Why? Because of a schmancy thing called the “hermeneutic of the gift”. A key point in the Theology of the Body, this concept of “gift” teaches that since the entirety of the universe, everything from creation to marriage, exists singularly because of God’s sheer goodness and desire to give, then real life consists in participating in that “dimension of gift”, that economy of giving. Much like the laws of nature dictate that a two-minute bike ride with my boy will exhaust me and that OK Computer incites ecstasy in anyone who listens to it, the law of gift determines that the outcome of manipulation and lust is dis-satisfaction, and the outcome of sacrifice and deference will be redemptive satisfaction.

The created order, finding its pinnacle in humanity, lives, moves, and has its being fundamentally through the gift of God alone. No inherent merit demanded creation; it was not needed, it was given, not one string attached. You and I weren’t necessary, we were desired “for our own sake”. As a result, this gifted life thrives, is set ablaze, when it responds in like kind and, consequently, suffers when it grasps in selfishness. That is why no one truly finds beauty in greed, or no one but a few Rand-ians find virtue in selfishness, but most everyone finds beauty in the selflessness of Mother Teresa or the intense sacrifices made by a single parent. We find true, real life when we give of ourselves; and we find discontent and frustration when we take from the world.

It isn’t self-help or wishful thinking, either. Why does it feel rewarding to bring food to a soup kitchen, or even to give small pocket change to a beggar on the street? Some would say that it appeases the guilt that is heaped on us as a result of religion, but those of us who know Christ and live His religion know better (yes, I advocate religious organization, largely because I’ve seen the inside of my backpack and would never want the body of Christ to look like it). We know that there is intrinsic goodness in letting go of our time, treasure, and talent, even if it is only $.43, because the widow who gave her last $.02 was lauded by Jesus and “it is better to give than to receive”.

(The Widow’s Mite)

What cracks me up is that, though we agree there is a goodness, both in the act and the accompanying feelings, to giving to the poor or helping someone with their groceries, we don’t play it out logically. If it feels/is so good to do the small, random acts of kindness, why don’t more of us take the plunge and allow that “posture of giving”, to quote Rev. David Dale (Father-in-law), to be our everyday posture, our minute-by-minute mentality? Why not commit intentional acts of sacrifice as an all-encompassing lifestyle? Instead, most of us stop at the niceties, and even those fall by the wayside when the going gets tough. At least, that’s what is true in my life.

For instance, I have always had the unspoken policy of putting my shoes on the bottom of the rack so that my wife could put hers on the top and reach them easier. It has always been my personal, quiet way of preferring her to myself. However, at one point in our marriage when things had gotten quite tough for us and our relationship was upended, I subtly started placing my shoes on the top of the rack. Now, I don’t think she even noticed it, to be honest, but what it reflected about the state of my heart spoke volumes, and it took me noticing my minuscule moments of selfishness to show me where I was causing the harm in the relationship. The small act was an indicator of the general attitude of grasping I’d begun to hold, both toward my wife and the world. The shoes took an altitude plunge in a hurry, as well as placing my loofah on the back of the rack and my toothpaste in a harder-to-reach place than hers, for good measure.

Mind you, I know very well the hesitancy you might feel when facing the possibility of giving it all away. It’s daunting. After all, you just might find yourself exhausted due to the emotional chaos of the kids you adopted from a tough home and penniless for the same reason. You could end up homeless as you move from one missionary situation to the next. All this and more awaits those who decide to attempt to live gift with each breath, but, I can assure you that real, vibrant, exciting, miraculous life set on fire awaits, as well.

In the book of Judges, we meet a man of insignificant background named Gideon who was asked by God to do the impossible.  When he responded with doubt and claims of ineptitude, God’s response was, “Go fight with the strength you have. I am the one who is sending you. I will be with you.” We are strong, good, and able because of Who gives us strength and goodness, Who sends us and goes with us. We can give everything because we’ve first received everything from the Giver of all good things.

Keep in mind, we don’t have to quantify our success, we just have to live the law of gift, the rest is inconsequential. Just give, dangit! One of my favorite songs of all time, both for the content and the fact that it’s the perfect running tempo for me, is Needtobreathe’s Nothing Left To Lose. One line states, “Love is just like a war you can’t win. You can give, you can give, you can give.” In the dimension of gift, if you give, you’ve won, even if you lose. In the closing minute of the song, Bear Rinehart sings, “When there’s nothing that you can’t afford to sacrifice, there’s no way they can put out your fire.” Whether you see success or not, by living gift, you can let go of fear of the outcome, join with The Killers, and sing, ”From the summit’s edge to the cutting room floor, I will be afraid no more.”

Ladies and Gents, we were made to live lives of transcendent  inexplicable gift, keeping the loosest of holds on that which everyone else holds dear. Each of us had our life simply gifted to us, and we find peace when we give the reins, and ourselves, to God. As soon as we do, we find ourselves able to readily give everything else to others, including, but not limited to, the winning position in a Facebook brawl, adequate sleep, and your preferred iPod playlist.

