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.

The Incarnation and Choosing to be Thankful

Maybe it is that Thanksgiving came and Advent is coming, but I have been realizing just how ungrateful I have been and, in light of that, how much more I must remember Christ’s incarnation.

I often want to perfectly curate my situation and my daily schedule to what I think I need in this season of my life, but in fact it is only me trying to get what I want from my life right now. God has given me the life I have in this moment and I must submit to all of it–its particular work and people, and when these things do not change, I must be obedient and faithful to what God has given me to do. Not everything I do will feel rewarding or particularly invigorating, but the fact of the matter is I have been given certain things in my life to do that God actually wants me to do–joyfully and with thanksgiving and love–because they join me to Christ and more fully enable me to love.

God gives us the grace to live holy lives in each moment, and to reject certain moments or to live those moments with contempt is to reject His will and to hate what He has given me to strengthen and to teach me. He reveals Himself to us in every moment, in every season, and when I am ungrateful, I reject the ways in which He reveals Himself to me in my life in this moment.

Every time I complain, I forget Christ. I forget that He suffered in the flesh, and that He, too, participated in the work of the day and the keeping and running of a home. He grew up in a home and He worked as a carpenter. He participated in daily life and He loved perfectly. For only three years at the end of his life on earth did he begin his public ministry. For three years Jesus taught us what it is to love God and one another and He demonstrated it in His life and His love towards others. He taught and He loved–we see it in His public ministry, but He was already doing this perfectly in his quiet, hidden life at home and in His work.

Jesus lived a life of obedience to the will of the Father in every situation, in every season of His life. He was obedient and showed great humility in becoming even a child in the womb of a poor young woman. He grew and He loved and He worked and He lived the life of a faithful Jew in a faithful Jewish family. He taught the people and He fed the hungry and He healed the sick, and when it was time He faced death, though He asked for another way if it be the Father’s will, yet was obedient to death on a cross and the great suffering that led up to that death. He rose again and told Thomas to put his hand in His wound, in His very risen body.

In dwelling on what I want to happen now in my life, I forget all I have already been given, and I forget the incarnation of Christ who, humbling Himself, became a baby in the womb of His mother and grew and became a man. God is not unfamiliar with life and death on earth; he is not unfamiliar with humanity. He knows what it means to have a body and a soul, and to labor to sustain life–both His own and those in His care. In each season of His life, Jesus was faithful and obedient to His Father. He was not rushing for what was not yet to come, and He did not hesitate or hide from what was to come in an effort to have what was gone. Jesus embraced what was given Him and loved in the midst of every moment, even and especially in the midst of His sufferings.

Let us embrace what God has given us to do, no matter what the task, for in being given these things, God grants us humility and grace–the humility to know our weakness and to confess our sin, and the grace to, by his power, overcome sin and be strengthened by our weakness. We can offer our suffering, no matter how small or how seemingly petty, to God, and ask Him to use our suffering to join us to His Son. I am really trying to get better at this, and whenever I am tempted to complain about something, I must remember Jesus and offer myself and all I do for love of Him, remembering that what I do joins me to Him in His incarnation. My life partakes in the Life of God.

Oh my Jesus, I offer this for love of Thee, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the immaculate heart of Mary.

A Feast for Life

Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Lord, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.” (John 6:32-36 RSV-2CE)

The transformative power of Christ in the sacraments, particularly in the eucharist, never ceases to amaze me. Here, we enter into the life of Christ, his suffering and death, his life and resurrection. We die with Him, and we raise with Him. Our lives are bound up in His, and we are wholly changed as a result.

Not only are we actually changed, but the world around us is transformed, offered for the gift of God’s grace.

In her essay, “The Prayer of the Church,” Saint Edith Stein conveys with beauty just how the Lord’s Supper brings all things into union with Christ, making all things new. She writes:

Blessing and distributing bread and wine were part of the Passover rite. But here both receive an entirely new meaning. This is where the life of the church begins. Only at Pentecost will it appear publicly as a Spirit-filled and visible community. But here at the Passover meal the seeds of the vineyard are planted that make the outpouring of the Spirit possible. In the mouth of Christ, the old blessings become life-giving words. The fruits of the earth become his body and blood, filled with his life. Visible creation, which he entered when he became a human being, is now united with him in a new, mysterious way. The things that serve to sustain human life are fundamentally transformed, and the people who partake of them in faith are transformed too, drawn into the unity of life with Christ and filled with his divine life. The Word’s life-giving power is bound to the sacrifice. (8)

The Son of God became incarnate for us that He would redeem humanity and the whole world. He became flesh and blood for us; His Body and His Blood are our very life. The Passover meal points to Christ, who is the fulfillment of the sacrificial meal. It is as Jesus said: “my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world” (John 6:32-33 RSV-2CE). Jesus is that true bread which comes down from heaven from the Father, for He continues, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst” (John 6:26 RSV-2CE). He draws us to Himself and we are united to Him in whom we have true life. As the bread and the wine become His Body and Blood, all of creation is brought into His sacrifice, offered for His glory and for the life of the world! Truly, this is the work of God, the miracle He offers to sustain us every day of our lives here on earth; the miracle in which we partake as we are joined with Him at the feast of the Lamb, when we eat His Body and drink His Blood and become one with Him in the sacrifice.

In this feast, gifts are offered and received, and offered back for the glory of God. God calls us to true communion with Him through the incarnation of His Beloved Son. How are we to respond but with wonder and thanksgiving? Again and again, we are shown mercy and offered grace at the altar. Again and again, we behold the Son of the Living God and are offered True Life that we might go and sin no more, that we might live lives worthy of the abundant grace He offers us. Let us say “yes” with Mary as the Word of God comes to us and makes His home with us to bring us Home with Him. With Mary, let us bear Christ for the life of the world.

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