Want the Change

Happy New Year!

I've decided to widen the scope of this blog a bit to encompass a more than simply my searching about Catholicism.

One of my informal New Year's Vague-Inklings (as none of them can be properly called a "resolution") is to write here more.  So here we are.

Today Boyfriend and I drove to one of our favorite coffee shops, to program (for him) and read (for me) in a slightly different location than usual.  (Now he's staring intently at his code.  Each of his features is like an arrow, pointing at the screen in deep concentration.  He likes debugging code, but his face looks like if he can make all those arrows' vector sum in the direction of his laptop high enough, the code will submit to his will.)
I grabbed a couple of my new books, which turned out to be "Ten Poems to Change Your Life Again & Again" (by Roger Housden) and "The Everlasting Man" (by G.K. Chesterton).
As I read the first poem in the former book, the power of it swept me forward with something like a low-grade inspiration.  (Don't hurry; you must read poetry slowly, with a halting, back-and-forth gait.)

SONNETS TO ORPHEUS, PART TWO, XII
by Rainer Maria Rilke (translated from German by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy)

Want the change. Be inspired by the flame
Where everything shines as it disappears.
The artist, when sketching, loves nothing so much
as the curve of the body as it turns away.


What locks itself in sameness has congealed.
Is it safer to be gray and numb?
What turns hard becomes rigid
and is easily shattered.


Pour yourself like a fountain.
Flow into the knowledge that what you are seeking
finishes often at the start, and, with ending, begins.


Every happiness is the child of a separation
it did not think it could survive. And Daphne,
becoming a laurel,
dares you to become the wind.

Fantastic poetry compels me to a certain stillness, like the sort of stretching pause in a conversation when it is interrupted by some stunningly beautiful music that suddenly started on the radio. Everyone stops to listen, and no matter what was being said or how urgent it was, suddenly it can wait.
I often feel like I'm gulping it, and I'm both drowning in it and starving for it.

This is the reason I write poetry.  Poetry is a bit like ham radio: it's this special skill you cultivate so as to communicate with other people who are cultivating the same skill to communicate with you.  Few non-poets actually read or enjoy poetry.  But as a poet, I find myself drowning in the beauty of someone else's work often.  Usually it's the work of someone like Rilke or Emily Dickinson, but not always. One of my classmates in my poetry workshop class wrote some things that were so beautiful that I asked if I could keep the drafts she shared.  I relished the brief spark of perfect connection between her mind and mine that is the business of poetry.

On the facing page, the author of the book included the following, taken from Jackson Pollock's headstone on Long Island:

ARTISTS AND POETS ARE THE RAW

NERVE ENDS OF HUMANITY.

BY THEMSELVES THEY CAN 

DO LITTLE TO SAVE HUMANITY.

WITHOUT THEM THERE WOULD BE

LITTLE WORTH SAVING.

(I find it fascinating how commonly we see this compulsive belief that "humanity needs saving".  No one seems to fervently believe that "humanity needs improving" or "humanity needs a little polishing".  It seems that the more we polish humanity, the more clearly we see it rotting from the inside.)

For each of the ten poems, the author, Roger Housden, has written a bit of exposition about the poem.  He highlights Rilke's assertion that if we accept constant change, even our sense of self must be subject to it, leading to a certain dismemberment.

Housden deals with the notion of dismemberment as a consequence of accepting the constant change of life.  He points out that dismemberment runs throughout world religions: the Egyptian stories about Osiris, the Tibetan chod, in which you visualize your own dismemberment, and even the Christian celebration of the Eucharist, with the pivotal phrase "This is my body, broken for you."

The whole thing made me think about how I've changed this semester.  It's been one of the hardest of my life, mostly because of the constant change.  Unlike most, this one feels like it's been a decade long.  Like a labyrinth, or the miles and miles of DNA coiled in each of my microscopic cells, the distance I've traveled over the last few months overflows the time that was meant to contain the journey.

It makes life seem nice and full, like I'm savoring every second of it.  But it also means that I feel the soreness from each and every hard day, even if I don't remember it.  Maybe I'm getting old.

  

In any case, this seems a fitting beginning of the new year.  May we simply embrace the truth, want the change, and receive the grace for each new day.  God be with you.

Sometimes, when I hear the voice of God...

(I sometimes hear the voice of God.  Did you know that?)

... I am musing about deep theological truths.

But more often, I'm simply afraid, worrying myself sick over something or other.

