Farewell to a Brother Pilgrim

image

This past Thursday morning, one of my dearest friends and brother pilgrims, Sam Campbell III, passed away.

I met Sam some ten years ago during my travels on LiveJournal, as a fellow Christian journeying on this road. Over the years we grew close, sharing in some of the same struggles, grappling with temptations, and grasping for an intellectual understanding and faith in God, and for His peace. Sam has been one of the gentlest, humblest, most caring souls I’ve ever encountered. He has looked out for me. From time to time, particularly if I’d gone silent from the online world for a while, he would drop me a line to ask if I was okay, to let me know he was thinking of me and praying for me. We’ve shared a love for Star Trek, Tolkien, hobbits, Linux, and so many other things; I could always be sure he would get my wry jokes and references. I never got a chance to meet him in person, but I felt as if I knew him so well: he was always there close by.

Sam was deaf and blind, and experienced so many sufferings in this life, but I never heard him complain. This week as we reflect on the Passion of our Lord, I’m reminded how willingly and patiently Sam took up the cross he had been given; how freely he gave of himself and made sacrifices for the sake of love, moving halfway across the country to become a loving husband to his wife Noelle, and a father to her two children. He was a good man, one of the best men I’ve ever known. I loved him a lot, and I’m going to miss him terribly.

I remember this week, too, that in the suffering and death of our Lord — though wrenching, painful, and sad — He purchased Resurrection and eternal life for those who trust in Him. Parting with those we love is sorrowful, but death from this life is but for a moment — the road goes ever on and on. Farewell for now, Sam. I look forward to the day when our paths will cross again.

Requiescat in pace, frater peregrine. Vale, dum coeamus iterum die illa.

Your Sacred Heart within me beating

Sacred Heart of Jesus, by Smith Catholic Art

Sacred Heart of Jesus, by Smith Catholic Art (prints available).

I have other things to do today [insert other usual disclaimers which I then go on to ignore], but my dear friend Laura of Catholic Cravings and my new friend Ryan of the Back of the World are inaugurating their splendid new effort, O Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, and tomorrow, by my reckoning, being the First Friday of September, I wanted to be a part of their first First Friday Linkup, in which we all blog about the same thing, our Lord’s most Sacred Heart. Since Laura lives on the other side of the world (I’m not sure which side is the rear end?), and we are going by her clock, it will be First Friday by the time I finish writing this post.

First Friday Linkup (OMostSacredHeart.com)

The suggested topic for this month is “How did [I] first learn about the Sacred Heart?” In order to be brief, for the sake of their readers as well as my other-things-to-do, I will do my best to constrain myself to that. This will be a little of a rambling journey, I’m afraid, and as a further word of warning, I almost always have more to say than I mean to, or than anybody wants to read!

Growing up in evangelical circles, having little knowledge of the Catholic Church but having occasional, cultural brushes with it, I had heard of this “Sacred Heart” thing. Churches were named after it, and I had encountered the artwork of Jesus revealing His heart, especially in an area with a growing Hispanic population — but I never had any idea what any of that meant. And then one day — perhaps as one of the last important signposts to my Catholic journey, when I still had no idea I was on a Catholic journey, no intention at all of becoming Catholic — it gripped me.

audrey-assad-this-house-you're-building

It was the very first week of grad school, in my new apartment in a new place. I was feeling the stirrings of a new call to faith, and was wrapped up in searching for churches to visit, to finally find where I belonged. I did visit the Catholic Church during that time, but had found it offputting and dismissed it; I’ll tell that story before too long. Browsing around on the website of a Christian book and music seller, a new artist jumped out at me: Audrey Assad. I’m not even positive that I knew she was Catholic before I bought her CD. She was nerdy-cute, and a singer-songwriter, and I had a new friend named Audrey (who is Catholic), and that was probably enough to reel me in.

And in the very first track on the CD, it took me aback:

And for Love of You, I’m a sky on fire
And because of You, I come alive
And it’s Your Sacred Heart within me beating
Your voice within me singing out,
For Love of You,
O for Love of You.

I froze in what I was doing. I literally heard it in capital letters: Your Sacred Heart within me beating. That’s something Catholic, I thought. And I felt my own heart beating; my hand on my chest; the blood rushing to my head. Is Your Sacred Heart beating within me, Jesus?

I had never thought of the Heart of Jesus that way before. Sure, of course, Jesus had come to live in my heart. But was His Heart beating within me? — His love for all the world? Did I have the Heart of Jesus?

(If I hadn’t already known it, I quickly confirmed in the liner notes of the CD: the lyric printed as Your Sacred Heart. Audrey Assad is a Catholic convert, raised in a Protestant household and coming to the Church at age 19. And please, my brothers and sisters, pray with Audrey — who is of Syrian descent — and with Pope Francis, and with the whole Church, for peace in Syria and in the Middle East.)

