Growing Pains

DISCLAIMER: My computer broke on Monday night, so I am not able to be online much at all. Please forgive me if I take a while to respond to things. Also, my little bean's arm was broken on Monday. PLease Please please pray for her as she is suffering much and continues to.

I am about to confess to you guys something that the Lord has really laid on my heart.
I am so sorry. This blog tends to be a cathartic exercise for me… once which I take great pains to be honest and open in, even though the fact that it is widely publicized makes it difficult to do so without hurting others. I try to share what I’m really thinking and feeling, and that tends to mean that I blurt out a lot of stuff I shouldn’t necessarily be sharing with everyone in the whole world.
The last few months have been a classic example of that. I’ve been FAR too harsh on my protestant brothers and sisters, and far too frustrated with protestant THEOLOGY to allow room for dialogue, and I owe everyone who reads this blog an apology. I’ve hit, several times now, below the belt, because of my frustrations. Please forgive me.

In the paragraphs that follow, I’m going to try to explain what has been going through my mind and heart. I’m going to try to show you why I have experienced such a drastic change of heart, and why it’s been so hard to express without stepping on at least SOME toes… and hopefully, I’ll do so in a way that shows you how much I treasure your friendships and how much I treasure your fellowship.
And hopefully, at the end of this big, giant mess, we will find ourselves at the feet of Jesus.

I recently had a conversation with the woman who discipled me as I was first leaving the Catholic Church. She is someone who I respect as not only my spiritual superior but as a true Proverbs 31 woman in every sense of the word…she changed my life by always pointing me towards Jesus, and I am eternally grateful for her.
Over the years, I have always turned to her for advice. I found that I could count on her to always be the “voice of wisdom” for me, and I have always asked her to do so. As I have grown and changed as a Christian, going from superficially “believing” to molding my life daily after Jesus Christ, I discovered that I didn’t always agree with her assessment of things. Which surprised me whenever it happened, because I had always assumed that the more we both looked like Jesus, the more we would look like each other. That wasn’t at all the case, for instance, when I called her in a panic about what I was observing at the church in Isla Vista. She was neither alarmed nor concerned, and that both alarmed and concerned me. But through that incident, I learned that God often leads us to different things in different times and places…. That while He had graced her with specific gifts and callings, He had graced me with different ones, and that we would never “look” identical at the soul level. I’ve met people who I connect with in an “identical soul level” kinda way. It’s rare.

Anyways, her major concern was about the Marian issue. If I was praying to Mary, I was a victim of flawed theology. She reasoned with me that the Marian element of Catholicism was several things:
1. Idolatry.
2. A false elevation of the Biblical Mary, who was not mentioned often in the bible, and who, though she should certainly be praised for her willing obedience, wasn’t that important.
3. False because the dead in heaven have no contact or knowledge of the faithful on earth.

All of these things, incidentally, were the same objections which I brought to the table when Mary revealed her Immaculate Heart to me through the goings on at Medjugorje. And I can tell you, I (and Wayne) lost a lot of sleep over what to do.
On the one hand, we have the Marian Apparitions are demonic camp. On the other, we have the Marian Apparitions are from God camp. And there is a wide, (and serious) divide between the two. Wayne and I ultimately came to a “God can use anything to talk to anyone” place (remember, He used ASTROLOGY to speak to the maggi) but it took a LONG time for us to fully appreciate the Catholic Teachings on the Theology of the Body and how Mary is the perfect picture of the Bride of Christ, etc. A lot. These aren’t things we just woke up one day going… hmmm. Sounds nice. It was through MUCH prayer and contemplation and study that we came to the conclusion that
1. Mary holds a special place in God’s heart and therefore an important ministry.
2. Mary has been given to us (the church) as a spiritual mother.
3. Mary intercedes for her children on earth to her Son, pointing all who put their trust in her to Jesus Christ, who is HER Lord and HER Savior as well as ours.

We can back those things up chapter and verse, but to someone who’s mind is closed to the possibility that Marian apparitions might be of a nondemonic source, well… it’s an exercise in futility. Soooo, I was not expecting her to understand. She did bring up a verse that she felt demonstrated that the dead in heaven have no possible connection to those on the earth. I haven’t found that verse, but as I’ve been going through Revelations systematically, I have found to the contrary that it would seem that those “above” and those “below” are inextricably linked. Nevertheless, I promised her that I would evaluate, and evaluate I will. I am taking EVERYTHING you guys say into consideration (although I have to admit, most of your arguments are things that Wayne and I considered right off the bat and thus things that we overcame with theology, you know?)

