Confession: Is it Against Christian Sensibilities?

The late great Archbishop Fulton Sheen said in various times and places that society will always begin to do, in a bastard kind of way (my words), what the Church ignores. The Sacrament of Confession is a great example of this. When the Church neglected it, out of the ground grew the most odd looking bush of a piece of furniture--the psychologist's couch. And so we traded, in used car lot like fashion, repentance for affirmation, penance for self-realization, and honesty for openness.

During my journey to Catholicism, I had to consider the very foreign (to me) concept of Sacramental Confession. Now, what I will argue here is that Confession is something that is rational and that going to a priest for it is even more rational. Both will, I think, make it a kind of Christian-sensible-thing-to-do.

FOR STARTERS WE NEED TO CONFESS BECAUSE WE ARE HUMAN

I'll never forget calling my friend on the phone. I had begged for forgiveness. Pleaded with God. Yet, no matter what I did I couldn't get to that place of consolation or peace. It felt like I was hiding, as if my prayer had been like projectile vomit heading toward the ceiling. I was sure the fan had thrown some of it back on me because I could still smell the stench...in my soul.

When I called my friend, I told him I needed to come clean. So, I confessed to him my sin and it made me feel better. At this point, I was on the road to Rome but probably over a year out from the end. I knew this was a short-term fix and that I was putting my hope in a momentary feeling--yet as a human being forgiveness without this feeling seemed pointless. I was tired of conjuring happy feelings, "texting myself" little proverbial smily emoticons that seemed as stupid as what I just said implies.

We need confession--confession to another person--because God made us humans. We are not angels. We are men and women with flesh and bone who with senses perceive. We can believe by faith but we cannot perceive anything by it. That is why Christ gave us the Sacraments. Because, at the end of the day, a ray of light beaming from the sky, some celestial get better from a cloud way off wouldn't cut it. E.T. as savior is grotesque. Not just because that isn't love but because that isn't salvation. Salvation is God becoming Man. Incarnation is all up in our business, and wouldn't we expect the God who did it that way would also stay in our business? 

WE NEED A PRIEST BECAUSE...WELL...YOUR FRIEND AIN'T CUTTING IT

I know, I know I used that southern word (ain't) again. Sorry, I'm 2/4 Georgia and 1/4 North Carolina so you gonna have to take me like you get me. 

Really though, all Christians believe that God can use someone to do his work. In fact, we almost always think it is the ordinary way that He works. Here's a good song that illustrates this meme in the Christian-kind-of-way-of-thinking-about-things:

So what's the big deal? I don't need a bee-line to Jesus for all kinds of stuff, and even more I don't think its God PLUS, or Jesus PLUS, or you get the picture PLUS about any other way that God uses us to be His "hands and feet". We just don't think that way. But, when its that pernicious, awful, hierarchy imposing Catholic doctrine of Sacramental Confession, well then blahh! "That ain't in my there Bible, meester, and if you's thinken you slippin that popery stuff in here, well you gotta nother thing comin!"

Really? We can talk about the Bible and Church history here in a bit, but let's get real. It is ad hoc and arbitrary to single out confession of sins when we believe that so many other important goods are given to us by God through others. When we look at the Gospels next, we will learn I think how Biblical the practice really is. Even without that evidence, it is rational that we confess and it is even more rational to go to a priest. Christianity is more than a freudian get better project. It isn't Oprah on steroids. As Christians, when we sin--especially gravely--we know we need to get right with God. That involves repentance which implies honesty. I can trick my own conscious but I can't trick someone else's as easily. God knew our tendency of diminishing our responsibility (see Adam and Eve) so I find great consolation in knowing that a priest is there to make sure when I say "I messed up" I don't have a date with that demon in my Blackberry for 2 hours later.

Who else should do this but one consecrated by Christ to exercise this priestly ministry? For if one is to not just be listening to my sins but also conferring Absolution--the recognition of both my genuine repentance and the authority to release the objective work of Christ transforming my heart--I care A LOT whether or not Oprah, Joe Buck or Father Buck is behind the curtain. I'll take door #3 please.