And so often, he says something like,
"... my rod and my staff will comfort you.  I will prepare a table before you in the presence of your enemies.  I will anoint your head with oil.  Your cup will run over.  Goodness and mercy will follow you all the days of your life, and you will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

The Widow of Nain

Yesterday, I read this passage on the bus.

"As He approached the gate of the city, a dead man was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and a sizeable crowd from the city was with her.
When the Lord saw her, He felt compassion for her, and said to her, 'Do not weep.'"


I stared at the letters in dark red and thought about what Jesus' direction "do not weep" meant.

Do not weep.

Did the mother even hear Jesus?

If she did, did she think he was mocking her?  "Do not weep"?  She was leaving the city on her way to bury her only son. Who could say to her, "do not weep"?

Maybe she wasn't even mourning yet, still in denial.  Maybe she looked at him numbly and tried to understand what the words meant. "Do not weep."  Is someone trying to talk to me?

Maybe she raged at him inwardly.  What was wrong with him, trying to cheer her up at a time like this?  When your entire world is quaking as the storm rages inside you, "do not weep" is likely to have the opposite of the intended effect.

Did she feel that she had a right to mourn (a reasonable thought on her part), and that he should just leave her alone? "Do not weep".  Yeah, fat chance of that.


In those few seconds after Jesus looked at her, felt compassion for her, and said, "Do not weep", what went through her mind?

On what grounds could he possibly say to her, "Do not weep"?

"And He came up and touched the coffin; and the bearers came to a halt. And He said, "Young man, I say to you, arise!"

The dead man sat up and began to speak. And Jesus gave him back to his mother."

He could say "do not weep" because he knew that he was the one about to turn her broken world into something unspeakably wonderful, about to make everything that was wrong right again.

So when everything that I hold dear seems to be crumbling, when I can't see my way clear in any direction, when I feel like the pain of a fallen world will crush my very existence, there is a small still voice that says,
"Do not despair.  Do not lose hope.  Do not fear.  Rejoice and be glad."

On what grounds can he possibly say that, when it seems like the sky itself is hostile and the floodwater will never go down?

He can say "do not weep" because he is the one who, in the end, makes all things new.

What I've Thought About This Week While Running

Hello.

I usually find a topic when I run, and then muse on that issue or problem the whole time.  Sometimes it's an inner dialogue, or sometimes the whole thing takes the form of a prayer.

I've always been fascinated by the connections and symbolism that surround the crucifixion.  The more I learn about it, the more astounded I am.
Jesus was the Lamb of God, sacrificed at Passover, perfect and holy, young and meek.  His blood was smeared on the crossbeams, so that death would pass over. The lamb's bones were not broken. Then the body of the Passover lamb fed the people of God, until they would be delivered across the water to their promised inheritance. After the Passover meal, a cup of wine mixed with water was taken by tradition. The priest sacrificed the lamb at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and trumpets sounded from the temple at the same time as Jesus cried out and breathed his last, to signify that the lamb had died for the sins of the people.
This is known as the Paschal Mystery. ("Paschal" means "pertaining to Passover".)

Earlier this week, I stumbled across this video about Mary the mother of Christ, and in a similar way started to see connections and symbolism I'd never noticed. Enjoy it, and may it give you as much to ponder as it gave me.



[A couple of details only vaguely referenced in the video:
-- "Full of Grace" - In the original Greek of Luke 1:28, Gabriel said to Mary, "Rejoice, Full of Grace!  The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women."  (I get my interlinear translations here.)
A participle in the Greek vocative case, "Full of Grace" is more accurately translated as a title: "Rejoice, Full-of-Grace!"  The phrase, kecharitomene, refers to an action that occurred in the past and continues into the present. It's also translated "highly favored", which is a very similar idea in Greek, though its connotations are somewhat different today.
-- In the same passage, "Rejoice" is the word chaire, which is translated as "rejoice" generally, and "hail" when used as a greeting. This verse is where the "Hail Mary", a traditional prayer-requesting-prayer, comes from.]

Hello.

I was reading the archives today on Conversion Diary, Jen Fulwiler's blog about her conversion to Christianity.  She wrote about finding a dying baby bird with her young son, and trying to explain to him what was happening.

Caught off guard, she told him that the birdie had "gone to be with Jesus." Later in her blog, she wrote a long post about what she would have wanted to say to him about it, if he had been old enough to understand.

It's an excellent post, full of deep truths.  But one sentence convicted me so much that I reread it immediately.

