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.

Coming Close to Mary

Since my consecration to Mary late this summer, I have been trying to understand what consecration to Mary really means. What does it mean to come close to Jesus through Mary? Thanks to the Militia of the Immaculata, I had some really good resources when I was preparing for consecration to begin to understand, in the spirit of Saint Maximilian Maria Kolbe, what it means to find the Way, the Truth, and the Life–that is, Christ–with Mary. It has been said that when you consecrate yourself to Mary, you often do not know the weight of what you are doing until much later, and it seems this is true. No one could possibly understand the great mystery of what it means to be a daughter or son of the Mother of God. I think I will continually be coming into a fuller realization of what it means to be totally hers.

I do not think I understood how much I needed a spiritual mother until I finally realized she is with me, always loving me, helping me fight this spiritual battle on earth to love and to win souls for Jesus. It is a peculiar thing how many Christians acknowledge emphatically the need for both a father and a mother in a physical family on earth, but when it comes to our spiritual family, we think we have no need of a mother. We are fearful of this mother detracting attention from her Son (but, honestly, when is this ever the case in real life?), so we throw this mother, the very Mother of God, out the door of our lives, or at most, let her stand just inside the door without ever acknowledging she is there.

Several weeks ago, when my husband and I knew the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception was coming up, we wanted to return to our consecration to Mary, so we read some more of Saint Maximilian Maria Kolbe who brought us to love Mary. Reading what he had to say about living one’s consecration to Mary was nourishment to my soul, for he opened a door in prayer to draw closer to my  Mother, in whose care and by whose intercession has brought me healing in her Son, Christ. Always, she is bringing me to see the personal love He poured out for me and for the whole world. Always, she leads me to Jesus in a way I never could have done on my own.

Saint Maximilian said something that has been key now in understanding my relationship to Mary and to God. Mary is my advocate, my intercessor, constantly going to her Son on my behalf, just as she did at the Wedding at Cana. And when I go to Jesus, I have my Mother at my side to guide me and help me. St. Maximilian said that while we can go to Jesus or the Holy Trinity directly, we should not go without Mary, especially since to go without her is often a sign of pride in us, which only keeps us from the will of God (Mediation 18). I am so small, so little – who am I to go to my Lord at all, especially on my own? But our Lord, our God, humbled Himself, emptied Himself in the womb of a poor virgin and mother, through whom He entered the world as a babe. We can go to Jesus directly, but we do not have to go alone. We have His Mother, who is God’s perfect creation, the new Eve who said yes to God, becoming the spouse of the Holy Spirit, the Woman in whom the Son of God was formed and took flesh. Because we are sons and daughters of God the Father and brothers and sisters in Christ, we also are spiritual sons and daughters of God’s mother who wants nothing more than to love us and to help us to get to know her Son more closely, helping us to love Him. Jesus holds nothing back from us. All that is His becomes ours, including His mother, through whom we come close to Him, through whom we get to know more fully Christ’s will which is the will of the Father. 

With Mary, let us await with expectation the coming of Christ, our Savior. Let us, with Elizabeth, exclaim “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Lk. 1:42-43).