Catholic.
I pray…that all of them may be one, Father…. May they also be in us so that the world may believe.
~John 17:20-21
Kellie and I spent a lovely night in Portland last week with our friends John and Sherri. Sherri works for Young Life as the Associate Director of Catholic Relations, with a mission to help bridge the chasm between Protestant and Catholic Christians in order to reach more teenagers. For the last 500 years, Catholics and Protestants have tended to hold one another at arm’s length, finding the other suspect at best, if not downright heretical. Evangelicals often see Catholics as pseudo-Christians, attached to ritual but lacking personal connection with Christ. I have even heard Catholics characterized as demonic by otherwise good-hearted believers.
We Christians have a poor history of attending to Jesus’ prayer for oneness in John 17.
The word Catholic comes from the Greek katholikos, meaning “universal” or “all-embracing.” Protestants from a more liturgical tradition still repeat the Apostles Creed or Nicene Creed weekly, affirming that We believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. In other words, the church of Jesus, despite appearances, is a single, indivisible organism. What would it take for us to stop villainizing one another and heal that divide, offering each another the best of our traditions? This would call for humility on both sides, also not our historic strength as Christians.
Seriously, do we really believe that we need the insights of those on the other side of that aisle in order to complete our spiritual perspective and experience? It’s almost as farfetched as Republicans and Democrats thinking that they need the other side in order to learn from one another for the whole to prosper. I’d like to suggest that we will never, ever see the kingdom of God emerge “on earth as in heaven” without such mutual respect and loving relationship.
In today’s musings, I’d like to share with you five of my favorite Catholic writers / leaders and something I learned from them that I didn’t learn in evangelicalism, in the order that I was introduced to their work…
Brennan Manning: Ragamuffins. Sure, I learned the concept of grace in all my spiritual education, but Manning made it personal and visceral. He gently deflated my compulsive drive to do everything right, to be right, to need to appear right. He extended grace far beyond a salvation experience to the daily experience of non-performance.
Henri Nouwen: Belovedness. The other side of being a Ragamuffin is being Beloved, and no one championed that fundamental truth more than Nouwen. In fact, this message is the gospel in a word—the ultimate Good News. We have ever been objects of mercy, not objects of wrath (Rom 9:22,23). Side note: Manning and Nouwen didn’t just write about the Broken-Beloved paradox; they lived it. Both offered their profound gift to the world from the profound vulnerability of a lifelong struggle… Manning with alcohol and Nouwen with same-sex attraction.
Ronald Rolheiser: Paschal Mystery. Rolheiser introduced me to the long-standing Catholic insight that the death and resurrection of Christ is more than a redemption story; it is the prototype for the entire spiritual journey. A journey in which we are constantly dying and being resurrected in our own lives through the pattern of losing something precious (Good Friday), receiving a new life (Easter Sunday), adjusting to the new and grieving the old (40 days), receiving the blessing of the old (ascension), and receiving a new spirit for the new life (Pentecost). We are constantly invited into this transformative process.
Thomas Merton: True & False Self. This revolutionary monk used provocatively fresh language to cast a new light on our lifelong journey of conversion, artfully avoiding the deep shame embedded in the Protestant emphasis upon depravity, transgression, and condemnation… instead describing our moral choices as either in alignment with the True Self oriented toward God or the False Self seeking a short cut to save face. This is no small distinction.
Richard Rohr: “Alternative Orthodoxy.” No one has influenced my theological perspectives more than Rohr over the last decade, and he describes the Franciscan heritage as an alternative orthodoxy, an admittedly minority view but one that enjoyed consistent historical support from those parts of the church less prone to Empire influence. See the link below for more on this deeply encouraging perspective on Jesus and his message.
It’s hard to mention only one insight from each of these great spiritual pioneers because each of them offers a treasure trove of guidance from the Catholic tradition to open-hearted Protestants. We need them, and they need us, so I hope you are willing to glean from these and many others on the other side of the spiritual aisle.
growing the soul
Which one of these five themes resonates most with you in your current stage in the journey? How might you lean into this theme even more?
serving the world
Which one of these five themes might be a game-changer if we could somehow insert it into the places of war and conflict in our world today?
takeaway
That we may be one.