The Baltimore Catechism Explained | Lesson 4: On Creation

Our Lady of the Rosary Family Catechism

Fr. Anthony Pillari JCL, MCL, STD

Lesson 4: On Creation

Welcome to the fourth lesson of Our Lady of the Rosary Family Catechism – On Creation. 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 very first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis, we read the following: "In the beginning, God created heaven and earth. The earth was empty and darkness covered it. And the Spirit of God moved over the waters. On the first day, God said, 'Let there be light,' and He created light. He separated the light from the darkness and called the light day, and the darkness night. The second day, God separated the waters below from the waters above, thus creating the sky, and called it heaven. And on the third day, God said, 'Let the waters that are under the heaven be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.' And it was done. And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering together of the waters he called seas."

"He said, 'Let the earth bring forth green herbs and the fruit trees bear fruit.' And God saw that everything He made was good. On the fourth day, God made the sun, the moon, and all the stars to give light upon the earth and to divide the days, the years, and the seasons. He made the sun to rule the day and the moon to rule the night. On the fifth day, God made every living and moving creature of the water; and the birds that fly in the sky. On the sixth day, God made every creature and beast that walks on the earth." 

"Then He said, 'Let us make man in our image and likeness. And after creating the first man and women, God blessed them saying, 'Increase and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea, and the birds of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth. And God saw that all that he had made was very good. On the seventh day, God rested from all His work. He blessed the seventh day and sanctified it.

This lesson is about how God created the world – that is, about how He brought everything into existence from nothing. He created some things that simply exist, such as rocks and minerals, gold, silver, iron, and so forth. Some other things that not only exist, but also grow and live, like plants and trees. Some things that grow, live, and feel, like animals. And finally, some things that grow, live, and feel, but they can also think and understand. That can love with a spiritual love. That have free will like men – that is, men and the angels. God also created the sun, moon, stars; everything we can see. In addition, He made things we cannot see, such as heaven, purgatory, hell, and the good and bad angels.

This brings us to today’s questions. You should already know the answer to the first question:

Q. Who created heaven and earth, and all things?

A. God created heaven and earth, and all things.

Here the word heaven has two meanings. It can mean the place of eternal joy and fullness of life, where God is and always will be – that is, the heaven where we hope to one day go. But secondly the word heaven can also mean everything we see in the sky above us.

Q. How did God create heaven and earth?

A. God created heaven and earth from nothing by His word only; that is, by a single act of His all-powerful will.

When we make a free choice to do something, for example, if I make a choice to create a table, I make what is called an act of the will, that is, a choice. But unlike God, my will, my decision, is not all-powerful. So when I make an act of will saying, "I’m now going to make a table," the table doesn’t suddenly appear. Instead, I have to get wood, and then use my arms to cut it with a saw, and then sand the wood, and then use nails and a hammer, and so forth. But God’s will is all-powerful.

The moment He makes an act of the will – that is, the moment He decides that the earth, or water, or birds, or anything exists, it immediately exists. He doesn’t need material to make it out of. Everything begins to exist immediately the moment that God wills it. This is what we mean by saying that God created heaven and earth out of nothing. Before He created there was literally nothing – nothing at all. Everything began to exist when He willed it to exist.

Now, as we learned in our first lesson, what is the purpose for which God created you? Hopefully you just answered; to know, love, and serve Him in this life, and be happy with Him forever in the next. But there are other creatures that were created by God for the same purpose of knowing, loving, and serving Him – the angels. So then, which are the chief creatures of God?

Q. Which are the chief creatures of God?

A. The chief creatures of God are angels and men.

Q. What are angels?

A. Angels are pure spirits without a body, created to adore and enjoy God in heaven.

Angels are not the same as saints. Saints are those who at one time lived upon the earth, just as we do, and who on account of their good lives, are now in heaven. They had bodies like we have. The angels on the contrary, never lived with bodies upon the earth. They never had bodies at all. When God created the world and all things, He gave men and angels a special invitation to share in His own happiness – in His own fullness of life in heaven. And God created all of the angels as good, beautiful, even perfect, according to nature. But sadly, not all of them chose to love God. Those that did not chose to love God became what we often call now devils. That is, fallen angels, as we will see in a few moments.

