Lawn Chair Catechism Session One

The Holy Spirit knows just what to send into my life and when.  Today I have been given an opportunity to answer some reflective questions about my faith walk and my parish life, two things you never have to to twist my arm to do!  I want to thank Jen Haganey and Sarah Reinhard for welcoming me into the fold. This is a great project and I hope to contribute in any way possible in the future to Lawn Chair Catechism and to Catholic Mom.com. 

In your own faith:

• How would you describe your lived relationship with God to this point in your life?  The first word that comes out of my heart is "consistent."  As I age and change, as I suffer losses and gain blessings that I never could have anticipated as a child or a young woman, I see only one element of my life that stands completely immutable, and that is the relationship between me and God, the Truth, Being Himself.   My faith life certainly has gone through some important evolutionary steps!  I became Catholic in 2010, and that has been the defining moment thus far in my faith life.  But since my earliest memories as a toddler in a home where the Bible and prayer were present to this very day when I read my morning devotional as I hold my son on my hip, the presence of God in my life has never been something I've doubted or lacked. So, the way I LIVE this relationship out has looked different at different times, and my level of obedience has definitely increased.  The liberties I take with His Word and His instruction have decreased.  The vague fears and concrete disasters in my life have increased, but God has always been a reference point, the beauty that I know I am striving for.  The face of Jesus has always been before me.  Always, as long as I have memory, I have held the image of Jesus' face in front of me as I received any earthly praise or any earthly scorn.  Now, as a Catholic, my relationship with Christ has obviously deepened indescribably as I have been blessed to partake in the Real Presence.  But Jesus has not changed; only my level of commitment to Him, my willingness to get on my knees, on my face, on the floor, and tell Him to take over have increased.
• What does the word “discipleship” mean to you?  Do you perceive a need in the Church today to help lay Catholics become more fervent followers of Jesus Christ?  Sometimes I don't think I have the nerve to call myself a disciple.  For what men am I fishing?  Am I salt and light?  There are days I feel more like sand and darkness, all cozied up with my faith to comfort me.  Other days someone will tell me I have shown them Jesus in some way, and I know, I know as surely as I can see my hand in front of my face, that I must keep persevering to earn the title of Christian and the job of disciple.  This is a rough audience we have to present to, fellow Catholic Christians. In many, many cases, you will be working and mothering and shopping alongside people who have received lifetimes of indoctrination in three areas: secularism, materialism, and Christophobia.  If you're lucky, you won't get outright virulent hate, but  you'll find cafeteria Catholics, lukewarms, Republicatholics and Democatholics who put party politics before the Magisterium, and fallen-away Catholics who are SURE they know the Church is thoroughly corrupt and you are a fool for buying into it.  So what approach do I use?  Well, I only have two rules.  As I get older, I find I can't remember more than that anyway.  Rule number one is never, ever let them see or hear you do anything that is not Christlike ( I didn't say these rules were easy, I said they were few in number!).  Rule number two is pray.  Truly pray for people.  If you can be an example of an adherent Catholic Christian and you can pray fervently for these folks, you are halfway there.  You will be unimpeachable and you will be effecting real change by prayer.  You never know which prayer of yours is the one, in the great quilt of time, may be the stitch that holds someone's life together when it lined up with God's pattern. 

In your parish:

• How would you describe your parish’s current efforts at discipleship?  A hotbed of discipleship?  A weekly gathering of spiritual sleep-walkers?  Or perhaps something in between? My parish is currently in a "cluster" relationship with a much more liberal parish.  That makes some goal setting and event planning difficult. But I think we are very strong in the person to person stuff, and in the example setting.  There are families in my parish who amaze me with their pure devotion to Christ's Church.  That inspiration is catching.  They are examples to me and to my children.  We have business owners in our parish who run their businesses honestly and with charity always in the forefront.  When we DO have "formal" evangelization events, speakers, and the like, they are generally well received and fairly well-attended.  I think, though, that we are a stronger SERVICE parish than anything else.  We do a lot for the poor of the community and the poor in downtown Cleveland.  We meet our fundraising goals easily and always exceed them.  It is my hope that when the community hears about these programs, that our discipleship is evident.  They know we are Christians, after all, by our love. 

A Different Kind of Top Ten

When I first began immersing myself in the study of Catholicism,  I read everything I could get my hands on.  I have already cited here on my blog The Catholic Truth Society, publishers to the Holy See, as a great resource.  My neighbor and friend Sandy was a great boon as well, with her casual dropping off of books and offers to answer questions.  But the Catechism was really the turning point.  Of course the Didache, the Church Fathers, EWTN, the many adherent and well-written blogs, and my RCIA education were keys to the door, but reading the Catechism was like finding a road map to my own mind and body, a treasure map that had been hidden underground for thirty nine years.  My most emotional moments, the ones where I had to put down the book and compose myself, came from reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  Since then I have also read the Catechism of the Council of Trent and the Baltimore Catechism, but the definitive Catechism for The Church, the one that grew from these and addresses every modern issue we will confront in our day is the Complete Catechism bearing the signature of Blessed Pope John Paul II.  Herein I have compiled for you what for me are the ten most impactful passages from our Catechism. These tenets shape my thinking, my behavior toward others, my opinions on how to heal our broken and continually breaking world, my attitude toward my marriage, and how I approach my vocation as a mother. I hope they enlighten and educate you if it is your first time seeing them, or serve as a refresher if you have read them but let them get away from you.

