Monthly Archives: July 2012

I’m Pro-Unity For Christians

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When I left Catholicism in my twenties it was largely due to the influence of anti-Catholic, evangelical, fundamentalist sources I encountered.  It also didn’t help that my own spiritual formation and knowledge of Catholic teaching was lacking.  At the time, I thought I was being liberated from a complex religious system and replacing it with a simple one-on-one relationship with Jesus Christ.  In my naiveté, I regarded Catholicism as a man-made obstacle to Christ rather than a God-made organism of Christ designed to lead us to him.  For a while, I took a rather anti-Catholic approach to spirituality and sharing of the Gospel.

My return to the Catholic Church was preceded by the realization that I had been taught many misconceptions and untruths about Catholicism, both from an historical and a doctrinal perspective.  I had mixed emotions because I felt relieved and deceived at the same time.  As I processed my transition back to the Church I realized I had to be careful.  It would be very easy for me to adopt an attitude that was decidedly anti-non-Catholic, or anti-Protestant.  What I mean is that I could easily have adopted a less-than-charitable attitude towards non-Catholic persons.  This became particularly apparent as I delved deeper into Catholic apologetics.  Debates on sensitive topics can quickly produce a lack of charity in people.

Obviously, there are non-Catholic teachings and practices I am “against.”  But, I never want to be “against” any person.  Genuine charity (godly love) desires the ultimate good for every person.  I believe that such charity resides within Catholic teachings.  What I am really against is division among Christians.  I am against a divided Body of Christ.  I am against any religious system where Christians function as something other than one flock with one shepherd.  Since the sixteenth century the one flock has become increasingly divided and multitudes of shepherds now lead in vastly different directions.

I am not “anti” anyone.  I am anti-division and pro-unity.  I am for all the scattered Christians finding their way home to the Catholic Church.  I am for Christians uniting under one banner instead of constantly finding things to protest and divide over.  I am for Christians learning authentic Catholic teachings instead of misconceptions and misunderstandings that keep them away from home.  I am for one flock with one shepherd.  Jesus already established the office of Peter to “strengthen the brethren” and to “feed the sheep.”  The one shepherd has always been successively present on the Chair of Peter.  What Christianity needs is for the flock to reunite under that shepherd.

We don’t need a unity that flattens out diversity and creates bland uniformity.  We need all the gifts, strengths and diversity of all the Christians that love Jesus Christ living in one accord.  Then the world will see the Church as it should be.  Rather than seeing many protesting, clustered, individualized churches competing for attention, the world will see one holy, catholic and apostolic Church.  They will see the love of Christ.  This is what I am for.  This is why I talk about and promote the Catholic Church, sometimes juxtaposed with other doctrines.  It is not just another denomination.  It is where the flock finds home.

Knock Knock! Who’s There? It Ain’t The Pizza Guy!

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As I reflect and prepare my heart for Mass tomorrow, the following verse comes to mind:

“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” (Revelation 3:20)

This verse has been depicted by artists with Jesus standing outside of a door that has no doorknob.  The door only opens from the inside.  This illustrates the idea that Jesus does not break down the door and force himself upon us.  We have to decide to invite Jesus in.

There is more to the story, however.  There is something not usually portrayed in the artwork.  After we decide to open the door to him, something else happens.  A meal takes place.  Jesus “comes into us” and “sups with us.”  He eats with us and we eat with him.  This is the Holy Eucharist.  This is the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.  This is the fulfillment of “unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life in you.”  We receive Christ in Communion, in the Holy Eucharist.  We partake of the meal that gives eternal life because we have opened the door to him and he humbles himself and serves it to us.

This is the answer to the question that non-Catholic Christians often ask Catholics, which is, “Have you received Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior?”  The answer is, “Yes, every time I go to Mass I receive his body, blood, soul and divinity into me.  This happens because I have opened the door of my heart to him, and he provides the meal.”  Nothing is more personal than receiving Christ into your heart, your soul and your body.