So, let us stop taking and grasping, and begin giving and receiving. Let us cease taking communion and begin receiving the Eucharist. Let us put our shoes, loofahs, and toothbrushes at the back. Let us make sure each word is a gift to others, not a dagger, knowing that “life and death is in the tongue” (Prov 18:21). May we let the coins of each area of our lives trickle through our fingers with gladness. Let us empty ourselves for all, breathe our life into all, and bleed out for all.

I’d start with the shoes.

Sitting here at 2:00 am, watching live footage of the scene in Boston, my mind is a rapid-fire collage of tragedy and bravery. Scenes of the marathon are fresh-pressed, certainly, but thrown in the mix are frames of everything from 9/11 to Hiroshima, from Mcveigh and Kaczynski to Cain and Abel, from Eden to Sandy Hook. Humanity’s story is ever one of Holocausts and heroism, and this tense back-and-forth of wills is, in essence, our fundamental state of existence here on earth.

John Paul II spoke of “historical man”, that is, mankind after the fall but in the light of Redemption, and we see this fleshed out not only in every newsfed tragedy or in every epic novel throughout time, but in every page of Sacred Scripture, as well. As often as a news source reports on “The Suspect” and Scripture give us Paul’s lament of “what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do”(Rom 7:15), in response, a Facebook pass-around gives us shots of people running towards a crisis and Scripture shows Christ saying, “Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42). Humanity seems to be constantly in play between the fires set by sin and the moths who choose to help put them out.

However, here’s the thing: There truly is no such thing as us and them. They did not start the flames and we did not run to put them out.

In reality, each of us is a moth, in transit through life, carrying our own, personally cherished book of matches. While it is true that, at the core, both Hitler and I have been guilty of fanning the flames of sin, it is also true that both Hitler and I were made in the image and likeness of God. “All we, like sheep, have gone astray”, but no amount of straying can change the fold we came from and can always return to. In one way or another, every Achilles has a heel, but every heel was made to walk on water.

As depraved and gruesome as Kermit Gosnell has been, I don’t for a second want him to experience the same earthly fate as the women and children he killed. As guilty as the bombers in Boston may be, I don’t desire the “poetic justice” that a newscaster just referred to, that one of the bombers should dye as a result of an explosion. I’m not saying we should ignore terrorism; I’m saying we should pray for the terrorists just as fervently as we fight for justice. I don’t advocate dismissing the Gosnells of the world; I propose that while we seek to bring about restitution for committed sins, we also earnestly pray that the waters of Baptism will one day quench their furnace of original sin. While we grieve the death of the innocent and hope for their life eternal, let us also pray for the souls of the unjust, that one day, all of Heaven might rejoice as they, too, enter beatitude.

In this time of comboxing and 3-second screen shots, it is easy to caricaturize both heroes and hated, polarizing humanity into actually non-existent camps. We have all had moments of grandeur, where we flurry to the aid of someone set on fire; but we must not forget that we have also, ALL of us, bourn within ourselves the curse of Adam, the fall of mankind. May we who know the Truth of the matter loudly proclaim His good news to this world of moths with matches: that we are good, that we have done wrong, and that a Savior even now intercedes for each one of us, the “worst” included.

Though our hearts should soar upon hearing those words, I am also very quick to point out that there is still an often-overlooked statement on the other side of the period at the end of Christ’s sentence.  He immediately goes on to say, “Go and sin no more.”  The clear teaching is that, though neither we nor God condemns someone for their sins, each of us does, indeed, condemn ourselves by our sins. Hence, Christ is hurried in giving the woman her spiritual direction: Rid your life of the sin that “so easily besets” you (Heb. 12:1) You may hear this side of the coin preached at Mass.

However, earlier today, I was struck by an aspect of the account that I’d never given thought to before. Of every talk, sermon, homily or reflection I’d ever heard about this passage, not one had been focused on the miraculous experience of the accusers. I’d frequently seen their harshness pointed out, and I’d been shown the error of their ways, but no one has ever highlighted the beautiful completeness and hope in the ultimate outcome of the reading.

The beginning of the scene is, indeed, dire and full of misplaced righteous indignation. If I’m reading it correctly, they’ve nabbed a woman while engaged in the act of adultery, dragged her into public, thrown her down at Jesus feet, and demanded judgement from Him. Even worse, they don’t even seem to care much about her or her sin at all. They seem to view her as merely an object for their use, a pawn in their incessant chess match with Jesus. The peripheral nature of her public shame makes it all the more deplorable. Admittedly, these men were not the heroes of the story.

Thankfully, though, because “Christ…fully reveals man to himself” (Gaudium et Spes, 22), the picture we get of the scribes and the Pharisees at the beginning of the story is, if we look closely, drastically different than the picture we get at the end. In the short span of eleven verses, we not only see the power of God’s love restore a broken woman to her inherent dignity, we also see God’s Truth confound accusing mouths, humble prideful hearts, and open eyes blinded by misguided religious zeal.