O'Donnell, Heart of the Redeemer

It would still be another six months before I would be drawn back to the Catholic Church, nudged by the local Audrey. But that moment would always stay with me. On one of my thrifting adventures within the next year or so, I ran across a wonderful book on the theological and scriptural and mystical foundations of devotion to the Sacred Heart: Heart of the Redeemer by Timothy T. O’Donnell, through Ignatius Press — so I had no doubt that it would be good. Contrary to what some have asserted, devotion to the Heart of Jesus has a firm and deep grounding in Scripture itself, which, upon learning and studying it, captured my whole mind and heart, and brought me to fall in love with Jesus all over again, with His Heart — which, I pray, may ever beat within me.

I have so much more to share about my Lord and His Sacred Heart! Thank you, Laura and Ryan, for the opportunity!

Twelve Reasons I Love Resurrection Chapel

Resurrection Chapel, at Morris Chapel

Resurrection Chapel, at Morris Chapel.

This is a post I’ve been thinking of for a little while. Here are a few reasons why I love my new parish, Resurrection Chapel:

  1. My connection: The sudden revelation of a deep, historical connection with the church here — one that God knew I would appreciate and be attracted by — lit my path here, and reminds me that He is guiding my steps. Just this past week, I discovered yet another connection: my mom’s closest cousin Dana is a dear friend of Rick Chenault our parish director and Peggy his wife.

  2. The building: Not only is the church building a lovely and cozy place, but I learned this past weekend that it is apparently built around the church’s original log structure, founded in ca. 1852 and moved here from the church’s original location a few miles down the road. When I go to church, I am standing not merely in the same locale, but in the same building and the same spot as my ancestors. It makes me giddy to think of.

  3. The name — Resurrection — is apt on so many levels. This parish signifies the rebirth of Catholicism in this area, which was actually the location of the first Catholic church in what became the Diocese of Birmingham. It is the calling back to the Church of so many lapsed Catholics who have been away from the Sacraments. It is the rising again of a vibrant church on this spot, where a Methodist congregation flourished for so many years. It stands alongside an old country cemetery, where so many faithful Christians are resting in the hope of a glorious resurrection.

  4. The very idea of a rural parish appeals to everything I love — to my Southern, agrarian, hobbitish ideals. We are pioneering the Church at its frontier, delving into an area darkened not only by the recession of Catholicism but among so many, of Christianity in general. We are bearing the torch of the Gospel and the light of Christ’s love where no Catholic has gone before, or at least not in a very long time.

  5. hobbit church

    But not small like this hobbit church.

  6. It is small, like me. I have a hard time in a big place. I was going to Mass at the parish most local to me for months before I even spoke to anybody or anybody spoke to me. I felt lost in the crowd, swallowed hole, overwhelmed. But I set foot in Resurrection Chapel and immediately people saw me and greeted me. Mr. Rick* welcomed me warmly and invited me back, and a dozen or more people introduced themselves after Mass. I felt love, and connection, and fellowship, from the very first moments, when those are things that have always come so hard for me. I don’t fault the people of the larger parish at all: it’s not a failure to love; just a failure of the dynamic of a large parish, and of me to reach out and take the connection that would be there if I did.

  7. * I never know what to call Rick. It feels so cold to just call him “Rick,” after all he does for us and for the parish. Being Catholic necessitates a new set of terms of endearment. I can’t call him “Brother Rick,” as per my Evangelical inclination, because he’s not a brother in any order. I can’t call him “Pastor,” because he’s not a priest, and that’s not a title he claims. “Mister” will have to do for the time being, until I can call him “Deacon.”

  8. Following from that point, the people in general. It’s not just any people who would reach out to me in the way these have. They are so loving and welcoming and full of charity in a way that does go beyond so many other churches. My dearest friends at St. John’s, found over the course of so many months, can compare. And here, after just a few weeks, I feel fully a part of their family.

    They have made some additions since this photo was taken, but it still has the distinct feel of a country Methodist church inside. Also, it's not easy to retrofit Methodist pews with kneelers.

    They have made some additions since this photo was taken, but it still has the distinct feel of a country Methodist church inside. Also, it’s not easy to retrofit Methodist pews with kneelers.

  9. Opportunities for ministry: Part of it, I guess, is that I was just a baby Catholic when I was at St. John’s (in so many ways, I still am), but from the very beginning here, I’ve been offered the chance to minister for the Lord. Mr. Rick asked almost immediately to be thinking about any ways I would like to minister: as a lector, or an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion, or anything else. I am still a neophyte! I feel so unworthy. But this past Sunday, I was given the opportunity to present the gifts — something that has always been such an important part of the liturgy for me. And my dear new friends Leo and Harriet have welcomed me so warmly as a helper in the RCIA class. And Mr. Rick invited me to be a part of a meeting of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, which is truly doing God’s work in our community of ministering to the poor and hurting, the very first time I came to Mass.

  10. There are certainly many downsides of not having a dedicated priest as pastor in our parish, but I also value the upside: I can get to know many priests. I have already met half a dozen or more dear priests on a personal level, and that is so valuable to me in my growth as a Catholic.

