Scripture reading for each of the 
three Parts of the NEW TESTAMENT SERIES, 
20c each. 

Order above materials from Confraternity 

Publications, 148 West 32nd St., 

New York 1, N. Y. 

A Commentary on the New Testament, by the 
Catholic Biblical Association of America, 728 
pp.: a supplement to the Confraternity Edition 
of the New Testament, $2; National Holy Name 
Society, 141 E. 56th St., New York, N. Y. 

10 


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