Slow and steady...

One of the things I've been working on with my congregation is increasing their comfort level with the idea of the communion of saints.

I'm not sure how it happened; that we who believe in a God of the living, grew to think that interacting with those who precede us in achieving the beatific vision is somehow wrong.

Taboo.

Not simply impossible, though some do stop there. But bad.

Why are Paul's words to us in his first letter to the Corinthians (6:2-3) so easily dismissed?

The gospel of Matthew tells us that we will be put in charge of many things once we enter into the joy of the Lord.

How did this concept of an actionless, powerlessness eternity come about? Do we really think that those who the Father chooses to sit at the right and left hand of Jesus will do nothing and have no authority? We are told that the kingdom of heaven is a kingdom; are we so unfamiliar of what positions near the king mean?

But back to my point.

I've been working on raising awareness about the saints slowly and steadily over the past few years. More on that in future posts. My latest idea is to have a St. Patrick's Day fellowship meal for our congregation and our neighborhood, and include a short bit of catechesis about who St. Patrick is, and what we might ask him for intercession about.

Perhaps we'll even have a visit from a wee St. Patrick, dressed in the finery of his Bishopric.

Slow and steady, slow and steady...

Taking back the ground that the enemy has stolen must be done with patience, and sometimes, with whimsy.

Let's talk about.... shhhh....

This week's adventures include writing up a proposal to our Rector's Council about running an adult education series called "Let's Talk About Sex".

Distorted sexuality is THE issue of our era, causing symptoms ranging from pornography addictions to abortion and rampant STDs. Sex is talked about everywhere; on TV sitcoms, in popular music, in stories about beloved sports figures, in Facebook and Twitter, on our children's cell phones... everywhere except in church.

(At least my church.)

My hope is that our next Christian education session can focus on restoring the beauty and sacramentality to our understanding of sexuality, hence the proposal.

I'm hopeful that the guys will see the tremendous need both within our congregation and in the community at large. We struggle to find ways to reach our neighbors who don't know God, and sexuality seems like a logical focus. It effects everyone regardless of age, socio-economic situation, sex, race, ethnicity, and marital state. It could be a way to get people to come and experience our love, and His; through their brokenness.

However, it will not be easy to convince the council. Outside the Catholic church, Christianity and sexuality typically do not appear in the same sentence. People keep issues of sexuality under wraps. Outside of a sacramental setting, the body is often viewed as insignificant at best or shameful at worst, and the men on the Rector's Council are of mixed views.

I guess now is a good time to ask John Paul the Great to pray for me...

Welcome!

Welcome to Sojourner Reports...

This blog will chronicle my adventures as a Catholic apologist outside Mother Church's protective arms. I am currently a parishioner in a congregation of the ICCEC, but our Lord has me there for just a season as I am journeying home. While on this road, He calls me to teach the truths of the Catholic church to Christians who have been trained to reject their beauty.

Below I have posted a few apologetics articles written for my skeptical Christian friends over the past few years.

Future posts will highlight interactions with former Baptists and evangelicals on issues such as the Rosary, suffering, purgatory, and the like.

Come walk with me on the journey.

Instilling Humility: Maundy Thursday Foot Washing

Lent is a time when God works on humility, and the Maundy Thursday foot washing service is a powerful Lenten teaching tool.

During TCC’s first Holy Week we held a foot washing service in the forum room at Bethel. We were still new to the liturgy and had not yet settled into the tradition of having priests, deacons, and altar servers acting “in persona Christi” for the foot washing. Instead, parishioners came up and had their feet washed, then stayed to wash the feet of others. I’d planned to participate in that act of service, and was fully intending to when the service began.

But while I waited and watched, the reality of my unworthiness to act in the role of Christ in such an intimate way was overwhelming. Who was I to mimic such a sublimely humble act? It was a struggle to force myself to get up and receive the sacramental action; participating beyond that was not imaginable.