1.  66. No new public revelation is to be expected before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ.   . . . yet it remains for Christian faith to gradually grasp its significance over the course of the centuries . . . Private revelations . . . have been recognized by the authority of The Church, but they do not belong to the Deposit of Faith. This was a huge relief for me.  As I explored the implications and manifestations of this , I found it to be true over and over again. Catholics were not adding anything to the Scripture and Tradition left by Christ; they were guarding it FROM additions.  That Deposit of Faith and what it precisely contains was a sacred pearl of great price.  The entire structure and personnel of The Church now struck me as a fort armed by soldiers, protecting The Truth from the many assailants from within and without who would seek to undermine, change, add to, subtract from, finesse away, politicize, and altogether pervert Her.  I soon learned about what Martin Luther *really* did and I was horrified.  As my research continued and I read from sources closer to the time of when Jesus and the earliest members of His Church walked, studied, worshipped, and preached, I was left without doubt that THIS was The Deposit of Faith He left, and that the guiding body, the Pope and the Magisterium, were divinely led by the Holy Spirit (God Himself) in order to answer modern questions that are not addressed specifically in Scripture or oral Tradition.

2. 133. The Church forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian faithful to learn the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures.  'Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.'  Coming from Protestantism, where it was "me, Jesus, and my Bible," I did have a vestige of false belief that the Catholic Church was less "into" Scripture than were the Protestants.  Again, from hours of research into the history of the Church between the book of Acts and the time of the Reformation (a period which was previously left out of my religious education), I learned that the Catholic Church compiled and canonized Scripture, encouraged the reading of Scripture, and that the Catechism and every encyclical I read was filled with cross references and footnotes FROM Scripture.  The saints fed themselves on Scripture.  This passage from the Catechism uses very exact and purposeful language "forcefully exhorts" to communicate to Catholic Christians that we must immerse ourselves in Scripture.  I learned about Lectio Divina.  I watched as the Gospel was lifted and carried with reverence and singing at Mass.  And I saw how there were more books in the Bible than I had thought there were, not due to Catholics adding books, but to Protestants removing them! Mostly I learned that the Bible was one of the things that would bring me into the Church, because evidence of The Real Presence, Purgatory, and other doctrines, were found therein.

3. 598. Since our sins made the Lord Christ suffer the torment of the cross, those who plunge themselves into disorders and crimes crucify the Son of God anew in their hearts (for He is in them) and hold Him up to contempt . . . when we deny Him by our deeds, we in some way seem to lay violent hands on Him.  As a Protestant, I heard too much back and forth about who crucified Christ.  Was it the Jews?  The Romans? Upon whom could we lay blame?  And could we, like Pilate, ever wash our hands of this act, so distant from us in history?  Converting slowly into the Church revealed to me that I joined in with those who tortured and killed Christ every time I sinned against Him.  And it seared on to my brain and heart the idea that I can never, ever, celebrate, condone, laugh at, view with pleasure, tinker with, dip my toe into, encourage and abet, throw parades for, or turn the other way from helping someone repent from the sins that my Jesus suffered whippings and humiliation for.  Never.

4. 1395.  The Eucharist is properly the sacrament of those who are in full communion with the Church. I took pride as a Lutheran in our open rail communion.  How snobby those Catholics were, not letting anyone and everyone partake in their symbolic bread and wine. If Communion were just a symbol, then why not have an open rail?  If it demanded nothing, no adherence or loyalty, no vow, no fasting, no state of grace, then why not let anyone walk in and eat?  Understanding full communion, finally believing in the Real Presence, was like a punch in my gut.  I had distributed communion to my fellow Lutheran parishioners.  I had laughed at my friends' jokes about getting drunk on the leftover wine we had to finish.  Obviously my view of the Eucharist has changed completely, perhaps more than anything else about my theological perspective and spiritual life.  I could never leave the Eucharist.  I could never walk away from the Real Presence now, and I do not know how anyone does.  I am also acutely aware that the Eucharist must be withheld from people for the protection of their own souls, so that they do not receive it lightly or in a state of grave sin.  And since Scripture backs this up, it was not a hurdle at all to my conversion.

5. 1696.  Unless man acknowledges that he is a sinner he cannot know the truth about himself, which is a condition for acting justly; and without the offer of forgiveness he would not be able to bear this truth. This reads as obvious to many, but I must tell you, my friends, that I have talked with and known rather well people who have told me that they are not sinners and do not sin.  Or, they compare their sins with other people's and feel very propped up and happy that they are who they are and not the wretched sinners they see around them.  I suppose the reason is that the idea of our own sinfulness IS almost unbearable if not for the hope Christ has given us.  But be clear: you will get nowhere in your spiritual life if you do not acknowledge your sinfulness.  You will achieve a shallow sense of being "pals" with Jesus, or worse yet, a sense of superiority over others who simply sin differently than you, but you will never be in the Sacrament of the Present Moment, holding hands with Jesus, if you do not look in the mirror and say, "God have mercy on me, a sinner."

