Ongoing Conversion

My understanding of Christianity is that we are to strive for moral perfection while simultaneously understanding that we will never achieve it. The practical outgrowth of this truth is that we are to continually and constantly undergo conversion. Always striving for and achieving a better moral outlook, a more refined practice of the key principles of living a good life. Jesus neatly summed this up for us with the Two Greatest Commandments: Love the Lord you God with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself.

So, I guess what I'm getting after today is this: shouldn't a moral code that can be neatly summed up in two commandments and one sentence be a little easier to follow?

Ok, maybe it's just me. I see others around me doing a pretty good job. And I guess I do ok, up to a point. I'm good at the striving part.

I alluded to this the other day, but I think half my problem is that I worry about it so much. Fretting about how good or bad I am doesn't do anything to furhter my goal of being a better man. The fact is that I don't even know what the proper standard is to measure myself against. And, as I think I've said before as well, I'm not sure any of this stuff I'm fretting about is even any of my business. I can't think of a more unobjective judge for myself than myself. Well, maybe my Mom, she's always had a very high opinion of me for some reason.

Okay . . .

I can't stress enough to anyone who wonders about the strange practices of Catholicism how utterly sane we are as a religion. I take as case in point the sacrament of penance. If you are a non-Catholic Christian, you probably believe that you can personally, in your own prayer, confess your sins directly to God and be forgiven. While I take no position as to how God feels about this, I guarantee you that on the human level, our way is better. Spiritually, psychologically and medicinally better. Once you understand that the priest has authority to do what he's doing, that he's not just making it up, you can then walk into the confessional, pour your heart out to God's representative on earth, and walk out cleansed.

And, guess what? It's in the Bible! The idea of both Apostolic succession and the delegation of authority to forgive are right smack dab in the heart of the gospels. It's true.

You can look it up.

Insert Clever Title Here

I'm trying to make an attempt at having a regular prayer life as part of my lenten discipline. Praying the Liturgy of the Hours. Hard to figure at first, but very rewarding. I can really use it right now. I'm having a tough time imitating the patience and gentleness of Jesus at work. Taking a break for the office of readings or the daytime prayers is a very good centering exercise.

There's always the chance that this will end up as another failed spiritual experiment, but I hope not. It is comforting to have at least a small portion of the day in which you know you're doing God's will. Even if it is for just a few minutes at a time. Baby steps, you know?

Couldn't Think of a Title This Week

I just want to make one thing clear. I'm not a good Christian. I don't want anybody going around accusing me of being a good Christian. As soon as that happens, it's like being one of those people with a religious bumpersticker. They invariably cut off atheists in traffic and give God a bad name. So let's be clear about this. I am not a good Christian.

Which is not to say that it isn't my goal to be a good Christian. It is. I wonder how much our intentions count with God? Or if our own accounting of our spiritual state has any relevance to our spiritual state. I suspect the answer to the former is "quite a bit" and to the latter is "hardly at all". Just because the road to hell is paved with good intentions doesn't mean good intentions are bad. And just because I sometimes consider myself the most awful of God's children, it doesn't mean I am. In fact, I'm starting to see that what I consider myself to be is barely even relevant to who I am. All the time I spend self analyzing and self loathing may just be (as so many people have told me to no avail) a huge waste of time. Hmm.

I tend toward extremes, as a rule. So the inherent danger in cutting myself some slack, is that slack is what I'll become. But maybe not; I actually have been slack for so long, that I am indeed becoming sick of it. By slack, in this context, I mean mediocre. Not a monster, but not all that good either. My good points cancelled out by my bad. Just a so-so human being. Which, I guess, is ok. I'm not sure.

But it's less than I aspire to. That I do know. I desire perfection but realize I'll never achieve it. Maybe it is fair to say I desire perfection, but aspire to goodness. Either way, I'm beginning to start to sort of possibly maybe in the future finally understand what Jesus meant by losing one's life in order to save it. It means I can't do anything on my own, and can only do anything good in proportion to how much I cooperate with the grace God gives me. Losing my life doesn't mean obliteration, it means fulfillment. Not the end of me, but the creation of the real me. Only the imposter must go. The real guy, the one God had in mind when he made me, can stay.

I don't know if that's sound theology or not. But it kinda helps me to think of it that way.

Thanks for listenin'.

Faith and Feeling

I haven't posted in a while. I don't have much to say right now. It's not like I'm having a spiritual crisis or anything, but, most of the posts I've made previously came from "overflow". You know, when you're really feeling your faith. Lately I'm not feeling my faith. That's not a crisis, it's just a fact. My faith is present. It's not shaken (or stirred). But sometimes you don't feel it. I posted briefly before about mysticism, and how that's not really in the cards for me. I accept the fact that all I have is faith, and that just barely.