There is something about the foot washing ceremony that is spiritually jarring. In it, transcendence and imminence overlap. Our God, the creator of the universe who stepped into time before presenting himself as the once and always sacrifice to Himself, picks up basin and cloth to wash the dust from our feet. Our feet; those blushingly intimate body parts which we prefer to keep under wraps. Our feet which collect the dirt and sweat and grime of the world.

Each year since that first service, I react the same way. I respond as Peter did, saying “No, you shall never wash my feet!”

I am unworthy even to be the woman crying tears over His feet, drying them with my hair and anointing them with expensive perfume, let alone receiving such attention.

So to think of Him washing my feet?

Each year, I anticipate and dread this wonderful, heart wrenching service. Each year I am overcome with tears. Each year I am profoundly moved.

If you haven’t come to a foot washing service before, please try to come this year. In this humble act God manifests the human character of His love for us, and its breadth. From creation itself, to foot washing—He loves us.

The Season of Lent

Lent is the Old English word for spring. In almost all other languages, Lent's name is a derivative of the Latin term quadragesima or "the forty days." 40 is the traditional number of days for discipline, devotion, and preparation. Just think of Moses on the mountain, Elijah on his travels to the cave of visions, Nineveh’s deadline to repent, and most significantly, Jesus' time in the wilderness praying, fasting, and experiencing the temptation that humanity faces:

For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sinning. (Heb. 4:15)

By the solemn forty days of Lent, the Church unites herself each year to the mystery of Jesus in the desert. “To follow and imitate Christ more nearly and to manifest more clearly his self-emptying is to be more deeply present to one’s contemporaries, in the heart of Christ. For those who are on this narrower path encourage their brethren by their example…”

Rev. Lawrence E. Mick wrote that Lent is “radically baptismal”, which is right up TCC’s alley! He said that our current 40 day observation grew out of 3 original sources; an ancient 2-day paschal fast before Easter, the “Catechumenate” preparation for baptism of adults, and the “Order of Penitents” conversion process for baptized people who had fallen but were ready to turn away from serious sin.

As the Catechumen (those who were being prepared) went through the process, the rest of the congregation walked with them spiritually, renewing their own baptismal promises.
This idea of a second conversion is an uninterrupted task for the whole Church who, “clasping sinners to her bosom, is at once holy and always in need of purification, and follows constantly the path of penance and renewal.”

Lent is a penitential season, and the 3 keys to penitence are prayer, fasting, and charity or almsgiving.

Fasting helps us “acquire mastery over our instincts and freedom of heart.” Self-denial and acts of penance help us uproot the rule of sin in our lives, and in the world.

A common practice during Lent is to give up something we enjoy. By doing this, we discipline our wills so that we are not slaves to our pleasures. When we train ourselves to resist temptations that are not sinful, we increase our ability to resist temptations that are sinful.

Fridays during Lent are days of abstinence from meat. Abstaining from meat helps us remember the needs of the poor. Some families eat simple meals such as rice and beans on Friday, and give the money that would have been used for the meal to the poor. If you give up steak but eat lobster, you’re missing the point!

We don’t hear about charity as a Lenten practice as often as the other disciplines, however, alms giving and charity are logical acts during this season, as they are outward signs and actions that our inner conversion is real and that we take Jesus’ instructions seriously. Isaiah 58:6-7 reads:

This, rather, is the fasting that I wish: releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke; setting free the oppressed, breaking every yoke; sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless; clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own.

Jesus’ call to conversion and penance does not aim first at outward works, “sackcloth and ashes”, fasting and mortification, but at the conversion of the heart. Without this, such penances remain sterile and false. Interior conversion urges expression in visible signs, gestures, and works of penance.

Fasting should be linked to our concern for those who are forced to fast by their poverty. Connecting charitable acts with fasting activities, for example, donating food we would otherwise have eaten to the hungry, brings a particular richness and depth of understanding to our Lenten experience.

Please consider incorporating the practices of prayer, fasting, and charity into your life this Lenten season, so that you can reach new levels of spiritual breadth and preparation.