6.  1700.  The dignity of the human person is rooted in his creation in the image and likeness of God . . . it is essential to a human being freely to direct himself to this fulfillment. My entire life, before I had any ability to articulate a political position or even read a newspaper, I have been unable to "fit" into a "side."  As I got older, it became worse for me.  Liberals loved me and considered me one of them until they found out I was anti-abortion.  Conservatives loved me and considered me one of them until I talked about the death penalty.  My views on immigration, preferential option for the poor, same sex attraction, lying, the role of the wife in a marriage, child rearing, would have me bouncing from left to right like a fuzzy tennis ball.  When it came time to vote, I registered as an Independent, unable to commit to either political party because both supported some evil practice in their platform.  It was not until I read the Catechism that I could see that my philosophy was by no means unique.  In fact, it was undergirded by the idea of the Imago Dei, that each person held and bore the image of God Himself, and was entitled to certain dignities and rights because of that. Further, he had responsibilities to act and eschew certain desires because of that.  The Catholic Church transcends political loyalties, or should.

7.  2035.  The supreme degree of participation in the authority of Christ is ensured by the charism of infallibility.  This infallibility extends as far as does the deposit of divine Revelation; it also extends to those elements of doctrine, including morals, without which the saving truths of the faith cannot be preserved, explained, or observed.  The authority of the Magisterium extends also the the specific precepts of the natural law, because their observance, demanded by the Creator, is necessary for salvation. Talk about a misunderstood teaching!  Where, I wondered as  Lutheran and then a dabbling evangelical, did the Catholic Church find these perfect old men to lead them?  Again, after hours upon hours of reading about the earliest Christians, and coming to an understanding about the true definition of infallibility and the Deposit of Faith, I "got it." Infallibility is a protection, not a genetic predisposition or a made-up state that starts when the Pope sits down in a special chair.  Yes, we have a chair of Peter, but no, it's not magical. Yes, we are guided by the Holy Spirit, but the Popes have never been and never WILL BE without sin. The Church will never be without sin.  'Cause it's full of people. See #5.

8.  2267.  If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person.  Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm -- without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself -- the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically non-existent." I have always been heartbroken by the very idea of a person walking to his death by electrocution or lethal injection.  Even as I type, my friends, I choke up.  I see someone's son or daughter, I see a creation stamped by God, being dragged to the slaughter without necessity.  To find out that The Church, in writing and in spirit, and in TRUTH, knows that the death penalty is wrong and ugly and should only be employed if there is absolutely no other way to protect the innocent from a criminal, was huge for me.  HUGE. 

9.  982.  There is no offense, however serious, that the Church cannot forgive.  There is no one, however wicked and guilty, who may not confidently hope for forgiveness, provided his repentance is honest.  Christ who died for all men desires that in His Church the gates of forgiveness should always be open to anyone who turns away from sin.  How many times have I thought about these words?  They are so simple and yet there are dimensions to them that require additional reading about invincible ignorance, perfect versus imperfect contrition, and the mystery of the mind of God.  The Church will declare no one beyond redemption, no one IN Hell.  She may warn you that you are on the path, but She will never say that God's mercy couldn't extend to you.  This is a subtle golden thread that wove throughout the whole of Catholic teaching that for me was just so beautiful and rang so true: that the mind of God, of Being Himself, of the beginning and the end who supports all life, is not bound by the Sacraments or by anything that WE understand of Him.  His divine revelations to us are for OUR benefit, and if we follow the maker's directions, and turn from sin, our inner workings will not go haywire and become irrevocably out of order.  But He has the last word. 

10.  2271.  Since the first century The Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion.  This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable.  Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or as a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law. I first learned what abortion was at about age fourteen.  In my Lutheran school, the teacher made it very clear by her tone and her facial expression that this was something horrific and difficult to talk about, but she gave us the straight story.  I was bowled over.  Who could author such an idea?  How could it be legal?  What schools did these women attend that they didn't know when life began?  Since then, I have been vocally and unabashedly anti-abortion.  I am pro-life from fertilization, when a new person with new and distinct DNA is formed, to natural death.  As a Protestant, it pained me to see one ecclesial body after another crumble under the weight of societal pressure to go soft and iffy on abortion.  Their non committal stance on abortifacient contraception is unacceptable to me.  Now I am Home, in a safe Home where it has always been taught, and always will be taught, and is in writing, that we are officially against abortifacient contraception and abortion.  Again, the research I put in helped me to see that this was always the view of Christians until Lambeth in the 1930's.  And then the weak links broke the chain.  Now it's anyone's guess what the positions on abortion are in over 30,000 Christian denominations.  And even if they TAKE a position, it will be with provisos, language that slithers like a snake through loopholes so that the evil will be okay under certain circumstances.  We're not talking double effect here; we're talking procured abortion with the aim of aborting as its primary purpose.  I cannot ever again belong to a church who would turn a blind eye to the weakest among us when we all know Christ Himself spoke these words to us, "Whatsoever you do to the least of these, you have done to ME." 


Postscript:  There have been moments I have laid my hand on my Bible, or on my Catechism and felt an electric charge go through my fingers.  Here is His love letter to me; here are the Church's bumpers around me to protect me from my own selfish and foolish inclinations.  I become choked up with gratitude and anticipation.  Yes, anticipation, because these words, these images and truths, originated and instituted by Jesus Christ the living Savior Himself, preserved by His Bride the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church,  are merely glimpses of the glory to come if the Lord sees fit to grant me entrance into Heaven, which is my deepest desire and my most beautiful dream.

No, not one.

I've been immersed in a lot of suffering and death over the last several days, both in my country and in my little sphere of friends and family.  What stands out in review is that tragic circumstances bring out the best selves in some people and the worst in others.  There are days when I look around me, and then ultimately in the mirror and ask, "Is there any good man?" and the answer comes back, "No, not one."  What a sorry lot we are, when ten minutes after finding out about a massive national rupture, a dangerous and unfinished debacle, our first instinct is to start blaming, speculating on what horrid behavior "the other" will engage in, and feathering a nest for confirmation of our own pre-existing theories about the good and evil teams of the world. 