How do we know this? Read the text: “And in response, they went away one by one, beginning with the elders.” How stunningly gorgeous! Men, who’s fingers were pointed and fists were clenched in outward accusation moments ago, were now moved to interior contemplation and awareness of their own need for mercy. Had they been too hardened or too far gone, they would not have backed down. Convinced of their own righteousness, they would have simply ignored the few, meager words of this Rabbi, Jesus, and proceeded with their stoning; but, they did not. They were changed, moved. They ceased the accusations and walked away.

Brothers and sisters, with the climax of the Lenten season rapidly approaching, let us encounter Christ in a renewed depth. Let us approach Him, blinded by anger if we must, so long as we depart from Him with eyes that see, having set our stones down. Where we condemn, let us cease. Where we sin, let us do the same. Lead by the elders of our Church, let us truly enter into the transforming love of Christ. Oh, that we might change. Oh, that we might yield. Oh, that we might live like the accusers.

Before ever reading The Royal Road to Card Magic or learning how to do a pass, I was introduced to magic by yourself and Mr. Teller on THIS television special. Not only was I hooked on magic from then on, I also remember being impressed by your duo’s willingness to “reveal” one way in which an illusion might be done. There was an honesty in the unveiling that actually made me appreciate the piece more.

The next time I remember taking note of you was in 2003, when Showtime began airing your series, “Penn and Teller: Bullshit”. Beneath the bravado and aggressive language, I could plainly see an admirable pursuit of truth vs. the modern, selfish, emotion-based acceptance of “truthiness“.

You popped up on my radar a third time by a post on “Penn Says” about a man who gave you a Bible after a show. Though I was refreshed at your open willingness to speak of the man–whom you intrinsically disagreed with–as “kind, and nice, and sane,” I was most impacted by the following statement:

“I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize…If you believe that there’s a heaven and a hell and people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life…and you think that …it’s not really worth telling…because it would make it socially awkward…how much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?”

In a few, short, hastily-recorded words, you had put the impetus behind Matthew 28′s “Great Commission” into layman’s terms, all without actually believing any of it, and, yet again, I was impressed. Regardless of how vocal and sarcastic you could appear to be at times, you also seemed to possess a relatively rare docility to honesty and truth, even if it was found in a standpoint you found laughable.

Then, on March 7, you appeared in an interview with Piers Morgan and, among other things, relayed such a succinct, yet adequate, exposition of the Catholic Church’s belief in the Papacy that I had to write this letter.

Thank you, Mr. Jillette. Thank you for being the unusual type of person who realizes that you can’t truly disagree with someone until you understand their position. More specifically, thank you for being a man of such backbone and character that you will defend a tenet of the Catholic Church from misrepresentation and error, even though you disagree with said tenet.

Furthermore, thank you for seeing through the flimsy, theologically absurd belief that Christianity should bend to the whims of culture, which change by the minute and are generally dictated by the selfish desire for immediate gratification of any and all wants. If real, eternal, objective truth can be found in the Catholic Church and her members, then, as you so beautifully put it, “why would society move them?” Instead of bowing to a given population’s estimated value of the dollar, Christians are supposed to “impregnate culture and human works with a moral value” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 909). You said it best, yet again, ”There’s not supposed to be modernizing, it’s supposed to be the Word of God.”

I joined the Catholic Church in 2008 after growing up in an Evangelical denomination, attending Bible College, becoming atheist, and spending a few years floundering in the choppy sea of personal opinion applied to Scripture. I found myself unable to swallow the inherent chaos which very clearly resulted from the belief that “your interpretation is as good as mine” and “if it works for you, then great!”

I came to agree that, as you put it, “if you have someone who is a conduit to God…even if you can’t understand exactly what God’s plan is…that still doesn’t mean you get to vote on what God actually believes.” It didn’t seem to me that truth, religious or otherwise, should–or could–be relegated to the anarchic realm of personal opinion. It seemed more logical and right to embrace Aquinas’ statement that, “if there is anything true, there must be truth,” and then approach that truth with the beautiful philosophy of Mr. Penn Jillette and say, “You either agree or you don’t.”

There is a desperate, pressing need for more people like you to hold the line against the subversive gibberish and rhetoric of a culture which says you don’t have to mean what you say or be what you are. The Church is rife with thousands who loudly profess to be Catholic and, in the same breath, unequivocally deny teachings which are intrinsic to Catholicism. Thank you for being one person who won’t stand for the paradox and contradiction.

I hope, and my heart prays, that you soon leave the ranks of those who believe “in the pope’s position more than most Catholics”, and join the merry band of actual Catholics who truly believe what the Church teaches. I desire this, not so that we have one more notch on our theological belt, but that your restless heart, starving for and relentlessly pursuing truth, may rest in the Truth that is Christ and His Church.

Thank you, again, Mr. Jillette.