So, get off the couch and get on your knees. Expel the demons. Free yourself by the means that Christ has preordained that you would ordinarily walk in. And, if you are hostile to the Church, leave it alone for confession is human and it is sensible in a very Christian kind of way.

The Catholic View of the Saints: Is it against Christian Sensibilities?

The eye cannot say to the hand, "I do not need you"- 1 Corinthians 12:21

The Saints. When you didn't grow up Catholic (like me) that means a football team. A not very good football team at that (sans all this new success). It might also conjure up a tune ("Oh when the saints, go marching in...). I digress, but, hey, my kids are dancing now.

In evaluating the Catholic understanding of the Saints a number of issues arise: prayers to them, their role in our lives, who they are, and a few other issues that fall under the sub-domain of one of those. Before I look at the historical and biblical understanding of the Saints, I first want to address what I call "Christian sensibilities".

What I am aiming at is the "gut reaction". To use examples from other orders of experience, when someone of a foreign origin walks into your office what do you think? When someone hands you a strange food, what do you feel? When you walk into a Church and notice paintings and statues of Biblical and Church heroes what is your reaction? I like to think of this as a kind of Christian litmus test in very much the same way it is a litmus test for things like our respect for human life or our true racial sentiments.

Not a Catholic teaching

On my journey to the Catholic Church, I always tried to pause a moment and step back from the rhetoric and debate and ask myself, "Is this a Christian thing to think?" I mean, if the Catholic Church taught that Obi-Wan Kenobi is real and must be obeyed, then we had...well...problems. 

In 1 Corinthians, Paul warns us that we are not at liberty to reject another part of the body. Even more, from our experience and a second grade education we understand that most of what is really happening with our body we cannot see. Some of this is geographical (the back of your head, where you sit, etc.) However, most of what we cannot see happening is because it is meant to be out of our view. In fact, the health of the body is predicated on you not seeing your heart beating, your spleen working, or your bones stressing under the pressure of Thanksgiving seconds.

At this point, I'll suspend my momentum and not delve into Holy Scripture. That is for another day. What I will ask is a few questions. Questions not so unlike the kind of questions one might ask a friend who is a semi-bibliophobe standing outside of Barnes and Nobles. That's the way I felt. Not about books, of course, but about the Saints (and not the football team this time). It's like I was standing out in a storm and I could smell the fresh coffee, see the smiling faces, almost hear the pages turning but I wouldn't go in. I was frozen. Why was I so afraid of my celestial family?

With all the suffering Christians face on earth, are our brothers and sisters in heaven really doing this?

If we asked them for some help, will they do this?

Is heaven a big happy hugfest?

Or, is it more like this?

A heaven full of scholars, noblemen, peasants, husbands, wives, nuns, monks, athletes, soldiers, martyrs and minstrels, all before the face of God in perfect union with Christ filled to the full with the Holy Spirit. And as the Spirit looks upon the earth and groans at our sin and suffering, it is with and through the Saints that we hear the noise.

Yes, the Saints are the pharmacists and Jesus is the doctor. He writes the prescription and the Saints fill it. St. Rose of Lima, patroness of my family and the Americas, pray for us! (and you)

(hat tip to Taylor Marshall for the pharmacist analogy)

Purgatory: Is it Against Christian Sensibilities?

I like to start off a post about the Catholic doctrines that formerly caused me to squirm by examining whether or not it is against Christian sensibilities. Purgatory is one of those doctrines. In fact, Purgatory was the last doctrine I "got". So, is the doctrine itself repugnant to being Christian?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) states:

"All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven. The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned. The Church formulated her doctrine of faith on Purgatory especially at the Councils of Florence and Trent. The tradition of the Church, by reference to certain texts of Scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire."