I looked online for homilies about the parable of the good Samaritan.  It's always encouraging to me, and a reminder that Jesus wants us to ask ourselves just who our neighbor really is.  I find the answers spin outward in concentric circles.  To some people, there really isn't any neighbor.  They are looking out for number one, and the only ally is someone who backs up their agenda or feeds their ego in some way, family and a few like-minded friends included.  Then there are those who do truly care for neighbors, providing that the neighbor is somewhat similar to them, and certainly safe to be around.  Moving outward, we see the Samaritan, and we see what Jesus' standard is: our neighbor is everybody, and by that Jesus means EVERY ONE.  That includes those we don't trust, those we don't particularly like, those who are opposed to us, and those who are intent on our destruction.  

Now, of course, and it hardly needs to be said, this does not mean that I should lay myself down in the middle of the street and let someone run his car over my head because he is my neighbor and this would satisfy his desire to kill.  That wouldn't be loving my neighbor, because it would be encouraging and perpetuating his sin.  As I've discussed before on this blog, a Christian may not EVER encourage, assist in, celebrate, condone, or turn a blind eye to sins that Jesus was tortured and died for.  EVER.  So you've called a sin a sin.  Now what?

After you've identified a sin, you call it what it is and rebuke the sinner.  Sometimes the truth and nature of the sin is so obvious that "calling out" is not necessary, but we must always be clear in our minds about what sin is.  Then what?  Well, these are things we do NOT do: we do not glory in the sin or hope for the suffering and damnation of the sinner.  We do not puff ourselves up in our gratitude and pride that WE and everyone who thinks the way WE do could never commit such a sin.  We do not mock and laugh at the sinner, or torture the sinner, or do anything to FURTHER erode his or her innate human dignity, which has already been compromised by his or her sin.  

What we DO is: pray for the sinner.  Find ways to learn from the sinner.  Find sins in ourselves that resemble on some level the sin that the sinner committed.  Find someone around us who may be at risk for sinning and try to catch him or her before the fall.  Live as an example of uprightness, kindness, mercy, peacefulness, forgiveness, and fairness.  

Justice will be served, and we know this because God is justice itself.  God is all good things, and justice is a good thing.  God will provide what is needed for the victims of a horrible sin, and He will provide what is needed for the sinner.  We have temporal means as well to deal with sinners who have violated laws and/or personal boundaries.  But God Himself has told us that vengeance belongs to HIM, not to us.  We are not to take our big ball of imperfect emotional idea of justice from the middle of our guts and hurl it at the sinner, thinking somehow we are carrying out God's divine justice.  That is not the way it works, and we better be glad it's not, because in about three minutes it will probably be YOUR turn to sin again.  And you don't want the justice of imperfect men, do you?  You want the merciful and perfect justice of God.

What I have found perhaps most beneficial about being Catholic, in a practical, real life way, is the daily self-examination.  I present this analogy: in my bathroom, I have an 8x magnifying mirror.  It's great for tweezing eyebrows, and great for keeping me humble.  Because I see my face for what it really is, aging, imperfect, temporary.  It doesn't make me beat my breast and want to go out and get Botox.  It actually makes me feel free.  It's just a face.  I'm not keeping it forever.  I won't need it where I hope to be going.  The daily examination of conscience works kind of the same way.  Don't just look at your behavior and your thought patterns in a fuzzy, faraway, or cursory way.  Look at your heart and your intentions, your words and your acts, in an 8x magnifying mirror.  Now you don't look so hot.  Now you get that Scripture was right.  No, not a good man, not even one.

But you don't have to turn away from the examination of conscience and go wear a hair shirt.  You can take a few steps that are more constructive.  Confess your sins and receive absolution.  Then go about the work of implementing a two-pronged plan.  Avoid the occasions of sin, and use your newly found humility ('cause if you do Confession right, you're going to come out humbled) to aid you in loving your neighbor.  That is, after you've identified correctly and Biblically just who your neighbor is.  

Is there anyone out there who is not my neighbor?  Anyone so repugnant and evil that he does NOT deserve my prayers? Anyone who is thinking and living so contrary to the Law of God that surely she is worthy of my scorn and hatred?  Anyone so stained by sin that Jesus would surely pat me on the back for spitting on this person, laughing at this person, refusing my heart's mercy to this person?  Is there anyone at all who is so damnable and laughable and horrible that this soul is beyond forgiveness and redemption?

No, not one.

The Illusion of Change

My mother saw me off on my first day of Kindergarten, wearing giant sunglasses and a plastered-on smile.  I think she was closer to tears than I was. It was such a foreign experience for me to be away from her that I knew I had to stare hard at her face, trying to singe the image on to my brain permanently.  That smile was not her own.  I would see it again many years later, when she tried to tell me she was going to fight the cancer.  We both knew the truth.  And again I looked at her face, green of her eyes, tremble of her smile, and took a photograph in my head.  Stay, stay.  

I heard a psychologist on the radio once say that the world is comprised of a bunch of five year olds making life and death decisions, because we are all essentially the same people we were at two years old, the very same people, just adding experiences and snapshots along the way, usually to our own emotional detriment.  I can see a sliver of truth in it.  When I'm comforting my son, I sometimes feel we are two children together, completely equal.  Who's comforting whom anyway? I'm no wiser than he is, and no more able to understand evil.  I've just been around longer, so I can only whisper, "Mom knows.  Mom knows."  