Sincerely,

Nic Davidson

My two life paths at that time, aviation and considering Catholicism, looked quite the same in a lot of ways.  With flight, I’d researched a little bit and the desire and awe within had been gaining strength; with the Church, my desire for truth had been enkindled by attending a Mass out of curiosity and had developed into me reading an old copy of the Catechism at this Barnes and Noble for four hours a day, dog-earing my spot, and then hiding it behind other books until the next day because I couldn’t afford to buy it and I sure-as-heck didn’t want someone else to buy it, either.

My inaugural day immersed in both was also quite similar.  At the end of our first day of classes, the instructor showed us the sign up sheet where we could reserve our spot to be “up in the plane” within 24 hours, which my fellow students and I couldn’t believe; and, my first morning on the job, Fr. Eric proudly walked into my office and thumped a gleaming copy of the new, accepted, authoritative Catechism of the Catholic Church down in front of me, with a handwritten note inside, making it MY very own copy, which I couldn’t believe.  Now, suddenly and unbelievably, I had “slipped the surly bonds of earth“ and was getting paid to study the Catholic Church!

And so the journey of learning to soar began.  Over then next few months, there were many parallels between flight and faith.  Often, I’d be studying something like the Coriolis effect or lift and how we use them to achieve flight, and I’d stumble upon CCC 354, which states, “Respect for laws inscribed in creation and the relations which derive from the nature of things is a principle of wisdom and a foundation for morality” or CCC 159, which states, “The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are.”

Not only were science and religion suddenly connected in a far deeper way, but the daily life of the Church began transforming my experiences at the yoke.  When I’d be lined up at the end of the runway, waiting for clearance, not only would there be the normal prayer that I used whenever I merged onto the freeway on my motorcycle, “Into thy hands I commend my spirit”; now, I’d also be quietly reciting a passage from Psalm 143 in the Liturgy of the Hours: “Let your good spirit guide me in ways that are level and smooth”.

However, of all the aspects of Catholicism I discovered that began to shape my life, few impacted and deepened it in a more powerful and steady way than that of Pope Benedict XVI.  My journey had been a constant process of hacking and sanding away the pile of prejudice and misconception toward Catholicism that I’d built up in my life and, along the way, two statements by Baba Bene were the most instrumental in hewing some of the largest boulders away.

First, in the forward to his book Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, Pope Benedict says that “everything depends” on “intimate friendship with Jesus”.  As a fervent Protestant Christian, having a “personal relationship with Jesus” was my eternal tag line, and seeing the Pope, leader of what I’d previously heard was the “whore of Babylon”, place such supreme importance on intimacy with Christ caused me to second-guess my  prior stance.  After all, if the mouthpiece of Catholicism thinks that all the Tradition and theology pivots and hinges on a personal relationship with Jesus, how bad could the belief system be, especially since, “It’s all about Jesus, man!” was my daily motto?

The second, more powerful, quote is the famous line from Deus Caritas Est:  ”Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.”  When I first read those words, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  Here, in one sentence, the head of this enigmatic entity, the Catholic Church, had summed up everything I’d known about Christ.  As much as I was impressed–or nearly addicted–to the “Disneyland of Theology” I was finding in Catholicism, this one line kept coming back to me as the most complete line of apologetics for the Church I’d read so far.  I kept thinking, “Who IS this guy?  He talks like a Protestant!”

About eight months after starting my two paths of study, I’d joined the ranks of wanna-be pilots who had done their first solo flight and the ranks of the Church Militant.  Fittingly, the two were linked, yet again.  On the return trip of my solo, because of a combination of a couple of extenuating circumstances, I lost my heading, and, being that it was a small plane with no GPS, I was lost.  I had no clue which way to go.  In ground school, we were told that if you lose your way, simply locate a town, descend low enough to read the water tower, and you’ll know where you are, all of which I did.  I don’t know if I’d ever been so happy to see the town McGregor, MN!

I now knew my way home, and as I climbed back up to a comfortable level the words of our beloved B16 came to mind as clearly as if B16 was chillin’ in the control tower and talking through my headset: “a new horizon and a decisive direction”.  It was clear then, as it has been virtually every day since, that the Church, through the Sacraments, is able to bring us into the deepest possible intimacy with our Savior.  Pope Benedict, through his utmost service to the Sacrament of Holy Orders, has been the only pope I’ve known, so I guess I am a bit biased, but I don’t know if I could have dived into this Faith without his loving, Fatherly example each step of the way.

I may never meet Pope Benedict in this life.  The odds are against me getting a private audience, at this point.  And I’m pretty sure I’ll never get to sit down and watch “The Sandlot” with him, as I’ve always wished.  However, I am planning to meet him on the flip side.  I do know that his fatherhood brought me into the fullness of the family.  And I am certain that his decision to resign was done in love and wisdom, and will result in the betterment of the Church.

Thanks, prayers, and love to you, Pope Benedict XVI, my Protestant Pope.

