The Baltimore Catechism Explained | Lesson 1: On the End of Man

Our Lady of the Rosary Family Catechism

Fr. Anthony Pillari JCL, MCL, STD

Lesson 1: On the End of Man

(The following is a transcript from the Our Lady of the Rosary Family Catechism with Fr. Anthony Pillari. Each presentation focuses on a lesson from the Baltimore Catechism. While these catecheses are intended for young Catholics, a prayerful study of the subject matter and materials provided would greatly benefit anyone. This video series is available free online.)

Welcome to the first lesson of Our Lady of the Rosary Family Catechism – On the End of Man. You are beginning today a great journey through the entire Baltimore Catechism. Through a challenging program of formation that will lead your soul to become stronger in the Lord and in His might. The keys to the success of this program will be your willingness to work hard at your studies, your willingness to make sacrifices, your willingness to persevere, and your determination to not become discouraged.

Because in this program you are going to be learning from God Himself. From what God has revealed through the Catholic Church. There may be many things that at first you won’t understand very well. That’s normal because God is much more intelligent than we are. If we are really going to learn from Him, there will be many things that we won’t understand at first. So don’t worry. The key is to persevere, to work hard at your studies. If you do that then at the end of this course, I can guarantee you, you will have received a hundred-fold for whatever you will have given to God.

Let us begin with the prayer taught by our Lady to the children of Fatima: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. O Jesus, I choose to live this day, for love of Thee, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Amen.

In the Gospel we read that one day Jesus went to the town of Bethany to visit Martha and Mary, two sisters who along with their brother Lazarus were friends of Jesus. While our Lord was visiting with them, Martha was busying herself with much serving, preparing, and cleaning. But her sister Mary chose to go and sit quietly at the Lord’s feet. She chose to listen to His words, to learn from His teachings.

When Martha saw this, she was upset, thinking it would be better if Mary instead helped her with all the chores and work in the house. She complained to Jesus, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me alone to serve? Tell her then to help me." Our Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things. One thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the better part, which shall not be taken away from her.

This better part is the part that you are choosing right now. To carefully study the teachings of the Catholic faith in the Catechism. So let us begin with the key question in today’s lesson:

Q. Why did God make you?

What is the special purpose of your life? Do you know? To answer that question let us back up for a moment and begin with the first question of the Baltimore Catechism:

Q. Who made the world?

A. God made the world.

Q. Who is God?

A. God is the Creator of heaven and earth, and of all things.

Now, for the first question, the world means more than the earth, more than is shown on a map of the world. It means everything that we can see, the sun, the moon, the stars, all of outer space, things we can only see using a telescope (indeed, the entire universe). All of this is what we call the world.

And for the second question, if someone said to you, the house you live in was built all by itself, without anyone’s help. The wood and the nails just lined up and put themselves together on their own to form the walls. The windows came together when pieces of glass all by themselves suddenly took the right shape and put themselves there in the walls. As for the roof of your house and the floor, well, all of that fell into place all by itself, the shingles, everything just came together without any human being, without anyone helping. It just built itself all by itself. Now if your friend said that to you, what would you say?

You would say that’s impossible, or maybe even, that’s crazy. Someone planned how my house was going to be built. Then a team of workers came with instructions and they built it. Our house was built by a construction crew, it didn’t just build itself on its own. Houses don’t do that!

Think about the world. Look at the ocean, the mountains, the fields, the stars in the sky, the beauty and rhythm of the seasons. See the plants that grow and the trees that blossom, and so many, many beautiful things in nature. Were these things made by someone? Or did they just make themselves all on their own?

They were made by someone; someone infinitely powerful, infinitely intelligent, and infinitely wise. They were made by God – the creator of the entire world and everything in it.

But among all the things that God made, the most special creature is man. The word man in these lessons refers to all human beings, both men and women. And so the Catechism now asks:

What is man?

A. Man is a creature composed of body and soul, and made to the image and likeness of God.

As a creature, man was created by God, but he is different from anything else that God created. All other creatures are either entirely matter or entirely spirit. An angel, for example, is entirely spirit and a stone is entirely matter. But man is a combination of both spirit and matter, of soul and of body. Now if man has both a body and a soul, and if man was made in the image and likeness of God, in which of the two, in his body or in his soul, is he more like God?

In other words, as the Catechism asks:

Q. Is this likeness in the body or in the soul?

A. This likeness is chiefly in the soul. 

How so (is this likeness chiefly in the soul)?

Q. How is the soul like to God?

A. The soul is like to God because it is a spirit that will never die, and has understanding and free will.

This means that our souls are like God in four ways.

First, your soul is a spirit. It really exists, but it cannot be seen with the eyes of our body. This is true also about other things. For example, we cannot see the wind. We can feel it and we can see its work: the dust flying, trees swaying, ships sailing and so forth. But the wind itself we never see. Yet no one denies the existence of the wind just because it is invisible. In the same way it would be foolish to say that there are no spirits, that there are no souls, or no angels, or no God because they are invisible.