My husband is my anchor.  I can't hold him tightly enough.  Sometimes I hug him so hard I hope I'll just blend in, stop being me for a second and be able to be him.  It would be easier to just absorb into him instead of trying to carry on alone, with my own plastered on smile, and my big bag of snapshots.  

But a mother, a child, a spouse . . . these aren't gods.  These are not the foundations of a life lived abundantly and rightly.  Marriage is Sacramental and motherhood is a noble and wonder-filled vocation, but neither is the rock.  Only Jesus is that.  Only Jesus.

John Donne said for all eternity to heed: "No man is an island, entire unto himself."  None of us has to feel isolation and loneliness.  None has to fear the changes in the future, or look darkly back at the hideous images of the past.  Because that is all illusory. The future is non-existent, and the past impossible to retouch.  Only in this moment can I reach out my hand and have Jesus grab it.  Then the assurance comes.  Nothing changes, at least nothing that matters.  Jesus is still Jesus.  He has always been here and always will be.  Heaven is Heaven.  Being is Being.  The eternal things are immutable, and they exist beyond our linear and limited space and time.  This is confusing to some, but really the very simplest element of our faith.  Because it's the first principle: what is a thing? Identify it.  What does it do?  What do we do?  We hang in existence and bob and weave through this earthly battle, and occasionally manage to glimpse Divinity.  That's it.  To surrender should be the easiest action, particularly when we are surrendering to the author of the universe, the One who formed us from top to bottom, inside and out, numbered each hair and pore, He who measures and loves each breath we take.  To whom, to what else, would any reasonable person give any power in her life? Give any obedience? Succumb to, open fully to, and trust with the growing pains of her trip here in this dimension? There can be no other name, no other answer.

All around me people are being born, being killed, crying, drinking, laughing, deciding on idols and costumes.  They want so badly, fight so passionately, to manage and control, predict and stockpile, assess the angles, predict the changes and permutations of the changes.  What futile strivings. 

 My son calls out randomly, "This is the best day of my life!" Nothing has happened to prompt it; he feels in the moment that he is secure even in this mystery.  That is the faith I aspire to: to look at Kermit Gosnell, and hear about bombings in Israel, and find out someone I thought was a friend is not a friend, and pray for yet another person dying of cancer and in the apparently ugly face of all that to still know that all is well with my soul.  This is not the "crutch" or denial of religion that non-believers scoff at and use to write off even our most complicated theological principles.  This is above anyone's opinion.  

I almost have to suppress a giggle when someone thinks that, despite my love for the Eucharist and my daily immersion in my Catholic faith, that he can say something or show me some new piece of evidence that will make the entire construct fall around my shoulders. The hubris is not the amusing part; that's human nature, the sin of pride.  Sin numero uno.  The part that makes me giggle is this little secret I have that this person can't get, almost like he isn't in on a private joke.  Do you not know?  Have you not heard?  Jesus is alive.  He's a person; He's with us, every day in every Catholic Church in every place in the world.  I have THAT.  And you think you're going to sell me your secular snake oil?  Oh, dear.  That is a hoot.  I guess there is something to that radio doctor's theory, because the notion that you can pry me away from my focus on the Real Presence is very childlike in its wishful thinkingness.  You want it to be so.  You want me to think the way you do.  But I can't; I can't ever go back.  Once you've been that intimate with Jesus, you can never go back to anything less.

Pain is real, alright.  I do not endeavor to tell you today that your pain is illusory.  I do intend to tell you that it's only a paper moon, hanging over a cardboard sea, and that nothing on this stage is made of anything that's going to be here for as long as Jesus is.  Today might not feel like the best day of your life.  It may feel like the worst.  But a day in His courts . . . it's worth it all.  Think on it.  Meditate on it.  On this stage, on this island, we do have to say goodbye occasionally.  Give that pain to Jesus.  He knows what to do with it. He will not let anything be taken from you that you really need, and that which is taken here that is for your good He will give you back, refined and beautified and perfected.   He knows every second of what you are experiencing, and He knows your limits.  He cannot err, and He will not fail.  No one who walks with Him will be ashamed or disappointed.  These are things He told us; do you not believe Him?  Keep His face always before you, and your view will never change, in spite of how high you fly or how far you fall. 

Your Real Estate

Recently there was a question asked of some of the more widely read Catholic bloggers, which they answered with great variety and great poignancy.  It was a simple go-round, really.  In 200 words or fewer, why are you Catholic?  My parish did something similar a couple of years back, and published the congregants' responses in the weekly bulletin.  The answers ranged from plain to poetic.  One elegant grandmother I know answered in part, "Being Catholic is all I have ever wanted to be." Another gentleman wrote about how nothing in the world made sense to him without the Church's rules to order it. Another wrote about how family and religion go hand in hand and always will, and he couldn't imagine one without the other.   As a convert, I have told my story in a number of ways: in print, and on television, and in "on the fly" responses to people asking me at a party.  It's not a simple question, although some of the best answers are the simple ones, like "Because it's true." or "The Eucharist." I find my own answer can be contained in one sentence, or could really be my whole life story, because I see now how every experience, from my earliest memories as a toddler to this moment at this keyboard, are and were divinely interconnected and exist for one purpose: to know, love, and serve Him.  For me, the best way to do this is in The Catholic Church because She possesses and offers the most numerous graces and helps.  