I remember the first time I heard that the “12 days of Christmas” were actual days (12 of them), and not merely an enigmatic song perfected by John Denver and the Muppets in 1979.  I was working as a pastoral intern and a wonderful church in Walhalla, ND and was attending my first ever “Ministerial Association” meeting, where pastors from various congregations and denominations get together to collaborate on anything they can find common ground about.

In preparing for their annual Community Christmas Dinner, one comment stood out to me.  The local Catholic priest, a younger man, was in attendance and softly suggested possibly, maybe, kind of, hypothetically having a celebration at some point after Christmas Day, “since Christmas continues for 12 more days…”.  The idea was immediately and frankly cast aside, but I remember sitting there, conscious of two thoughts racing through my head.

First:  ”SWEET!  Maybe he can tell me what the heck a Colly bird is and why the heck I’d need four of them!!!”

Second:  ”Wow, this man has guts!  Suggesting something as crazy, illogical, and out-on-a-limb-esque must’ve taken some real courage, especially since he has to know it will be shot down!”  I was all for trying new, zany, trendy things to get people involved in church, but to try to drag it out for an extra couple of weeks seemed drudgery, at best, and a participation in the over-commercialization of the season, at worst.  And it would’ve done no good to explain the days as a lead-up to Epiphany, because, as far as I knew, that was just a brand of guitar. (Yes, I’m aware of my mis-pronunciation. Don’t judge me.)

Flash forward a year and a half to the night before easter, 2008.  A gangly man and his wife, having followed their RCIA program through the 12 Days, past not only Epiphany, but the Holy Family, Baptism of Our Lord, into Ordinary Time, and through Lent, and  are readying themselves to join the Catholic Church.  The path from Assemblies of God to fully embracing Catholicism had been constantly accented by moments of pleasant surprise at having discovered yet another thing I was woefully in the dark about, much like the moment with that soft-spoken priest.  So often, I’d found myself wishing I’d had known about so much fullness all of my life.  So, I told myself I would never forget the differences between the two sides of the Easter Vigil and would work for unity and understanding as much as I could.  I hope this is a small, jovial step in that direction.

If you’re a Catholic, just know that most Pentecostals are done with Christmas for the year, not so much out of ill-intent, but more because many of them–my wife and I included–started all-out, full-on celebrating Christmas on November 1.  Remember that they also usually don’t know the insane amount of celebrating and feasting that we do, so why not show them how much fun we truly do have in the Church!

If you’re a Pentecostal, a Colly Bird is a European Blackbird (not to be confused with the African Swallow) and Epiphany ROCKS.  You should try it.  You’ve still got 10 days to prep.

No matter who you are, Merry Christmas from me and this guy!!!

For instance, for as long as I can remember, I’ve talked about martyrdom.  Jim Elliot was my hero.  I loved to be the guy preaching about the virtue of self-sacrifice.  In my mind, it had a gloss to it, a fine veneer that made it appealing.  The idea of being a “mini martyr” in your everyday life sounded ultra-spiritual, magical, and deep.  Oh, the hubris of the young.  ”When I was a child, I spoke as a child…”  It turns out that suffering and self-sacrifice really end up taking a lot out of you–everything, actually!  Who knew, right?  I guess that’s why the rest of the quote goes, “…but when I became a man, I put away childish things”.

No matter how inspirational I thought it would be to die to self, when it really came down to it, I don’t think I had truly considered that that meant I actually had to die, and death is never pretty or comfy.  Initially, when I was suddenly faced with putting someone else’s needs over my own desires, actually “willing the good of the other”, the photoshop was stripped away and I’d find myself thinking, “I didn’t sign up for this.”  But, as life played out, and I realized that on the other side of the pain was purity, after the Cross was the empty tomb, life took on a much more exciting tone.

Whether it was finding that marriage really is “where bad people go to die” (Fr. Mike Schmitz) or discovering that I was a first-class heretic, the underlying truth and reality was always a worthwhile trade-off.  The false, self-centered view of the fulfillment that marriage would bring me was piffle compared to the actuality of what it means to place my all, my hopes, dreams, and body in the custody of my wife and give myself up for her.  And, in my opinion, the tempest of autonomy that Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide bring about are on par with an 18-month-old taking the wheel of an 18-wheeler, when compared to the joy of coming home to the permanence and security of the Church.

Get it?

Which brings me to the title and purpose of this article.  Even before we were married, my wife and I knew we would adopt siblings internationally.  We’ve always been vocal about our desires to adopt older siblings, specifically because they were of the least adopted demographic.  ”Leave the infants to the others,” we said, “We’ll take the ‘least of these’”.  For the first ten years of our marriage, that was the extent of it for us–talk.  It never seemed to be the right time, regardless of whether we were at home or abroad.