  11. It’s a bit of a drive to get there — something I have really missed for so long, living in a small town like Oxford and especially now living at home. Time alone in the car, to revel in the open road, if only for a few miles and minutes, time to listen to my podcasts and my music, and to decompress and destress, is so precious to me. And I love Lawrence County and love going there and should go much more often.

  12. Resurrection Chapel, with altar rails

  13. Altar rails! ‘Nuff said. But the traditional mode of taking Communion, of reverencing our Lord in the Eucharist and receiving him humbly, is to kneel. And we didn’t build these — they came with the church, a gift from the Methodists. I know God saw us coming, and prepared this place for us.

  14. Miracles: God is at work here. It shows in everything we do. But it especially shows in several miracles I heard about this past weekend. Especially this: A woman, eaten up with cancerous tumors and given not long to live, was prayed for and anointed with oil, and on her next CT scan, her tumors had begun to shrivel up. On the next scan after that, they were completely gone. That was a year or two ago, and she is still healthy. Another one I heard about may not be for public consumption, and I might be forgetting something else.

  15. And most of all, I love the great miracle the Holy Spirit gives to us each week, the Eucharist. I love that Christ comes to meet us in the flesh, in His Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity. I love the intimate communion Holy Communion brings, made all the more intimate by sharing it with people I know and care for and can truly commune with. I love that Christ is in our midst, in His Church, and this in every parish on earth, anywhere I go.

Blog of the Year

I hate the crate

How would you like it if someone picked you up kicking and screeching and stuffed you in a crate?

Please bear with me, friends. Last week I moved out of my apartment and back home to Alabama, my graduate coursework being at an end and it being expedient for the completion of my thesis. My whole life has been taken apart and put in boxes, and I’m now faced daily with the disconcerting feeling of not knowing where the things I need are. It’s going to take a little time to settle back in.

In the meantime, I am deeply honored and humbled to accept from Jessica her award as one of the Blogs of the Year. I strive to teach and to share the beauty and truth of the Catholic faith with anyone who might happen to stop by, and it’s gratifying to be recognized by someone with such an admirable blog as she. I thank her deeply and kindly for what an encouragement she has been to me.

I don’t understand all the rules that are supposed to go with this award. The only thing that really matters to me is thanking and recognizing the one who nominated me for the award, and passing it along to someone else. She named three people; I am also going to name three people, mostly because the two blogs to which I’m most inclined to give the award, the ones that have meant the most to me this year, have already received it: Jessica’s All Along the Watchtower and Laura’s Catholic Cravings.

watchtower

Every day Jessica or her brother (in the Lord, and by marriage) Chalcedon451 posts some illuminating reflection on faith or history. The Watchtower (not to be confused with this Watchtower) blesses me daily, either with the sheer radiance and beauty of her thoughts and observations, from the point of view of a Catholic-leaning Anglican, or with the piercing brilliance and depth of his knowledge of history and the Church. Jessica is also my most faithful commenter and encourager here, and her blog and her friendship mean very much to me.

El Greco, Christ Carrying the Cross (c. 1578)

She also posts a lot of beautiful artwork. Christ Carrying the Cross (c. 1578), by El Greco.

Laura’s Catholic Cravings is also a blog that blesses me as often as she posts. She, like me, is a recent convert to the Catholic Church, and I have gained a lot of insight into my own conversion by following along the road with her as she has recounted it, as well as purely enjoying the journey. She has a way of formulating and ordering thoughts and arguments for Protestants in favor of Catholicism, succinctly and sharply, yet gently, that I can only hope to emulate. She is also always full of lovely observations and connections and a ready and delightful wit. She posts a lot of beautiful paintings, too, and I like to think hers is a sister blog to mine, as I’m glad to have found in her a friend and sister in the Lord.

Benjamin Morgan Palmer

Benjamin Morgan Palmer.

Okay, hmmm — one more? There are many to choose from. I think I’m going to pick one I’ve just recently discovered, that has amazed me and inspired me: Southern Reformation, whose author is known pseudepigraphically as Benjamin Palmer. He is perhaps the most hard-core of all the hard-core Presbyterians I have ever met, bearing a passion and dedication that is delightful and invigorating to see. So being, he is also less than friendly to Catholicism, but he has nonetheless been friendly and welcoming to me, in Christian love and Southern hospitality. I do not know his whereabouts, but any fellow Southerner, as well as a brother in the Lord, is a friend of mine. He is a brilliant scholar and theologian, armed with a knowledge of Greek and Hebrew that puts my amateurish pickings to shame, and a sharp and critical mind to discover error and see the truth. It is plain to see his love and devotion for the Lord and for His Church: I can only pray that he might examine his preconceptions and find that the Catholic Church serves the same Lord and is a part of His Church also. 😉

Hmm, and there was something about collecting stars (?):

Blog of the Year Award 1 star jpeg

I think you’re supposed to add a star every time you receive this award? I guess that means Jessica and Laura can both add a star.

Oh, and there’s another thing: exciting news and a post that’s rushing out of the barrel — soon. Stay tuned!