When I was a Protestant, which I was for my whole life save the last three years, it was like living in a basic, builder grade home.  It was serviceable, and I had the essentials.  But that was all I had.  Now I have all the upgrades.  Did they cost more, just as they do when purchasing a home?  You bet. My behavior has changed, and my level of obedience has changed.  My accountability has changed.  I give more, in every sense of the word.  And, paradoxically, the more I give of myself, the more Christ fills in those empty spaces with something better, something real.  Of course, conversion is a process that never ends, as my RCIA director told us many times.  When you stop converting, you become stale and dry in your prayer life, you resist or neglect the confessional, and your offerings likely decrease.  And for what?  What cheap builder grade feature did you hold on to?  A television show? The big laugh at the lunch table? A look of envy from another woman at what you're wearing?  Why not go for the upgrade? EWTN or better yet, some spiritual reading.  A compliment for someone who irritates you. A donation of the fifty dollars you were going to spend on another pair of shoes. 

On Good Friday night, my husband and I sat in our living room and watched The Passion of The Christ again.  If you haven't seen this film, do.  If you have seen it, but not recently, watch it again.  See, hear, and absorb what He suffered for you.  See the horrible weight of our sins on Him.  If this doesn't renew your commitment to Christ and His Bride The Church, then come back and tell me I was wrong in my recommendation.  But I know it will if you watch the film the right way.  

What I mean by that is to put yourself in the film.  And not as an onlooker, a viewer.  No.  You are Pilate, relativizing truth and "washing your hands" of a situation like abortion or human trafficking.  You are Peter, denying your relationship with Jesus out of fear (not for your life, but merely of social awkwardness or a verbal confrontation!).  You are the crowd, laughing at his suffering, when you look past an offensive joke or visual about our Savior or His Church, or our Pope.  You are Simon the Cyrene, called against your will to carry a cross.  Will you respond by carrying it with all your strength?  Or will you walk away and let it be someone else's burden? You are Herod, asking Jesus to perform tricks for you to prove His Kingship.  You are the Jewish leaders, threatened by His radical teachings, wanting to keep your own wealth and autonomy.  You are Judas, selling Jesus for some bag of gold.  What is your gold? What are you choosing over Jesus?  Popularity?  Coolness? Political correctness?  Vanity? Sexual satisfaction? 

My husband has to avert his eyes when the nails are driven into Jesus' hands. It hurts him too much to see Jesus tortured in this way.  I ask you not to avert your eyes.  Watch.  Imagine our Savior's pain.  Now imagine yourself, some two thousand years later, laughing at, throwing parades for, celebrating, encouraging and assisting, remaining neutral about, the very sins that drove those nails into his hands.  We cannot.  We cannot and still call ourselves "little Christs." 

My time on this earth is finite.  I try not to mourn the years I spent outside of The Church.  I am here now.  I have a position to fill, and it is one only I can fill.  The same is true for you.  There is exactly one of you, and you have a role to play in His plan that may right now be going unfulfilled.  Why do you wait?  Your treasure here on earth is dust.  No matter what you accrue, whether it be material possessions, family members, friends, acclaim, the big win in debate after debate, physical beauty that trumps that of everyone you know, children whose accomplishments shine brighter than those of your friends . . . guess what?  Dust.  Your expensive education at the best schools out there? Dust.  Your job title and pay raise?  Dust. Your car, your bike, your hair, your skin, your heart and all its whims?  Dust.  All that is real and true is Christ, and the more you can get of Him the more you should get of Him and MUST get of Him.  

So why am I Catholic?  Because my life before Catholicism was like real estate hunting.  And when I opened the door to The Church, I knew it was the one. I found my dream house.

The Sound of Wings

In the underrated novel Julie by Ruth Babcock, the protagonist, a hardworking young architecture student from a working class background, learns invaluable life lessons while simultaneously financially supporting and trying to avoid a beautiful young woman with whom he eventually falls in love.  The book is one of my favorites because of its beautiful language, but also because it is from another era, and I love old things, sometimes a little too much more than new things, I think.  But this book -- well, you would love it too.  Because of lines like this: "And then suddenly I held Julie in my arms, and I knew it was the reason for everything in my life and the plan of it.  This was what made life fun and life earnest.  This was why buildings went up and cars ran on the streets and ships sailed the seas.  To give things to some woman.  To do all the things that never could be done, alone, for her." 

As Easter Vigil approaches, the third anniversary of my entrance into The Catholic Church, I look back on the trail of books, blogs, encyclicals, and other media of study behind me.  All to learn and know, to love what I was trying to avoid, The Church.  I have learned the lessons Chad learned in the novel: that poverty has many meanings and manifestations, that love is inexplicable except perhaps for its essential characteristic of selflessness, and that our first duty is to examine ourselves and our own sins, or as my sister would say, "Count your own change." 

Julie, you see, was a young woman raised in great wealth, until the day her father killed himself because of his financial losses, and she was left with less than nothing, and had to flee the luxury hotel in which they lived before she was chased down to pay the debt she and her father, Dudley Chartelow, had accrued there.  Chad, raised in a middle class home with very defined values, takes Julie to task for walking away from the debt.  She then explains to him, "You'd be surprised how little high-sounding phrases help" when one is in a desperate situation.  As Chad learns more and more about Julie's life before meeting him, he discovers that she lived in a different kind of poverty with Dud in the hotel: a spiritual poverty.  They were isolated; her mother had abandoned them long ago, and the only activities in their lives were shallow ones that revolved around spending money.  Julie had never learned to "do" anything; she couldn't cook, clean, even carry on a conversation with anyone other than an extremely wealthy peer.  She knew French, and ballroom dancing, but had no practical skills, and no sense of her own innate value when the money and frippery were stripped away.  Obviously her father didn't either, hence his suicide.

