I am always on the lookout for great Catholic products for our family, so I especially was thrilled when recently I was given the opportunity to play and review a new Catholic game called The Purgative Way! This game is created and sold by a dear Catholic family that attends our Latin Rite FSSP parish, and I found it to be a wonderful way for our family to review parts of our Faith.
As the game's creator states in the instruction manual, " For us here on earth, the Church Militant, this game models the first stage of the spiritual life, the Purgative Way, in so much as it complements our study of the Catholic Faith, helps us to build and expand the foundation of prayer, introduces us to our great friends and helpers the Saints, and leads us to apply our Faith in moral acts."
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"If we wish to preserve the Faith in ourselves and our families, we must take care to nurture it through prayer and study. Having knowledge of our Faith in our memory and imagination allows us to remain firm in the Faith when challenged with many of the dilemmas and challenges that arise in our lives here on earth."
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The Purgative Way game was made well, with a sturdy board and 7 different decks of cards, each with beautiful Catholic images on the back of each card.
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Our family played this game twice, partly just out of enjoyment and partly to get a thorough feel for the game play to aid me in writing a review of the game. The first time we played we used single players; the second time through, we teamed up, which was easier for the younger children. They seemed to enjoy it better with teams. I love that this game symbolizes our actual spiritual life and journey toward God. To begin, each player starts at the waters of grace--baptism--and journeys up the board by answering Catholic trivia questions, employing knowledge of the Faith with the catechism cards, help from the Church Triumphant through the Saint cards, and prayer, through the Oremus cards. The ultimate goal is to reach the Cross of Christ. To win the game, a player must answer a moral dilemma question correctly; if they answer it incorrectly, they must complete the penance on the penance card they draw in order to continue the game.
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Level 1--from the St. Joseph Catechism Level 2--from the Baltimore Catechism We really appreciated that the different levels of catechism knowledge are provided on different decks. This makes playing the game with multiple age groups much easier and enjoyable for all involved. We incorporated questions from both the St. Joseph Catechism questions and the Baltimore Catechism questions. These questions come directly from these Catechisms, so the answers are true to the Faith. With the catechism cards, players can choose to leave the cards in order or mix them up. Using them in order made answering questions much easier a few times because the catechism is written in such a way that it builds on previous statements. However, mixing the cards sometimes left question cards a bit vague for the same reason, which made giving an accurate answer difficult. However, we simply made judgments on whether the answer was sufficient given the question, and we worked through them. For example, one card asks. "What words should we bear always in mind?" There are a number of different things Our Lord said that we could bear in mind. The answer states, "We should bear always in mind these words of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ: 'What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul, or what exchange shall a man give for his soul? For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels; and then will he render to every man according to his works." We only noticed a couple of cards like this, however. Most are clearly understood.
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Level 3--from the Summa Theologica
We started using the Summa Theologica questions at one point, but found the format of them to be too involved. To clarify, the Summa cards do not actually ask a clear question; instead they provide a whether statement from the Summa, with the correct answer being an entire topic. It proved too vague to know how to provide a complete answer. This really isn't a problem, though, because most of us are not on that level of knowledge anyway.
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Church Triumphant cards--learn the Saints
Playing this game, I also loved that The Purgative Way incorporates information on the Saints. I love to teach my children about these heavenly helpers, encouraging them to imitate them and ask for their intercession. The Church Triumphant cards each provide information about the life of a Saint and the cases of which he is the patron.
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Oremus cards--Latin and English prayers
Of course, it is wonderful to check players on their knowledge of Catholic prayers, both in English and Latin. I love that the Latin is available also. Knowing our basic Catholic prayers is so important, and this game provides an easy way to review or help learn them. However, we did feel the prayer cards had too large of an influence on moving up the board or falling behind quickly. If the players can recite the prayer in Latin, they move straight up the board to the next prayer card space, skipping 10 catechism spaces and sometimes the Saint shrine. Not only is this a very large boost, but it also means that players have the potential to skip some of the Saint shrines merely by knowing the Latin prayers. If you miss the prayer, you move backward to the previous prayer space, losing 10 spaces in one turn. I think the idea of being able to skip Saint shrines bothered me the most because I like reviewing the Saints. While it does speed up the game play quite a bit, (so if you want a shorter game, this rule would be ideal), we decided to alter this rule for our own family. Instead of moving up or back to the next/previous prayer space, we adjusted it to have the players move up or back to the next/previous Saint shrine, which is half the distance.
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Moral Dilemma cards Penance cards
A final great aspect to this game is the Moral Dilemma and Penance cards. We love this addition! As the game founder states, "We must not only know the Catholic Faith, but we must also know how to apply the truths of the Faith to our moral acts." The Moral Dilemma cards are a perfect way to finish the game; in fact, they would be great to have sprinkled throughout the game as well. The penance cards are very fitting for a missed moral dilemma. I love that the player returns to the bottom of the board to the priest image before following the penance on the card.
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Overall our family really enjoyed playing this game, which is helping us learn to better articulate our Catholic Faith. We liked that the entire family could be involved and were happy to add The Purgative Way to our collection of games.
God bless!
+JMJ+
