what we’re not saying

All over the internet people are commenting on the teachings of the Catholic Church.  We write, read, and argue about what is modest, how NFP should be used, if altar girls are bad, whether guitars and tambourines are reverent enough for Mass, and if women will ever be priests.*  These conversations can be very interesting and have helped me focus on understanding my faith.  All the back and forth in the comment boxes and on blog posts challenge me to discover what the Church really teaches and how it should be applied to my life.

But I fear that in these conversations we are losing the ability and desire to talk about what really matters.  The great Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen once said, “The only way to win audiences is to tell people about the life and death of  Christ. Every other approach is a waste.”  I wonder if we are so busy debating and discussing with one another that we are not telling people the basic message.

Of course it is important to explain the Sacraments and the saints and the rosary and the “extra” books of the Bible.  Of course!  But what do those things matter if we first forget to tell people the basic Gospel message?  Personally, I have been more comfortable explaining why Catholics believe in the True Presence than sharing with people the depth and width of God’s love for them.  I have been embarrassed to say such things.  How heavy my heart is to recognize and admit that!

But I am tired of Catholics leaving the one, true, holy, catholic Church for a denomination filled with people who are not ashamed to preach the love and mercy of Christ!  We must be better at this.  I must be better.

So please let me begin here.  God loves you.  He created you so He could have a relationship with you.  He wants to spend eternity with you and, because evil entered the world, He became man so that He could save you.  The Infinite became finite so He could win your life and your heart.  The birth, teaching, suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ fulfilled the prophecies of old and gained for you salvation.

Once I really came to know, understand, and believe in Jesus Christ the Sacraments, saints, rosary, and Bible made so much more sense to me.  They brought colorful illustrations to the black and white story.   So let’s continue to debate and discuss.  Let’s continue to present the teachings and Traditions of the Church in intelligent conversations.  But let us be intentional in sharing the Gospel and ensuring that people are always aware of its role as foundation.

 

Image courtesy of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Foundation.

*My opinions on these matters are as follows: pants not too tight/skirts to the knees/no cleavage/covered shoulders at Mass prefered; prayerfully; not bad but not the best; sometimes and never; I’m leaving the day Rome okays that one – which it won’t, so let’s move on.

Bonnie Engstrom

Bonnie Engstrom

Bonnie Engstrom is a cradle Catholic and stay-at-home mom. She married her dashing husband in 2006 and they now have five children: one in Heaven and four more wandering around their house, probably eating pretzels found under the couch. Bonnie lives in central Illinois and gets excited about baking, music, film adaptations of Jane Austen books, and the Chicago Bears. She was a cofounder of The Behold Conference and she blogs at A Knotted Life.

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20 thoughts on “what we’re not saying”

  1. Yes, yes, yes! I so agree with you!

    “But I am tired of Catholics leaving the one, true, holy, catholic Church for a denomination filled with people who are not ashamed to preach the love and mercy of Christ! We must be better at this. I must be better.”
    Exactly how I feel!

    “Once I really came to know, understand, and believe in Jesus Christ the Sacraments, saints, rosary, and Bible made so much more sense to me.”
    Yep!

    Great post!

  2. Hahaha :)That was a quick one Bonnie. God bless ya! Amen.

    If we as Christians fail to catch the world for Christ, the world would catch us!

    Sweet Jesus, I thy prodigal son has come to thee again. I try to forget about you when things get smooth. I can stop thinking about you and live. But within me, my tender heart can’t stop beating about you. The day I try to stop my heart shall be the very day my life shall end. I came to you to tell you that I can live without air but I can’t live without you my sweet LORD.


    “Jesus is your friend. The Friend. With a human heart, like yours.
    With loving eyes that wept for Lazarus. And he loves you as much as he
    loved Lazarus.” Saint Josemaría Escrivá

  3. “Once I really came to know, understand, and believe in Jesus Christ…” I sympathize with your wanting to get “just the right approach” that will convert the unbeliever. Unfortunately, such a single approach does not exist. Ultimately, it is God who converts the unbeliever – we are but His instruments. I once was a firm atheist (though educated in 1950’s and 60’s Catholic elementary and high schools). Where you to tell me during my atheist period that, “God loves you!”, I would have only thought, “How piteable this person is” because I had heard it many times before in school and at home. It took an entirely different level of experience for me to see the truth. So, we should do whatever we can to show people God’s love – such ways are innumerable – and depend on the Holy Spirit to take our meager efforts and miraculously use them to cure the unbeliever of his grave spiritual illness.

  4. I think perhaps the most important thing (and this is certainly validated by looking at some of the TV channels available) is that if you are going to preach the Gospel then preach all of it. Heaven / Hell / Sin / Salvation and everything in between. Salvation means nothing if you don’t understand the nature of Sin and Judgement and Love has no meaning unless given context through an explanation of agape (John 3:16)

    As Jondwight correctly notes it is up to the Holy Spirit to convict us but we also have a responsibility to take and present the complete message in a way that the person can understand its relevance to them. As Phillip Yancey once said “No one ever converted to Christianity because they lost the argument”. What we can do is present the Gospel in such a way that an individual is prepared to ask the questions themselves and open their heart to recieve the answers from the Lord.

    You sum it up very beautifully when you say:

    God loves you. He created you so He could have a relationship with you. He wants to spend eternity with you and, because evil entered the world, He became man so that He could save you. The Infinite became finite so He could win your life and your heart. The birth, teaching, suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ fulfilled the prophecies of old and gained for you salvation.