Chad has to learn not to judge Julie exclusively by the standards he knows.  For him, a work ethic could save anyone.  Anyone who was poor must have been so by choice.  He was working his way through architecture school and patting himself on the back for it.  When he falls in love with Julie, he realizes that marrying and raising a family with her is of more "real" value than any material goal he had previously set for himself.   

The Church has shown me these things, woven together beautifully, in its social justice teachings and moral teachings.  The dignity of the human person is absolute: it is neither reduced nor inflated by material lack or material excess.  So I have no reason to disdain the poor or be envious of the rich.  I cannot measure the cross of a highly paid executive because I don't know what that cross might be.  I cannot assume the woman on welfare is laughing as she cashes her check, because I don't know what circumstances brought her to that place.  My concern is to count my own change, both literally and figuratively.  Am I changing, evolving, converting, every single day?  Am I improving in areas of frequent temptation to sin?  Am I giving of myself?

The Church has also taught me that as I give selfless love, I should be able to receive it.  I can accept help from people who sincerely want to give it.  Pride is a sin that prevents us from accepting help that God may be using a secondary cause to send to us.  As Julie resists Chad's efforts to help her financially because she sees him as needing the money himself, we sometimes resist help from others, thinking somehow they are judging us and lording their help over us.  Help given in the pattern Christ has established for us should not make us feel this way, for there should be no judgment or condition placed on it.

That inherent and immutable dignity also informs our Church's moral teachings.  It is why we can never approve abortion, torture,  or euthanasia, or celebrate any disordered appetite.  It is why we fight human trafficking and slavery, and why we have closed rail communion, in order not to endanger the souls of those who would approach the Eucharist in a state of grave sin and, as Scripture teaches us, "condemn themselves."   

Chad attempts to describe Julie's impact on his consciousness and his perspective on existence: "I thought of Julie, Julie who loved high places.  Who wanted so few things for herself.  Who wanted most of all to do  something for me.  Who loved me. [Julie was] like a gesture upward.  Like something rising fine and clear.  Julie was like the sound of wings in my life." 

A convert is in a difficult place sometimes, trying to explain her joy and her discovery to those who remain in a life she has left behind.  How on earth to explain what is gained without making the listener feel as if you are implying that he is "below" or "behind" you?  I can only say that my theology forbids it!  I am the smallest of all; invisibility is the goal, the blending of me and Christ so complete that there is no positioning or ranking, only the Truth, the Teachings, the Tradition, the Love.  I have gone neither right nor left, nor do I look right or left.  The Church, for me, with Christ's own hand still gently but very definitely guiding Her, is the sound of wings in my life.  It is what calls me to look upward to my Father in Heaven for answers, not to my own selfish whims and capricious reasoning.  I didn't want to fall in love with this Church, this Church that urges me to count my own sins daily rather than those of my neighbor, but I couldn't resist what was planned and carried out by the Holy Spirit.  This love is irrefutable and inescapable.  One step is all that is needed, and the rest is all gravity.  Falling in love.  Falling down on my knees, and looking up to see all that ever really mattered anyway. 

To Know, Know, Know Him . . .

One of my most memorable debates with an atheist, whom I knocked down to "agnostic" in the first ten minutes, was one where my opponent said the following: "I see them in those worship concerts, waving their arms, and they look mesmerized. All those people believing the same thing just because someone told them to . . . it's just weird."  I took an Archbishop Fulton Sheen tack with this person (before I knew it was a Sheenism because this was back when I was a Protestant!), because the long way around the barn wasn't going to work.  This man was well convinced that he was too "smart" for religion. So I paused, and then said to him matter of factly:  "They seem a lot happier than you.  That bothers you."  The debate took a different turn after that.  My friend started talking about loved ones lost, and how he wanted to believe they were somewhere, but felt silly calling it "Heaven." He exposed something that he hadn't before: his fear that if he got to know God, He would have to become one of "those" Christians he had mocked and felt superior to all of his life.

The thing he missed, the thing so many miss, is that once you get there, you won't care about other people's opinions anymore.  The conversion is not always a lightning bolt.  Some conversions happen that way.  But a lot don't.  If you are an adult who was raised as a "none" or a "whatever" or "I'll let him decide when he's old enough," then you have some time to make up for.  You have to get to KNOW God.  You have to get to know about Him, and you have to get to KNOW Him.  Because to know Him is to love Him, and that's the plain truth.  But once you have that consistent, daily, intimate relationship with Jesus Christ, the last thing you're going to be thinking about is public opinion.  It's going to only CONFIRM your faith in your decision when you are mocked.  You WILL be mocked, and here's the kicker . . . if you are really doing it right, you will even be mocked by other self-identifying Catholics!

Because time doesn't always equal commitment.  That's how we explain lifelong self-identifying Christians who still don't "get it."  They hate people.  They pick teachings cafeteria style.  They think Heaven is just an extension of this life and they will get there because they want to get there and they have never shot anyone in the head.  They may know the facts and figures, they may have Scripture memorized, they may even claim to be "born again!", but they don't KNOW Jesus, the living Jesus, who is there in the Eucharist EVERY DAY. 