One in Christ, but not a Visible Unity: A Thought on Christian Love and Reunification

Hans Memling, Christ Giving His Blessing (1481)

Christ Giving His Blessing (1481), by Hans Memling. (WikiPaintings.org)

In talking to a dear friend the other night, who is a new Christian, I realized that sometimes my complaints about Protestants and Protestant theology can be taken in the wrong spirit. (Sometimes I fear they’re made in the wrong spirit.)

My friend was confused and worried that in my lashing out against “Protestants,” I was speaking to her. Let me first say this: I believe that all people who call on the name of Jesus, who believe He is the Son of God, who believe He died for our sins are was raised from the dead that we might be, too — all people who affirm the core and fundamental truths of the Christian faith, as stated in the three ecumenical creeds of the Church (the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed) — can rightfully call themselves Christians and can be saved. All we Christians of particular doctrines have many disagreements about finer points of theology, even about who is saved and how one is saved, but we agree on this: Christ is our Savior, and we are saved solely by God’s grace. We have all been baptized into the one Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12‒13) — in a real sense, we are all One in Him.

El Greco, St. Paul and St. Peter

St. Paul and St. Peter (c. 1595), by El Greco. (WikiPaintings.org)

That said, I have come to the conviction that the Roman Catholic Church is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church that Christ founded (Matthew 16:18) — a visible Church, that the world can see and identify. I do believe that those many Christians — in particular meaning Protestants — who are outside that visible Church are at a disadvantage, lacking some essential doctrines and especially the integrity guaranteed by apostolic succession and the means of grace in the Sacraments — but I affirm, with the Church, that Protestant churches carry elements of Christ’s Truth and His sanctification and can bear souls to Him for salvation (Second Vatican Council, 1964, Unitatis redintegratio 3.2).

I believe it’s gravely wrong that we have created such division in Christ’s Church, His Spotless Bride. I pray every day that God will reunite the Church; that He will help us find reconciliation with each other and heal our ancient wounds and gashes. I pray that through my blog I might lead others toward that reconciliation, or toward the convictions I myself have reached about the Catholic Church.

But even more important than that — infinitely more important than that — I pray and long that people may find Christ and know Him, by whatever avenue they find Him. If you find truth in my blog, I hope and pray above all that it’s the truth and the love of Christ. Finding His love and His grace is more precious than any fine point of doctrine: for as the Pharisees, I can be knowledgeable and orthodox and right about doctrine and practice, and yet entirely miss the point: it’s love. I could memorize the Catechism backward and forward; attend Mass every day of the year; fast and do penance to the point of utter mortification — and yet if I didn’t have love, I would have nothing and be nothing (1 Corinthians 13).

The Vatican over the Tiber

So if you find a place where you can meet Jesus, where His love lives and is lived, where you are loved and nurtured and find faith and grace and healing — stay there: especially if you are a baby Christian. If you find I am speaking the truth about history and doctrine and practice — if you come to believe with me that the Catholic Church is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic one — don’t feel, unless the Holy Spirit compels you, that you’re expected to immediately jump the ship you’re on and swim the Tiber. I’d much rather you stay in the loving and nurturing and edifying place God has brought you than make this arduous quest before you’re ready. I would much rather plant confederates all throughout the Body of Christ, who are convinced of the truth of the Church and the necessity of reconciliation and reunification, who might influence others from the inside to lay aside old prejudices, who might urge the Church, from where they are, toward reunion, than have anybody break ties with their Christian brothers and sisters and strike out alone.

I pray that we might all one day break bread together again. But until then, love God, love your neighbor, and strive to be transformed by that love.

Off the map

(It’s been months since I last posted an entry in my personal story. That’s because this next chapter is one of the most painful, and most personal. I was nearly inclined to skip over it — but it’s an important prelude to the events that followed. I’ve written three or four entries and discarded each as insufficient. Yesterday I wrote another one, what I thought was the final one — but it still felt too distant, too detached. So last night I read about a year of my journal entries from that period, and remembered the agony. I think now I’m ready.)

“Desert Road” (2008) by Matt Hintsa. (Flickr, CC-licensed)

My experiences in Rome had woken me from my spiritual apathy, and reminded me that there was a God who loved me. I knew in my mind that I needed Him. I set about, in my own striving, to seek Him. But I was still too caught up in myself — my life, my needs, my pain, my wounds — to truly embrace Christ’s.

I believed I was seeking God, but I was looking for fulfillment, for salvation, in the wrong places: in friends, in girls, in acceptance, in personal satisfaction. I bounced from one infatuation to the next with beautiful, godly women who weren’t the least bit interested in me. Time and time again I dashed my own heart against the rocks of heartbreak. All the while I was striving so desperately for love, when I didn’t even know what love was; I only knew selfishness. All the while I was seeking completion, the missing piece to my heart, when that could only be found in God.

Near New Market

“Near New Market,” by author. Taken on one of these wanderings.

