Part 2 | Catholic

In Part 1: Christ, I talked about some of the mysterious ways that we see the person of Jesus – as the Word, in the eucharist, incarnate as our Immanuel, in the Lord’s Supper and in our New Covenant, as our bridegroom, and at his wedding feast. Now, I want to turn our attention to some of the more tangible differences between Catholics and Protestants. Not focus solely on items of interpretation, like a scripture passage, but also talk about measurable differences, like the number of books in our sacred canon and the number of sacraments, the different approaches to the forgiveness of sins (in the process of forgiveness as well as the authority to forgive), insights on tradition and the trinity, ideas on sacrifice and the sacraments, considerations on King Jesus and Queen Mary, and perspective on any other differences that may come up along the way. I want to tackle some of these crucial differences and lay out what these differences mean for both Catholics and Protestants, and share the reason why I love the Catholic church and her teachings, and ultimately, the reason of my hope in Christ and why I hope to die a Catholic Christian.

Scripture

“You search the scriptures because you think you have eternal life through them; even they testify on my behalf. But you do not want to come to me to have life.”
– Jesus of Nazareth

It’s worth reviewing thousands of times the differences in the sacred scriptures that separate the Catholics and Protestants as well as the approach to those holy scriptures. We can tackle these issues surrounding the holy scriptures in a myriad of different ways, and there’s a handful that I want for you to be aware of and consider. I’m very curious about your perspective, and unfortunately often the anxieties of life crowd out these more important thoughts and ideas. Like I mentioned in the introduction, I want to stick to objective and measurable differences, not just matters of interpretation. The objective differences between the Catholic and Protestant approach to scripture made it very easy for me to enter the Catholic church. I wasn’t making a decision based on emotional feelings, but on objective differences and researchable facts. I could align my emotion to reason, and not the other way around.

And I rejoiced that God was good enough to not leave such an important decision, like which Christian religion to belong to, to mere opinion. We can make the decision based on objective facts. For example, not only do Protestants and Catholics interpret the Bread of Life discourse differently (John 6), but Catholics have 7 other books we call sacred, meaning they are worthy to be read in the liturgy. And so, one fact of objective differences is the canon of scripture. Should these 7 books be considered holy or not? (The seven books are 1+2 Maccabees, Tobit, Judith, Wisdom Ben Sira, Wisdom of Solomon, and Baruch). Catholics say yes, Protestants say no. But what do I say? What does God think? What’s the right answer? I figured I should research and decide for myself. So, I read the seven books.

And for the life of me I can’t see why these 7 books wouldn’t be considered sacred by all Christians. I can see why Jews would exclude them from their sacred canon, for they have passages which are very Christocentric. Yes, all of the books have striking passages that are so Christological, that so inform us about Christ, that I couldn’t as a Protestant believe that those books weren’t holy. And as a Catholic, I had even more appreciation for them, one example is the story of Judith being a strong allegory for the work of Mother Mary, joining other stories like Eve and Deborah in highlighting the importance of Christ’s mother.

So, when I read the 7 books as a Protestant, I thought they should be considered holy books. Which made me realize once again, I was in a Protestant church, but much more aligned with Catholics on key issues. I mean, if as a Protestant I was going to align myself with people who say, “Sola Scriptura,” why then ignore sacred scriptures? On the surface, you would think someone who says “Sola Scriptura is right” would take seriously all the Scriptures, not just some of them. But before we jump there, let’s go into details on those 7 sacred books.

The bible is incomplete without the accounts of the Maccabees. A Christian that doesn’t have Maccabees is thrust from the accounts of post-exile Prophets under Persian kings into Roman rulers. It’s jarring. It’s annoying storytelling. It seems incomplete because it is incomplete. The books of the Maccabees fill in key details of what happened between the return to Jerusalem from exile in Babylon to the time of Christ. Now, some say that this was God’s silent period. But even when there was 400 years of silence as slaves in Egypt, the narratives of Genesis and Exodus fill in those details. Similarly, the stories of Maccabees fill in those details of “God’s silent period.” Funny enough, Maccabees even has a line about God’s silent period, that the priests would wait on what to do with the stones of a desecrated altar until a Prophet revisits Israel to guide them, so the idea of God’s silent period comes through these books. And so, Catholics get those details of the post-exile return to Jerusalem not only from non-sacred sources, but also sacred sources. Protestants have to rely on non-sacred historical sources to understand what’s going on with the Roman empire ruling over Jerusalem and Judea. It’s weird that Protestants who are “Sola Scriptura” have to rely on Catholic scriptures and Jewish tradition and secular history to understand things within their own bible. For Catholics, there is no similar self-contradiction. Catholics rightly acknowledge that “Sola Scriptura” is illogical and therefore not true or accurate and only a religious innovation begun by Martin Luther, the once Catholic priest. And anyways, Catholics have the scriptures that align to the sacred traditions.

