Despite our differences, we are one holy, Catholic, dysfunctional family

[rug]

by Brian Harper | Oct. 2, 2014

What do Dorothy Day, Geoffrey Chaucer, Rick Santorum, Maureen Dowd, Mother Teresa and Oscar Wilde have in common? Not much. But they all are or were Catholics.

Some may rush to dispute the Catholicity of some of these folks. Chaucer's biography is too spotty to know whether he was practicing. Santorum's comments about the LGBT community rarely land in the ballpark of love or kindness. Dowd is deeply and, some would argue, disrespectfully critical of the Catholic church. Wilde's conversion did not come until he was lying on his deathbed. And Day committed that unpardonable sin in North American politics: dabbling in socialism. Horror of horrors!

Truth be told, I am sometimes prone to this sort of behavior; that is, questioning someone else's devotion to my faith, bemoaning the tragedy of my sharing a religion with someone whose views I find unsound, sometimes offensively so. I will gather a tidbit of information or hear a quote out of context and find myself thinking, "I don't want any part if they're members, too!"

There is hardly any need for me to point out all that is wrong with this kind of thinking, but I will anyway. Many could look at the countless imperfections in how I practice my religion and reach the same conclusion: If he is Catholic, no thanks.

http://ncronline.org/blogs/young-voices/despite-our-differences-we-are-one-holy-catholic-dysfunctional-family

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

1. I wrote this in the comments section of this article

And thought I would share it here. BTW, if you go to the comments section, you will see my real name

One problem that afflicts many of the people who post here is that we are passionate. The Church is vitally important to us. We have beliefs and opinions, and many of us have trouble distinguishing between the two. We also have problems seeing why that &^$% idiot who just attempted to refute my well reasoned and well written post does not simply see how right I am and insists on posting his illogical and illiterate blatherings.

We are, all too often, lacking in humility and charity. We argue. We fight. We wrangle. But, to each of us, this faith of ours is worth fighting over. It is a major part of what we are. And, in our passions, we sometimes get so angry and so frustrated that we forget the Christian virtues that we should be practicing. For all of us, most certainly including myself, who have fallen short of the Christian ideals on this list, I wish to apologize.

As far as leaving the Church, I am sometimes tempted to do just that. I was originally baptized into the Anglican Church, and I sometimes wonder if I would be happier there. (I hear one or two people saying "Yes, why don't you go there?&quot Also, because I am born of a Jewish mother, I am a Jew. So why do I stay? As Tevye in the opening to Fiddler on the Roof says, "We stay, because Anatevka is our home." And the Catholic Church is my home. My favorite definition of "home" is from Robert Frost's poem, "The Death of the Hired Man":

"Home is the place where,
When you have to go there,
They have to take you in."

And where would I go if I were to leave? In John 6:67-68, Jesus asks the apostles "'Do you also want to leave?' Simon Peter answered him, 'Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.'"

The Church is my family. A large, sometimes dysfunctional, often unruly family. A family of drunks and liars, whores and advertising men, saints who make people wonder how they ever got canonized (read about Cyril of Alexandria sometime).

I stay because I do sometimes get glimpses of Jesus in my fellow Catholics -- enough glimpses to keep me hungering for more and also keep me convinced that this is the path that I must follow if I am to see Jesus eternally. I stay because I do find enough faith, hope, and especially love to sustain me on my pilgrimage along that path. Is it always easy? No, of course not. I often stumble. I sometimes get angry at the officious bureaucracy of the Church, who seem to be far more interested in power than they are in love. I often get angry with my fellow Christians for not living up to the ideals that they profess. I get angry with myself for the same reasons. Sometimes I get angry with God, who is the Malek Haolam -- the master of the universe, but seems to be doing a rotten job of running the place.

And yet, I sometimes get to know people like Michelle, who is a Black Baptist. She told me of how she has experienced racial discrimination. She told me this story, not in tones of anger, but in tones of sorrow. And I felt sorry for the people who rejected her because of her race, because they missed out on a truly beautiful woman -- a woman so filled with love that she cannot hate the people who have literally spat on her, but who offers it to the Jesus who fills her heart and her soul.

And sometimes I am also caught up in Jesus, and I feel amost giddy. There is a poem by Charles Baudelaire which puts it well:

One should always be drunk, that's all that matters. So as not to feel time's terrible burden that breaks your shoulders and bows you down, you must get drunk without ceasing. But what with? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you choose. But get drunk.

And if, at some time, on the steps of a palace, on the green grass of a ditch, or in the bleak solitude of your room, you are waking up when drunkenness has already abated, ask the wind, a wave, a star, a bird, the clock, all that which flees, all that which groans, all that which rolls, all that which sings, all that which speaks, ask them what time it is; and the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock will reply: 'It is time to get drunk!'

So that you may not be the martyred slaves of time, get drunk, and never pause for rest! With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you choose!

The Apostle Paul put it rather more delicately: "Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say, rejoice!" (Phillipians 4:4) I do not rejoice always -- I have far too many demons infesting my soul to permit this, as I am sure you do as well -- but I rejoice enough of the time that it is worth staying the course.

[rug]

2. That's excellent.