This might sound like a negative post, but that's not my intention. My intention is to declare that having the gift of faith is just fine with me. Sometimes you're on a high, you feel like a fire-eater, like you can do anything. Sometimes you just try to make it day-by-day without doing anything that will bring disgrace to the Body of Christ. Sometimes you're gaze is upon heaven, sometimes your gaze is upon the clock, waiting for time to go home. For me it's enough to start each day with the desire to live like a Christian and see what happens. I hate it when I get caught up on "how I'm doing" as a disciple. It's pointless. I need to learn to just live. Leave the good that I might do at the foot of the Cross and the bad that I do in the same place.

Why am I babbling like this? I dunno. Just blowing off a little existential angst, or some big words like that. Am I making any sense? Probably not. Thanks for listening anyway.

Meditation During Mass

The Eucharist is perfect because it is the perfect metaphor for the one who is truly present in it. It is real, living, yet essentially silent, inscrutable. And, like the gospel message itself, it is brought to us via the work of imperfect humans. It is otherworldly, yet it breaks through the silence of heaven by becoming true human matter. It can't be scientifically verified, but can only be approached and appreciated through the gift of faith.

Eucharist (cont'd)

I’ve heard it said that proclaiming some Catholic doctrines “mysteries” is an excuse we use when we can’t justify or explain a doctrine. This argument is used, usually, in a screed denying the doctrine in question. The correct view of course, is that God is, ultimately, unfathomable apart from revelation, so it stands to reason that the truth about him, at least partially, would be beyond human comprehension.

Further, I take the truth of mysteries to be a proof for the existence of God and the truth of the doctrines themselves. As my friend and mentor John Soos says, “How can a finite mind make up an infinite God?” Indeed. And how could a finite theologian make up a doctrine that he himself can’t fully explain?

Not that it is tough to make up nonsense, e.g., “Can God create a rock so heavy that he himself couldn’t lift it?” (Which I first heard posited by the eminent American philosopher George Carlin). However when you’ve asked a nonsensical question you haven’t asked anything at all (to paraphrase C.S. Lewis). When you ask, on the other hand, how God can be three-in-one or how bread and wine can become the Body and Blood of Christ, you ask a question that can be studied and answered and understood, but only to a point. Like infinity, you can only go so far in your contemplation until you hit the “wall” so to speak, which human intelligence can’t scale.

So, when I approached the Eucharist, I came to believe it via a combination of rational argument and transcendent truth.

The rational argument came from the teaching of the Fathers, who from the earliest days of the Church proclaimed the truth of the Real Presence. It came from modern writers, many of them converts, who were able to take those historical arguments and synthesize them in a way intelligible to a 20th century materialist. It came from a clear reading of John chapter 6, which I had never been able to manage as a fundamentalist.

But I also came to believe it because it was so unbelievable. It was something no one could have made up (the similarity of the myths of the Mystery Cults only proves that the pagan world was yearning and looking forward to the coming of the Messiah as much as Israel was, though they hardly knew it). It was so audacious and wonderful that it couldn’t be anything else but true. The only “too good to be true” that has ever actually turned out to be true.

I hardly knew what to make of it then, and ever since, even as I thank God for it and glory in it each time I go to Mass, I hardly know what to make of it now. I just know it is true, and that it makes all the difference in the world.

The Body of Christ

There are many issues when you embrace the Church from a background that includes fundamentalism, agnosticism, and not a small amount of narcissim.

But it all comes down to the Body and Blood of Christ, doesn't it? The Eucharist is the key difference between Catholicism and any other religion. The outrageous thought that God would gift us with his true presence every time we go to Mass. That the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ the Lord is not only present to us, but is consumed by us and becomes somehow a part of us.

It's outrageous. It's unbelievable. It's unthinkable. That's why I know it is true.

More later, I don't even know where to begin on this.

Semi-coherent Ramblings on Contemplation and Mass

I have no idea what it means to be a contemplative, though I've read books about it to the point of frustration, but I do know this: one of the advantages of the Latin Liturgy is the opportunity to participate in a more intuitive, as opposed to intellectual manner. In other words, if I hear the English language being spoken, it is reflexive for me to attend to the meaning of the words themselves, and if I'm not careful, I can lose the overall thrust of what is actually going on. In the Latin Liturgy, I can be present, I can participate, but I can also find a quiet spot inside of myself which can be open to promptings and movements of God. These may take the form of ideas, plans, or just a quiet, secure knowledge of the rightness of what I believe. It sounds anti-intellectual, I suppose, but I don't mean it to be so, when I say that I don't have to think my way through Mass. I can experience Mass, and hopefully experience the one who is present.

Mind you, I'm not saying I hear the voice of God during Mass, telling me, personally, what's what. But there are few places where I can set aside everything else and maybe, for a few moments, be open and receptive to God in quite this way. Again, I repeat, I am in no wise a contemplative, much less a mystic, but in that small quiet chapel, in the midst of the most reverently conducted Mass you'll ever want to see, I can sometimes skirt around the edges of the neighborhood of contemplation. For me, that's pretty close, and a little can go a long way.