"As you get older, you may be tempted to see the rules that God has given us through his Word and his Church as oppressive; at some point you may feel like they are confining you because they prevent you from making yourself comfortable in this world."

 Wow.

The Theological Story (or, What Is The Church?)

Hello.

The second part of why I'm becoming Catholic, the theological story, is long overdue.

The difference between Catholicism and Protestantism is huge, but really everything, that entire difference, hinges on one question:

What is the Church?

The question seems simple.  It seems bizarre that the huge, obvious differences between Catholics and Protestants boil down to that one question.  The reason the differences are so big is that this question is essential and fundamental; so many other beliefs are built on the answer to this question.

I think of it like one of those cool optical illusions you encounter from time to time.  I'll explain what I mean.

The picture is like the collection of Christian beliefs, Scriptures, and doctrines. When you first encounter it, you form an idea of what it is and exactly what it says and means, much like how you first saw some animal in the picture above.

Whether you see a duck or a rabbit in the picture, another person will look at the same picture and see the other animal first.

If you've seen one animal, that is, you've believed one idea about the Christian faith your entire life, it can be difficult to comprehend why anyone else could see anything else.
But once that moment happens when suddenly the picture seems to blink and suddenly you see the other animal, you will always be able to see the new animal, too.
In the same way, once you experience the paradigm shift and really understand the other (Protestant or Catholic) perspective, you will always understand why they believe what they believe.
The point is, the picture isn't a duck or a rabbit.  It's both.  It may be one more clearly than the other. Perhaps the artist liked one animal better and really intended it to be that way, but accepted the other, also. Or maybe both were intended from the beginning.

I'm here to explain why I see a rabbit now, when I believed in the duck my entire life before this.

So the fundamental question: what is the Church?

Some things are obvious: the Church is the body of Christ.  The Church is the bride of Christ. The Church is the fellowship of believers in Christ.
 
But to understand Catholicism, we must understand the history of the early Church.

When the Church began, the year was around 33 A.D. The Church was a group of mostly (or all) Jews. They were Jesus' disciples:  his followers, the women, and his twelve apostles. The Gospels had not yet been written, nor had any of the Epistles. (Paul wasn't even a Christian yet.)

Between 50 and 80 A.D., the Gospels appeared one by one, with Mark as the earliest, and Matthew and Luke arriving somewhat later. (The exact date of authorship depends on what scholarly opinion you accept.)
The Epistles were written around 50 - 130 A.D.
These documents were probably widely circulated, as in 2 Timothy, Paul refers to them and expects Timothy to know what he's talking about.

The Bible as we know it today was collected and approved by the Synod of Hippo in 393.  However, the books canonized there had been accepted for at least a century or two at that time. One writer likens it to a major music school publishing a declaration that the works of Bach and Mozart are wonderful.
Yes, we know.

The pertinent question here is, what happened in the interim?

The belief that Christian faith emanates from the Scriptures has difficulty with this question.  What did Christians believe before there was the New Testament?

Common sense suggests that they learned the beliefs from the apostles and disciples, probably mostly by spoken word. As the apostles spread out, they taught those they encountered, setting up churches everywhere they went.

History can also shed some light on this question.  The Apostolic Fathers are the first generation of church leaders, those who actually knew the Twelve Apostles.
They include Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp.  Their writings date to the same era as the Epistles, and in some cases, possibly even earlier.
From their writings, we can learn a huge amount about what the first-century church actually did and believed.

• Clement of Rome was the bishop of Rome, either the first, second, or third successor of Peter. He wrote Clement I to the Corinthian church in about A.D. 96. He was martyred at the end of the first century by being tied to an anchor and thrown into the ocean.
• Ignatius was the bishop of Antioch. En route to Rome, he wrote seven letters that are considered authentic today. He was martyred in Rome between 98 A.D. and 117 A.D.
• Polycarp was the second bishop of Smyrna.  He was taught by the apostle John.  He was burned at the stake and stabbed in 155 A.D. in Smyrna.  He wrote a letter to the Philippians, which is the only surviving work attributed to him.

Their writings, and other documents from that time, show a number of striking themes:

• devotion to God (Clement I 7:2-4)
• unity in the Church (Clement 1 Ch. 2)
• bodily resurrection of Christ (Polycarp to the Philippians, Ch. 2)
• waiting for the return of Christ (Ignatius to the Ephesians, Ch. 11)
• belief in the divinity of Christ (Ignatius to the Ephesians, Ch. 15)
• sharing the body and blood of Christ (Ignatius to the Philadelphians, Ch. 4; Ignatius to the Smyrneans, Ch. 7)

The overall picture is striking. Historically, the early Church believed the same doctrines we do. (And in many cases, they faced the same problems. Some things never change...)