It was a time of increasing restlessness. Some deep discontent was always boiling just beneath my skin. Most of the time I couldn’t put a finger on why — was I worried about money? about school? about my singleness? about the future? So often I would just get in the car and drive, not knowing where I was going — I just needed to get away.

This was the Baptist leg of my wandering road, almost by accident. I knew I needed to get back in church, but I couldn’t make up my mind where to start, or move myself to visit someplace where I didn’t know anybody. And then, thinking it might be a chance to get closer to some or another girl, I found myself in the Baptist church.

The Southern Baptist faith is the most deeply and essentially southern flavor of Christianity there is. It is the archetypical church in the southern mind, the kind of religion most people think of if you don’t specify otherwise. And so it was comfortable and safe. I liked the pastor and his preaching, and I liked the worship. But over the months I was in that church, I increasingly felt alone and out of place. Being about twenty-six years old, I was a part of the “adult singles” ministry; but I was the youngest person there by easily ten years. Every other “adult single” was older, divorced or widowed, with kids and a career. I, too old for the “college” ministry but still in school, never married, without a job or family of my own — had none of the concerns of these other people. In fact, there were few people in that church my age at all. It dawned on me more and more that they had no real place for me there. I felt disheartened and trapped.

Meanwhile, I had a blog in which I had come to invest an unhealthy degree of my self-worth. I posted every day, hoping someone would read me and validate me.* It was the golden age of LiveJournal, and I was one of those people. I had discovered a circle of blogfriends who were young (younger than me), educated, intellectual Christians who’d grown up with an evangelical persuasion but were searching for something deeper. The looming question for each of them was whether to convert to Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy — and I believe every one of these people eventually did become one or the other. I admired them all a great deal — I longed for an intellectual faith like theirs more than anything — but having no foundation in theology or doctrine, I couldn’t follow their arguments or post anything intelligent in response. I felt like the lonely little kid chasing after the gang, eagerly wanting to play with the big kids, but left behind and left out every time. Oh, how I tried so hard to impress them — to be noticed; to be accepted — but just as I had always felt in my youth group growing up — for entirely the opposite reason — I felt an outsider.

* Now you see why I’ve been so concerned with blogging humbly.

There was one blogfriend in particular whom I considered an especially close friend — and then one day, she was gone. She dropped me from her friends list (ah, LJ drama!) and stopped answering my messages. In retrospect, I was entirely too dependent on my blogfriends for my self-esteem and emotional support, and letting go was the best thing for me in the long run; but at the time, I was fairly devastated. I searched and searched for reasons for this rejection, and the unfortunate conclusion I drew was that intellectual Christians, especially those inclined toward Catholicism and Orthodoxy, were arrogant, condescending snobs with whom I wanted nothing more to do.† I allowed the trauma to turn me away from Catholicism, from several favorite TV shows and books this friend and I had shared, even from C. S. Lewis, whom I associated with thinking Christians and this friend in particular. I didn’t take up any of those things again for a good four or five years. And so I came to associate Catholicism, even more than I had before, with coldness, rigor, and emptiness.

† In fact, as I later learned, the reason was that she had realized how unhealthy this sort of thing was for both of us.

Already unhappy and disillusioned with the church I was attending, I turned away from God in anger. My nascent search for a church that “fit me” — my first attempts to delve into Christian theology and thought — had brought me nothing but pain. I felt utterly rejected, utterly alone, even though my true friends were with me all along. My faith had been shallow, selfish, immature, and poorly rooted: I was the seed sown on stony ground that sprang up vividly, but met with affliction, withered away. If church had failed me yet again — what else was out there? Shaking off what I thought were shackles, I aimed to find out.

That was six, nearly seven years ago. For the first time in my life, I entered truly uncharted territory — a world not constrained by my Christian faith, which I left in tatters, flapping helplessly in the wind. Over the next months, I charged further and further away, deeper and deeper into the unknown. I hope I never go the places I went again.

But God was always there. By my Baptism, I was a Christian: one with the Body of Christ. And He still had plans for me. He wasn’t going to let me go so easily.

The Year of Faith

Today begins the Catholic Church’s Year of Faith, proclaimed by Pope Benedict as “a summons to an authentic and renewed conversion to the Lord, the one Savior of the world.” It’s a time for the study and teaching of the Christian faith and for dedication to the New Evangelization. I invite all believers to join me in these aims, and non-believers to seek and ask questions (even critically). I know I have a lot to learn, too; and I am looking forward to a year committed to delving deeper and deeper into the faith.

Pope Benedict’s apostolic letter proclaiming the Year of Faith, Porta fidei, is a wonderfully edifying and uplifting read. This section in particular stood out to me:

During this time we will need to keep our gaze fixed upon Jesus Christ, the ‘pioneer and perfecter of our faith’ (Hebrews 12:2): in him, all the anguish and all the longing of the human heart finds fulfilment. The joy of love, the answer to the drama of suffering and pain, the power of forgiveness in the face of an offence received and the victory of life over the emptiness of death: all this finds fulfilment in the mystery of his Incarnation, in his becoming man, in his sharing our human weakness so as to transform it by the power of his resurrection. In him who died and rose again for our salvation, the examples of faith that have marked these two thousand years of our salvation history are brought into the fullness of light.