And so, when Protestants read in Chapter 10 of Saint John’s Gospel that Jesus is celebrating Hanukkah, it makes no sense from within a strictly Protestant worldview. Here is Jesus celebrating a holiday that’s not even written in the Jewish or Protestant Old Testament scriptures. That’s no issue for Catholics, we are not “Sola Scriptura” people. Sola Scriptura was one of the heresies and innovations taught by a fallen away priest, Martin Luther, not one of our own teachings about the truths of our church. And so, either John 10 shows that Jesus himself wasn’t Sola Scriptura but instead Judeo-Catholic. He was celebrating a Jewish holiday not found in Jewish sacred scriptures, but only in Jewish tradition and Catholic sacred scriptures. Not even Jesus held to Sola Scriptura, let alone the Jews of his time. Again, Sola Scriptura was a religious invention of Martin Luther! Kind of ironic, right? Yes, Jesus was a Jew who started a Catholic church, not a Protestant religion. The oldest and first Protestant religions were started by Catholic men who left the church (e.g. Lutherans, Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Calvinists to name a few). Sola Scriptura was a religious innovation created to justify the creation of new Christian religions.

Moreover, the whole context of Jesus’ teaching on the resurrection when he raises Lazarus makes better sense in the context of 2nd Maccabees. This is well understood by St. John, which is why he places the miracle during the 8-day festival of lights (see John’s gospel, chapters 10 and 11). Time fails me to go into more details on Maccabees, things like the lost ark and the Roman alliance and the practice of prayers for the dead, but these few are sufficient for the point we’re making, that 1+2 Maccabees belong in Sacred Scripture. These books should be and are part of the holy canon. These books fill in important details of the post-exile period until the time of Christ, which then carry into the time of the gospels and new testament letters. The church is right on this point, and has been right since the first centuries. And in this case, once again, I find Protestant reasoning to be illogical, helping ease my transition into the church. Catholics held these truths for millennia, and when Protestants challenged these long-held truths, the church was forced once again to prove to be the “foundation and bulwark of truth,” as Saint Paul describes her.

This is only one point of many for those seven books to be considered sacred. A quick list of other highlights, Jesus must have loved Tobit as a kid. It’s focus on almsgiving becomes a key theme of his Sermon on the Mount. Tobit also has an ancient version of the Golden Rule, “do to no one what you yourself hate.” And whereas Tobit was concerned with burying the dead, Jesus is all about raising the dead. Again, these are key issues, almsgiving is discussed more in these seven books than the rest of the O.T. canon. And for sake of brevity, I am skipping over many other points that could be made, including important insights like St. Luke adapting the introduction of Ben Sira as the introduction for his own gospel to Theophilus.

But I do want to address one more point before moving on. When I read the writings of early Christians, from the time of Christ until before the Protestant reformation, I see great Christians and saints quote these seven books and consider them holy. And not small saints, but huge ones like Saint Augustine (an African bishop whose Confessions influenced my own conversion), Saint Athanasius (a powerful defender of the trinity), and Saint Thomas Aquinas (a great thinker, philosopher and scientist whose insights on natural law influenced our Declaration of Independence and Constitution). These giant saints and others relied on these seven books frequently and quoted them in the same way they quoted other sacred scriptures. If these great men could see these scriptures as holy, I realized that much greater and smarter men then me could be trusted. I have the brain of a worm compared to these giants. And even if my Protestant contemporaries didn’t think these seven should be scripture, the ancient saints all did. And I value the opinion of true saints above these latter-day Christians, not only are they closer to the source of wisdom, they proved it with their holy lives.

