A last word on Christian Unity.

To close the week of Christian unity, I thought I would talk a little bit about those things which we DO have in common,(and Jenny, if you're out there, this one's for you!) and in large quantities. But in order to do that, I have to qualify what I'm about to say with a statement.

When I came back to the Church, I was so thankful for the mass, so thankful for the sacraments, for the structure of the Church, for the spiritual authority, etc that I (obviously) plunged heavily into my Catholic identity right off the bat. That meant that I clung with vehemence to those traditions which I had grown up with that represented "The Faith" to me and that were rapidly disappearing in our modernistic, relatavist society.
Parishes were unrecognizable to me as "catholic" in all of their modernistic, muted decor. Priests droned on and on about "social justice" but never spoke of the reality of God and the devil, of the importance of the sacraments. It was a very, very frustrating thing to be so in love with the Catholic Faith and to find the Church you had left in shambles. I had been away a little under thirteen years, and it never occurred to me that so much could change in so little time.

Because of this yearning for more "Catholicism" (ie tradition) I thoroughly rejected any "protestantizing" of the Catholic experience-- I still do. Which is why I'm a borderline trad...I prefer the latin mass, and the TLM at that. I cover my head. I know that I'm genuflecting towards the tabernacle, not the altar. I like my altar boys to be boys and my priests to be all fire and brimstone. I pray the rosary, every day, in latin. If I had more money my kids would wear "church clothes" every Sunday. It's just that simple.
However, over the first year of our returning, Wayne and I became rapidly frustrated with how much of an anomaly we were. It was like a few hundred old folks were staring at us, amazed, whenever we told our story. They all agreed we were an answer to prayer, but they certainly weren't sure what to make of such ZEAL. While we increased their faith, I think we also confounded them a bit too. And understandably so-- we were AMPED to be Catholic, and around our Parish, orthodoxy is a rare gem. At the same time, we weren't enamored with tradition for the sake of tradition, but rather because the Holy Spirit, and the Living Word of God had led us there. So we found ourselves (and still do) in the uncomfortable situation of being both Charismatic AND Traditionalist. And I think, honestly, that that's a pretty "Catholic" place to be, since we seem to always take the "and" approach to "or" questions, like evolution/creationism, mental/vocal prayer, bible/tradition etc.

I started teaching bible studies, and leading prayer groups, and as time went on I began to REALLY miss (and I mean REALLY miss) the fellowship I enjoyed with protestant women. Why? Quite simply because for many Catholics, faith is a personal thing. It isn't lived out loud but in the quiet of the heart, and so for someone like me, who had been an ultra-charismatic used to friends calling to "declare the Word of the Lord" to me and people unashamed to Worship the King out loud, it became challenging to find spiritual closeness with many of my Catholic friends.
Don't get me wrong-- these were (and are!) women who are VERY interested in holiness. But I guess the best way to describe the difference is to say that while I was used to women who prayed (And I mean, like, PRAYED.... we prayed all the time. In English, In tongues, wherever we were and however we were connecting-- on the phone, on the bus, in the parking lot, in our kitchens....)I was suddenly surrounded by women who SAID their prayers. Which doesn't mean I'm against reading prayers-- (although it took some MAJOR getting used to when I returned to the Church!) nor that I thought/think they were doing so in an empty, meaningless fashion. To the contrary, these were deeply prayerful women.
However, I just couldn't connect on a spiritual level with them in complete unity because I sensed a lack of "freedom of movement" for the Holy Spirit in their faith lives.. they were not trained to let God do His thing in their prayer lives... and for sure were not baptized in the Holy Spirit.

I knew there were Charismatic Catholics "out there" in a general kind of way, and I was even prophesied to by one of them that I would be used to breathe the Parish's charismatic group back to life but I had my doubts. It seemed so contrived to me, that a bunch of Catholic women would get together to pray "in the Spirit," opening in worship and praise, etc. It seemed so... protestant. I was really unsure about the whole thing and did NOT want to be associated with the group, particularly because it went against everything I knew about authentic, traditional, "Catholic" worship.

Along the way, I heard the call to Carmel and began the process of aspirancy into the Order. It was amazing to me that the Saints I discovered and read about were actually saints who lived among both tradition and total openness to the Holy Spirit-- an openness which was kept in the realm of Truth and accurate discernment by obedience to the Church. Thank God for my rocky road to Carmel!! I knew I was home.