One of the most important Scriptures in Catholic doctrine is Matthew 16:13-20.  This is the confession of Peter, and Jesus' assertion that the Church would be built on Peter.  Jesus gives Peter the keys to the kingdom, and the power of binding and loosing. Additionally, after his resurrection, Jesus gave the apostles the authority to forgive or retain sins in John 20, the same way that the Father gave him the authority to forgive sins (vs. 21). (Notice how this compares with Acts 5:3-6.)

The first few chapters of Acts are full of instances where someone, or a group, approaches the Church with a question or a request.  In a striking fashion, the person questions the Church or the group of apostles present, but Peter replies. (This happens in Acts 1:15, 2:14, 2:38, 3:6, 3:12, 4:8, 5:3, 5:15, 5:29, and others).

Peter is listed first in every listing of the apostles found in Scripture (Mt. 10:2-4, Mk. 3:16-19, Luke 6:13-16, Acts 1:13). (Order of names was quite significant in Greek, and signified importance or primacy.)

History tells us Peter was bishop of the church in Antioch, then bishop of the church in Rome until his death under Nero. 
The especially important historical fact is that Peter had a successor.  There was a second bishop of Rome, then a third, and so on.  The order of the first few successors varies depending on the ancient historian writing, but most agree that Linus followed Peter, Anacletus (who had several names) followed him, and Clement followed him. Tertullian reported that Peter himself ordained Clement.

By the end of the first century, Clement of Rome apparently had the authority to intervene in disputes in other churches.  In fact, a particular dispute about clergy in Corinth caused Clement to write a correction to them in about 96 A.D., with an apology for not intervening sooner (Clement 1:1). This does not mean or require that Clements' letters were inspired.  However, it does demonstrate the historical practice of the Church.


Within the next one hundred years, the bishop in Rome was recognized as an authoritative figure responsible for maintaining the Apostolic teaching, according to Irenaeus in 189 A.D.

This recognition extended to the other church leaders. The writings of Ignatius in the early 100's admonish the Christians to submit to the authority of their bishops and to be of one mind with them, as in his letter to the Ephesians. (Interestingly, his letter strongly suggests that Onesimus, from the book of Philemon, became the bishop of Ephesus.)
It should be noted that much of the New Testament was not even written at this time, much less widely circulated, and definitely not canonized or collected into a Bible. Canonization of the Scriptures did not come until the fourth century, and high literacy rates wouldn't occur for another ten centuries after that. Widespread availability of bound Bibles was still over 1500 years away.

The same theme of authority is present in the canonical Epistles, as well. Hebrews 13:17 instructs the Christians to submit to authorities who watch over their souls and will give an account of their work (which does not sound like secular authority to me). 1 Corinthians 16:15-16 tells the Corinthians to be subject to certain leaders, and to others who work for the faith.
This runs counter to our modern democratic sensibilities.  But does that matter if this was, in fact, how the early church was organized, in the days when the apostles and those who walked with Christ were still alive?

Some have even noted that the organization of the Church resembles what we know about the organization of the angels in heaven: many serve under a hierarchy of geographically-based leaders.

In summary, as I learned more about the real historical practice and beliefs of the early Church, I found that sola scriptura made less and less sense.  I realized that the belief in the supremacy of the Bible was, itself, not found in the Bible.  Themes of good Bible scholarship certainly are.  But the belief that the Bible was intended to be the only and complete source of truth is difficult to defend.

About this time, I read 1 Timothy 3:14-15, in which Paul considers his written instructions a substitute for his presence, implying that his oral teaching and example would have been better. In verse 15, he calls the Church (not the Scriptures) the "pillar and foundation of the truth".

Thus, I began to seriously consider the Catholic notion of the Magisterium, the teaching authority of the Church.

Am I so surprised?  In John 14:22-27, Jesus promises his apostles the Holy Spirit, who would remind them of what he had said. In John 16:12-15, Jesus promises that he has more to say to them, and that the Spirit would guide the apostles into all truth. This is a promise of God.

Simultaneously, I discovered that virtually all of the Catholic doctrines I had considered un-Scriptural did not counter the Bible at all. This supported well the Catholic notion of the Scriptures and the Church working together, in harmony, to protect and teach the truth.
(If you guys are interested in talking about anything specific, let me know in the comments.  I'm happy to elaborate on this more if you want.)