This article contains excerpts from the Catechism of the Catholic Church ©1994 and from Lenten Customs, Baptism is the Key by Rev. Lawrence E. Mick.

Mary Our Spiritual Mother

Something is happening in Christ’s church.

Along with the increasing unification and convergence of which the CEC is a part, comes a renewed interest in Mary and the role she has played within the church from its beginning. You see signs of it everywhere; from articles in Christianity Today to the cover of Time Magazine. It’s a natural part of the universal church’s trend toward a return to the ancient church; the church that existed before and after the Reformation and the tremendous splintering that followed. Many Protestant denominations have drifted a long way from the church that the Reformers envisioned and practiced, and some are beginning to look back at what was lost.

They are wondering if they threw the mother out with the bathwater.

It’s true: Protestants are realizing that there is something about Mary.

The Reformers Weigh In

People from Protestant backgrounds are often on the look out for “Mariolotry”; a worship of Mary as if she was a god. If asked about their suspicions they might say that any form of devotion to Mary falls into that category. They might think that the Reformers did away with all of that stuff.

History shows a slightly different picture however.

While the Reformers were rightly concerned with the extreme to which some Roman Catholics took Marian devotion, they believed that there was a need for moderating that extremity rather than ditching her altogether.

Let’s take a look at some quotes from prominent Reformers.

Ulrich Zwingli, founder of the Reformation in Switzerland, said “The more the honor and love of Christ increases among men, so much the esteem and honor given to Mary should grow.”

John Calvin, one of the more severe critics of Marionism, called Mary “the treasurer of grace”.

In Martin Luther’s last sermon at Wittenberg in January 1546, shortly before his death, he said “Is Christ only to be adored? Or is the holy Mother of God rather not to be honoured? This is the woman who crushed the Serpent’s head. Hear us. For your son denies you nothing.”

Did you catch that? He asked Mary to “Hear us, for your son denies you nothing”! Luther himself not only recognized Mary as a powerful intercessor, but asked her for assistance!

So what happened? If the Reformers themselves understood the importance of Mary’s role, and believed that she could make requests of her Son on our behalf, how have we come to be so biased against her?

God Gives Jesus His Mother

Advent takes us back to Christ’s first coming; in human form. From the beginning of church history there has been a mental struggle in believers to grasp the mystery of Jesus being both Man and God, fully human and fully divine. We may be able to voice agreement with this in theory, but there is still a real difficulty in accepting that God could actually also be as one of us. Although Christmas should be the time when we celebrate God coming to earth as a human being, we somehow lose sight of the delivery mechanism.

This year, let’s try to enter more deeply into the reality of awaiting him, just as Mary waited while He grew within her.

God came to us as a baby, through the auspices of a mother. If this was not significant or worthy of our contemplation, God would have chosen another method. He could have created Jesus fully formed just as he did the first Adam.

But He didn’t.

He chose instead to work through a human woman. He chose to allow her to gestate him, to bear him, to nurse him at her breast, to prevent him from crawling into the fire or under the wheels of a donkey cart, to teach him the Psalms, to help him learn to honor his Father…

He chose that Jesus be formed; physically, emotionally, and spiritually, in the structure of a family, with a human mother and father.

Mary even played a critical role in the launching of His ministry. At the wedding in Cana, she encouraged him to perform a miracle despite his reluctance, just as a mom of today might encourage her child to give the two-wheeler a try despite his insistence on being too little.
Why? Would God allow a woman so important a role without purpose? Would He risk giving a human so much responsibility without having a darned good reason? Or is there something He wants us to understand about the method He chose?

Jesus Gives Us His Mother

In the end, we come to Jesus on the cross.

Chapter 19 of John’s Gospel gives us Jesus’ final instructions:

26 When Jesus then saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, "Woman, behold, your son!" 27 Then He said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother!" From that hour the disciple took her into his own household. 28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, to fulfill the Scripture, said, "I am thirsty."

