evangelization | THE LOVE THAT CHANGES ME

Whiplash is a non-medical term describing a range of injuries to the neck caused by or related to a sudden distortion of the neck commonly associated with motor vehicle accidents, usually when the vehicle has been hit in the rear. The injury can be sustained in many other ways, including headbanging, bungee jumping and falls. It is one of the main injuries covered by insurance.

It hurts…
…what just happened?

I never intended to become Catholic. But…then…I never intended to believe…in God…or in anything or anyone other than myself.

Having lived for a considerable time on each side of the faith fence, one thing I can testify to for all the agnostics and atheists out there is that they have an easier ride than people of deep faith. This is not what non-believers propose.

In the typical characterization put forward by agnostics about believers, Christians are grasping onto God like Linus holding onto his blanket. “No matter what happens in the world, if you Christians have your little God blanket, it will all turn out OK.”

It is easy for agnostics to hold onto this misconception, because they are generally not willing to engage in serious, meaningful dialogue with Christians.

From this side of the fence, I understand the hesitation of agnostics to welcome “GodTalk.” I get it. The talk between believers and non-believers quickly turns passionate, and if someone doesn’t get tarred and feathered, they are sure to get thumped by a Bible before things are over.

This is where the concept of sin becomes useful, even to agnostics. We are all subject to the failings of human nature. Call it what you will…sin…or bad judgment…we all have it. Christians are not hypocrites. They are, quite simply put, fallen human beings. Paul, chief among sinners, bemoaned his condition:

¹⁸For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. ¹⁹For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. ²⁰Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. [Rom 7:18-20]

In these twenty chapters of Coming Home, I have struggled to tell the story of my personal car crash. A little VW Christian on a journey into the Catholic Church, after detours and traffic jams and speeding tickets, finally crashed full speed into a brick wall. The road turned, and the little VW never saw it coming.

This project is not about getting even. And it has not been for the purpose of making me gloat in retribution.

I began the trip early in 2013, hoping to prepare myself to become Catholic. I was ahead of schedule at that point. In 2012, honoring my marital vows and love for my husband, I had “put Catholic on hold” for a future date…many years hence…when my husband could fully trust that I treasured his faith in Christ no less than mine. Just when I had settled on waiting, he flashed the green light. “Yes,” he told me. “It’s time for you to begin your journey into the Catholic Church.”

But faith is not a straight road dictated by Christ, charted by maps and marked at night with bright landing lights. It is an adventure where our faith is tested…tempted…challenged…thwarted…and redirected.

I hurt. Today, I am far afield from the map I had charted. I am not where I expected to be when I first opened the door and walked into RCIA v.1.

I could have used less law and more love in RCIA v.3.

It would have been nice to have heard the truth more promptly and more succinctly in RCIA v.2 and RCIA v.4.

Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one. [Mat 5:37]

But even after all that…after RCIA 1 and 2 and 3 and 4…I could have handled all of that…until finally running into the brick wall in RCIA v.5.

What comes next? I don’t know. I am waiting to heal.

Yes, healing takes time. And healing involves more than broken bones. In October, I could have knocked on more doors and tried to beg my way into an RCIA program that had empty chairs. Even now in November, I figure that is still a possibility.

But I am tired of banging on the door of Christ’s church begging for entry. My body is aching. My heart is in traction. My soul is wounded. And Christ…I try to fit my experiences of the past year into his parable of the wedding feast.

Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: ²“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. ³He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. ⁴Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’ ⁵But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, ⁶while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. ⁷The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. ⁸Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. ⁹Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ ¹⁰Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests. [Mat 22:1-10]

I stand on the street, waiting for an invitation to the wedding. If they are inviting both the good and the bad, that should include me. If they can’t find me, if they don’t see me in the throngs of those wanting to enter, I will jump in the air and wave my hands…even with all the aches, pains and bruises.

Still…I wait…outside a closed door.