Faith and Love

Giotto, Christ Washing the Disciples' Feet

Christ Washing the Disciples’ Feet, by Giotto (c. 1305), Scrovegni Chapel, Padua.

For the past little while, since I’ve been engaging with hostile Protestants, I’ve been increasingly troubled. Because to my Protestant-steeped brain, their reading of the Apostle Paul sounds correct—the way I’ve been raised up to read him. I’ve struggled to read the Catholic idea of “justification through faith plus works” in his thought (even though I know this is a Protestant misrepresentation), and aside from the few verses I’ve explicated, it has been disturbingly difficult. What if we Catholics have Paul wrong? What if Luther was right? What if he really does mean sola fide, justification by faith alone?

At the same time, I’ve been more comfortable with our reading of Saint James and of Jesus Himself; and I’ve recalled the charge I’ve heard all my academic life, that Paul preached a different Gospel than Christ. I’ve never believed that. Both Catholics and Protestants find ways to read Scripture to make it appear internally consistent to themselves; it certainly is possible. But it is very clear that Paul was thinking along different lines than either Jesus or James; he was confronting different problems. Jesus never propounded anything resembling justification by faith alone. It is very clear that Protestants, particularly the Reformed variety, emphasize Paul and sola fide to the exclusion of all other interpretations; they force Jesus and James into their own framework of sola fide. They likewise accuse us of the same thing, of forcing Paul into our framework of “works’ righteousness.”

I’ve been writing recently and vehemently that the Catholic Church does not teach “works’ righteousness”—that it is through our works, done by the grace of God, that we are saved, not by our works, done in our own power (see Philippians 2:12-13). God working in us, through our works, justifies us and sanctifies us; but I haven’t really thought about what it is that is actually occurring in us as this happens. Last night I read a piece by Bryan Cross of Called to Communion that has profoundly affected me; provided me with this missing puzzle piece I didn’t even know I was lacking; shone light on the key to the Catholic understanding of salvation; given the glue that binds together what Jesus said and what James said and what John said and what Peter said and what Paul said, what God has said throughout the entire Bible:

… It’s love. Love is the key. Not faith alone. Not faith and works. Because even if I understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, but have not love, I have nothing; I am just a clanging cymbal (1 Corinthians 13:1-2). Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love (1 John 4:8). Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead (James 2:14-26)—but what works? Works of love. Jesus said that the greatest commandments are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our mind, all soul, and all our strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Luke 10:27). And how do we love God? We keep his commandments (John 14:15). Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law (Romans 13:10).

This has been staring me in the face all along, and it hasn’t clicked. I’ve worn out the section on grace and justification in my copy of the Catechism (or at least I would have, if I were still carrying my paper copy)—and yet I haven’t seen it. The word “love” is used eleven times in that section alone; “charity” is used another eleven. Love—agape (ἀγάπη)—charity (caritas)—all three words refer to the same idea—is at the core of Catholic teaching; as it well should be, since it is at the core of Scripture.

Bryan brilliantly illustrated this to me clearly for the first time in his explication of the thought of St. Irenaeus (c. 125–c. 202) toward justification, and in his piece, which I hadn’t read before but read immediately following, on the soteriology of Pope St. Clement of Rome. Though our doctrine today is more fully developed, both early Fathers reflect these ideas. And if we read Paul with this understanding, then everything makes sense.

If we have faith, but have not love, then our faith is in vain. It is only having faith in love that accomplishes anything toward our justification. If we do good works, but don’t do them in love, then they are empty and meaningless. If we love God, we will obey His commandments. If we continue to disobey God, how can that be love? “If anyone says he loves God, but hates his brother, he is a liar. . . . God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 John 4:20, 16). “No one who abides in Him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen Him or known Him” (1 John 3:6).

The Reformers would have us believe that we are totally depraved; that even our good works are filthy rags before God; that the entire purpose of the Law was to prove that we couldn’t keep it, that we were morally bankrupt without salvation, and even with it, we are just and sinners at the same time (simul justus et peccator). And yet all throughout Scripture—in the Old Testament, and in the teachings of Jesus, Peter, Paul, James, and John, we are called to obedience and holiness (1 Peter 1:13-35). We are told again and again that we will be judged according to our deeds (Matthew 16.27, 1 Peter 1:17, Romans 2:6, Revelation 20:13)—and yet Protestants tell us that we are incapable of living by God’s Law; that our works do not matter as long as they are covered by Christ’s imputed righteousness. I have said before that I never felt much inclination as a Protestant to pursue holiness, feeling that my sin was “covered.” Now I see how starkly the Protestant view misses the main idea of Scripture: We are to obey God’s commandments, because we love Him, through the grace which He gives us by the Blood of Christ. It is through living in His grace, growing in His love, conforming ourselves to His image, that we are saved. Faith and works are both just active parts of that.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus

Sacred Heart

Pompeo Batoni. Il Sacro Cuore (The Sacred Heart) (1740).