Then, we moved to the Caribbean island of Dominica (pronounced da-mi-KNEE-ka) so that my wife could attend medical school. Prior to moving, we had zero inclination that we would adopt; however, about two months after we arrived, we both began to feel like we should at least look into the process here on Dominica.  As we followed the tug on our hearts to investigate adoption, we felt that familiar surge of excitement, the one that says you’re about to do something adventurous and inspiring.  In my mind, the wide camera shot had slowly zoomed in on my wife and me as we spent moments in fervent prayer, our hearts alive with expectation of children who would twirl into our arms with abandon, their mouths filled with well-articulated gratitude.  ”When I was a child…”

Not that there hasn’t been quite a bit of that so far, but we are quickly discovering the beautiful and exhausting fact that there is no gloss to real life.  Nor should there be.  On the other side of the supposedly-inspiring “Guess what Nic and Jacelyn are doing???” is sleep deprivation, needless trips to the capital city, personality conflicts, paperwork hang-ups, unforeseen delays, sleep deprivation, thousands of dollars, hours of phone calls, stonewalling by embassies, and lack of sleep.  What sounds spiritual and refreshing turns out to be physically depleting.  What you’d hoped would be a corny made-for-T.V. movie (or at least an after-school special) turns out to be more like a 5-hour jr. high production of War and Peace, starring no one you know.

The gorgeous and illuminating part about it, though, is that I would honestly have it no other way.  Not only is it a nice way to try to enter into the perseverance and pain of childbearing and childbirth (with the man getting to bear a some of the load in this case), but it is also a great way to strip away the misconceptions and delusions we’d had about what adoption actually is.

This is where it all hits home.  Paragraph 1129 of The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “The fruit of the sacramental life is that the Spirit of adoption makes the faithful partakers in the divine nature by uniting them in a living union with the only Son, the Savior.”  It is an unfathomable, humbling, and precious fact that, as Christians, we were adopted into the actual family of God and that nothing can “separate us from the love of God” (Rom 8:39).  However, lest we be tempted to gloss that fact over with a sheen of ease and comfort, paragraph 1129 reminds us that it is the “sacramental life” that brings about participation in the divine nature, and the sacraments exist because of our sin and His suffering on the cross.

Essentially, the need for adoption exists because we’d first sinned and left the divine life, and the option of adoption was made possible once again by Jesus’ willingness to say, “Still, not my will, but yours be done.” (Lk 22:42)  Since being adopted into God’s family, I’ve caused many sleepless nights, many unforeseen delays, and done my share of stonewalling on the road to purity and completion, but my Family has not failed or deserted me.  My brothers and sisters have not disowned me.  My Father and Brother have continued saving me.

I love being let down.  I enjoy finding out where I’ve been wrong.  By being open to my own errors, I’ve found a depth and peace in marriage that I never imagined was possible, an anchor in the Catholic Church, and a deeper understanding of my adoption into God’s family.  May all the saints and angels pray that we be open to smudges in the veneer, because, as far as I can tell, when we allow ourselves to be let down and humbled, we find out about true exaltation. (Lk 14:11)

On Good Friday, 2008, fewer than 24 hours before my wife and I joined the Catholic Church, I spoke to my father-in-law on the phone.  Because my wife is a 4th-generation Pentecostal preacher’s kid, I knew that the conversation would be one which inflicted pain.  The call went as well as could be expected.  Though hurt, he was kind, understanding, and respectful, as always.  He summed up his concern in a comment that brought everything home to me, albeit in a way he didn’t intend.  Concerned that we were completely shunning everything about our Pentecostal heritage, predominantly in the Assemblies of God, he said, “I’m just worried about what you have to forsake.”

Your mind can process a lot in a very short amount of time, and in the second between his comment and my response, I saw a movie-type, rapid-fire time lapse of all of the major moments in my life leading up to that Good Friday, but in the context of my  Pentecostal faith.  I saw Toddler Nic in years of Sundays in Children’s Church, learning about the Old Testament.  I saw Pre-Teen Nic getting baptized at New Jerusalem Church.  I saw 4 years of high school youth group, learning of Christ’s unconditional love for “Idiot Nic”, as I lovingly refer to myself back then.  My first mission trip, Atheist Nic (while attending Bible College), our wedding at Jacelyn’s home church with her father presiding as pastor.  Countless moments of God’s grace, mercy, and guidance, now looked at through the split-second lense of “what do I have to forsake?”.

Amazingly, after that introspective second of concern over what would be lost, I was confidently able to reply, “Actually, all I think I have to forsake is the works of Satan!”  And, basically, that’s true.  I realize, of course, that there are 5 promises in the baptismal vows and that fidelity to “the Holy Catholic Church” is included in them; however, the heart behind any of the vows you take is a rejection of all that is evil and acceptance of the fullness of what is good.

While I was leaving behind theological confusion and incompleteness, I was leaving nothing that was truly good about my heritage.  In fact, the biggest challenge in the whole process was trying to find the right words to adequately explain why we would choose to do such a thing as leave our “freedom in Christ” to be “subject to a yolk of slavery” and “manmade traditions”.  Attempting to show our bewildered family and friends the true light we’ve found in the Church has presented obstacles time and again, many times simply because of the drastic difference in terminology between Catholicism and Protestantism.