I ache. I am bruised. My neck hurts so badly that it can’t turn right or left. Is there a speeding train headed toward me on the road ahead where it crosses the tracks? I pray it isn’t so. In this condition, I will not be able to turn and see it before it runs me down.

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NEXT: more to come…

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³So he told them this parable: ⁴“What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost, until he finds it? ⁵And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. ⁶And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.’ ⁷Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. Luke 15:3-7 [RSVCE]

IT’S NOT WHAT YOU THINK

As a Lutheran, I have great reason to give pause in writing.

Martin Luther set out to change Catholic practices, and he put into motion the great revolution that set Christians, including me, outside the Catholic Church.

I do not want a revolution…just a small change. I do not say this lightly. As a Lutheran who is on the path to becoming Catholic, can anything good come from setting out to change even the smallest part of the Catholic Church?

First of all, I need to say that change was the furthest thing from my mind. I intended to attend RCIA. I was looking forward to it. I still do.

I knew I had a lot to learn about a Church with a 2,000 year history. I still do.

Years of following the news and commentary on the New Evangelization led me to believe the Catholic Church was ready to take even a poor sinner like me, Lord have mercy. They do…but it’s just not that easy.

…the New Evangelization…in recent years it’s become the buzzword par excellence in Catholic circles. Books are being published, lectures given, conferences organized, diocesan offices created, and whole courses of study put together, all devoted to the ways and means of the New Evangelization.

This is where the challenge begins. It is hard to create a case for change without being critical. It is especially difficult to nail the grievances onto the door of an Internet public forum. I have no desire to follow Luther’s path. But the stakes in this discussion are high. Even one lost sheep left in the wilderness should cause us to shudder.

In a nutshell, the “New Evangelization” is about salesmanship. The idea is to move the Catholic product in the crowded lifestyle marketplace of the post-modern world.

When cardinals say the next pope has to be committed to the New Evangelization, therefore, what they mean is that he should be a pitchman, someone who can attract people to the faith.

Just as in other markets, there are different ways of doing that – some salespeople are brash and in-your-face, some much kinder and gentler. Some work the street, others work the high-end markets. The key, however, is to be always be closing.

The odd thing about “selling” Catholicism is that just when a buyer turns up, the Church tells them that their money is no good. I am speaking from personal experience. I showed up at the door, and they told me to put my wallet away.

Jesus Sheep 1 Now…this is not what you think. I am not trying to retaliate. I have no desire to hurt anyone. And, yes, I have tried to address my concerns in a personal and private setting…many times. To no avail.

And while this is about me…it is about way more than that. The New Evangelization is more than a sales campaign for the Church. It is about more than wooing ex-Catholics home again. It is about laying the lost sheep on her shoulders; it is about rejoicing.

Whether the New Evangelization will work remains to be seen, but at least it seems to have the church’s finger on a real problem.

In the United States, there are now 22 million ex-Catholics, big enough to be the largest religious denomination in the country. The church drops four members for every one member it gains, and if it were not for Hispanic immigration, it would have been declining for decades. Yet the Catholic church in America also holds on to almost 70 percent of its members into adulthood, a higher retention rate than any other Christian denomination.

Those statistics suggest the problem for Catholicism isn’t so much what happens once people are actually in the church, but getting them through the door in the first place. To return to the marketing metaphors, the problem isn’t customer service but new sales.

I was a “new sale” ready to check out. And, just as I reached the clerk at the register, she turned out the light at her station, locked the cash drawer and put a sign on the counter: This Lane Closed.

This is not what you might think…the story of a wounded sheep with a bruised ego. Certainly, if I am honest, some part of my ego is involved. But some kind of ego is necessary to stand before the Church and suggest that she is traveling down the wrong path.

What is one to do? If I love the Church, and if I care about the lost sheep, there seems to be no other course to take.

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What’s this ‘new evangelization’ thing, anyway? John L. Allen Jr. Mar. 7, 2013
http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/whats-new-evangelization-thing-anyway

NEXT: RCIA v.1

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