So I haven't given much thought to any of this until last week, when we were called to a week of prayer for Christian Unity. And I thought about what things we had in common, and of course I knew that the one thing we can share in is a firm faith in the Word of God, which stands forever, amen? ;)

So I started, in earnest, making my daily bible reading a priority again over anything else, (reading the saints, reading the catechism, etc) and I found that in doing so I was opening up a whole can of worms I had never given much thought to... the whole "which Bible?" question. Now, I'm not going to go into my thoughts on that here-- I'll save it for another blog-- but I will say that in the course of answering that question I discovered that the NAB, the standard, promoted-by-the USCCB-bible, is absolutely overflowing with heretical content in the commentary. (the translation itself isn't too bad.) But the two best bibles to read (Douay Rheims and RSV 2 CE) don't contain many, if any, footnotes or cross references, which are some of my favorite features in a bible. At one point I even went back to my trusty "Spirit Filled Life" Bible and pondered if I could live with missing out on all the Deuterocanonical books that weren't in it for the sake of a good translation and an excellent, Spirit-filled commentary. And what I found was amazing! While my NAB, official Catholic bible was absolutely full of heresy, relativism, and nonsensical historical criticism that totally removed any element of faith or spirituality, my PROTESTANT SPIRIT FILLED BIBLE was full of "Catholic" commentary, that certainly built up my Catholic faith. Wierd. Super wierd.

So it got me thinking-- that same Holy Spirit that animated me as a protestant still animates me today as a Catholic. And too often, as a Catholic, I have ignored Him or failed to call Him "friend" in favor of a more "structured" approach to my prayer. Thinking on it now, it's not that I ignored Him. I heard Him and knew He was there. It's that I failed to put Him first. Many times in prayer I "felt" Him urging me to one thing or another but I didn't always respond. Which led me to a sort of spiritual dryness that I blamed on not having other people to pray with.

The thing is, as I examine closer the so-called "Charismatic Renewal" in the Catholic church, it's not that they are "trying to be protestant," (although in some cases, let's face it, they are!) it's that the SAME Spirit is animating those in the Catholic Church who, like pentacostals and Charismatics everywhere, are begging God to show up in power. The entire renewal began with a move of the Holy Spirit when a group of people in the North Eastern US begged God to show them the grace of baptism and confirmation (Baptism and "Sealing in the Spirit!") At which point the Spirit fell and they began to speak in tongues. Having experienced baptism in the Holy Spirit myself, I can tell you that it was not an emotional or "made up" response on my part but rather a total and complete release of myself into God. He literally "took over."
Because of that, I can say that I am certain that this prayer group's prayer was answered in power, and that the movement appears to me to be authentic and definitely "Of God." I notice also that many parishes where the Renewal is alive and well are not only overflowing with orthodoxy in a Novus Ordo kind of a way, but are also completely filled with the types of things I would like to see more of around me: healing and deliverance ministries, for example. One Church in St Louis even has a prayer room where parishioners can stop by and just pray with someone AT ANY TIME OF THE DAY OR NIGHT! What a relief to the priest of that parish, and what a blessing that they have taken upon themselves to respond to God's call to be good and do good in their community! Would that we had something as awesome here in my Parish-- I would LOVE to be a part of something like that and think it's SHAMEFUL that we don't pray over/ with people more. We are supposed to be God's hands and feet!

I remember a day not so long ago that I went to mass thinking just that and when God confirmed in me that it was "still happening" in His Church-- a woman leaned across the pew before mass and asked if she could pray for me, then layed hands on my baby-filled belly and did. In tongues. I remember that I wept with joy that someone was taking it upon themselves to minister to me-- not because THEY wanted to but because they KNEW that God wanted them to. It was awesome.

Anyways, in the commentary of my Spirit filled believers' bible I found nothing but faith-building, awesome, uplifting and powerful commentary that made me want to get out there and LIVE the Spirit-filled life. And it's the same bible that my protestant friends are reading. Because it's the same Holy Spirit... that lives in them, that lives in me, that brings us all to life, and life abundant.

The more I think on it, the more I am ashamed that I do so much to denigrate protestantism in here, when I could be doing so much to show that the Truth with a Capital T is alive and well in the Catholic Church, which exists by the power of the Holy Spirit, a perfect combination of both Sacred Tradition and Organic movement by the God who IS Spirit and Truth.