There is an excellent book, Know Him in the Breaking of the Bread: A Guide to Mass By Fr. Francis Rudolph, which though written about the Mass as we hear it in English at most of our parishes, has an amazing appendix about the Latin Mass. In it, he talks a bit about the history of Vatican II, the fallout as it pertains to liturgy, and about the many good reasons some people prefer Latin. I recommend the entire book, but if you pick it up just to browse, read the appendix. Here is one of my favorite quotes:

The Mass is the Mass, wherever and however it is celebrated. Naturally you will find some forms of Mass more congenial than others. You have a right to search out the celebration where you are most happy, but other people have that right as well. If you travel out of your home parish to find your favorite church, you have no right to despise those whom you meet going the other way to Mass in the church you have just left. And if you cannot avoid attending Mass in a style you dislike, remember that it is the one, eternal Mass, and no matter how uncongenial the surroundings, how boring the sermon, how fatuous the priest, it is the Sacrifice that matters. Christ has come to earth for us, come let us adore him!"

Christ's Body

Another factor in my conversion to the Church was the Catholic people I met. I’ve heard stories about parishioners who were either indifferent or downright unwelcoming to potential converts, and even of priests who told people “conversion” was an outmoded concept, and they should go back to their own church. I wonder if I would have been deterred or put off, had this happened to me. I’m afraid it might have done so. It is scary to think that an act of indifference could contribute to the loss of a soul. I cringe to think of the possibility that my behavior could ever put off a soul in search of the truth.

Happily, my experience was the opposite. In the summer of 1997 I ventured to Mass, not for the first time ever, but the first time ever as a seeker of truth. It was an evening mass, not too many people, and it took place in what is now the fellowship hall but what was then the makeshift sanctuary, with folding chairs and a carpeted plywood altar. There weren’t many people in there, and I wasn’t sure whether I was in the right place, or that I was even allowed in. I stepped in, looked around, headed back out to find the office, or someone who knew what was going on.

In a moment that could only be described as providential, as I was making my retreat, I saw a lady bringing one of her (six) children back from the restroom. She looked at me smiled as if she already knew why I was there. She asked if I was new, and I told her I was and was actually thinking of converting. She beamed. “Come on in! You can’t take communion yet, but you can always get lots of grace!”

What a wonderful human being. I got to know her and her family over the years. I’ve noticed the bigger the Catholic family, the cheerier and happier the members. Her family has gotten bigger and bigger and they’ve just become nicer and nicer. Coincidence?

But I digress. Here are some other heroes:

Charlie, the man who was in charge of my RCIA class; he practically adopted me. I still call him “Papa”. He and another friend encouraged me to work with the Kairos organization (a prison ministry modeled after the Cursillo movement). He helped me through the gut-wrenching annulment process. He’s a wonderful, beautiful man.

David, my sponsor. He was always available for me. He knew how I longed to unload my burden of sin in the confessional. He intervened with the Pastor for me and I was allowed to make my first confession several weeks before it was scheduled. I can’t tell you what a relief that was for me; that act of intercession will always be one of the great things anyone has ever done for me.

Fr. P, my first Catholic pastor, the man who first fed me the body of Christ. Gentle and understanding with his people, firm and unbending on matters of principle. He is a long-serving priest in an area where Catholics are vastly in the minority, who was nonetheless a leader in the community and a beacon for true ecumenism. A truly great priest.

These examples of incredible Catholic people taught me a theological lesson, though it took longer to absorb the theology than the love. The lesson was what the phrase “Body of Christ” means when applied to the Church. Jesus wanted me. So he came and got me. He appeared bodily to me. His body, in this context, being his faithful. He led me personally, bodily into the Church. He used people to do it. There is no contradiction there. It is true in the most literal of senses.

Scary thought: The only Jesus some people will ever meet is the Jesus they meet in me.

Religion and Politics

Before I was Catholic my politics were strictly Libertarian. Active for a while, merely philosophically after that. My politics were a perfect match for my lack of religious beliefs. Indeed, what other political philosophy can be held by a person (of general good will) who doesn't believe in truth? The libertarian creed of "The initiation of force, except in self defense, is the only political or moral wrong" would be ideal, if not idealistic, in a world without God. But then, I came to believe firmly not only in God, but in his Church, a Church that holds itself out as God's arbiter of faith and morals on earth.

So can you be a Libertarian and a Catholic?

For me, Catholicism has both blunted and sharpened my Libertarianism. A paradox, I know, but then this is a religion of paradoxes, started by Jesus, who was and is the ultimate paradox. That's one of the many reasons I love it, by the way.