The early church understood this to be an instruction for all believers in all ages, just as it did of the command to feed His sheep.

Jesus’ last request before dying was to give his Mother to us, his beloved disciples. And once He had given her to us and us to her, He knew that all had been accomplished.

How much emphasis do you think should be placed on deathbed requests?

Jesus final instruction was that Mary take us as her children, and that we take her as our spiritual mother. Earlier on, He told us to honor our father and mother.

Were Jesus’ final words meaningless?

Would God’s final instructions be trivial?

Have we honored His final request?

Are we obedient to the fourth commandment?

Mary in the Ancient-Future Church

So where do we go from here?

In recent discussions about CEC doctrine, Bishop Bates paraphrased a statement often attributed to St. Augustine: In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity.
We are called to love God with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength. Bishop Craig urges us to deal with all other things with charity.

At a very minimum, the idea of honoring Mary should be met with charity.
And it is possible that Jesus would have us offer her more than simply that.

The Mystery of Suffering

Many people in our church family are suffering right now, worrying about finances, serious illness, and difficult family situations. I was already pondering these and the other sorrows of life when hurricane Katrina hit. Reports of the storm’s aftermath are staggering.

The question is: why?

Why does a God of love allow suffering?

It is a mystery that has challenged people throughout the ages. The faith of Christians can be shaken during times of tragedy. For many, suffering is such an obstacle that it actually prevents belief.

The answer to the mystery is of course, Christ.

And though we know that Christ is the answer, we still have difficulty understanding. When we suffer, our natural instinct is to resent and resist. St. Augustine said that we are like bats or owls; we see shadows well, but not the sun. By its excess of light the sun blinds us. We are blinded and not able to see beyond the veil, the obvious. We see the suffering, but not its fruits.

Aquinas said: “Since God is the highest good, He would not allow any evil to exist in His works unless His omnipotence and goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil.”

But what does this actually mean? How can a young man struggling with cancer, or a region wiped out by wind and flood be a good thing?

Consider what it is like to be a toddler. The day starts with a breakfast that he does not want to eat; he wants chocolate and his mother refuses to give it to him. Later in the day, mom takes him to the doctor where he receives a series of immunizations. He is frightened by the process and by the pain. It seems unfair that a mother, the essence of love, would subject him to such an experience. The day continues and Mom and son head off to the beach. Just as he is about to run gleefully toward the water, mom holds him back to apply sunscreen. He is infuriated that his desires are thwarted, and screams at the injustice. What a day it has been!

We are like that child; limited in our knowledge of the universe and not understanding why life is full of disruptions and pain and delayed pleasures. God is like that mother; doing what is best for her child out of love, despite our pleas and protests.

But even if we choose to believe that God is doing good through our suffering, the question remains: how does it work?

Teilhard de Chardin taught that “God must, in some way or other, make room for himself, hollowing us out and emptying us, if he is finally to penetrate into us.” Peter Kreeft echoes the idea, saying that suffering hollows out hidden places in our souls so that when we are in heaven we can contain “more of the light and joy of the beatific vision.”

Suffering develops wisdom, which leads to true happiness, because happiness requires wisdom, and wisdom requires suffering. Rabbi Abraham Heschel said, “the man who has not suffered, what can he possibly know, anyway?”

Suffering builds unity and togetherness between fellow sufferers. It offers opportunities for compassion and charity.

Suffering builds strength. As part of the church militant, we are warrior swords. God allows physical and emotional storms to strengthen us, just as metal is hardened by fire.
God also disciplines us through suffering, as Heb 12:5-6 explains: …“my child, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, or lose heart when you are punished by him; for the Lord disciplines those whom he loves, and chastises every child whom he accepts.”

Mother Angelica says that every time a major prayer is answered in her life, it is preceded by a storm of one kind or another. When things start to get difficult, she gets excited, wondering what blessing is on the way.

We can see how God uses suffering in these ways for our own good. But there is something greater, something deeper, something majestic in His plan for suffering; the opportunity for vicarious atonement.