It would be foolish to say the soul doesn’t exist because it cannot be seen. Angels don’t exist because I can’t see them. God doesn’t exist because I can’t see Him.

Second, our soul will never die. It will never cease to exist. It will live forever.

Third, our soul has understanding. That means it has the gift of reason. Reason makes it possible for man to think about all of his actions. He can think about why he should do certain things. Why he should avoid others. With reason we are able to reflect on what we’ve done in the past, what may be coming in the future, and we can reflect upon what’s really good; say what really is the right thing to do, what really is going to lead to happiness? How should we behave as a community? What does God want from me? Who is God? How can I get to know Him better?

With our reason we are able to reflect upon all of these things. This gift of reason is what places man above the animals in the order of creation. Man is not merely an animal; he is a rational animal – an animal with the gift of reason.

Though man can know many things by making use of his reason, by studying, he cannot learn everything on his own. There are many things that only God can teach him. When God teaches us, we call the things that He teaches us revelation. One example of a teaching made known by revelation is the Holy Trinity. If God did not teach us about the Holy Trinity, that He is three Persons in one God, how could we ever know about the Trinity? We wouldn’t. We need God to teach us this and many other things that we can only know if we choose to learn from God.

Lastly, the fourth way that our soul is like God is by our free will. By our free will we are capable of doing or not doing different things. We can even choose to sin and refuse to obey God. We can use the gift of free will either to help or to hurt our souls. If you use your free will badly by choosing to do things that are bad, you will deserve a punishment. If you use your free will well by choosing to do what God desires from you, even when it is hard, you will give Him great joy, and He will be pleased with what you have done, and He will reward you.

But with so many choices to make it’s important for us to know what is the purpose or end of our life? What is the purpose, or the goal, or the end of your life? Let’s take a moment to think about the purpose or end of some other things. The end of a watch is to keep time. The end of a pen is to write, and so forth. God made everything in the world for a purpose. We see that the soil of the earth was made for plants and trees to grow in. The plants and vegetables are made for animals to feed upon. Then the animals themselves are made for man, to help him in his work, or to provide beauty and joy, for example, the sound of birds singing, or to be eaten by him, or to help man in other ways.

What was man made for? Was he made for something in this world? All creatures were created for something higher than themselves. Plants are higher than the soil because plants have life and can grow whereas soil doesn’t. Animals are higher than plants because of their ability to do things that plants cannot such as to see things with their eyes or to move about. Man is higher still. Higher than animals because he has reason, and intelligence, and understanding. So if all creatures were made for something higher than themselves, what is higher than man? Is there anything higher than him in this world?

We have to look beyond the world to find what he was made for. And looking beyond the world, we find that he was made for God. To know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him, both in this world and in the next. The goal of man’s life is not to become rich upon the earth, or to become as popular as possible, or learn as many things as possible, or to become powerful. Not everyone can do those things. If that was the goal of our life then many people could never reach the goal of their life. Not everyone becomes rich. Not everyone can become powerful. Not everyone can study for years and years.

But all men are created alike and equal in one key way. They all have souls that are immortal. All men can accomplish, if they want to, the great goal or purpose of their life. The Catechism, therefore, asks:

Q. Why did God make you?

A. God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in the next.

This is the goal of your life. To know God. Because before we can love someone or something, we need to know them. Take the example of a friend. If you have a good friend, the first time you met him you began to discover, this is a really good person, or, I really like him. And the more you got to know him, the more your love for him, that is your love as a friend, your love of friendship, grew for him. Similarly, with your mother, the more you get to know your mother who loves you dearly, the more you discover your mother is such a wonderful person, and so the more your love for your mother grows. And, for either your friend or your mother, the more you get to know them, the more your love for them grows. And as your love for them grows, then you want to do what is called serving them – in the sense that you want to do things that are good for them. For your friend, you want to do things that or truly good for him, to see that he’s happy; or for your mother, you want to try to do things that will please her, that will make her happy, you want to serve her in a certain way.

So it is with God. We need to first get to know Him, to learn who He is, from our catechisms and from other good books, such as the Bible, or the lives of the saints. And then, as we get to know God, we will love Him. If you knew Him perfectly you would love Him perfectly. The better we get to know God, the more we shall love Him. Since it is our most important duty to love God and serve Him here on earth, we have a serious duty to learn whatever we can about who He is, and about His teachings. So try to get to know God better, and this will help you to love and serve Him. Don’t be satisfied with what you learn even just from these Catechism lessons. These should be a real help for you. But afterward, read good books and listen to good teachings.

Lastly, why do we say that our goal is to know, love, and serve Him in this world? It’s because unless we do what is pleasing to God in this world, we cannot be happy with Him in the next. Our condition in the next world depends entirely upon how we live in this one. To help you accomplish the special mission for which God made you, let us come back for a moment to the question of your body and soul.

Q. Of which must we take more care, our soul or our body?

A. We must take more care of our soul than of our body.

Q. Why must we take more care of our soul than of our body?

A. We must take more care of our soul than of our body, because in losing our soul we lose God and everlasting happiness.

