What if it is true?

In the publication First Things, this month there is an article about a recent book by Catherine Albanese called A Republic of Mind and Spirit: A Cultural History of American Metaphysical Religion. The review is written by the Editor in Chief of First Things, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus. While it is quite an intriguing article, I refer you to one point which Fr. Neuhaus quotes of an author by the name of Harold Bloom, writing in his 1993 book The American Religion. Mr. Bloom, apparently, points out that "most American Christians are, whether they know it or not, gnostics."

What is a gnostic? Webster's online dictionary states that a gnostic is one who adheres to gnosticism, which the lexicon defines as "the thought and practice especially of various cults of late pre-Christian and early Christian centuries distinguished by the conviction that matter is evil and that emancipation comes through gnosis" or knowledge. Could this be true of some of here at St. Jude?

Gnosticism, from the earliest days of the Church, has been threatening us in some form or another as a heresy. As humans, we seem to have a real difficulty in understanding what the Church means by a mystery. In the R.C.I.A. we point out what the Catholic Church means by mystery: it is something which can be comprehended, but never fully known. Consider the nature of love: we can understand what it means to love, and we might even claim to be in love. But try to explain how one knows one is in love and most every attempt falls short of the reality - in other words, it is a mystery. This is also the case with the Holy Trinity. One Triune God and yet three distinct persons within our one God - Mystery!

So too is this true of the Catholic Faith. We can comprehend the basic teachings of the Church, they are laid bare for all. But the depth of what these basic teachings mean can never be plumbed, they are too deep for our own human comprehension. This DOES NOT mean however, that there is some secret behind all the faith of the Catholic Church. It is laid bear by the Church. There is no secret mystery of the Holy Grail, despite Dan Brown. One can read the Catechism of the Catholic Church and find the most basic of Christian teachings laid out. Why is this possible? Because the Catholic Faith, at the end of the day, is not about teachings per se. That is to say, the teachings do not lead us to conformity to mere teachings, rather they lead us to a person. The person of the Risen Christ Jesus. HE IS ALIVE!

We will soon commemorate His passion and death and glorious resurrection. In the resurrection, Christ becomes available to each of us. He pours out His own Holy Spirit, which He sends in union with the Father, to us so that we might have intimate knowledge of Him. He is, to quote a professor of mine, "present in absence." He is more present now that His Spirit is with us, than when He was here bodily on earth. Of course, He is most fully present in the Holy Eucharist - Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity.

What then is the point of all those pesky teachings of the Catholic Church? If we are supposed to find a person in the Catholic Church, namely Jesus the Christ, then why have all kinds of moral and ecclesial (i.e. Church) laws? Well, the point is that when Christ comes to give us new life, He does not allow us to just receive a medal or a cupie doll in our baptism; we don't just plateau, or (to use a more familiar phrase) we are not just saved by "accepting Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior." We must also live out that faith.

The Lord Jesus, establishing a Church upon St. Peter, gave us a new way to live. In justice, he also taught us and continues to teach us how this new life is to be lived out through the teachings of the Catholic Church. It is a true lifestyle - even most of our separated brethren (the Protestants) recognize that. No one of us can merely say we are Catholic and then ignore the moral or ecclesial or liturgical laws. We must learn to conform our lives to the teachings the Spirit of Christ continues to maintain through the constant teaching of the Catholic Church.

But why must we be SOOOOOO oppressed by the Pope? Well, the reality is if we see the Pope as a figure of oppression by this nasty Church then you will see yourself as oppressed. However, if you recognize that the reason the Catholic Faith is a lifestyle is because we have become a new creation in Christ, and the Pope thus becomes just like St. Joseph, then you will see that we have been given a great gift in the Pope. God gives us the gift of someone who will is able to lead the Church and define what must be believed even while we are alive, someone we can go and see and appeal to if things go sour. AND, I might add, we can appeal to the Pope when things go very wrong in the Church (although one must first go through the proper channels to do this)!

St. Joseph watched over the Holy Family, the sinless Mother of God and the Son of God, though he himself was a sinner. If Jesus in his divinty was obedient to a papa, then should we be any different in our humanity?

To go back to my original point, there is no secret to the Catholic Church. Any less is there a secret to life, despite the recent book called The Secret. Rather, it is only in Christ Jesus that we find new life, and that new life is offered to all - this especially must happen through those of us who have met Jesus Christ, received the Catholic Faith and desire for Christ to be known within that Catholic Faith. It is obvious to the modern world this love of God is a scandal and stumbling block. Yet the world will hear it if we who believe in Christ take this message to the world. I await for this to happen at St. Jude, and the way I will know that it is happening is that R.C.I.A. will begin to overflow. No one of us can be idle! No one can afford to be idle! Let no one be idle! For the hope of the world depends on us who are witnesses to the real reality of the Risen Christ. As Pope Paul VI said, "Modern man listens more willing to witnesses than he does to teachers, and if he listens to teachers it is because they are witnesses (#41)."