  5. JonDWhite, Excellent point about converting athiests and I’m glad you made it.
    When writing the post I was thinking more along the lines of fallen away Catholics who now attend Protestant churches, though I clearly never specified that, and they made the switch because it was at those churches that they experienced the love and salvation of Christ.
    Thank you for adding your experience and knowledge!
    But I’m still gonna stick with my man Sheen! He converted thousands and thousands – protestants, Jews, communists, athiests… Go Sheen, Go! 😉

    Licensed Fool, great point about presenting the truth of sin and judgement! And I completely agree – and I’m glad you said – that we need to present the Gospel so others will want to investigate and pursue it. What an exciting challenge!

  6. I dont know why, but I get a stomach ache every time someone tells me that God wants a relationship with me. I think it reminds me of the evangelicals trying to peddle their personal Jesus to me, but regardless, I still feel weird when I hear it. I guess it’s because to me, God has never been anything but personal. I’ve had a personal relationship with God since I was born. Why do I say this? Because the human being, created in God’s image, is created for God and to love Him. God is always calling him to communion with himself and if you are Catholic, you are a member of the Body of Christ, the Temple of the Holy Spirit. Though not fully realized until the person is in Heaven, the New Jerusalem is being built up now and it is being built up in us from the moment we were first received into Christ. Maybe this is just my personal experience, and maybe others have not felt this way, but I also think the phrase “personal relationship with Jesus” is a non-Catholic phrase that puts down the “other.” Signifying that “I have a personal relationship with God” but “you don’t.”

  7. I’m afraid I’m not with you here. I have a pastor whose every sermon seems to be how madly & passionately God is in love with “you”. He waxes on and on about it like something from a saccharine romance novel. I’m not really sure he believes anything about the Catholic Faith. I know he never talks about it. There’s no mention of sin, or call to repentance, or conversion, or any possibility of damnation to be saved from. Frankly, it makes me feel a little queasy, like the afore-mentioned romance book would, if I read one. I wish I could say he’s alone here, but this is fairly common. I don’t see it as much of a draw to the Catholic Faith either.

  8. @Mike & Tom
    I agree with you – A lot of the expression of the Gospel (in preaching and prayer groups) can be very feminine in nature. It emphasises love, relationships and forgiveness in a very specific way.

    Now these things are both important and true and there is nothing wrong with femininity but men tend to identify with power, leadership, brotherhood and sacrifice. We need to hear preaching (every once in a while) about the Son of God who stood with us, ate with us, called us brothers and friends. We like to hear about the risen lord, glorious in power and might who will return and at the sound of whose name every knee will bow. We want to hear about him because then we can understand that HE is calling us to stand with him, to follow him and to submit to him.

    Men need pride and we admire meaningful gestures. We need to be challenged to live up the the call placed on us to follow Jesus. We need to know that he loves us for us – broken sinners as we are – and that he came through for us, even dying in our place – and that he was prepared to dothat because he loves us that much. That is a love we can be challenged to return – to love the God who died for us so that we can live for him. So that we can take his commandments and his Gospel and hold them up as a code to live our lives by.

    In the end that leads to the same relationship that Tom’s pastor is on about but from a different perspective. I think just occasionally we men need to have that type of preaching to give us a handle on this ‘love’ thing.

    Not saying I’m right – just a thought.

  9. Ever had it when you have ‘cut’ something but forgot to put it in? Sorry I had an extra bit at the end before the last line:

    We are the body of Christ. We already – as Mike points out – have the relationship with God. What we need is the preaching to allow us to understand and deepen that relationship both with our Lord and with our Brothers and Sisters who are standing next to us answering that same call

    I guess thats my fault for posting late at night.

  10. An old friend shared your article on facebook so I decided that I would read it over. Good article.

    I think it is truly amazing how much Christians talk past one another rather than speaking to one another. This largely has to do with various fears (“oh no, I don’t want to make God angry with me if I don’t say what is theologically accurate”) and the human weakness that would seek to use Truth as a security blanket or a weapon to impose their own will. JPII frequently reminded us that the truth did not need to be imposed (because it is beautiful) but needs to be presented in all its glory (which includes charity). Note how Saint John reminds us that the person who lives in fear has not been perfected in love. For fear has to do with punishment, and perfect love casts out all fear. (1Jn 4)

    The point I would like to make about all this is we frequently miss the point when talking about God because we are unsure of God’s love for ourselves. When we allow ourselves to know and receive God as he is (Deus Caritas Est) words and theology take a back seat to charity, gestures (meaning acts of faith, hope, and love) and obediance (which means to ‘listen attentively). JPII frequently reminded us also that the Church doesn’t need new reformers, but new saints. The Church doesn’t need new programs of Catechesis, she needs Holiness.

    Do we dare to receive holiness (wholeness) from the Bridegroom and live beyond our categories into the integration of actual life in Christ? This is the question that confronts all of us who would dare to be Catechists.

  11. @Gadel Beautiful post. The grammatical error is of no import, but as an old croc and a compulsive (or is it repulsive) classroom teacher, if you had used commas around “thy prodigal son,” the singular form of the verb would have been as “shoe in.” This is still a profoundly beautiful post. Keep up the good work, Gadel! God bless you

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