I believe more strongly than ever in the notion of limited government, and stronger than before in the notion of government assistance to the young, poor and elderly. Not that I don't think the welfare system in this country isn't a disgrace, a legacy of a party which tried, succesfully, to buy the votes of the poor and disenfranchised while simultaneously guaranteeing they would more than likely stay poor and disenfranchised. Not that I don't believe that if all of us who claim to be Christians would help the poor, the government would have precious little to do in the way of welfare. But merely that I recgonize the moral imperative that those in power should truly care for and work for the welfare of those they lead.

One of the things Catholicism has done for me politically is to take away (to some degree, not totally) the bitterness and distrust of government that drove my political beliefs for such a long time. I now see that not only is the government God's agent for good in the world, but that in a democracy, you have to realize the fact of man's sinfulness means making the government actually become an agent of good involves God's presence and participation in politics. That means us, his people, his body, doing what we can to make things better, and being patient enough to give good sufficent time to prevail over evil. Studying the history of the Church itself, in which "revolution" means change occurring over the course of decades and centuries, gives one a perspective of politics that is more broad and hopeful. Our democratic experiment is only a bit more than two centuries old; hardly enough time to have perfected anything. Communism, on the other hand, fell in a relatively swift 70 years or so. Hope springs eternal, but vigilance is always necessary.

So I remain an advocate of limited government, but a promoter of Christian ideals leading all of us to become the citizens that can make for a great country. I don't want Theocracy, I don't want this to be a "Christian Nation", I merely want those who claim the gospel to live by it. If that happened, politics would take its proper place in society. Politics would be a mode of living the gospel, not a pseudo-religion; a place for us to practice charity, not the imposition of a welfare state; a protector of the rights of individuals against force and fraud, not a paternalistic nag and enforcer of picayune and intrusive rules and regulations that take the place of good will and common sense. In short, government would go back to being our servant, not our master.

The Opposite of Inferiority

I used to have an inferiority complex when it came to interactions with pure materialist/atheists, because I thought they had the advantage over people who believe in God. Mainly because they had an argument that seemed more logical. We can’t see God, We can’t sense him, if we look about us in the world, we don’t seem to see his influence coming to bear. People of faith, to a materialist/atheist, look foolish and naïve. We go about our lives ignoring reality and the plain evidence of our senses. Why should we live by outmoded rules made by religious zealots of long ago? Why shouldn’t we eat drink and make love whenever and however we like?

The truth is, though, that this is the shallow view. Ordering your life solely by what your senses and observations (and appetites) tell you ignores history, reality, and the possibility that what can be perceived by the senses don’t tell the whole story (the latter being the main inconsistency in a purely materialist outlook). The real argument for belief in God doesn’t come from the headlines, but by the history books. It doesn’t come from the rantings of the intellectual elite, but by the real lives of the faithful. There is more truth to be gleaned from the story of one anonymous saint who lives on your own street than there is from all the writings of all the “enlightened” philosophers combined.

And while faith can’t be defined by personal experience, there has to be something to be said for the personal experiences of so many people in so many eras who experienced God directly. Charlatans and false mystics aside, the evidence is convincing, if you look for it, that God does take part in our lives. Further, logic dictates that if God really is not obviously present, then revelation would be the way he would commune with us. That’s the key. His revelations in scripture, the incarnation, and the teachings of the Church are how he becomes immanent to us. But it takes a swallowing of pride, that many of us can’t abide, to come to grips with this.

In the end, I’ve come to believe that the pure materialist/atheist has missed the boat. He is at an inferior position. Rather than feel superior, I feel pity, and sorrow, and thankfulness that somehow God got through to me, despite all the roadblocks I put in his way. The thing I feel most for him, though, is hope, because I believe that the atheist is closer to finding God than the lax, self-satisfied theist. I think God may have a special place in his heart for atheists, because they seem to be the ones who are doing the most genuine searching for Him.

What Did I Give Up To Become Catholic?

Exactly nothing.

I read stories about people who gave up family, jobs, and spouses to join the Church. All I gave up was misery and doubt and slavery to my appetites. It was the purest of gifts. I take the most joy in the fact that there isn't one thing I've ever done to deserve this gift.

CORRECTION

DUH.....

Yesterday was the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, NOT the feast of the Immaculate Conception. What I was thinking, I just don't know.

Mea culpa.

A Convert's Thoughts on the Eucharist.

First, one is struck by the contradiction involved in the protestant interpretation of the 6th chapter of John's gospel. Of all the times a literal translation would be appropriate, here is the most obvious. There is really no other way of reading the chapter except to conclude that Jesus really meant for us to eat his body and drink his blood.

Second, the very fact that Jesus seems to be telling us to be cannibals requires the chapter to be interpreted, as well as believed literally. It requires someone who is in the know to figure out what Jesus meant by eating his body and drinking his blood, since literal cannibalism is not an option. Who better to do this than the apostles and their successors? That is why without a teaching authority, their can be no church. That is why the development of doctrine is a reality. Only the church has the authority to figure this out for us. If we all came up with our own interpretations, they would be some true, some false, some a mixture of truth and falsity (which is worse, sometimes, than pure falsity).