Can’t Live Forever On Just Bread, Man

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I was reflecting on how Jesus responded to Satan when the devil tempted him to slake his hunger by turning stones into bread.  Jesus said, “It is written, that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.”  I used to hear those words and think, “Ok, Jesus wants me to read the Bible.  The Bible is the Word of God.  That’s where eternal life is found, not in the material food (bread) that I eat.”  My return to Catholicism has caused me to reflect more deeply on those words of Christ.

The Bible is indeed the Word of God, but only the written part.  It is easy to hear the words “The Word of God” and think “Bible.”  However, Jesus is the Word made flesh.  He is God’s ultimate Word.  Everything God has to say to us he said in the person of Jesus Christ.  The Word of God is Jesus.  So, when Jesus says we don’t live by bread alone, but by every word of God, he means himself.  Eternal life comes through Jesus.

Another important connection that once escaped me is the Eucharistic implications of Christ’s words.  Bread alone is not Christ.  Christ alone gives eternal life.  A reading of John 6 shows Christ making a distinction between manna (material bread that you eat but eventually die) and him (the Bread of Life that we eat and receive eternal life from).  John 6 also shows how adamant Christ is about his followers actually (not symbolically) eating the Bread of Life.  A symbolic piece of bread is bread alone.  It is not actually Christ, but only representing Christ.  Such bread does not give eternal life.  It is like the manna.  The flesh that Jesus gave for the life of the world was his real flesh (not symbolic flesh).  Believers need the real Jesus to have eternal life (not a symbolic Jesus).  It is this real flesh Jesus commands his followers to eat (“my flesh is real food, my blood is real drink”) in order to have eternal life.

So, man does not live by bread alone but by every word of God.  We need the Bible (The Word of God), and we need Christ (The Word of God made flesh).  Christ says he is The Bread of Life we must eat to have eternal life.  Eating symbolic bread is eating bread alone, not Christ, The Bread of Life.  Christians are not meant to live on bread alone.  That is why Jesus gave us the Eucharist at the Last Supper.  The Word of God made flesh spoke the words of God, “This is my body, this is my blood” and it became, not bread alone, but the reality of The Word of God for us to eat and have eternal life within us.  What Jesus speaks, happens.  He cannot lie or deceive.  He is The Word.

This is also why Catholics have daily Mass wherever possible.  “Give us this day our daily bread.”  Who doesn’t need Jesus every day?

Don’t Put Me On Display…Christian Love

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There’s an old song from the 1960s called You Don’t Own Me, by Leslie Gore.  It’s been covered by other artists and used in movies as well.  One of the lines in the song says, “Please, when I go out with you, don’t put me on display.”  This line came to mind recently when I was thinking about how Christians are supposed to love each other.  Scripture says that the world will know we are Christians by our love for one another.  The world is supposed to see us and remark, “See how they love each other!”

The girl in the song is upset because her boyfriend uses her to put on a show.  He displays her as a trophy.  His public affection for her is designed to make him look good to others.  What others see is not real but a display.  It is an illusion.  Contrast this scenario with couples that genuinely and obviously love each other.  Their concern is for each other, not for how others perceive them.  They are in love.  They are friends.  They treat each other with respect and kindness even when they disagree or feel angry.  Upon observing such couples, one naturally notices their deep love.  Many will remark, “I wish I had that.”  Those around them notice the love, not because the couples tried to be noticed, but because the love between them is real and desireable.

Christians don’t need phony displays of affection towards each other.  We don’t need the “kiss of peace” in public and the “kiss of betrayal” when backs are turned.  We don’t need a false ecumenism.  Don’t pretend to love each other because it looks good to others.  Don’t pretend to love others so people will think you are a great Christian.  Really love each other even in the midst of disagreements.  Really love each other and it will automatically have an appeal to the world because the world is thirsting for genuine love.  The world has a void that only the love of God can fill.  Christians are called to demonstrate that love.  Don’t put your Christian sisters and brothers on display.  Love them, even when it hurts.  Seek unity.  Where there is division, there is sin.  Where there is sin, there is disobedience to the faith and to the love of Christ.