How many angels did God create? Far, far more than we can imagine. At the moment of their creation, God made enough angels to provide a guardian angel for everyone who would ever live, from the beginning of time until the end. He created at the very first moment all of their guardian angels. So your guardian angel was created at the very beginning of the world. One angel for every person who would ever live is already a huge number of angels.

But God didn’t create only guardian angels. He also created many other angels for other tasks, especially that of adoring and praising Him in heaven. In fact, since this purpose – that is to adore and praise God in heaven – is the most important purpose of any angel’s life, it’s likely that there where many, many more angels created for this special purpose in heaven than there where angels created to be guardian angels.

God created nine classes or choirs of angels, according to their rank or office. Arranged from lowest to highest, the nine choirs of angels are named as follows: Angels, Archangels, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Dominions, Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim. Archangels are higher than angels and are sent to do the most important work. For example, the archangel Michael drove Lucifer out of Heaven. And the archangel Gabriel announced to the Blessed Virgin Mary that she was to be the Mother of God.

This leads to our next question. In addition to the special purpose God gave the angels and us – that of one day sharing in His eternal joy – were the angels created for any other purpose?

Q. Were the angels created for any other purpose?

A. The angels were also created to assist before the throne of God and to minister unto Him; they have often been sent as messengers from God to man; and are also appointed our guardians.

The duties of the angels are many. Some remain always in heaven with God. Some are sent to earth to be our guardians and to remain with us. Each one of us has a guardian angel to take care of us. Your guardian angel was given to you at your birth – to guide and protect your physical wellbeing, but especially to guide and protect your spiritual wellbeing. He is with you right now, in fact, by your side as you listen to this course. He is with you day and night, and offers your prayers and good works to God. He prays for you and urges you to do good and to avoid evil. He protects you from spiritual and physical dangers. He’s always by your side, incredibly intelligent, powerful, active, and eager to help you.

You are his special mission on this earth, but he respects your freedom. How sad it would be then if you live in a way that your angel must report to God … "The boy who is my special responsibility, whom I have charge of, he will not obey Your laws or use Your grace. In spite of all my efforts to save him, he continues to do wrong." The angel will be doubly sad when he sees other angels returning with good reports to God, and receiving new graces to carry to those committed to their care. If you love your guardian angel, never impose on him the painful duty of bringing to God the report of your evil actions.

When God created the angels, God created all of them good and happy. But all the angels did not choose to remain good and happy. Many of them sinned and were cast down into hell. Let us back up a bit and look at what happened when the angels were created. When God created the multitude of angels, they were all created good, beautiful, indeed perfect, according to nature. Yet, not all of them chose to love. Those that did not became what we now call the fallen angels. So, were the angels, as God created them, good and happy?

Q. Were the angels, as God created them, good and happy?

A. The angels, as God created them, were good and happy.

Every single angel, even those who are now devils, was created good and happy. Indeed, when God created the angels, He gave them each a tremendous natural happiness – and invited them to become even happier by embracing the far greater happiness of heaven. A supernatural happiness. Because each angel was created with a certain fullness of knowledge, he knew from the very first moment of his existence something of the immense goodness of God, who had created him. All the angels were right away aware of how good God was who had made them. They were aware of their incredible abilities and gifts, how powerful they were, all that God had given them – the tremendous life that God had given to them. But, did all the angels remain good and happy?

Q. Did all the angels remain good and happy?

A. All the angels did not remain good and happy; many of them sinned and were cast into hell, and these are called devils or bad angels.

How did this happen? As we just saw, when God created the angels, He gave each of them this great natural happiness, and invited them to embrace supernatural happiness. But Lucifer, who’s also called the Devil or Satan, he chose something else. He didn’t choose the supernatural happiness that God was offering him. In that very first moment, the Devil, just like all the other angels, he looked towards God, he saw how good God is as his creator. In the second instant, each angel – and Lucifer was one of these, made the choice either to love God with the supernatural love called charity or to prefer something else.

For those who choose in that instant to love God, to surrender themselves to His loving plan for their lives, they were given straightaway the full participation in the joy of heaven. But Satan, that is the Devil, did not choose to love God in this way. He was full of pride, of selfish love. He wanted to be treated like God – to be treated as the first, the most excellent, the most important, as the one to whom everything else was ordered, as the one to whom everyone else should pay attention. He knew that God was offering him a happiness beyond anything he had yet experienced. But he also knew that to accept this gift, he would have to accept God’s two conditions.