In addition, I have discovered Catholic teachings that are purely Scriptural, making sense of verses that had always caused me trouble, such as Matthew 19:4-6, James 5:16, 1 Corinthians 3:12-15, 1 John 5:16-17, James 5:14-15.

All together, these ideas whirled through my life like a thunder storm this summer.  I probably prayed more fervently and consistently for insight about this than about anything else in years before.

If you do not accept this, then you are a Protestant.  Love God, and live it fully in all you do.  May our God be with you and give you his peace.

However, my perspective has been forever changed. This, therefore, is my conclusion.  It is with a full and joyous heart that I continue my journey into the Catholic Church. 

Easter Vigil cannot come fast enough.

Ponderings According to Sarah, on the Gospel According to Matthew

... and I felt the urge when I typed the title to reply, "Glory to you, O Lord."

(When the Gospels are read in Mass, there is some reverence and fanfare surrounding it.  We sing the Alleluia, and the deacon holds the book high.  He carries it to the podium, finds the place, and says, "A reading from the Holy Gospel according to" Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. Then the congregation replies, "Glory to you, O Lord." And we use our thumbs to make a sign of the cross at the forehead, the mouth, and the chest.)

I'm reading the Gospel of Matthew right now.  My plan was to read the Catechism, then reread the New Testament, then read a book I bought about Orthodox Christianity, and then one about Church history.
I'm hoping that reading the New Testament now that I'm Catholic (in mind, if not yet confirmed) will either convince me of my wrongness in choosing to be Catholic, or give me a wonderful new perspective on the Scriptures I've always known.

So now that I've misplaced my copy of "The Catechism of the Catholic Church", I pulled out my Bible today on the bus and started in Matthew.

One of the first things I noticed was the thoroughly Jewish setting of the first couple of chapters.  The book begins with a genealogy, which was a vital piece of information about a person in Jewish culture.  I remember reading in my Church history resource that the early Church was quite Jewish in character.  Most of the earliest Christians (before they were called Christians) were Jews. 
I've read that at first, the faith was thought of as an extension of Judaism, and that the conversion of Gentiles led to some controversy about whether they had to become Jews to become Christians. Apparently, this led to the writing of several of the Epistles.
So I guess the extensive Jewish history isn't surprising.

It also struck me how humbly Jesus' first mention in the Bible appears:
vs 1: "A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham..."
vs. 16: "and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ."

Then in chapter 2, I was amazed by the use of the word "worship" to refer to Jesus many times, even this early in his life. I looked up the word in a Greek interlinear.
It really does mean "worship", and is possibly an example of the Gospel writers' belief that Jesus was God. This word was used even when Jesus was a baby, before many people knew who he was. 
(The study of whether Jesus believed he was the Son of God is interesting; I can write a bit about that if you guys are interested.)

I looked up from the page as the bus turned a corner, and was struck by how commonplace, everyday it all seems to me: bus seats, backpacks, gas stations, blinkers, people in t-shirts, people texting on the bus, going home to my roommates and our dog, drinking some tea and surfing the internet before settling down to homework. Then I realized that Jesus had his own world that seemed commonplace and everyday to him, and that his world was continuous with the one I would someday inhabit.

Then I got into chapter 3, where Jesus is baptized.  I realized with a start that perhaps Jesus' baptism and the subsequent presence of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove could prefigure our own baptism and confirmation.

Confirmation is the laying on of hands and being anointed with oil to receive the Holy Spirit that is referred to in the New Testament.  When I read about it in the Catechism and figured out what confirmation really meant, I felt tears well in my eyes, thinking that I would get to experience "the laying on of hands" that I'd read about so many times.
It's one of those Catholic things I always dismissed and never realized was in the Bible.

As I walked to my house from the bus, I got to musing about Jesus' baptism.  It all seems so real to me now, like it happened yesterday, in my kitchen or out on my driveway.  
My question is this: was Jesus baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit?  If not, what did John say when he baptized Jesus?  Did he say anything?

I read an article about Jewish baptism, and according to it, "in the name of" seems to refer to a required witness, or to those who were present when it happened. This is well-supported by Scripture, as in 1 Corinthians 1:14-15:
"I am thankful that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, so no one can say you were baptized into my name."

And then it hit me. We are baptized in the name of THE FATHER and of THE SON and of THE HOLY SPIRIT.

 What a rich inheritance of faith we have!  How beautiful and nuanced it is!  What a tremendous, glorious blessing that I should be chosen to have this!