That being said, she also said something which, as I meditate on it more and more, disturbs me the most. Her concern is not at all that I would want to be a member of the Catholic Church. Like many of you, she thinks, “hey, if that’s where God has you then no problem.” Her concern is that I am BELIEVING the teachings of the Catholic Church, which does NOT fit in with her theological worldview. After our talk, she wrote me an email saying that she hoped that I would be led to Jesus and not theology, and I can understand what she means. For someone who HASN’T studied theology but simply learned from ones’ teachers, etc, the “truths” evident in scripture are just that…evident. For me? It’s a little bit different. As a myspacer and now as a raveler, I’ve had to seriously study the roots and wheres and whys and hows of belief systems, from the ground up. You HAVE to, if apologetics is your thing. And just like alllll those seminary students who enthusiastically hightail it to Bible College to “make a difference,” and come out atheist graduates, I was finding some SERIOUS holes. Holes big enough that entire nations are slipping through. And those holes were killing me.
Because if I’m going to believe something is true, it HAS to make rational, reasonable sense to me. I believe in blind faith, but I believe that faith has to stem from the “TRuth” which is found in the Word of God. And the Word of God just doesn’t line up when it comes to some beliefs that I have always held as just plain, old, Bible truth.

How can that be? Because there are HOLES in the way we as protestants live out our lives and what the Bible SAYS to do. There is a huge chunk of missing stuff that we seem to have put aside. Much of it, like the idea of the Real Presence at the Eucharist, is like this:
Protestant: I believe the ENTIRE Bible is literal.
Catholic: I believe the Bible needs to be looked at in different lights. Some of it is literal, some of it allegorical, some of it prophetic, etc. But all of it is TRUE.
Protestant: I believe that Jesus is speaking symbolically when he says we must eat his flesh and drink his blood.
Catholic: But why? You just said the entire Bible was literally true.
Protestant: Because. It is symbolic.

That isn’t good enough for me. In my conversation with her, she said that she didn’t know either way because the Bible wasn’t conclusive about it and she was ok with not knowing. That isn’t good enough for me either! If the Bible is going to teach us an important doctrine like that (and we all agree that it’s important) then it’s going to show us CLEARLY the right way to observe it, right? Otherwise, God didn’t really think all this stuff through. And I know that’s not true! So, all of this to say that I don’t think the study of theology itself is fruitless because ultimately, it leads us CLOSER To God, so long as we are studying good theology. Which I had never really found until I began to look at theology from a Catholic perspective and realized why they need an entire city state to do this stuff-- because it’s THAT deep and meaningful.

Anyways, I realized in talking to her that many of YOU too, the ones who are OK with my move although probably a little bit disappointed, are OK with it because you believe that there ARE Christians in the Catholic Church. God is merciful!
BUT, as she put it to me, “You know the WHOLE truth. So God will expect you to hold fast to it and not fall into the trappings of religion.”
When she said that, it was like a light bulb went off in my head. I didn’t come to the Catholic Church, and neither did Wayne, because we wanted to be a part of it. WE came here because we believed that the RCC is teaching people the WHOLE truth. Not just parts and bits. The WHOLE truth. Which is a radical concept… but makes sense. Because we have received the BIBLE THROUGH the CHURCH, not the CHURCH because of the Bible. Before we had the Bible, the CHURCH was the source of all truth. And because of that, I can look at each of these teachings in light of tradition that is more than “religion.” It’s SACRED Tradition. It’s the literal words of the apostles. It’s the literal words of Christ. At the end of the book of John, it tells us that if we were to write down ALL the things which Christ did when he was here, not even the world itself could contain all the books. So why are we confined to the books of Scripture? Why do I keep hearing, as an objection, well “the Bible doesn’t SAY that!“ or “nowhere do I see anything that allows for that in scripture.”

YES, before you have a heart attack, sacred scripture is our measuring stick, our unique source of truth and inspired by the Holy Spirit, but do we not believe that the saints were also inspired by that same Holy Spirit?