First, when God invited Satan and all the angels to this happiness in heaven, this supernatural happiness; He said first, you can only have this happiness by trusting in Me; that is, by trusting in God. The angels knew they couldn’t – just by their own strength, or abilities, or hard work, they couldn’t have that supernatural happiness. They knew it was really wonderful. They knew God was offering it to them, but to get there they would have to trust God. To say, okay, I’m willing to trust You, to obey You, to follow You, to believe and trust what You’re saying. This happiness could not be obtained by any angel’s natural gifts, abilities, or work. It would have to be received as a free gift – by the angel abandoning himself to God in the obscurity of faith, by trusting in God.

The second condition was that this gift was being proposed to every angel – even those angels far inferior to Satan, far lower down in terms of their natural abilities – even they were being offered the same gift of supernatural happiness. And even men were being were being offered it. So if Satan accepted this gift of supernatural happiness, it would diminish the importance of his superiority to every other creature. He would become just one among many who now had this special gift.

So the Devil chose to reject these conditions and to cling to the possession of his natural perfection – to what he thinks he can control. He prefers to remain the one in control – to remain the superior, at least at the natural level, among angels – rather than to become one among others in a higher order; the order of grace and supernatural happiness. He decides to determine for himself the goal of his life, and chooses as a goal one that he thinks he can control by himself; a full living out of his angelic powers and abilities, but without the help of God’s grace. He thus shows contempt for God’s offer of supernatural happiness, and Satan is thrown out of heaven. Sadly, the Devil’s example convinced many other angels to make the same choice. And they all became devils, bad angels. Ever since, the Devil and the bad angels try to lead men to make the same choice to disobey God. Because the Devil hates men. He’s jealous of the fact that men might, if they obey God, rise to a higher degree of happiness in heaven than what the Devil has.

Jealousy is a terrible thing. Jealousy means if someone has more food, or toys, or clothing; [for instance] if someone has more things than you do, you feel jealous. You feel it’s a threat, it’s a bad thing. You have to be the one who has more of everything, or who’s better in everything. And so Satan is jealous of men. The Devil strives to get men to embrace his own selfish choice, because he wants to lead men to join him forever in hell. As a result of his sin, Satan and all of his followers were driven out of heaven, and God created hell in which they suffer for all eternity.

But let us look at a saint who made the opposite choice from Satan, who made the choose to obey even when it was difficult. The choice of obedience always bears good fruit. And in this case, it did so miracu- lously. Her name is Saint Rita of Cascia. St. Rita’s life, even from her childhood, was filled with miracles.

One miracle from her life in the convent where she lived as nun can still be seen today. This miracle came from St. Rita’s perfect obedience to her religious superior. Unlike the fallen angels who refused to obey God, St. Rita knew how much God loves the virtue of obedience.

To test her obedience, the Mother Abbess of the community took a dry, wooden stick, and giving it to Sister Rita, asked her to plant it in the ground and water the stick every day. It’s a ridiculous thing to ask. But, St. Rita did just that, without complaining and without questioning, because she knew how important it was to obey. She took the dry, dead stick and planted it in the ground and watered it every morning and every evening. It didn’t matter if the sun was shining, if it was raining, or if it was cold or hot. St. Rita in perfect obedience tended to the planted stick.

The other sisters in the convent often made fun of her for watering the stick. But St. Rita always treated the sisters with great kindness and charity, giving them a kind and gentle smile in reply. She continued to water the stick for an entire year, just as her superior had asked. Then, miraculously and suddenly, it gave forth leaves; and then it gave forth branches; then it blossomed; and then finally it gave forth clusters of grapes. The vine continued to grow and grow, and to bear an abundance of fruit. Even today, six centuries later, the vine still grows and the great harvest of grapes each year is distributed among the priests. The leaves are crushed into a powder and distributed to the sick which has brought about many cures.

In this miracle we see how God rewarded St. Rita’s obedience by producing abundant physical fruit – that of grapes. But where ever God finds obedience, He produces another type of fruit – that of great spiritual graces.

You will learn more about grace and spiritual blessings in another lesson. For now, try to memorize the answers from this lesson. And if you can, continue repeating the answers from the first three lessons, so that you know as many as possible. Above all, try to be very obedient to your parents, so that God might work spiritual miracles in your own life and in your family. God bless you. I’ll look forward to seeing you next week for our next lesson.