“If You Love Me”…A Knight’s Tale

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One of my favorite movies is A Knight’s Tale with Heath Ledger.  There is a part of the story where the knight’s love interest asks him to prove his love for her by intentionally losing the jousting tournament, a tournament he desperately wants to win.  He begrudgingly acquiesces to her request.  Just as he is about to lose the tournament she changes her request and demands that he win to prove his love, which he does.  When the knight’s sidekick remarks on the things one does for love the knight says, “Yes, but now I hate her!”

Jesus said to his disciples, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”  I used to think of his words as being like the knight’s love interest.  In other words, I had to make a concerted effort through my behaviors to “prove” to Jesus and to everyone else that I love him, in some cases, begrudgingly.  It is true that love is an act of the will that is not always “easy.”  Yet, if loving Christ results in a begrudging attitude, something is amiss.  Resentment and love don’t go well together.  For example, Jesus tells us to love our enemies.  He does not mean that we approach our enemies like school children being forced to begrudgingly apologize to each other after a fight on the playground.  He means love them the way he loves them, as souls that he died for.

Eventually, I learned to hear the words, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” in a different way.  At first, it was, “You will do certain things and say certain things to demonstrate that your love for me is genuine.”  Now I hear the words of Jesus saying to me, “A genuine love for me will transform you into a new creature that naturally desires to keep my commandments.”  An analogy might be, “If you are a woodpecker, you will peck wood.”  “If you are a fish, you will swim in and breathe water.”  “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” because doing so will be a natural result of who you have become.

Christians do not always love Jesus.  That is what sin is all about.  Concupiscence is that part of us that does not completely go away with the new birth.  It is the tendency to revert back to our non-transformed state of being and refuse to keep Christ’s commandments.  That’s what sin is.  It is non-love for Christ, others and self.  But, when we love Christ, we are not sinning, we are keeping his commandments.  Repentance and conversion do not happen in one moment.  They happen over a lifetime and only reach completeness when we are in Heaven with God who is love.  We need the Sacraments to sustain us and restore us.  We need the Holy Scriptures and the teaching authority of the Church to guide us by the Holy Spirit.

Hearing the words of Christ in a new way refreshed my Christian walk.  It helped me to focus less on my performance (a self-centered perspective) and more on loving Jesus (a Christ-centered and other-centered perspective).  I’m far from perfect at it, but I’m grateful for the new perspective.  I want to love Christ and to be naturally and continually transformed by him.  That’s what makes following his commandments an “easy yoke” and a “light burden.”

Today Is The Feast Of St. Thomas (My Namesake)

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Today is the feast of St. Thomas, the Apostle, and the saint my parents named me after.  He is famous for being the doubter.  He was absent when the resurrected Jesus appeared to the rest of the Apostles, and he would not believe them when they told him they had seen Christ.  “I will not believe it until I put my hands in his wounds,” he said.  When Jesus appeared again, Thomas was there.  Jesus invited Thomas to touch his wounds and Thomas exclaimed, “My Lord and my God!”  Jesus told him, “You believe because you have seen me.  Blessed are those who have not seen and believe!”

I’m thankful for Thomas.  He allows us to see that God is patient with our doubts.  In fact, Jesus used the doubt of Thomas to encourage you and me in our “unseeing” faith.  We can’t see Christ standing before us or touch his wounds, yet we can believe he lives.  We see only bread and wine, yet we can believe that it is actually the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ we receive in the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.  We can’t see Heaven, but we can believe Jesus has prepared a place for us because he said so.  We can’t always see the good that comes from our obedience to the Faith, but we know God does.