Jesus said to pick up our cross and follow him. And he meant it. Literally. He didn’t mean to trivialize the difficulties that face us, or to minimize our day-to-day challenges into some trite recipe for living. He meant that we too would have crosses; we too would be crucified. Kreeft says “Calvary was not a freak, an exception; it was the hub of the wheel, the center of the system, the trunk of the tree.”

Rom 8:28-29 states: And we know that he works all things together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to His purpose.

What was Christ’s purpose? To redeem the world through His suffering. To sacrifice His life so that we would have eternal life. To be battered and demeaned and eventually killed.

Crucifixion was torture. It was a horrible and humiliating way to die. Imagine the pain and dejection of carrying the cross; splinters in the hands, the wood slippery from blood, the crowds jeering as you pass...

We too are called to this purpose, HIS purpose. We too are called to experience suffering so that others may be saved. That’s what he anticipated for us; the cross.

How can a God of love give these directions? What does it mean?

It means that suffering is not the ultimate horror. For Jesus, it was His ultimate act of love, His ultimate victory, His ultimate saving act. And we are directed to do the same.

Why?

In Col 1:24 Paul wrote: Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions.
This may be the secret to bringing about God’s kingdom on earth, restoring Eden, returning the world to paradise. It may be that this is how the good news will eventually be spread throughout all nations; by the transformation of suffering and death into redemption.

Can the sting be taken out of death by an act of will, just as Christ’s death did?

The Divine Mercy Chaplet includes the phrase “O Blood and Water that gushed forth from the Heart of Jesus as a fountain of mercy for us, I trust in You.” John 7:38 (RSV) says “He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, 'Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.'”
Do you understand what this means?

Jesus said that we who believe, through suffering as he did, can pour out the waters of mercy. The flow of blood and water out into the world from the stab wound in Jesus side was His final human act. Jesus invites us to offer our bodies for the same purpose; to allow ourselves to be sacrificed so that from our wounds God’s redemptive power can flow.

I think this is the crucial reason God allows our suffering to exist; so that we have the opportunity to transform it, the chance to join in the work of Christ in the deepest, most fundamental way. We are taught to think about “what would Jesus do” when making decisions. Well what he would do is allow himself to be beaten and killed. That’s what he did.

God allows sorrow and suffering to exist so that we can follow Jesus instructions. So that we can transform this world by reforming and transforming our suffering into a redemptive force.
Imagine the transformative power that could be generated by the survivors of hurricane Katrina… Imagine the force of feeling, heartbreak, and anguish… Imagine that staggering degree of anguish directed toward the salvation of souls.

Here we sit, relatively untouched by the whole thing. Yet we too have sorrows and difficulties to face. We too experience worry, loss, confusion, betrayal, and disappointment. We can choose to simply let Satan gloat in our tears, or we can choose to redirect and transform it. We can choose each day, with each ache and pain, each frightening idea, each thought about a dying friend, to join our sorrows to those of Christ on the cross, for the furtherance of His work, for the redemption of the world.

Peter Kreeft says that when we offer our sorrow up to him, he “takes it and uses it in ways so powerful that we would be flattened with wonder if we knew them now.” Suffering itself can be turned into perfect joy through faith, hope and love; it is a mystery that we cannot understand, but that we can enter into. When we trust God enough to know that His will for us is perfect in every way, we are granted peace. No happiness can be deeper than that which we experience by accepting God’s will, even when that means suffering.

As a charismatic communion, we thank God for the actions of the Holy Spirit, and pray that we can build His kingdom through the healing miracles He performs in our midst. In all our sufferings we ask that God “take this cup”. And if it is His will that we suffer, we can ask that we suffer as Christ did, for the same purpose. For this, as for all things, we give Him thanks.

The Sacrament of Confession

Sacraments are outward signs instituted by Christ to impart grace to the soul. The key piece in this is that they were put in place by Christ. There is power in everything that Christ did, and told us to do.

Confession (also called the sacrament of reconciliation or penance) is the process of meeting with a priest to walk through a set of prayers and list the serious sins you have committed since baptism or since your last confession (if you’ve had one). A good way to prepare for confession is to review the Ten Commandments and the beatitudes, and see where you have been failing.

The sacrament of confession has been a practice of the church from the very beginning. The fathers of the church called confession “the second plank of salvation after the shipwreck of the loss of grace”. (The first plank is baptism, by which all our sins are forgiven.)

Alexander Schmemman says:

“The sacrament of penance… is the power of baptism as it lives in the Church. From baptism it receives its sacramental character. In Christ all sins are forgiven once and for all, for He is Himself the forgiveness of sins, and there is no need for any ‘new’ absolution. But there is indeed the need for us who constantly leave Christ and excommunicate ourselves from His life, to return to Him, to receive again and again the gift which in Him has been given once and for all. And the absolution is the sign that this return has taken place and has been fulfilled.

Just as each Eucharist is not a ‘repetition’ of Christ’s supper but our ascension, our acceptance into the same and eternal banquet, so also the sacrament of penance is not a repetition of baptism, but our return to the ‘newness of life’ which God gave to us once and for all.”

A sermon by St. Leo in the fifth century reads: “The omnipotence of the Son of God, whereby through the same essence He is equal to the Father, would have been able by the mere command of His will to rescue the human race from the domination of the Devil, if it had not been better suited to the divine operations to conquer the opposition of the enemy’s wickedness by that which had been conquered, and to restore our natural liberty through that very nature through which a general captivity had come about.”

God chose to use human beings, first Christ, then His priests, to administer His freedom. For physical healing He often works through doctors. For spiritual healing He works through priests, who administer the healing sacraments Christ gave to the church for this purpose.

We are part of a church which has been handed down directly from Christ, through Peter, in a direct line of succession via the laying on of hands in ordination. There is power in the authority of those who Christ himself has touched and equipped.

Many of us don’t really understand the idea of apostolic authority. Interestingly, Jesus ran into the same objections!

Christ said to the sick man with palsy: "Thy sins are forgiven thee." "And there were some of the scribes sitting there, and thinking in their hearts: Why doth this man speak thus? he blasphemeth. Who can forgive sins but God only?"

But Jesus seeing their thoughts, said to them: "Which is easier to say to the sick of the palsy: Thy sins are forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, take up thy bed and walk? But that you may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, I say to thee: Arise, take up thy bed, and go into thy house" (Mark 2:5-11; Mat 9:2-7).

Christ wrought a miracle to show that He had power to forgive sins and that this power could be exerted not only in heaven but alsoon earth. He then transmitted that power to Peter and the other Apostles.

To Peter He says: "And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven" (Mat 16:19).

Peter was given the keys you see. Keys to lock and unlock.

The Council of Trent described the sacrament as follows: "So far as pertains to its force and efficacy, the effect of this sacrament is reconciliation with God, upon which there sometimes follows, in pious and devout recipients, peace and calm of conscience with intense consolation of spirit".

How wonderful that sounds! “Intense consolation of spirit”!

St. John Chrysostom pleads eloquently with the sinner: "Be not ashamed to approach the priest because you have sinned, nay rather, for this very reason approach. No one says: Because I have an ulcer, I will not go near a physician or take medicine; on the contrary, it is just this that makes it needful to call in physicians and apply remedies. We priests know well how to pardon, because we ourselves are liable to sin.”

Tertullian wrote of confession and repentance: “Therefore, while it abases a man, it raises him; while it covers him with squalor, the more does it cleanse him; while it condemns, it absolves. In so far as you do not spare yourself, the more, believe me, will God spare you!”

The idea of confession is hard. It’s embarrassing. But it makes you think about the doors you allow to be opened, and through the graces received, shut them back up.

The sacrament of confession can be a very powerful tool in resisting the enemy and staying spiritually clean. Please consider availing yourself of it soon.