Look for the Church

When I wrote my previous post, I removed a quotation from the end, for fear of making it too long. (In fact, I added it, and then removed it, and forgot to remove that third footnote.) The reason for removing it was not that I had found it to be irrelevant, but that since it is one of my favorite passages by Fulton Sheen, I decided to save it for later so as to give it more attention in a post of its own.

It has been almost a month since that post on having faith in God and the Church (which I wrote for the topic of counseling the doubtful, part of a Lenten series about spiritual works of mercy). Lent is almost over. Today is Holy Thursday. It seems like an appropriate time to go back to thinking about that post, and connecting my additional thoughts to it.

Recently, Marc at "Bad Catholic" was discussing failed attempts to sabotage the Catholic Church. His clever response to the anti-Catholic New York Times advertisement pulls from a message of insensitivity and bigotry an admonition to "repent, and believe in the Gospel," a call for an examination of conscience, and a need to increase faith in the Church. Explaining why such attempts to dishearten the faithful ought not to discourage us, he concludes, "But the reasons our enemies are foaming at the mouth over the Church are the very reasons we embrace Her. . . . they remind us of how good, how true, and how beautiful the Bride of Christ is." His statement brings me to the same excerpt of an essay by Fulton Sheen that I had originally planned to post because I like it so much. 

Here is my continuation of my last post:

It is sometimes difficult to be outwardly Catholic, especially in the face of mainstream culture.  We are confronted by a culture that is not only secular, but often outright anti-Catholic.  Perhaps it may be said that the Church does not "get along well with the world," or that it may be "the Church the world hates" (1).  Fulton Sheen tells us, though, that these are not characteristics of the Church that should cause us to fear it. On the contrary, they tell us why we ought to courageously seek it:

My reason for doing this would be, that if Christ is in any one of the churches of the world today, He must still be hated as He was when He was on earth in the flesh. If you would find Christ today, then find the Church that does not get along with the world. Look for the Church that is hated by the world, as Christ was hated by the world. Look for the Church which is accused of being behind the times, as Our Lord was accused of being ignorant and never having learned. Look for the Church which men sneer at as socially inferior, as they sneered at Our Lord because He came from Nazareth. Look for the Church which is accused of having a devil, as Our Lord was accused of being possessed by Beelzebub, the Prince of Devils. Look for the Church which, in seasons of bigotry, men say must be destroyed in the name of God as men crucified Christ and thought they had done a service to God. Look for the Church which the world rejects because it claims it is infallible, as Pilate rejected Christ because He called Himself the Truth. Look for the Church which is rejected by the world as Our Lord was rejected by men. Look for the Church which amid the confusion of conflicting opinions, its members love as they love Christ, and respect its Voice as the very voice of its Founder, and the suspicion will grow, that if the Church is unpopular with the spirit of the world, then it is unworldly, and if it is unworldly, it is other-worldly. Since it is other-worldly it is infinitely loved and infinitely hated as was Christ Himself. But only that which is Divine can be infinitely hated and infinitely loved. Therefore the Church is Divine.

Notes:

(1)Fulton Sheen, Preface to Radio Replies Volume 1, Catholic Apologetics Online: Radio Replies. http://www.radioreplies.info/vol-1-preface.php  (accessed March 9, 2012).

[I encourage you to follow the link and read the whole preface. There are too many things that I would love to quote, especially the last paragraph of it.]

See also:

I also like this blog post by Alexander Pruss, in which he applies C.S. Lewis's "Lord/liar/lunatic" argument about Jesus's divinity to the divinity of the Church. Found here: http://alexanderpruss.blogspot.com/2010/10/catholic-church-infallible-liar-or.html

Faith in God, Faith in the Church

Bright Maidens Topic: To Counsel the Doubtful

Bright Maidens facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/BrightMaidens

            There were times in the past when I disagreed (or thought I disagreed) with certain teachings of the Catholic Church (or, what I incorrectly perceived the teachings to be).  I can now identify at least two issues that were the main sources of my apparent disagreement, and I suspect that there are many people in a similar circumstance.  It is probably not too inaccurate to say, as Fulton Sheen has said, "There are not over a hundred people in the United States who hate the Catholic Church.  There are millions, however, who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church - which is, of course, quite a different thing" (1).

            My disagreements with Church teaching were, I later recognized, differences in opinion which came out of two underlying situations.  The first situation was a lack of catechesis and correct understanding of the basis of Church teachings.  If someone pressed the topic with me, I likely would have admitted at least that it was something that I had simply not been taught.  In fact, I did exactly that, with the attitude that it was not my fault.  What I failed to recognize at the time, but eventually came to realize during my faith conversion was this: As true as it is that my past lack of catechesis had been no fault of my own, that fact does not and will not excuse me from the responsibility of seeking to learn and understand the truth on my own.  Further, if I am to continue calling myself a Catholic, I must only do so if the truth I am seeking is that of Jesus Christ, as revealed to us by His Church.

            The second situation, which I did not fully understand prior to coming back to the Church, was that in disagreeing as I did with those teachings, I was exhibiting a somewhat general lack of faith in the Church itself.  To explain this reasoning, I propose that a disagreement with a teaching of the Church about "topic X" may often stem from a denial of the Church's authority to speak about "topic X" to begin with.  Since we believe that the Church's authority stems from Jesus Christ Himself, to say that the Church does not have the authority to teach on matters of faith and of morality is to say that the Church does not possess the Truth of Jesus Christ.  If we do believe that the Church is what it says it is, “If one holds the church capable, under the guidance of the Spirit, of declaring her belief on a specific point, it follows that assent to such a declaration might require abandonment of a contrary personal opinion” (2).  This does not mean that to believe in the teachings of the Church is to have no right to a personal opinion.  Belief in the Church does, however, call for acts of faith, humility, and obedience concerning Catholic teachings.

            What I have learned along the way is that Church teachings about individual topics cannot be separated from the bigger picture from which they are deducted. In order to understand such topics, we must first understand the Church itself.  That bigger picture is not just what the Church decides to think about particular topics; it is the Church's rendition of Divine Revelation, history, and natural law.  Understanding all of these things is not always easy for us.  It can be very difficult without having faith that the Church is protected from error by the Holy Spirit, as she reveals to us the Truth of Jesus Christ.  To have this faith, we can be aided by humility in the face of a teaching that may be difficult for us to understand at first, and trust that the Church's statements, must have infinitely more knowledge and experience behind them than our short lifetime on earth has yet or even will.  As we strive to understand what the Church teaches us, our faith and humility will hopefully lead to obedient behavior.  It is based on that same humble trust that faithfully recognizes in the Church infinite wisdom beyond our own comprehension. 

 

Notes:

1. Fulton Sheen, Preface to Radio Replies Volume 1, Catholic Apologetics Online: Radio Replies. http://www.radioreplies.info/vol-1-preface.php  (accessed March 9, 2012).

2. Michael Ivens, S.J. , Understanding the Spiritual Exercises, (Trowbridge, Wiltshire: Cromwell Press, 1998), 260    

[found on Google books]

3. See note 1.

Update: I posted an afterthought to this post here: Look for the Church