Last night I found myself, again, entangled in a
conversation with a good friend’s husband – a fallen away Catholic who freely,
and quite frequently, shares the reasons why. The Church is hypocritical. She continues to screw up and push people away, and she best
be changing if she hopes to maintain even the dim, flickering glow of relevance
she has within American society.
I’ve found myself, before, striving to maintain patience –
with Paul but especially with myself – during such discussions, especially when
I start to sound more like an evangelist attempting conversion more so than
like a friend engaging in conversation.
I Nearly unconsciously, I begin praying that my studies in theology will
kick in and prove usefulness, allowing their principles to be expressed with a
portion of the beauty and logic with which they were learned. But last night’s conversation ended differently
than most those of the past – even with no marked improvement in my
apologetics.
I think it started when I allowed myself to admit my
vulnerability, and the at times shared frustration with understanding and
forgiving the Church. Then, I confessed,
rather spontaneously, that, even with all of its aloof ecclesiological designs
(“What’s the whole obsession with the clergy, and why hasn’t the pedophile
priest phenomenon sobered people up to the weaknesses of the elite class they
place in positions of authority?”), and supposed gaps in Christology (“What
gave some old white men the ability to throw out books of the Bible, and hasn’t
the History channel proven that the Arch of the Covenant is really the secret
of Christ’s offspring,”), I believe in the Church, not because I believe whole-heartedly
in the identity of the Bishops, priests, and laity in carrying out the teaching
of Christ, but because I believe in Christ. I may remain a tormented Catholic
striving to understand the trappings of an institution that was created to
defend and support a community, but I am not tormented in the legitimacy of
that community, and the historical fact that Christ entered into human history,
walked and spoke among a certain geography, was killed even though he preached
healing and peace, and left a devoted, albeit feared and persecuted, group of
scoundrels to show for it.
From that point on the conversation took a welcomed, softer
cadence. Love, as completely
undeserved as it was and as likely as it is to be misunderstood and
miscommunicated until the end of our days, was enough to lift our gaze from the
methods of persuasion, and bring merit to our entire deliberation.
“Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret
that will not be known,” Matthew says Jesus said in the Gospel today. “What I say to you in darkness, speak
in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. And do not be afraid of those who kill
the body but cannot kill the soul … Even all the hairs on your head are
counted.” The love Christ has for
each of His children is revolutionary: we can imagine the sacrifice it takes to
devote your life to someone who is virtuous and will know for the rest of his
days life how indebted he is to you.
It’s much more difficult, and more mysterious, to imagine the devotion
and resolve that was required when He who is spotless and good allowed himself
to be handed over and killed for a people who could never know the story, never
grapple with the significance, and continue to resist the mercy of such an act.
Even when words seem to evaporate and the ability to draw intricate
themes and conclusions hide from our tongues, we have the work of reminding
people of this good news, this good story—the good man and how much He loves
us. Because it is so different
from the love we see gestured all around us, it may be met with denial, opposition,
even spite. But, that just gives
us all the more opportunity to join with the sufferings and the irony of being hated
for trying to remind people of how loved they are.
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