Third, what struck me back then, sub-consciously, and now more and more bats me over the head consciously, is the sheer audacity of the doctrine. I was at Mass on the feast of the Immaculate Conception yesterday, and during the consecration was running in my mind a fictional dialogue between an outraged atheist and myself. The imaginary atheist was railing at the thought of all of us sitting there in silent wonder at the miracle of the true presence of Christ in our midst under the form of bread and wine. And after his rant was done, I smiled at him and said, "Yes, it's outrageous, isn't it?" and that was all that needed to be said.








BLOGGER

The Redemption of Christmas

One of the things Catholicism did for me was give me back Christmas. It seems that all of the really bad things that happened to me in the last few years before my conversion (and there have been some doozies) happened around Christmas. I began to hate the season intensely. Then, as part of my RCIA, I was introduced to the concept of the liturgical calendar. I had no idea before that there was even such a thing as Advent. Not only did this discovery deepen and sanctify Christmas for me, it made the whole season clean again in some strange way.

Even now, four Christmases after my reception into the church, Advent continues to become more and more significant. This year, I realized more clearly that Advent is a penitential season, one that prepares us to receive the God of Heaven to the earth. I don't know about you, but I can use all the penitential seasons the Church can throw at me.

Holy Mary, Mother of God

As if the incarnation itself wasn't audacious enough, I mean, the very thought of God himself becoming a man (as someone said once, it's so outrageous it must be true), as if that wasn't enough, he chose a human being to be the means by which he came into the world! God could have accomplished the incarnation differently, of course, but he didn't. He chose a woman to bear his Son. What kind of woman would that have had to be? And what should we make of her now?

If you look at it from that perspective, and not from a protestant perspective, it is only natural that Christians honor and love and magnify the Blessed Virgin Mary. Of course we do! How could we not? When my eyes were opened to this, I felt a sense of loss for the time I had lived without the knowledge of having a loving Mother in heaven. That sense of loss, though was quickly consumed by the intense preciousness of my new found joy in Mary.

AUTHORITY (cont'd)

The problem with giving your long-held sense of autonomy to the church is that you have to give everything. Reserving to yourself this doctrine or that discipline is like not giving over anything at all. This is why it is so dangerous to one's salvation to be a child of the 20th century. I had my one or two little issues that, like Gollum and the gold ring, I couldn't imagine giving up and living without.

It's easy to give authority to the Church when you find so much truth there that is, once explained properly, elegant, magnificent, transcendent, comforting and logical. Sure, no big deal there. It's when that 1% comes up that really hits you where you live; that's when you find out if you're serious or not.

As an example (completely hypothetical, mind you), take a Catholic man who has finally found the woman God meant for him. Problem is both parties had previously married someone God clearly didn't mean for them. Time has passed, wounds have healed, both the young man and his beloved want to be married. But, as divorced persons, they must now suffer through the tribunal process, waiting for the declaration of nullity that will allow them to marry sacramentally, and not commit adultery (as the saying goes) "in the eyes of the Church".

Here the young man finds out what kind of Catholic he is. He understands the annulment process, and the truth behind it. But he knows from the heart his first marriage was not sacramental (and the same goes for his beloved). Yet the wheels of the Church grind slow, and he could wait two years or more for a decision. Why not just get married? Wouldn't hurt anyone. There's adultery, then there's adultery, and everyone knows in this case it wouldn't be the same as a married man cheating on his wife. Right? So why not? You could even take the sacraments if you went to a parish where no one knows you! Why not?

Authority is why.I was more than happy to give the Church authority over the destiny of my soul and the path of my life on earth. Of course I was, I had spent my whole life making bad decisions. And fortunately, I had finally found the rightful and true Church after a long time looking. But I may have been rash in saying it was easy. It was an easy decision to make. Living it out is the challenge.

AUTHORITY

The Church demanded of me a decision, before she would take me in. I don't mean to say there was a ceremony at church where I had to assent to something, or a session in RCIA where I had to sign something. Though those things happened. What I mean is that in my reading and thinking and praying about whether to become one with the Church, it was made plain to me, by God, not by interior locution or handwriting on the wall, but by the natural processes of human reason confronted with divine truth, that I was forced to decide the question of authority.

I was fortunate. I had lived long enough under my own authority to be absolutely sick of it. Despite the fact that I had the disadvantages, philosophically speaking, of growing up in latter 20th century America, I was more than ready to cede that one asset that most of us hold on to so dearly that it can cost us our souls: self-determination.

CONFESSION

One of the great surprises to me as a new Catholic was the wondrous sacrament of confession. The bane of most protestant converts; it was to me the most liberating thing about the whole process. Once I understood the nature of the Priesthood, and Christ's delegation of the power to bind and loose sins on earth, I realized the sacrament was one of the finest and kindest gifts God has given us.