With that in mind, and per the brilliant advice of my much-smarter wife, I’m planning to use my next few articles to make a sort of cursory “Catholic’s Guide to Pentecostal Traditions, Terms, and Nuances”.  I hope to take a few key aspects of our particular religious background, explain what they meant to us at the time, and also show how they are all fulfilled, purified, or resurrected by the life-giving existence of the Catholic Church.

Tall order, I know, but I’ve always been a fan of the Big Gulp, so I’m confident this will all work out fine.

It is likely that we’ve all been on at least one side of that question, possibly both.  Before leaving Assemblies of God, I was one of the loudest and proudest when it came to purposefully shearing off anything that I decided was an “unnecessary religious trapping”.  Everything was fair game for the cutting floor, from a disciplined prayer life to the necessity of holiness.  In my entrenched confusion as to the nature of grace, I even adamantly opposed needing to apologize for sins on a regular basis, taking sides with the wretched tag line from “Love Story”: “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”  And you can bet your scapular I would have scoffed at differences of opinion regarding which direction a priest (heretic) faced during a ritualistic, stuffy church service.

The transition from that airy theological background to the depths of Catholic thought was slow going, even after getting hired to work with Catholic youth (before I had converted, mind you).   Then, it happened.  During a casual conversation with my boss, Fr. Eric Hastings, about his then-recent decision to begin celebrating Mass “ad orientem”, or with the priest facing the same direction as the congregation, I questioned him about why he thought it was important.  He said, “Well, you really need to read……..no……nevermind…(then came the dare)…You’re not ready, yet.”

I balked and stuttered, “Not ready for WHAT??? What do I really need to read?”

“Oh, just a book by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger called The Spirit of the Liturgy, but, really, nevermind.  Forget I said anything”.

“Alright, I will.” I said, and walked straight into my office and purchased it.  About a week, and 224 pages, later, I was as giddy as Lloyd Christmas.  In one literary swoop, my entire approach to Mass had changed, or at least deepened.  I truly felt as if B16 had led me by the hand to the outside of a Cathedral, smudged the fog from a window, and lifted me up to let me peer inside.  You wouldn’t believe what I saw waiting on the inside of what I’d considered to be mere ritual and possibly empty tradition: “intimate friendship with Jesus, on which everything depends.” (B16, Preface to Jesus of Nazareth)

That’s right, friends; at the heart, or spirit, of every, single second of the Mass is the very same “personal relationship” that I’d once assumed was missing in the midst of the minutiae of Catholicism.  In his book, our kindly Papa essentially takes us on a guided tour through the liturgy, or ”Disneyland of theology”, as I call it, making stops to explain the “why” behind the “what”. (Yes, you’ll be singing “It’s A Paul World, After All” for hours, but at least you get a thrilling ride on SpeSalvi Mountain!)   As we cruise past various attractions, Baba Bene grabs the mic and gives a fuzzy-speaker history lesson of each, starting with worship:

“Man…puts God…into the light (and that is what worship is), when he lives by looking toward God.”(p20)

 Boom.  The heart of liturgy is worship, and worship is simply taking your eyes off of everything else around you and looking at Him, which finds its culmination in, “Behold, the Lamb of God. Behold, Him who takes away the sins of the world.”  As the monorail begins moving, you’re still furiously taking mental notes, and you hear him in the background saying, “Liturgy implies a real relationship with Another, who reveals himself to us and gives our existence a new direction.”  But there’s no time to ponder more because you’re already coming up on “The Altar”.

“Looking at the priest has no importance.  What matters is looking together at the Lord. ”(81)

If the Mass is liturgy “on the way”(50), then it’s silly for our lead parish pilgrim to be walking backwards at the most pivotal moments on the journey.  I like face time with my friends just fine, but when my wife walks into a room, I want everyone to see her and forget I’m even there.  How much more so when the Messiah arrives?  Now our guide moves on to the nature of sacrifice…

“The common view is that sacrifice has something to do with destruction. What pleasure is God supposed to take in destruction? (27-28)

 This God we’re falling in love with and fixing our eyes on, has NO desire to destroy anything we hold dear; that is not what sacrifice was/is about.  Sacrifice is about redemption and healing.  Our loving Father wants us to offer our lives on the altar with the Son’s to raise it to new life, spotless and without blemish, NOT to take away everything we love and have us on a kneeler until we die of exhaustion or old age, whichever strikes first.  The tram pauses to let us see the heart of the Responsorial Psalm…

“In the psalm the hearer internalizes what he has heard, takes it into himself, and transforms it into prayer, so that it becomes a response.” (81)

However, when I sat down to write the fourth and final piece, I balked.  It wasn’t writer’s block; I just hesitated to go there.  The reason was simple: I want to be liked, I want people to continue to read my work, and, out of the 4 marks, this is by far the least popular.  Oh, everyone loves the first three.  Everyone wants to feel true freedom in love.  Everyone loves the idea of the significant other who is all-in.  No one wants to be discarded and replaced by someone else.  But who on earth wants to think about kids, especially in the throes of passion?  Why does reproduction have to enter into the picture at all?  Even much of the hullaballoo in the feverish climate of this election year is directly related to this fourth mark.  Whether it’s fast food, Forbes, or Facebook, our lives are inundated with issues of fruitfulness.  The real problem is that most people don’t see the connection.