People are often hard on Thomas for his doubt, but Jesus wasn’t.  Jesus takes our crooked ways and makes them strait if we let him.  The lesson from Thomas isn’t that we should demand visible evidence for our belief.  The lesson is that the doubt of Thomas was God’s tool to encourage us in our faith.  “We walk by faith, not by sight.”  My own name reminds me of this daily.

The Bible-Believing Church I Attend

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If you ask most Christians how they know what to believe the usual response is, “The Bible, of course.  It’s the Word of God.”  Chances are, though, the Christian that gives that answer learned it from someone else.  At some point, someone taught that person that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God.  In other words, it is a tradition handed on from one person to the next.  Few people spontaneously pick up a Bible and teach themselves that it is the Word of God.  Generally, other people tell them so.

So, the “handing on” of the Bible is a Christian tradition.  Christian writings have been passed on from the very beginning.  As soon as the Apostles wrote letters and Gospels they were passed on to other believers.  Yet, if we look at all the Christian writings, we notice that not all of them made it into the New Testament.  There are many other letters and even some gospel accounts that are not considered divinely inspired.  Therefore, they were not included in the Bible to be handed on to others.

Who decided which writings were divinely inspired?  Who decided what Christian writings belonged in the New Testament?  The Catholic Church made those decisions almost 400 years into Christianity.  The men that were the successors of the Apostles decided which writings belonged in the Bible and which ones did not.  But why should anyone trust them to do it?  Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit to guide the Church into all truth.  If a Christian is going to trust Jesus, then a Christian must believe that the Holy Spirit guided those men in the Catholic Church in deciding which writings belonged in the Bible.  Not because the men were perfect, but because the Holy Spirit is perfect.

If I believe the Bible, I have no other choice than to believe that the Church that assembled the Bible was Spirit-led.  So, I believe the Bible is the inerrant Word of God because I can trust the Holy Spirit to guide the Church into all truth.  Now, if the Catholic Church got the New Testament writings put in the proper place, who am I to suggest that they are in error regarding other aspects of Christian truth?  I cannot logically say, “Oh, well, yeah, the Catholics got the New Testament writings correct, but they are wrong about this or that aspect of faith and morals.”  Either the Holy Spirit leads into all truth or he does not.  Jesus did not say, “I will send the Holy Spirit who will lead you only to assemble the Bible and then new churches will be started.”  Nor did Jesus say, “All of Christian truth will eventually be put into written form in the Bible.”  There is nothing anywhere to suggest that all Christian truth must be written down.  But, there is plenty to suggest that the Church is the “pillar and foundation of truth.” (1Tim 3:15 and Matt 18:17, for example)  The Bible points to the Church as the final authority, not to itself.  The Bible is “profitable” or “useful” (2Tim 3:16) but never claims to be entirely “sufficient” in leading the Church.  There must also be an interpreting authority.

Because the Catholic Church can trace an apostolic succession all the way back to Christ and his Apostles, I can therefore trust that the Bible is indeed the Word of God.  I know the Bible is right because the Catholic Church tells me so.  Nowhere does the Bible say, “The Table of Contents is accurate.  All these books belong here.”  The Church tells me that The Table of Contents is accurate because the Church assembled The Table of Contents.  It is the Sacred Tradition of the Catholic Church that is being handed on with each Bible.  Every time we say that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, we are validating the Christ-given authority of the Catholic Church.

So, that is why I attend the Catholic Church.  It is the original, Bible-believing Church.  Since they got that truth right, they must have other aspects of faith and morals right, too.  Otherwise, we’re all reading from Bibles that were put together by a Church that is only Spirit-led part of the time, a Church that is led into some truth but not all truth.  Or, the gates of Hell prevailed against the Church after it assembled the Bible and thousands of new denominations with different “truths” had to be started.  That’s not what Jesus promised.  I want the whole package promised by Jesus.  That’s why I’m a Bible-believing Catholic.  The Bible is, after all, a Catholic book.