A high school student of mine, in a personal talk with me about her Christianity, explained her home environment growing up this way: "We went to church every Sunday, and we were taught right from wrong.  But there was no presence of God in our house."  What an indictment!  She went on to explain how she never saw either of her parents watching a religious television show, talking about a homily, or reading the Bible.  They said grace before every meal, by rote, but it was a lifeless gesture that had become "vain repetition."  Only in her teen years did SHE take the matter in hand and research herself what Christianity was.  She already knew about God; her parents had seen to that.  But she didn't KNOW God.

How do you get to know someone?  Well, think about dating.  You're attracted to someone.  He has something that makes your insides flip flop.  So you want to do anything and everything you can to be around him, talk to him, walk past him, smell him, laugh with him, hear his voice, ask him questions, and generally have your two existences intersect.  You WORK to "get" him in your life.  And you know what else you do?  You work to make yourself more attractive to HIM.  You present your best self.  And then, over time, you give him the inner bits, the nuggets from your past that aren't so savory.  You share secrets.  But always, always, there is the coming together, the intersection of lives, the magnetic pull of one to the other.  You immerse yourself in him and he immerses himself in you.  

Some people are knocked off a horse and converted.  Some get a knock at the door and are converted.  But true conversion never ends.  Just like building a marriage or a relationship of any real substance and worth never ends.  There are a million opportunities in a day to come to God, to KNOW Him.  Why aren't you taking them?  Are you embarrassed that people will call you a Jesus Freak?  Are you afraid that you will be challenged on a theological point and not know the answer? If so, you are putting the cart before the horse.  

Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and ALL these things will be added unto you.  Look for Him.  Call Him.  Present your best self to Him, and then present your worst self.  You'll find He loves both, because they are the same to Him.  He wants it all.  He can handle it all because He made it all!  No one knows you better, and no one ever will.  Ever feel a heavy sense of loneliness in a room full of people?  Even if those people are your own family?  That's a result of not letting the presence of God into your deepest core.  If He's there, if you know Him, the love will come, and it will be a part of you.  You will still have trouble in this life, I guarantee it, but you won't ever be alone. You won't ever feel like you're in a vacuum without love.  It can't NOT happen that way because God IS love.  All good and healthy feelings come from Him.  

I have been stunned my whole life by the number of families I meet who don't have a Bible in their house.  How do you not have a Bible in your house?  Now as a Catholic, I would ask, how do you not have a Bible and a Catechism in your house?  How are you not reading the Catechism and calling yourself Catholic?  How are you not talking to Christ daily and calling yourself a Christian?  How are you saying the Creed at Mass and then popping birth control pills? You don't trust Him; that's why.  And you don't trust Him because you don't KNOW Him.  If you knew Him, you'd know that He wouldn't tell you something untrue, something unhealthy for you.  Not possible.  He is perfection.  He is "I am."  He is Being itself.  The Universe hangs there because he sustains it and suspends it, and He wakes you up every morning why?  So you can ignore Him?  You are missing out.  You can call yourself anything you want.  I can call myself Miss America, and I can wear a sash and a crown, but the fact of the matter is, I don't know how to be Miss America.  I'm not doing what's necessary to even come close to being Miss America.  I'm just claiming a title.  That's not knowing; that's knowing ABOUT.

The most recent time I entered the Confessional, I started by looking at my priest and saying, "Not a banner week."  And then I talked to him just like I talk to Jesus.  It wasn't scary and weird like so many who are ignorant of the Sacrament of Reconciliation tell you it is, because the priest is there in persona Christi, and because you know Christ, you know that He has provided this for you.  I wasn't uncomfortable because, in fact, this was all stuff I had already covered with Jesus.  But, why not have another vehicle through which to KNOW Him?  These are the riches that brought me to The Church three years ago.  They are infinite!  There are infinite ways to get to know Him!  None of us has excuse.  And the reward is so important, so great.  Not just on earth, because you are still going to have sin, pain, suffering, embarrassment, and moments when you can't explain the reason for your hope.  You are going to disappoint and be disappointed.  But you will KNOW the One who never changes and never disappoints. And you will be able to hide under His wing.

In retrospect, what bothered my friend the atheist was not the happiness of the swarm of Christians at that concert, but that he felt he didn't even have the freedom to TRY what they had.  Free in Christ is free indeed.  There is no freedom living in a place of constant fear of embarrassment about your religious walk.  So someone calls you a zealot.  Get ready for worse.  I take them as compliments.  Jesus Freak?  Yep, you bet.  Holy Roller.  Well, not technically speaking, but sure.  I'll take it.  You can call me anything you want.  The names are like birds that circle and circle but never land, as Scripture tells me.  They fly by, just labels up in the sky.  Little sacrifices, so little.  To lose a friend?  Little.  To give up a vice?  Little. To prostrate myself before the altar and admit that I am the unworthiest of creatures without His grace? Little. Knowing Him?  Big.  Huge.  Everything.  

Because, friends, what else is there?  You tell me.  Almost forty four years and no one has ever been able to give me sufficient answer or been able to show me anything even close to the beauty and fulfillment of Jesus and His Bride, The Church. You know why? Because Jesus is who and what sits on the other side of every equal sign. He's the solution to every equation.  He's the answer to every question. There's nothing beyond Him.  

To know Him is to love Him, and I do.