So, how does one write about this controversial issue, adequately putting it into the beautiful and illuminating light that it deserves, all in a thousand words?  Well, for starters, I used up 288 of them just introducing it.  The long intro is necessary, though, because we need more than just the sum to understand the equation.  You can’t just read the last chapter of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and expect to know why the four coats were missing from the Professor’s house, or the last chapter of any vampire novel and know where the last six hours of your life went.  I digress.

You could actually say that fruitfulness in love is, in a real sense, the culmination of the first three marks.  If you are giving yourself freely, totally, and faithfully, then it follows that life will result.  There are many varying degrees of this “fecundity”, to quote Humanae Vitae (and sound brilliant), from an overall vitality between spouses to inspiring holy marriages in people around them.  However, though these forms of life are good and desirable offshoots, the ultimate end, and “supreme gift”, of spousal love is to image the love of God, namely sharing a love so fruitful and real that “nine months later, you have to give it a name.”(Scott Hahn).

***IF***

In other words, human love, IF it is a participation in God’s love, should reproduce itself.  It is no mistake that, 8 words after the creation of Adam and Eve, God tells them to “be fruitful and multiply”(Gn 1:28).  And, to clear up any confusion, He was NOT telling them to grow peaches and do math.  He gave them life, as the creative result of His love, and immediately tells them to do the same.  In the first pristine moments of Creation, when all is “very good” and there is no tainted love, God gives the first commandment in all of Scripture: essentially, “Love like I do”.  And though humanity quickly and consistently forgot His command, we were reminded once and for all in the words of Christ:  “As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.”(Jn 13:34)

This love that naturally creates is the fulfillment of Aquinas’ teaching that love is “willing the good of another”.  Indeed, love is “other-centered”, but to the utmost degree, not merely concerned with “the other”, but SO other-focused that, in the exchange of persons, it actually creates an “other”.  That is how powerful, and ultimately God-like, real love is, IF it is allowed to bear fruit.   And, as usual, it all rests on the “if”.

***IF***

Yes, the sexual urge is, at the core, a desire for intimacy and communion, but, IF it is not allowed to fully image the love of the One Who created it, then it is using the language of the body to promise something that it can’t deliver.  To be truly godly, love must be in keeping with the created order, since creation itself is a direct expression of His love, and the act of sex is, in essence and nature, ordered toward creating life, sustaining it for 9 months, and introducing that life into the world.

This is clear in the fact that a man cannot experience the pleasure of an orgasm without bringing forth the possibility of creating life; for him, it’s the same moment, pleasure and creativity, love and responsibility. However, because of that very biological fact, if some aspect of the attempt at love is not free, total, or faithful, then any number of methods must be employed in order that gratification can be gain apart from the natural outcome: fruitfulness.

***IF***

To clarify, this is not an attack on persons who find themselves participants in willful infertility; this is merely a comment on the nature of an act and its conformity to God’s love.  We may desire and attempt real love, but real love is ordered to reproduce itself, and IF we won’t follow through on the demands of real love, our good intentions can only bring us to the threshold of intimacy, never truly into the bridal chambers.  We limit ourselves to knocking on heavens door, but never being willing to step inside.

And believe it or not, heaven does come into play!  Ultimately, everything boils down to intimacy with God, not the person we’re trying to love.  Earthly love is intended to image God’s perfect love, not so that your spouse will know more about you or be closer to you or even love you more, but so that they know a deeper intimacy with their eternal Beloved and love Him with a fullness that carries them into eternity.  This is the cry of the Psalms: “My happiness lies in you alone”(Ps 16) and “whom have I in heaven but you?…there are none on this earth that I desire besides you”(Ps 73:25).

This life is about participating in the love of our good and caring Father, not about gaining gratification.  The ability to love in this body is a complete gift from the Creator, intended to be used in keeping with it’s created purpose.  The ability to commune with others is meant to point each other to Him.  And ultimately, even our celebration of thanksgiving (“eukaristo” in Greek) at Mass isn’t meant to be a jolly hangout of our own making; it is meant to be a communion of persons, a moment of intimacy that conceives and bears offspring in the world: “Go…make disciples” (Mt 28:?)

Brothers and sisters, let us begin to open each and every expression of love to the possibility of life.  As it is with the first three marks of God’s love, we were made to participate in the life, the fruitfulness of God, and we will never be fully satisfied until we entrust our souls, spirits, and bodies to His perfect love.  He longs to live in communion with you, giving you “life to the fullest”(Jn 10:10), and He is eager for you to give that life to the world!