Imagine, I've sinned, my conscience knows it, my spirit grieves because of it, my soul yearns for communion to be re-established with the God it was made for. Does God leave me hanging out to dry? Does he require me to use my imagination to come up with some sort of formula for confessing my sin that will be satisfactory? Does He just ignore the issue and leave me to wonder what the state of my soul is? No, He gives me a Church that comes up with the sacrament of confession, based on authority given by Jesus Himself. And even better, for me especially, he gives me a Church that through the years has modified the concepts of penance to NOT involve seven years of bread and water, or expulsion from the community, or any of the other severe penances Christians of the early Church were sometimes made to suffer. What could be better?



Well, ok, not to sin could be better, but let’s face it, if Adam and Eve hadn’t sinned, and the whole of the human race had lived in unfallen splendor until I showed up, I’d have done it, and ruined it for everyone. Doggone me.

EARLY ATTEMPTS AT PRAYER

When I was in elementary school, I would talk to God while I should have been trying to get to sleep. My conversations were by no means profound, I'm not implying that was a spiritual adept at 10 or anything like that; some kind of mystical prodigy wunderkind. No, quite the opposite.

My conversations mostly involved crying out to a God I wasn't sure was there, asking him if he was. Questions, almost exclusively questions. I don't know when I stopped; I assume it was sometime after puberty hit and other life forms (just as mysterious but more noticeably present) began to cosume all my energy. I never heard God's voice in those days, not once. I always assumed he never answered me, and that was perhaps the reason I gave it up. But the truth is he did answer me, but not until years later. The lesson of God answering prayers in his own time has become more and more intelligible to me as I've gotten older, especially in the last few months. But it makes me wonder now: 1) What made me pray back then? 2) What if I hadn't? 3) Would I have recognized God's voice if I'd heard it? 4) Would I now?

I think the answers are 1) The human nature God made me with, trying to do what came natural to it and find God the creator; along with his providential leading. 2) I'm not sure, perhaps the prayers of others would have led me to Him, but maybe it was those earliest yearning cries that made the difference in my later years. 3) Probably not, and 4) Probably not.

TRUTH

While pursuing the historical issue as a preliminary step toward the Church, I had to deal with another issue almost as a foundation to any potential conversion. That was the issue of Truth itself. I had gone for many many years either believing that there was no such thing or just not caring. It is not surprising that I held either of those positions; it was almost mandatory to hold them for those of us born on the cusp of the Baby Boom and Generation X. It was and remains the definition of Orthodox Belief for our secular society.

But I had had, for some time, a nagging suspicion that there was such a thing as truth. Part of it came from my years as a fundamentalist, because if there is anything that your average Independent Baptist believes holds and teaches, it is that there is such a thing as Truth. Partly is was just a nagging feeling, an intuition, the closest thing to a purely philosophical thought I’ve ever had; I’ve come to believe we all have that intuition inside us as a part of our God given human nature, but that most of us either consciously drown it out or never are allowed to hear it over the din of modern living.

Anyway, St. Thomas rescued me from all that. I can’t remember why or how, but I came across two books about the teachings of Thomas Aquinas, one by Ralph McInerny and another by Fr. Robert Barron. They were both brief, pithy, accessible little books meant for the inquisitive, semi-intelligent, short-span-of-attention American inquirer. Me, in other words. I can’t quote from either book, nor even give you an outline of what they talked about, but they were the catalyst that allowed me to at least initially conceive of the fact, and care about the possibility, that there was such a thing as truth, and that I needed to get around to finding out about it before it was too late.

Another catalyst was my occasional felt needs to pray. They were few and far between, to be sure, but they were powerful. They can be neatly classified into two categories: Teaching and Sin.

When I became an elementary school teacher in 1993, I had enough of a conscience leftover from my years of self-centeredness (as well as an inborn gift of a tremendous love for children) to realize that I was embarking on a very sacred responsibility. I knew that my words and actions in the classroom could have a tremendous impact on real human lives, and it somehow drove me to prayer. I hadn’t prayed for years and years, really. Maybe a once-in-a-while cry to heaven for help or safety (probably mostly while driving), but as far as appealing to a God I wasn’t sure was listening, well that hadn’t occurred regularly in my life since Bible College, around a decade before.

Sin, on the other hand, led me not only to prayer, but a very clear picture of the reality of God. It was one sin in particular, which I won’t recount here (suffice to say it appears very high on every list of really bad sins), and which caused horrible intense pain to a person who didn’t deserve it. I’d never before felt the presence of God, and now that I was feeling it, I didn’t like it. It wasn't the feeling of the presence of God that caused the saints to wax eloquently about the blissfulness of divine Union, but rather the type that caused St. John the Divine to have nightmares and write the book of Revelation. It was wrath, pure and simple, and I felt it. It was unmistakable and I hope I never feel it again. It sent me to my knees and led directly to my one last search for the Truth that led me to Mother Church.

Coming soon . . . First encounters with Mary and the True Presence.

TRUTH AND FICTION

As I read what Catholics had to say about the Catholic faith, as well as non-Catholic sources not tainted by fundamentalist views, I learned that the Bishop of Rome can be traced right back to Peter. I learned that the Apostles did in fact receive authority from Christ to shepherd and rule the Church, and that the office of Apostle was passed down, and even more amazing, I found those last two nuggets of information in the Bible! Odd, it was, to find out that the very verses of scripture that prove Catholic doctrine are the ones (the FEW ones) that fundamentalist exegetes tend to take non-literally. Hmmmm…..

My eyes were being opened, and it was exciting. The more I read, the more I saw that the Church, rather than being the ominous evil institution that it was painted to be, was actually, logically, and rationally the Church that Jesus founded. Moreover, there was the intangible attraction to Catholic writers, who wrote with clarity and precision, based on good sources and sound logic, distilled from 2000 years of the best minds humanity had to offer working fervently to find the truth.

It wasn’t to long before the historical argument had me convinced that the Catholic Church was the true church. Why history, as opposed to doctrine, was the key to my conversion, I’m not sure. I think perhaps it has to do with the fact that I was never un-convinced of the truth of Christianity, even when for more than a decade I was truly agnostic. Agnosticism being, at least in my understanding, the belief that it is impossible to know anything about God with certainty. Indeed, I had nearly given up all hope of ever believing again, ever being able to go to church again, ever knowing God at all, when I found the Church. God’s timing is always impeccable, hindsight has taught me. Or, as I heard it expressed recently, God cooks with a crock pot while we want him to cook with a microwave. Too true, too true.

WWFLD?

“What do you want to be anyway [asked Lax]?”

“I don’t know; I guess what I want to be is to be a good Catholic.”

Lax replied, “What do you mean you want to be a good Catholic? What you should say is that you want to be a saint.”

“How do you expect me to become a saint…I can’t be a saint. I can’t be a saint.”

Then Lax said, “all that is necessary to be a saint is to want to be one. Don’t you believe that God will make you what he created you to be if you consent to let Him do it? All you have to do is desire it.”

Thomas Merton

(The Seven Story Mountain, NY, Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1948, 1978 (New American Library, 1961), pp.237-38

HISTORY (cont'd)

To my great surprise, after I began to research the possiblity that the Catholic Church was THE CHURCH, I found that every single solitary thing I'd ever thought I knew about the Church was not only factually wrong, but quite often a deliberate deception or careless ignorant assumption. More than surprise, I felt chagrin. I'd been sold a bill of goods about God's true Church by people I trusted. Not that I lacked reasons to be happily rid of my fundamentalist past, but this was the topper of them all.

I think back to working at the Piedmont Gospel Bookstore in Winston-Salem, back in 1985 or so, when I was a Bible College Preacherboy. One day a very nice man, a very polite and sincere man, came into the store and tried to convince Mr. Kinney to stop selling the Jack Chick series of tracts.

If you haven't seen them, don't bother. Suffice to say they are mean-spirited, wrong-headed, and horribly simplistic. They're to the Catholic Church what the of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" is to Judaism, but with smaller words and cute little cartoon illustrations. But I digress.

Mr. Kinney wouldn't have any of it. They sold, and he didn't see any downside to that. The man pointed out that they were insulting to Catholics and not true to boot. I saw his point in a way, but was proud that we'd stood our ground against the Cult of Catholicism, as I wasn't immune to referring to Holy Mother Church in those days. Fast forwarding to 1998, I was mad that I'd been duped, but didn't stay mad long, because the wonder of discovering the truth seems to banish the disappointment of having wallowed in error. Besides, I had been a well-meaning ignoramus, and without the foundation of my Baptist roots might never have cared to search for the truth in the first place.

HISTORY

Reasons I became Catholic in 1998

1. The Historical Argument: After leaving the bapto-fundamentalist culture in which I became a Christian, I searched, on and off, for what I believed to be the authentic church. I tried denominations, nondenominations, house churches, informal gatherings, "Bedside Baptist Church", everything. Even some non-Christian beliefs such as Hindu and Buddhism. My mistake was not recognizing that the "1st Century Church", as I called the object of my search, need not be the same in appearance as long it was the same in substance.The chances that any 2000 year old organization would look the same as it did at its founding were slim at best; for some reason I expected the church would still be at its purist perhaps meeting in caves, catacombs or homes.

The beginning of my historical re-education, the unlearning of my years of independent baptist theology, started with a timeless tract called "Pillar of Fire, Pillar of Truth". This simple little broadside opened my eyes to the possibility that, as the saying goes, you always find what you're looking for in the last place you look.

