A Comment on Church

I wonder if ism’s are not so much a form for labeling or categorizing things but rather a way to separate us from each other and reality. While confirming the authorship of a quote for Signposts, I came across a comment about Roman Catholicism’s exclusivism. When I was a non-believer, I had assumed that Protestants were the more open and accepting group. Now that am a believer, and inside the Catholic Church, I find that it is reversed. Catholics tend to be more open and accepting. (Note the words “tend to be”.) Catholicism is like a giant umbrella. It covers a very wide range of diverse people, cultures, ideas, histories, etc. There is even room for diverse opinions on theology (within limits of course). The very orthodox sit, kneel, stand, and pray next to the unorthodox and the conservative communes with the liberal in the same pew.

I am suspicious of claims of Catholicism’s exclusivism. Why are there so many Protestant denominations? Two groups within a congregation have an issue on a point of doctrine. They can’t agree, and so they split. You cannot belong to “their” group unless you agree with them. Thousands of Protestant denominations, one Catholic church, who is being exclusive?

Those outside of the Church could claim that I am blinded by the propaganda from Rome. (I am not sorry to say that Rome had nothing to do with my conversion.) The walls of the Church to them are a narrow and confining prison for thinking. On the contrary, the Church is a wide, open space, much more like a large, open playground. There is space to run and explore, play and work, all within a safe environment. The walls of the Church are not to keep people in, but to keep out the whimsical fads of the current culture. (Just look at Dispensationalism for one example.) Unfortunately those outside the Church walls only see walls, and they are blinded by them.

The Church is not a building. It is not doctrine or dogma. It is people. It is the people not only of this present time, but all people throughout history since (and a very strong case can be made for those before) Good Friday. The Church spans time and history into eternity because the Church is the Body of Christ.

The Journey

From Br. Joseph —

We are called to help each other to heaven.

The last paragraph to C.S. Lewis’ sermon, “The Weight of Glory”, is extraordinary writing. Lewis, contrary to the times, is not afraid to talk about heaven. He reminds us, whether we acknowledge it aloud to ourselves or not, that heaven is our deepest longing.

Heaven is not some extrinsic reward for living a moral life. (It can be if you are mercenary in your pursuit.) Heaven is much more than a reward. Heaven is the goal of life as marriage is the goal for true lovers. “[P]roper rewards are not simply tacked on to the activity for which they are given, but are the activity itself in consummation.” Reminds me of the longing of the lovers in “The Song of Songs” and all the marriage metaphors in the Gospels. 🙂

Towards the middle of his long paragraph, Lewis reminds us of our nature and our destination, the journey we all are on:

All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one of these destinations [to heaven or to hell]. It is in light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.

Wow!! “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.” This of course does not imply that we are gods, but rather we are adopted sons and daughters of God the Father. Our true destiny is Life, not death. (FYI—“immortal horrors or everlasting splendours” is an allusion to Dante’s Divine Comedy.)

Lewis continues the paragraph (which seems fitting for our all-school retreat tomorrow)—

This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner—no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.

You are holy. You are a sacrament. You—with Christ, in Christ, through Christ—are on a marvelous journey that, despite the hills and valleys, leads back home, to the place and Person of your deepest longing.

And so is the person next to you.

Our Lady of Mercy, pray for us…

Imaginary People

The world consists of imaginary people, claiming imaginary virtues and suffering from imaginary happiness. (Vernon Howard [via])

Imaginary people—yes;
Imaginary virtues—yes!!
Imaginary happiness—more or less, until it no longer satisfies.
But is the loneliness, pain, and sorrow imaginary too?
Maybe that’s why we imagine?

You in My Desolation

I feel like a fraud, a fake.
I want to pray, but I don’t want to.
My words are so shallow, empty, nothing.
I am shallow, empty, nothing.
My thoughts are divergent,
     flittering between this and that,
     between nothing and no-thing.
My emotions are worn out—
     the same spinning of wheels in dry dust.
To label this dryness, this emptiness, this blah,
     only semi-satisfies my mind.
The mind likes labels, categories, and judgments.
The label does nothing to help my heart.

There is only You.
Yet I cannot sense You, know You, feel You.
I feel presence-less,
     even though I know You are present.
All that I depend on internally tells me nothing.
My mind, my heart, they are useless.
There is only You.
You are in my desolation,
      but I do not recognize You.
Help me to see You in all things.

Psalm 139 (Slightly Reworded)

From Br. Joseph —

A preeminent theologian of the 20th century was once asked near the end of a long and distinguished career what was the most significant discovery or idea that greatly impacted his life. The great theologian’s response was simple and to the point, “God loves me.”

There are many ways to describe prayer, but one of my favorites is prayer as a love song. Scripture is a marvelous source for the words to our love song. Here is Psalm 139 slightly reworded for you to scratch the surface of understanding the implications of the great theologian’s words.

O Joseph, I have searched you and known you.
Joseph, I know when you sit down and when you rise up;
     I discern your thoughts from far away.
I search out your path Joseph, and your lying down,
     and am acquainted with all your ways.
Even before a word is on your tongue Joseph,
     I know it completely.
I hem you in, behind and before,
     and lay my hand upon you.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for you;
     it is so high that you cannot attain it.

Where can you go Joseph from my spirit?
     Or where can you flee from my presence?
If you ascend to the sky, I am there;
     if you make your bed in darkness, I am there.
If you take wings of the morning
     and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there my hand shall lead you Joseph,
     and my right hand of mercy shall hold you fast.
If you say, “Surly the darkness shall cover me,
     and the light around me become night,”
even the darkness is not dark to me Joseph;
     the night is as bright as the day,
     for the darkness is as light to me.

For it was I who formed your inward parts;
     Joseph, I knitted you together in your mother’s womb,
You praise me,
     for you are awesomely and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are my works;
     that you know very well.
My eyes beheld your unformed substance.
In my book were written
     all the days that were formed for you Joseph,
     when none of them as yet existed.
Joseph, how weighty to you are my thoughts!
     How vast is the sum of them!
You try to count them—
     they are more than the grains of sand;
You come to the end—
     You are still with me Joseph.

(Change the name to yours…)

Our Lady of Mercy, pray for us…

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