Anyways, that’s the thing. I’m not buying the “The Church is the Body of Christ, everyone who believes in the Lord Jesus,” bit anymore and that isn’t because I think that non-Catholics are no longer members of the Body of Christ-- rather, I know that they are, just as I did before. But they are members of the lowercase “C” church, and not in union with the uppercase “C” church, which is the institution set up by Christ Himself as our “tool” for sanctification. It’s the only real authority, because the way I see it now, any protestant authority has only the authority we give it: I am under the authority of Manna church because I choose to belong to it, but when I leave, it has no authority over me. Not so for the Catholic Church, whether I am in union with it or not, it still holds the power wielded by the apostles, and passed on by the laying on of hands through the ages.

THAT is what’s really freaking people out. THAT is why I keep offending people, because if I believe that they think that I no longer believe scripture, when in fact the opposite is true-- all of those obscure statements in scripture are suddenly crystal clear to me.

Do I think I have all the answers? No way. But I am finally finding answers to the questions that have been plaguing me for YEARS. Things like:

If we go to heaven when we die, then why do we raise people from the dead? Who would want to come back here?
What’s the deal with deathbed confessions? Heaven or no?
If Jesus Christ forgives ALL our sins immediately upon our “acceptance” of Him as our Savior and initial repentance, then why do we keep repenting and asking forgiveness? Likewise, why do we continue to sin?
If we are all “Asleep” until judgement day, then how come some people aren’t and are seen in the Bible?
If we are supposed to be “One” as He and the Father are One, then what the heck is wrong with us? How can we fix this lack of oneness problem? There seems to be no answer!
How come I feel constantly compelled to judge people by the standard of scripture as an evangelical tool (DO you know you’re a sinner?) instead of just serving people and “loving God and loving my neighbor?”
If the dead can’t hear us or know what’s going on with us, then why does Revelations say they can?
If the dead in heaven are disconnected from us on earth and have nothing to do with us, are no longer married to each other, are no longer in families, etc., then how is it heaven?

And on and on it goes.

Anyways, this is NOT a blog to delineate the differences, yet again, between Catholics and Protestants although it HAS to go that direction in order for you to understand what I am saying:

It’s NATURAL for the fact that we have come to believe that what the Catholic Church teaches, in its entirety, is THE Truth, can make you freak out. WE get that. But that doesn’t make it any less true. What we “thought” we understood about God and life and “theology” (which isn’t a bad word, just a confusing word, in the end) didn’t hold up to the pressure. So what I’m saying is, just because it makes you uncomfortable doesn’t mean that we’ve “turned away from the truth.” It means that suddenly, for you and for us, the definition of “Truth” is a bit skewed. It means that one of us is doing something a little “more” right than the other. And that’s OK, because according to our own consciences and our own relationships WITH God, we are doing what HE is leading us to do. Not what WE are being led to do in a human way. SO I guess what I’m saying is, if I want to be treated respectfully as a person who a) knows her bible and b) is totally submitted to her Lord and Savior I have to remember that everyone I know and love who doesn’t have the same THEOLOGY as me still a) knows their bible and b) are totally submitted to their Lord and Savior.
Ultimately, we have to act within the confines of our own consciences. And we cannot cannot cannot attack each other. I have been dead wrong to paint protestants in such an unsavory light, because in doing so I’m just as bad as the protestants who do the same to Catholics! What I propose so that healing is experienced by all is this:

1. Let’s all get to crackin’ open the word of God. Really.
2. Let’s all do so while trying to remove the “skin” we think it wears. Let’s always try to be objective as we look at scripture and not to take anything for granted as “obvious,” but to let scripture speak for itself.
3. Let’s all remember to love on each other instead of cracking heads over theology. Because good theology leads us TO Jesus, and not away from Him. It brings us together to the foot of the cross, and enables us to experience His divine mercy in ways we couldn’t if our ideas about Him didn’t hold up to the pressure.

My key sin for the last few months has been a TOTAL lack of humility. I didn’t see that because I was so obviously humbled by the Eucharist and focusing on that. But what I missed was that I was NOT humbled by my protestant brothers and sisters who genuinely LOVE Jesus and are living to serve Him the best way they know how. I have no right to take that away from them, even if it isn’t what I personally believe is “fully” true. Ultimately, we are all the sons and daughters of the King, and it’s high time we learned to live together in the Kingdom.