I will note one other item, when I asked Protestants if they had read these books, I never remember getting a yes. All the Protestants who felt strongly that these books could not be sacred, not one of them had taken the time to read them for themselves. They were relying on their traditions for this decision. And this was ironic again. I was perplexed. But then I realized, if they had read them, they might have converted to the church also. This further aided my conversion.

And so, the warning to me is many have opinions without doing the right research. They had opinions on things they had not experienced or knew not of. And that concerned me. An opinion is easy, but understanding takes work. And few people were doing work to justify their opinions, they were coming to answers way too easy, based on hearsay, and not thinking through the implications themselves. And that bothered me. I didn’t want to be like that. Hearsay becomes heresy quite quickly. In time, I realized I didn’t want to be Protestant. I wanted to think deep about things and come to better understanding of the truth. I wanted a deeper understanding of Jesus. I wanted a deep understanding of history. I wanted to know the church. And books like Tobit, Wisdom Ben Sira, Wisdom Solomon, 1+2 Maccabees, Judith and Baruch, to name all seven books explicitly, helped me understand Jesus and his bride and this world better. And they each had details that I saw nowhere else in the Jewish canon. It continues to be a wise decision by the church to affirm these seven books as holy and worthy to be read in the liturgy.

Moreover, the more I read the bible, the more I realized Catholics live out the bible, not just read it. Early 1st century Jews cried out “Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; hosanna in the highest” on that fateful Palm Sunday as Jesus presented himself in the form of an itinerant rabbi to the City of David, the city of the great king, and 21st century Catholics still cry out those same lines at every mass as we prepare for Christ to present himself to us in the appearance of bread and wine. We still say, “peace be with you” to each other after praying the “Our Father” just like Christ appeared to the disciples after his resurrection saying, “peace be with you.” And we still pray the “Our Father” together, just like Christ taught his apostles. They passed on the faith in the liturgy and later the scripture. Yes, Catholics pray exactly how Christ taught us to pray every single time we gather in the liturgy. The depth by which the Catholics live out the sacred scriptures in our every gathering is mind boggling, and for this former Protestant, I thirsted and desired to live out the scriptures like I saw Catholics do every time I went to mass.

And then, when I realized that Catholics were able to hear the scriptures and come to Jesus and receive life in his body and blood, while I simply heard the scriptures and stayed seated, I realized I wanted to be part of the clan that rose and came to him to receive life. I no longer wanted to simply stay seated in prayer and with joy for having heard the scriptures, but I wanted to taste of everlasting life. I wanted to not simply read the bible, but live out its message and meaning. And being a part of the Catholic church is the best place on earth to do just that. And so, I realized, I need to enter the church so that I could partake of the Lord’s table, and receive the life God has for me in his body given for me and his blood shed for me. For Saint Paul handed onto us what Jesus shared with his apostles, “This is my body that is for you, do this in remembrance of me. This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes. Come, Lord Jesus, come!

Tradition

 “Therefore, brothers, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught, either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours.” – Saint Paul of Tarsus

As time went on, and I continued to look closer at the differences between Catholic and Protestant approaches to scripture, I realized that the Catholic traditions were soaked in scripture. The mass used more scriptures from more parts of the bible than any Protestant service I’d ever been to. But also, I started to recognize that a lot of Protestant traditions found their roots not solely in the sacred scriptures, but also deeply in Catholic traditions and culture. And that was an ironic realization, in and of itself. The “Sola Scriptura” people, that is Protestants, lived out Catholic traditions, never acknowledging the depth to which they relied on Catholic traditions. Let’s take a couple examples to make this point.

The word Christmas. Every Protestant I know save maybe a few (like Jehovah’s witnesses) celebrate Christmas. But hardly any Protestants go to mass on Christmas. But the very word hints at our English-Catholic roots, we celebrate the birth of Christ by going to mass – Christ’s mass. It’s not a Spanish holiday saying, “mas Cristo, por favor.” It’s a Catholic holiday saying let’s celebrate Christ’s nativity at mass. Not only should we Americans put the Christ back in Christmas, but we Christians should also put the mass back in Christmas.

But let’s consider another Protestant focus area strongly based on Catholic tradition – the bible. It’s not self-evident which books should be in the scriptures. Catholic councils decided this. And later Protestants took those scriptures and made some slight modifications to suit their own needs, but still largely relied on the works of so many Catholics over so many centuries. And G.K. