One in Christ, One in Truth

Growing up as a Protestant, I got it in my head that unity in Christianity would come about if people stopped caring about the specifics of the faith. For some reason, when I would read Christ’s high priestly prayer (Jn 17), the prayer he prayed for unity before his passion and death, the prayer “that they may be one, as I am one,” I thought to myself, if only those Catholics would stop being such sticklers on things that don’t matter, on things we cannot possibly know, maybe Christians could actually be one. It was so frustrating to me that Christians were divided. I thought I knew all there was to know about Catholics—that they were not true Christians. I know now that what I believed was out of ignorance. I really had no idea what true Catholicism was, and I had no idea they had the apostolic faith, the faith of the apostles, which I so deeply cared about and truly desired (and admittedly felt a lack of in my evangelical faith).

Praise be to God, He slowly revealed to me my ignorance on many things, and opened my eyes to truth. For a long time, I still believed Catholics had it all wrong, but when I noticed people who were genuinely searching for truth becoming Catholic, or the peace and love of many who already were Catholic, I started changing my tune. Maybe they do understand something. I had questions, and when questions continued to come, I eventually had to give in and investigate some more. Truth is like this. Truth comes to us and knocks on our door, but we must be willing to open the door and welcome truth into our lives. We will find it if we search for it. But we must be willing to search, even when the searching is uncomfortable and when answers lie in places we said they never could be. If God brings you to seek, look. Please, do not close your eyes in fear. To willfully remain ignorant is to block out the truth in which Christ meant for us to abide. And if we are to abide in Truth, and Christ in Truth, we must seek Truth—the whole of it.

I have always loved to ponder how the Church is the Body of Christ, but something I never thought about until recently is how our sin, our lack of love, adds to Jesus’ sufferings. This includes the division among us and our lack of care to really seek truth. As long as we are divided, as long as people do not seek unity and continue to close their eyes to truth because it may lie in that taboo place where it was said truth never could be, Jesus’ wounds lay open, bloody, and unattended.

One conception people have of Christian unity is that people forget the specifics of faith and come together on the “essentials.” But is this true unity? Is this what Jesus envisioned when He prayed we may be one, as He and the Father are one (Jn 17:22), when He prayed, “I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one [emphasis added]” (Jn 17:23)? I don’t think so. And honestly, how does anyone actually decide on the essentials? You can’t. Those who believe the Lord’s Supper is just a memorial, a remembering of Jesus’ passion and death, say what one believes about the Lord’s Supper is not essential. But for those who believe the bread and the wine really do become the Body and Blood of the Son given for us, of course this is essential. To say it is not is to betray Our Lord. Either it is or is not Jesus’ Body and Blood, and that matters.

St. Maximilian Kolbe wrote the following on Truth in one of the last pieces he wrote before he was taken away to Auschwitz, and it was possibly the cause for his arrest by the Nazis:

And so, if it is true that God exists, disbelievers who say that He does not are in error; on the other hand, if He did not exist, all those who profess any religion would be in error. Also if it is true that Jesus Christ is risen, then what He taught is true and it is true that He is God incarnate; yet if He had not risen, all Christian denominations would have no reason to exist.

Finally, if Jesus really turned to Peter with the words, “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church” [Mt. 16:18], and thus gave a sign on the basis of which everyone has the opportunity to easily recognize His Church in the midst of hundreds of different Christian churches, then only those who are in the universal, Catholic Church walk along the true path. And if they move toward God faithfully, following the teachings of the Church, they have the assurance of achieving eternal happiness and peace and joy even on this earth…

Acknowledging truth. No one can change any truth. One can only seek the truth, find it, acknowledge it, conform one’s life to it, walk on the path of truth in each matter, especially those concerning the ultimate purpose of life, one’s relationship with God, that is, the questions of religion. (KW 1246)

If you say the Catholic Church is wrong, find out why you believe it is wrong. See if your assumptions are actually true about the teachings of the Catholic Church. Get to know it as well as you know your own faith and beliefs. Once you have something real you are dealing with and not the strawman, then figure out whether the truth lies in the Catholic Church or in your own belief. Keep your eyes open, because truth is truth whether you want it to be or not. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll find it somewhere completely unexpected. Maybe, just maybe, the Catholic Church actually does hold the fullness of the faith, the fullness of the expression of love for Christ and His Body, the Church. Maybe, this very Church is where God meant for you to love Him and for Him to nourish you with His mercy and grace.

Most of all, seek Truth for love of Christ, our Savior. He gave up everything so that we might be united to Him and to one another in love. If He cares about truth, should not we as well? If He cares about His Bride, the Church, and is one with her, should not we submit to Him, our Head, and be one with his one, true church? He gave His Body for us—I think it is time we take seriously the wounds in His Body, wounds we have caused and wounds we bear by our division; look at these wounds and tend to them for love of Jesus, Our Lord.

Arriving at the Feast (Conversion Part III)

Following Parts One and Two…

Every few months, it seemed, my husband and I would express serious concern about being Lutheran—spiritual, theological, and historical—and we would talk and search for answers to our questions about Lutheranism, Catholicism, and Orthodoxy. It was intimidating to think about leaving Protestantism, which was much more comfortable and known to both of us, but nevertheless we desired to know what was true, whatever that would mean. Somehow our questioning would settle down and we would tell ourselves it was okay to stay Lutheran; however, the concerns we both raised never really went away, for something inevitably would bring back our same doubts and new ones months later. I distinctly remember hearing an Orthodox priest speak at our university in the fall of our senior year and leaving telling my husband, “We just cannot stay Lutheran. We have to become Catholic or Eastern Orthodox.” I do not remember any particular thing the priest said, except that I knew something truly was missing from our Lutheran faith that could not be ignored any longer.

The pressure was on to decide what to do. After my graduation in the winter, we were expecting our first child who we intended to baptize as a baby, so he would be baptized either Lutheran, Catholic, or Eastern Orthodox. Those first few months, we tried, really tried, to find all the reasons to stay Lutheran. We did not want to be people who grew dissatisfied with whatever place we were in, so we sought to find Lutheranism compelling, but something had changed. Any of the strengths Lutheranism claimed over Catholicism and Orthodoxy turned to straw and could not hold against the ancient Church. I even watched a lecture many Lutherans point to for a great apologetic against becoming Orthodox, thinking that would give me something to grapple with for a while. However, that had the opposite effect on me, leaving me more convinced that we must leave.

Lutherans pride themselves on consoling the conscience, but after hearing about conscience over and over again, all I could think was, “I don’t have faith so that my conscience can be consoled. I have faith because Christ offers Himself to me and I love Him; what ought my response be to Him?” There must be more to faith than simply trying to make me feel better in my last days, or there is not much to this faith at all. And anyway, anyone who says Eastern Orthodoxy or Catholicism cannot offer comfort to the dying does not understand Orthodox or Catholics.

When I read Max Weber’s work The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism for school, I had a moment when I was tempted to despair, because I was reading how much Protestantism changed and evolved over time, How could any of Protestantism be right? How could any of it be the true Church, the way Christ intended it? The changes in various denominations and their theologies and practices were all way too arbitrary; I could no longer take seriously Protestantism’s claim to truth.

While confessional Lutheranism was not as radical in its reforms, unlike much of the rest of Protestantism, I could not separate it from the rest. Luther was the one who sparked all the change, going far beyond reforming the Church when he broke away from her, removed books from the Biblical canon, changed words of Scripture, and developed his own theology. He broke away and set the trend for everyone else to go their separate ways—all compelled by their own subjective conscience.

All of this leads me to say that I realized the need for authority and unity in the Church, and this was to be found in the Catholic Church. I saw the unity in the Church among the great diversity within it in all the ways Catholic faith is expressed, from people like St. Francis of Assisi to St. Thomas Aquinas. The Catholic Church has saints, both ancient and modern, something totally lacking in Lutheranism which either did not recognize saints today or could not produce them, which was quite concerning to us. We loved also that the Church spans the whole world; we could go to mass nearly anywhere, worship with fellow Christians, and all be part of the same Mystical Body of Christ, the Church.

There are often a few typical barriers to those thinking about entering the Church. For some, Mary is one, but since learning more about how Catholics and Orthodox think about and venerate Mary a few years ago, I found devotion to Mary to be quite attractive. It made sense to me for Mary to be a focal person in one’s Christian life. She is one to emulate for her great love of Christ, and as one who is the temple of God, for she bore Him when she carried God in her womb.

As a Protestant, I was not entirely sure what to think about praying to Mary or of the Immaculate Conception, but once I read the Catholic catechism, things started to make sense, and I came to find these things not only beautiful, but very good and true, bearing fruit in the world now and throughout history. She is the new Eve who said “yes” to God and brought Life into the world rather than Death. We pray to her, because she is a mediator, going to God on our behalf as demonstrated in the Wedding at Cana. Why wouldn’t we want her, the Mother of God, to intercede for us? It is not that we cannot go to Christ Himself, but we are offered her as our Mother, again by Jesus Himself when he tells John, “Behold, your Mother” (Jn. 19:27) and Mary, “Woman, behold your son” (Jn. 19:26). She is Mother of the Church. Our Father in Heaven provides everything we need, including a Mother.

The other barrier is often purgatory, but if we believe we must truly become holy (as opposed to being declared holy), then God provides us with a place to be sanctified, to actually become holy, that we might see Him and not die.

My husband and I thought about all these things in our decision to come into full communion with the Catholic Church. We no longer wanted to be separated brethren, always comparing ourselves to the Catholics, looking in from the outside. We wanted the real thing, and we desired the faith passed down to us from Christ Himself. We desired the sacraments He instituted in the Church to sustain us here on earth until we meet Him in Heaven.

Christ has truly changed me upon embracing Him in the Church. Until I was actually in the Catholic Church, I had no idea just how rich the Catholic faith really is and how much I was missing. While evangelical, my desire for relationship with Christ was present, but there was no tangible way for this to be worked out, so I was left to try to feel love for Christ and know I had faith. While Lutheran, my love for the eucharist and Christ truly present in the world grew, but my prayer life was sorely lacking. Thus, an intimate relationship with Jesus faded along with any serious response to His call to total transformation into his likeness. How beautiful it is that God gives us the Church where we encounter Him, strengthening us and moving us to love.

Stuck in the Road… (Conversion Part II)

“Man could say nothing to God, nothing from God, nothing about God, except an almost inarticulate cry for mercy and for the supernatural help of Christ, in a world where all natural things were useless. Reason was useless. Will was useless. Man could not move himself an inch any more than a stone.” – G. K. Chesterton on Lutheranism, St. Thomas Aquinas

Continuing from Part One…

As an evangelical Christian, I developed a deep love and longing for Christ. Then as a confessional Lutheran, I had great desire for Christ who is truly present in the two sacraments—baptism and the eucharist. I fell in love with Christ in the world around me, and with new eyes, I was able to see the sacraments in Scripture. I even cultivated a new appreciation for the faith handed down in the Church throughout history. This was a step in my journey to the Catholic Church; however, the distance present between the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and the Catholic Church is great, far greater than I ever realized.

Lutherans insist that faith alone saves. Our sin is covered by Jesus’ sacrifice for us, and we receive his merits by his promise. When God sees us, He sees His Son who stands in for us. We may be able to do good works for our neighbors, but before God, our good works mean nothing. Anything and everything we do is tainted by sin; therefore, our personal efforts to grow in holiness are futile. Our will to be holy only shows us how terribly unholy we are. Therefore, our desire to be truly holy is sinful, for we try to accomplish something only Christ can do, and something He has already accomplished for us.

This is what Lutherans believe. Entering Lutheranism, I was quite attracted by the humility I saw in the so-called “theology of the cross,” as it seemed it did not sugarcoat the state of humanity or the world. Instead, I believed Lutheran theology saw us in our true state, enabling us to recognize just how profoundly we need Christ.

The effects, however, are not so profound. My understanding of sanctification became confused, because there was no room left for true progress in the spiritual life. The fruits were supposed to come naturally, because now that we were free of the need to please God, we could love Him and our neighbors freely. We did not bear the weight of responsibility to do good, but only took responsibility for the sin we committed. But without expectation of growth in holiness, the striving for holiness ceased. I grew comfortable in my state in life as a student, a wife, and a soon-to-be mother.

I was told every Sunday that what Jesus tells us to do is actually Him showing us we cannot do what He says; He is the only one who fulfills what He asks of us, so it is foolish and sinful of us to think we can fulfill what He says. With this in mind, I thought a lot about my faith, God’s mercy and forgiveness. When I sinned, I prayed and asked for God’s mercy, and thanked Him for his forgiveness. However, I was not in the watchful for areas in which I might grow in holiness; if something came to my attention, I half-heartedly tried to get better, but I knew I would sin again anyway. How could I ask for God to offer me grace to not sin again when I was taught I could not do anything without sinning before God? It was arrogant to seek perfection in Christ, so having grown accustomed to the Lutheran air I breathed, I settled—largely without my knowledge.

As a Lutheran, I really wanted to grow, but I did not know how to grow or what to pray. As a Lutheran, I wanted to read spiritual classics, but Lutheran spiritual classics are mostly nonexistent. I desired some practice or devotion to enrich my spiritual life, but it seemed Lutherans only boasted of praying the small catechism, which for me, seemed to be an intellectual exercise. What did, in fact, help me grow during my time as a Lutheran were prayers and teachings that were not, in fact, Lutheran. The Jesus prayer of the Eastern Church—“Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”—was (and still is) incredibly transforming for me. Taking seriously Jesus’ words to pray without ceasing, making this prayer one with my very breath, has immense depth. I could bring this prayer into my daily life, seeking Christ to transform my entire being into His. It captured my imagination and was beautiful to me.

And when I finally read parts of Theology of the Body from Pope Saint John Paul II, I was absolutely captured by its beauty and convinced of its truth. My husband and I embraced the teaching of the Catholic Church on marriage, sex, and family life. Though we had been exposed to this teaching earlier when we were engaged to be married, we were left to figure out what was right for ourselves, so we settled for what the world told us was “responsible.” No one gave us a definitive teaching about God’s will for sex and marriage when we most needed it.

I must say I am grateful to my Lutheran pastor and community for cultivating in me a love and desire for Christ in the sacraments and for fostering a love of the liturgy, helping me to understand the meaning of different elements of the liturgy, and for helping me to see that the liturgy is beautiful and demands reverence. Here, I developed a love of Christian art, such as icons, statues, and crucifixes, which all contributed to my reflection on Christ, on the Christian life, and on the cross. Even with all of that, though, my desire for life in Christ continued to point me elsewhere before Lutheranism’s time.

Check back for Part Three!

On the Road… (Conversion Part I)

The process of becoming Catholic took place over the course of at least four years, and it began much before I knew anything was beginning.

I was a very serious evangelical Christian, in love with the Lord and desiring to do whatever God asked of me. I knew God must come before anything and anyone else, so I took seriously the reading of Scripture, worship, and engagement in a community of Christians. I also took seriously the call to care for those in need, and I sought to involve myself in whatever ministries I could find, that I might serve Christ in those around me and others might see Jesus through me. There was an intense longing to encounter Christ and to know that I was doing His work at whatever cost.

When I entered my evangelical university, I found myself in a small classical liberal arts college in which we read Great Books and learned from professors of different Christian faith traditions. It was a place where we sought truth together and learned to understand one another and those we read on their own terms. So, when I learned from those professors and students who were everything in Protestantism—from evangelical to Presbyterian and Anglican—to Catholic and Orthodox, my world grew, as I encountered other Christians whose faith in practice looked much different than my own. People talked about the salvific nature of baptism, Mary, and purgatory, among other things, and I learned to understand that there was authentic faith in Christ that accompanied these flavors of Christianity so foreign to me.

During my studies, I searched the Scriptures and found myself with many questions. I asked myself, “What does it mean to have faith and to live that faith in Christ?” I remember sitting at a table with my boyfriend (now husband), finding myself in tears as I read Jesus’ words, because I simply did not know how I was to receive them. If I took Jesus at His word, was I saved? Did I really have faith? Fellow evangelicals had told me things like, “If you really have faith, you will live like you have faith,” but what did that look like? I did not know what Jesus expected of me. I prayed, and I read the Bible, and I went to church, but I still did not know what it meant to enter into the life and faith of the Church that was so close to Jesus. I felt so disconnected from the kind of faith given to the Apostles by Christ Himself, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I was missing it altogether.

When it came time to do a research project in my New Testament class my freshman year of college, I set out to understand something of the early church, and narrowed this down to how the Lord’s Supper was viewed in the first few centuries of the Church. I distinctly remember reading accounts of people risking their lives to take the consecrated bread and wine to those bound to their homes, and I thought to myself, “There is no way people were risking their lives like this, some dying, to bring the bread and wine to those stuck at home if it really is only to remember Jesus’ death.” I knew there had to be more to this than what I was told growing up. And I knew that, at the very least, if Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me,” we really must “Do this in remembrance of Him” every time we gathered. Why would we not take time out every week to remember Christ’s sacrifice for us? It simply did not make sense.

When I asked my pastor why communion was not offered every week, he responded that it was more special if it was only offered once a month; if it was offered every week, it would become routine, a ritual to get through. But if that was the reasoning, why go to church every week? And why sing songs every week? This was routine. Singing worship songs every week was a ritual, and people (myself included) did not always realize what they were singing. But nevertheless, we sang anyway, and we went to church, and this was good. This was important to Christian life, and my pastor, of course, encouraged weekly attendance at church. Unsatisfied, I was still left with the question, “Why not have communion every week?”

Looking at Scripture, I suddenly could not help but notice the language surrounding Jesus’ Body and Blood. For example, in John 6, if Jesus did not actuallymean that people must eat His Body and drink His Blood to have eternal life, then he let so many people walk away for nothing. This was not just a metaphor for Christ as our sustenance. Rather, Jesus meant we would actually eat and drink Him, and that was why it was such a problem when people were abusing the Lord’s Supper as Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 11. I could not understand why people would reject this beautiful gift of Jesus in the Lord’s Supper. I found that Protestants had numerous differing views on the eucharist, its importance varying across the myriad of denominations. Realizing this, I grew increasingly discontent with the typical evangelical interpretation of the Lord’s Supper. My frustrations grew as this gift was repeatedly tossed aside and mistreated.

This was the beginning of my end in Protestantism, and a key move towards my entrance into the Catholic Church. However, I did not go straight there, as I was still adamantly against the Catholic Church. First, I found myself becoming Lutheran in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, where we called ourselves Evangelical Catholics and thought ourselves to be more Catholic than Catholics themselves.

Part Two coming soon…

The Particularity of Love

Confession can be quite intimidating. Left to our own devices, we would avoid anything of the sort altogether. We do not like to think about our faults, let alone give ourselves ample time to think about our sins, and least of all to confess all our sins to another person. We do not want to do any of these things, and yet, these are the very things that breathe life into our souls. Why? Because preparation for confession and confession itself both prepare us to meet Christ and bring us to Christ Himself, the only person who can offer us forgiveness for our sins, the only person who can offer us new life.

Not only is confession good for us, but it offers us a profound understanding of just how incredibly personal God’s love is for us. Confession is about as personal as any experience can get. It is incredibly humbling to confess my sins out loud with my own voice with the knowledge that another person is listening with his own two ears. This particular person, this priest, will respond with his voice, asking if I am sorry, offering hope in the way of penance–something I can do to combat my sin and work against it–and say my sin is forgiven.

After I confess, I can attend mass and witness the same priest offer prayers for me and speak on behalf of Christ to me. I can go to the Lord’s Supper, the Eucharist, with great thanksgiving and in awe of the love God has for me, for this same priest who heard my confession now offers me the Bread of Life, the Body of Christ given up for me. The particularity of the priest reveals to me ever more clearly the particularity of the love of Jesus for me. The priest, in the stead of Christ, hears my sins, forgives my sins, and subsequently gives himself up for me out of love. Through the priest, Jesus looks on me with love and brings me to the Table to be with him, that I might be with him evermore.

What a beautiful thing it is that Jesus knows our every sin and still desires reconciliation with us. He knows our sins, and He still draws us near to Him. He knows us; yet, He looks on us with love. What a gift it is that God offers us priests who offer us Himself in this way. Let us pray for our priests and for more shepherds who will bear the love of Christ to His flock.