I feel like I’ve been on the offensive a lot lately. I apologize for that. I’ve made three posts in the past two weeks against sola scriptura — and I have to confess, it’s been partly out of annoyance at the closed-mindedness the doctrine engenders. Forgive me for that. My deeper aim, in this blog and even in those posts, is to extend to my Protestant brethren the fullness and beauty that the Apostolic Tradition of the Church has to offer.

(For what it’s worth, that last sola scriptura post had been on the back burner half-formed since I posted the first two, so I decided I needed to finish it. I also have another rather critical post I began writing last year sometime, before I even entered the Church, about church membership, that I put down because I decided it wasn’t the tone I wanted my blog to take. I may look at it again sometime to see if there’s anything to salvage.)

Today is the Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, and June is the Month of the Sacred Heart. The Sacred Heart is a devotion to the wounded physical heart of Jesus as a representation of His all-surpassing divine and human love for all humanity. This devotion — really the idea of devotions to things other than God Himself — is a new, rather strange concept to my evangelical brain. Isn’t devotion to or worship of an object idolatry? Well, no. Idolatry is worship of something as a god that isn’t God. Veneration of the saints is not idolatry because it’s not worship. Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is not idolatry because the Blessed Sacrament really is Jesus. Likewise devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is not idolatry because it is an aspect of Jesus: it’s the love of Christ for all humanity, the love of God for all the world; and God is love (1 John 4:16).

Devotion to the Sacred Heart has a long tradition, with roots in Scripture and in the Church Fathers. I have an excellent book (picked up on one my thrifting quests) about the history and theology of the Sacred Heart, Heart of the Redeemer by Timothy T. O’Donnell, S.T.D. The earliest Christians associated the water flowing from the side of Christ at his Crucifixion with the “rivers of living water” flowing “from his heart” (John 7:37-38). . . .

[And a sidenote: I’m thrilled that the ESV and some other newer Bible translations, even Protestant ones, have translated this verse as “out of his heart.” Traditionally, that Greek word, κοιλία (koilia — in the phrase, ἐκ τῆς κοιλίας), has been rendered “belly” or “bosom”: according to the LSJ, it is a common Greek noun that refers to a cavity of the body, especially the belly or abdomen, but also any body cavity, ventricle, chamber, such as in heart, lungs, liver, brain: figuratively, the innermost center of being and consciousness of a person. It is the same word used for Mary’s womb in Luke 1:42. The Hebrew word used in Proverbs 4:23, the essence of which John 7:38 seems to follow, is לב (lêb), and most certainly refers to the heart (translated καρδία [kardia] in the Septuagint). In short, I think it’s pretty fantastic that the ESV translators, in translating a verse that refers to Old Testament prophecy, considered the Hebrew context of the words in their translation decisions from Greek. Jesus more than likely would have been speaking Aramaic, and may have quoted the passage in Aramaic rather than Hebrew; though especially the Evangelists Matthew and John would have been familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures. Both the Evangelists and our modern translators had to consider all these things in translating to and from Greek.]

St. Bernard

St. Bernard of Clairvaux.

. . . And the Church Fathers saw this wound, this flow of blood and water from the side of Christ, from His heart, as a symbol that the Heart of Jesus is the source and fountain of the living water that gives us grace, salvation, and the Sacraments (O’Donnell 49). Jesus’s wounds, his suffering for our sake, became a visible symbol of His love for us. Over the centuries of tradition, increasing devotion to the Heart of Jesus developed. There are so many wonderful passages I could quote (this book is really amazing), but here are some of my favorites. From St. Bernard (1090–1153):

The secret of His Heart is laid bare in the wounds of his body. One can easily read in them the mystery of God’s infinite goodness and merciful tenderness which came down to us like a dawning from on wounds. How could you indeed, Lord, show us more clearly than by your wounds that You are indeed ‘full of goodness and mercy abounding in love.’

From David of Augsburg (d. 1272) (O’Donnell 101):

From the burning Heart of Jesus flows his blood, hot with love. Jesus showed us from the Cross his faithful heart, glowing with love, since the death of our souls touched him more nearly than the death of his body. Ah, dearest Lord Jesus Christ, what great love and faithfulness wilt thou show when thou displayest thy riches and openest thy Heart to thy beloved friends!

The devotions grow longer, more elaborate, more flowery, until in the late seventeenth century, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, a French nun and mystic, experienced a series of visions of the suffering Christ, in which He revealed his Sacred Heart to her, and set her own heart aflame with the fire of His. It is from her revelations and her writings that our modern conception of the Sacred Heart has proceeded. Devotion to the Sacred Heart spread throughout France, and gradually beyond its borders. Pope Pius IX first extended the Feast of the Sacred Heart to the entire Church in 1856. In 1899, Pope Leo XIII consecrated the entire human race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, following the visions of Blessed Mary of the Divine Heart, in whose visions Christ Himself requested the consecration.

