Life without the Church can kind of make you feel like this guy. No Authority? No problem, just put on the hat with the funny contraption--problem solved!. No sacrifice of the Mass? No problem, just strap on a banjo and foot-pumped percussion. No communion of saints? We got an accordion for that.
When I was a protestant I felt overwhelmed with the task of literally making up Christianity. It was overwhelming. Every doctrine was on my shoulders, ever ounce of orthodoxy at the mercy of my wisdom to parse Scripture. Okay, I can hear what you are thinking. "Brent, come on it wasn't like that at all, you had your denomination, seminary, or even the Reformation documents."
True.
But, then what did my kids have? As I mentioned in my much condensed conversion story, it was when my daughter was born that I realized something had to give. Was really a denomination started 100 years ago the best thing I had to offer her? 500 years wouldn't work either. I was passing off this faith to my daughter and it was either going to look like this:
 |
| Beam me up Scotty |
or like this:
The images aren't arguments per se but you get the picture (literally).
Before I was Catholic I was also overwhelmed with my role as the spiritual aficionado. I know, you may come from a Christian tradition that doesn't emphasize the ecstatic, personal, dynamic, experience of God. That's fine. Nevertheless, I did and so that's part of my story, though I think we all desire to be close to God. That's the movement of a heart set free by Christ.
However, outside of the Church there is something missing.
I'm no spiritual juggernaut. Although I've always been spiritually inclined, I have spiritual attention deficit disorder like the best of em. Put me in a crowd of the spiritually inclined, in-tuned, or intuitive and I'm bound to miss even the slightest vibration of the Spirit. I've been caught in enough of these types of services with my spiritual "pants down" to make the Spiritual Enquirer. I'm clumsy, foolish, weak, and simple.
However, inside the Church there is something amazing.
When I entered the Church I began the realization of this great mystery. Under the appearance of what is so simple is that which is so sublime. From the great saint to the sinner who stumbles in through a window of penance, from the lord to the vassal, from the normal joe to royalty, there is but one gift and one gift alone which by God's grace draws humanity into the divine life of God. It is not by some kind of spiritual juggernaut, but by pure gift. It is the great sign, symbol, and sacrament of contradiction against materialism and pelagianism, and it is the medicine the angels cannot partake.
Yet we poor creatures, made in the image of the One we threw off before the imprint even had a chance to dry, incapable of keeping Him for even a moment are given Him in a moment to partake. "Unless you eat and drink" because "I am true drink and true bread". We hear those words and we stutter. Does it take a spiritual juggernaut to believe them? No. Rather, it takes one believing like a child that there is no place we can go, like a child resigned to their place, because He has "the words of life".
Deep breath. It's good to be home, good to take of the trappings of a spiritual juggernaut, and good to rest in the amazing mercy of God found in His Church and in His Eucharist.
Amen.
