Christian and Catholic!نموونە

Worship?

Understanding that my salvation was the result of grace alone received by faith apart from works was absolute bedrock for me.  When I understood this everything else about Christ made sense. The Bible lit up. I wanted to give my whole life to Christ. My entire approach to life changed.  I found peace with myself. I was at ease being who I really was. I became more positive and hopeful. I became less self-involved. I could see God clearly. I could hear and respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.  I was unshackled by grace. 

But the only place I could hear a message about grace as St. Paul explained it was in Evangelical Churches.  The only people who really understood this relationship with Christ in this way were Evangelical Christians. So I began to worship at Evangelical churches – even though I still had a bit of a Catholic sensibility to my walk with God.  

I was a perfect fit and a misfit all at the same time in these churches.  I was falling more deeply in love with Jesus Christ, I wanted to worship him wholeheartedly and without pretension, and I wanted to learn all I could about the Scriptures and the message of grace.  That was the part that fit. But I also had a longing for the quiet and personal space I found in a Catholic Mass. And I retained some of the uniquely Catholic nuances to my thoughts about Christ. In a way I left the practice of my Catholicism, but my Catholicism never left me.  And to make a long story very short, God burdened my heart after a couple years to return to the Catholic Church of my birth. In prayer I simply knew it was my home. 

Beautiful and Depressing

It was a beautiful and simultaneously depressing return.  The words of the Mass like "Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again" echoed deeply in my heart.  The silence of the worship was a beautiful change… but it also became a lonely change. Most of my Protestant friends abandoned me.  My Catholic friends saw that I loved Christ but didn't understand me.  And I set out on a journey to see if God was right, to see if the Catholic Church really was my home because it didn't feel that way.  

I had a born again Evangelical Christian lens through which I understood the Catholic Church.  When I looked through that lens everything made sense. And yet when I looked through that lens I felt like an outsider.  I wondered, is this a credible lens? It was the only lens I had. It was how I knew God. So I wondered: can I really be Christian and Catholic at the same time?  My heart cried out: "yes." My experience was saying: "no."

Catholic with an Evangelical Heart

I eventually realized that I didn't need some Catholic in authority to come pat me on the back and say I was a good Catholic.  I didn’t need to find clones of myself sitting in a pew at a Catholic parish. I didn’t even need to have people understand my prayer life or spirituality.  I just needed to know what the Catholic Church actually taught in its own words and see if its teachings were visible through the lens of my experience of Christ.  And I needed Christ to show me the way and confirm my journey with his Holy Spirit.

Room for Me!

The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification changed the entire direction of my life within the Catholic Church.  

I was stunned when I read the Catholic Church agreed that: "Justification takes place by grace alone through faith alone; the person is justified apart from works" (JDDJ Annex C).  No matter what the culture of the Church was telling me, I knew that the teaching of the Church was saying I was home.  If there was room for this statement in the Church, there was room for me! My personal 'yes' to God could have a home in the Catholic Church! And discovering this truth didn't mean Christ wasn't working also in other Christian churches. It just meant that God had shown me my home.

How about You?

Have you found a church home?  No home in this world will be perfect, but God does have a spiritual home for you in his Christian community.  He does want a personal relationship with him, but he doesn't want a private relationship!  You were meant to have brothers and sisters in the faith. You will always be unique, but you will also always be called to community.

Ask God to show you how he wants you to see your personal relationship with him and your fellow Christians, regardless of what church you attend, in a new light based on what you read in his Word now.