A 21st CENTURY MAN

I decided to subtitle this blog “The Spiritual Autobiography of a 21st Century Man” because I have a vision of what the 21st Century Man will be.



Having spent most of the 20th as an unwitting materialist logical positivist empiricist skeptic, the 21st Century Man will take a step back, breathe deep, and gaze about him; seeing just exactly where the philosophy of his day has gotten us as a society. Will he like what he sees? Will he be able to stumble about in a world where no one believes there is such a thing as right or wrong, apart from the utilitarian principle of “whatever makes me happy is right?"



I don’t think so. I couldn’t, and I’m the king of the self centered narcissists. In my limited philosophical internal dialogue, the question came down one day to nothing more than “Somebody gotta be right, and somebody gotta be wrong." And for some reason, I was determined to find out who was right. Somewhere in my psychosocial makeup, whether from nature or nurture, whether by the direct outpouring of the grace of God, or via the burning from the little spark of himself he created within me from the beginning, I wanted to find out the truth.



And that is why, despite everything, I am optimistic about the future. Everything works in cycles in this old world, and what goes around comes around. Mankind is close to having had enough of itself as god, to the point of nausea. Like the man who exploded from eating the wafer thin mint, we’re going to get sick of what we’ve made of the world, and from there, where else can we turn?



To the truth.



Where will we find it? I believe we’ll find it in the Church, which is to say we’ll have to find it in ourselves at least to some degree. There’s no way I can wait for “The Church” to turn things around and sit on my hands while I wait. I’m as much a part of the Church as my Bishop. A different part, let us be clear, with different responsibilities and duties, but still a part. Indeed if I (meaning the average Joe Layperson) don’t do anything, it doesn’t matter what the Bishop does, because then he’s like a general without an army, making plans that will never be carried out.



But I digress. My vision of the 21st Century, in a nutshell, is that the Truth will win out, because the lie is losing its luster.

EARLY RELIGIOUS LIFE

I had no religious upbringing. I was never taken to a worship service as a child. Not once.

I don’t really fault my parents for this, in the sense that I hold some grudge against them for neglecting that part of my life. That was where they found themselves, and they didn’t have anything to give me in the religion department. What they did give me was a sense of values: how to treat other people, the importance of honesty, the importance of work (though I didn’t take naturally to that one right off to be honest); in short I was raised to be moral but not religious.

I wasn’t trained to be anti-religious either. Like with all other things, I was taught that a person's religion is something to respect, as long as they didn't get all pushy about it (a lesson I forgot in my first few years as a Christian). So, all in all, I think my parents raised me quite well. When I was confronted with the claims of the Christian religion, I was ready to receive what I was hearing. Though now I reject the exact brand of Christianity I first embraced, I cling to Christianity itself, in the purest of its forms, the Catholic Church. Had my parents raised me in one religion or the other, perhaps I would not have been able to ever freely choose to be a Christian. The way it turned out, I had a tabula rasa, at least in a sense, so that I came into the possibility of giving my life over to something besides myself without preconceived notions.

Not that I plan to bring up my own children (should I ever have them) without religious training. They'll be brought up more Catholic than the Pope. The point will be to raise them in a manner that makes them eager to embrace the truth of the Church when it comes time to trade in the religion of the parents for the religion of the grownup son or daughter. Whether that happens at 10 years old, or 40.

I don't plan on making this a chronological memoir, but rather a series of essays based on random memories, thoughts linked to current events, or whatever random association comes up on a given day. blogger.com

INTRODUCTION

"Our nature imposes on us a certain pattern of development which we must follow if we are to fulfill our best capacities and achieve at least the partial happiness of being human. This pattern must be properly understood and it must be worked out in all its essential elements. Otherwise, we fail. But it can be stated very simply, in a single sentence: We must know the truth, and we must love the truth we know, and we must act according to the measure of our love."

Thomas Merton, The Ascent to Truth

Generally I'll be posting my own thoughts here, with only the occasional quote, but I wanted to put this one out front, so you'd know where I stand.

This will be the story of my journey toward, conversion to, and (hopefully) sanctification in, the "One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church" (as the Creed calls it). I was baptized in 1979 or 80, at the Tucker Swamp Baptist Church in Zuni, Virginia. I was received into full communion with the Catholic Church (first confession, confirmation, first communion) on Easter Vigil, 1998, at the Parish of St. John the Baptist in Edmond, Oklahoma. Between the two events is a long story of faith, hope and love, interspersed with skepticism, despair and narcissism.

I'm telling it partly for me, so that I'll never foget what it took to get me where I am; partly for you, in case you're on a similar path, or are going to be and don't know it yet, and partly for Fr. Mary Louis, known to the world as Thomas Merton, who wrote, and, I'm convinced, prayed me, into Mother Church, and into an encounter with Truth incarnate.