Did I just hear that the Catholic Church teaches assuredness of salvation? That's right. Those in Purgatory have the perfect promise of eternal salvation. To use an even better analogy, a friend of mine described Purgatory as being in a living room smelling dinner cooking. The longer you have to smell it, the more your stomach hurts. You are in pain not because you aren't going to get to eat it, but because you will.

Considering the quote from the CCC above, Purgatory speaks to the perfection necessary for entering heaven (Rev 21:27). Why make it a process? This was my hang up for quite some time. Thanks to Therese Frank, a wonderful catechist at St. Luke's parish, I came to understand just how wonderful this doctrine is.

There are a lot of what I like to call mental and historical "trampolines" needed outside of the Catholic Church. The trampolines are necessary to jump from the fifth to fifteenth century in Church history or to get one from one concept to the other while skipping over Biblical, historical or logical data. I started to notice these trampolines when I was studying different Catholic-Protestant questions. I could see the non-Catholic position made sense if only I just skipped over these centuries or kind of ignored that scripture passage or forgot about the logical consequence of a position. Ironically, my reluctance to understand Purgatory had a lot to do with one of my own "trampolines". This was the big one that gets you from earth to heaven.

Therese gently explained that Purgatory is a really beautiful doctrine. First, its a state of existence not a place. Second, and even more profound, Purgatory is God's way of saying, "I want you. No really. I want you, the person you are right now. Well, not in this state, but I want to know you in such a way that you will know the person that knows me as the person that I love right now." That did it for me. Let me unpack it.

The Holy Restart Button

In my old theology, there was no way I was knowing the new me in heaven. My mind was way too messed up to be thinking there. Yet, when I stopped to think about it, if I didn't know me then who knew God there? No, that wasn't right. But, how would I get there? All of a sudden Purgatory made a lot of sense. God wanted me! He wanted me, the individual me, so much that he would "finish the work he started" (Phil 1:6) no matter how long it took. God didn't just want some new version of me via the holy restart button; no he wanted Brent Stubbs, his unique son whom he knew in his mother's womb. He wanted a relationship whereby I would genuinely love him as the God I always loved.

Is this against Christian sensibilities? No way. In fact, the doctrine of Purgatory made me really believe for the first time that Jesus really wanted me. No trampolines needed, just the fire of His love.

(Next: Purgatory in Church History)

The Assumption of Mary: Is it against Christian sensibilities?

The Assumption of Mary is one of those Catholic dogmas that makes many non-Catholic Christians squirm. I don't think most Christians have done extensive exegesis or historical study of the dogma, but it does seem to be repugnant to many at the level of sensibility--the gut reaction. Should it? Ironically, the Marian dogmas were the first dogmas I came to believe on my journey to Catholicism. They are:

1) Mary is the Theotokos. She isn't merely the mother of the human Jesus. Because Jesus is fully God and fully man in one person, Mary is the mother of that entire person. Thus, she is the mother of God.

2) Mary is perpetually virgin--before and after the birth of Christ. (I'll talk about this another time)

3) Mary was Immaculately Conceived- by God's grace Mary was saved from sin at her conception (full of grace) since she was set aside at her conception to be the Arc of the New Covenant.

4) Mary's was Assumed into Heaven.

Let's set aside the sola scriptura debate for a moment and ask ourselves some fundamental questions that might give us insight into the Assumption and why it is true and not against Christian sensibilities.

• What would give Christ the most glory regarding the treatment of His Mother?
• How are the Ascension of Christ and the Assumption of Mary qualitatively different?
• Did God assume anyone else into heaven in scripture?
• We have relics of all the apostles who died. Why not Mary?
• If the Assumption of Mary is true, does it make Christ more or less important?
• Why do I believe it isn't true and what validates that belief?
• If it was within your power to keep your mother from rotting in a grave, would you stop her from doing so?

I believe the answers to these questions and others make, at the least, the Assumption not against Christian sensibilities.

(Next: The Assumption in Church history)