Every sensible person will take most care of what is most valuable – in this case, your soul. Wherever the soul will be, there your body will also be. We should, in a certain way, try to forget about the body, or at least, pay much more attention to the soul than the body. Because wherever your soul will be, there will also be your body. It’s much wiser to say if something is good for my soul, even if it’s hard for my body, I’m going to do what’s really good for my soul, because that is going to be much better for my soul and my body in the long run. It would be a mistake to say this thing seems like it would be good for my body or it would feel really good, even if it’s not good for my soul – that would be a terrible mistake.

What use is our body if our soul is lost? But how can we save our souls?

The Catechism answers in the following way:

Q. What must we do to save our souls?

A. To save our souls, we must worship God by faith, hope, and charity; that is, we must believe in Him, hope in Him, and love Him with all our heart.

To worship God means to adore Him. To honor Him as God. We honor people on the earth for their goodness and for their excellence. Since God is infinitely better than anyone else, we give Him the highest honors. And we do this by faith – that is by firmly believing everything that He reveals to us. Because God never lies. We do this also by hope, by trusting that whatever He promises He will do. By learning to live each day trusting in God, counting on Him, hoping in Him. And finally, we do this by loving God more than anyone else in the world. By the special kind of love that is called charity.

Now you might ask, how do I know if I love God more than anyone else in the world? Does it depend on my feelings? Because maybe you feel a stronger love for your mother than you do for God. Is that wrong? No, that’s not wrong. The love we have for God is at a much deeper level than our feelings. Here is one sign that might help you.

Suppose your mother should command you to commit a sinful act – something no good mother would do (and hopefully something your mother would never do). But for a moment, pretend that your mother told you in obedience to do something that was sinful. And so you had to choose between either offending your mother, by not obeying her, or offending God, by doing what your mother asked you to do – if it’s a sinful thing. Now even though you love your mother very much, if in this case, if that were to happen, you would prefer to do what God wants, even if it made your mother unhappy – then that is a sign that you love God more than her, as you should. It’s a sign that you love God above all others.

When we have this resolution, when we’re determined to never offend God for any person on the earth, however dear they might be to us, even our mother, and by our readiness to obey God first of all, then that’s a sure sign that you love God above all others.

Finally, the Catechism answers the question, how shall we know the things which we are to believe?

Q. How shall we know the things which we are to believe?

A. We shall know the things which we are to believe from the Catholic Church, through which God speaks to us.

Q. Where shall we find the chief truths which the Church teaches?

A. We shall find the chief truths which the Church teaches in the Apostles' Creed.

This short creed was put together by the Apostles themselves and contains the main teachings given by God. Not all that the Church teaches, it doesn’t contain everything, for example it doesn’t say anything explicitly about the Holy Eucharist, or about the immaculate conception of Mary, or the infallibility of the pope, or many other things. But it does give you the most essential points, in this Apostles’ Creed. Can you say it with me now?

Q. Say the Apostles' Creed.

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified; died, and was buried. He descended into hell: the third day He arose again from the dead: He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty: from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

You will learn about the many other truths of the Catholic faith that you must believe in the lessons to come. But for the time being, with the help of the activities provided, see if you can learn these first twelve questions by memory.

Finally, did you know that learning your Catechism is so important for God that He has worked miracles so that people who wouldn’t otherwise have access to the Catechism could learn it.

One of the most extraordinary events recorded in the life of a nun is that of the bilocations of Venerable Mary of Ágreda. She was a Franciscan nun who lived for 46 years in a convent in Spain. Ever since she was a little girl, she had wanted to help convert the souls of the Indians and had prayed fervently for them so that they could be converted to the one true faith and their souls be saved. Through a series of miracles, our Lord permitted her desires to be fulfilled and asked her to catechize and teach the Catholic faith to the Indians of New Mexico. But the Indians of New Mexico were across the ocean on another continent in America, and Mary of Ágreda was in her convent in Spain. However, without ever leaving her convent our Lord miraculously transported her across the ocean to an isolated tribe of Indians. She was at the same time in her convent in Spain and, again at the same time, was in New Mexico where she was teaching catechism to the Indians. This is what is known as bilocation.

For 11 years, from 1620 to 1631, she experienced over 500 of these mysterious bilocations. She would teach the native Indians the Catholic faith in Spanish. But the Indians didn’t understand Spanish. However, miraculously, they understood her teaching even though she was teaching them in a language that was foreign to them. Likewise, when they spoke their native language which she did not know, she could understand them. She soon became known by the Indians as the lady in blue due to her religious habit and the blue mantle that she wore.

When Franciscan priests finally arrived in New Mexico, the Indians sought them out, they went looking for them, because the lady in blue had instructed them to look for the priests. When the priests met the Indians, they found them so well catechized in the Catholic faith that they returned to their village with them and baptized the entire tribe.

God has performed many other miracles to help us learn the Catholic faith, some of which you will be learning about in the future lessons. For now, work hard to memorize the questions and answers from this first lesson – seeing how many you can learn before the next one. God bless you.