So in short: The Sacred Heart is, to put it simply, an ancient, God-inspired Christian meme. So much in tradition works this way: a writer has a revelation, and then another writer picks it up and elaborates upon it, until over time, a whole tradition of devotion and literature develops around it. No matter how you might feel about the personal revelations of these nuns, it is the symbol of the Sacred Heart that is important: the symbol of Christ’s divine and human love for the whole world, that has been a longstanding Christian tradition and object of devotion. To dedicate oneself to the Sacred Heart is to dedicate oneself to live in and for the love of Christ.

Community and Communion

In the year or so before I moved to University, I began making an earnest, systematic effort to find and join a church. I wrote a lot of lists to myself about what I was looking for in a church (I am a maker of lists). And always near the top of the list was community: people in the church with whom I had something in common; people with whom I could have fellowship and share my faith; a vibrant, living, growing community. The primary reason for the church, I reasoned — for having us hang out in groups, and not sit at home doing it sola scriptura — was community: to provide a structure for the support of the fellowship of believers.

The first time I visited the Catholic Church here, I was decidedly unimpressed. Nobody greeted me warmly, introduced themselves, or even spoke to me. I had to track down someone after Mass to even get a visitor’s card. I didn’t feel particularly welcome, and felt more than a little put off. It wasn’t until six months or so later that I visited again with my friend Audrey. At least then I didn’t feel entirely alone and foreign, but I remained unimpressed. Where were the Sunday school classes and fellowship groups? Where, besides Audrey, were the people of my age and situation? Where was the community?

It wasn’t until I had been attending Mass for a month or more that I found it. It’s in the Eucharist, I realized one Sunday with an epiphany. Community is in Communion. Kneeling there during the Eucharistic Prayer, focusing intently on Christ’s sacrifice, I was enveloped by the sensation that I was not alone: that all of us there in that room; all of the faithful throughout the world praying that same prayer; all of the believers through all the ages who had prayed it — were united there in that moment in one Spirit, with Christ himself. It was the feeling of a whole and complete sharing, an absolute universality; I felt I would never have to feel lonely again. It’s a feeling I’ve felt many times since. And I had never even taken the Sacrament, and still haven’t — merely been in its presence. It was a feeling, yes: and I have striven not to build my faith on feelings. But it was a feeling supported by everything that Catholics believe about the Eucharist. Truths that I was only nascently beginning to understand were speaking to me. I had found community: not the kind I had thought I was looking for, but the kind I most desperately needed.

Catholics are often not very good at building the other types of community. I read an interesting piece in the National Catholic Register that underscores everything I’ve experienced in the Catholic Church. Protestants do, as I had been thinking, go to church with fellowship in mind. Salvation itself is assured; Scripture and faith are enough; so the reason for going the extra step and being a part of a faith community is largely social. But for Catholics, participation in the Sacraments is obligatory, a necessary part of salvation. Because it’s an obligation, many people — even those who genuinely and deeply love the Lord — naturally tend to slip into habit or complacency, and do what they have to do, and then leave. Salvation is the prime motive for going to Mass, not fellowship — and so it tends to slip away.

Our parish is much better about community than many others. We are comparatively small, with a large contingent of students, so an active campus ministry and fellowship among the college-aged come easily. We have weekly spaghetti suppers that involve everyone, not just students; Friday fish fries during Lent; the St. Joseph’s Day celebration; and other important community events. There are adult faith formation groups, and a youth ministry, and service groups like the Knights of Columbus, and really much more active a community than I recognized at first. We do seem to be more laid back about it than most Protestants, though.

It wasn’t until I started attending daily Mass last summer that I truly found my community — the kind I initially thought I was looking for, and which I still very much needed. Attending every day, I gradually began meeting, one or two at a time, the others of the much smaller group of faithful that attends every day. And I’ve made some very dear friends, of the kind I’ve always longed to have, fulfilling friendships that are slowly building and growing, built on love and shared faith — the "super friends" of the article above. I’ve met a number of fellow graduate students of my age and situation. I met the dear man who will be my RCIA sponsor, and his lovely wife. I spent a blessed evening a few nights ago having dinner in their home, an authentic Italian dinner and a conversation that went late into the night.

They, cradle Catholics who’d spent their whole lives in the Church, with little contact with the evangelical world, and I, having journeyed far from there but still with so far to go in understanding the Catholic faith, found a common ground in the middle on which to share and learn from each other. The Protestant concepts I take for granted, they knew little about, and I tried to explain; and the Catholic concepts with which I am still struggling, they explained so easily as if they were the most natural ideas in the world. I saw, through their eyes and Catholic understanding, how far-fetched some Protestant ideas seem to be; but also how much Catholics and Protestants really have in common.

And I feel loved. For the first time in my whole life, I truly feel I have a church home, where I am loved and embraced and accepted; where I can have fellowship and community with beloved people of like mind and like faith, and Communion in the Eucharist with all the Church and with my Lord Jesus Christ.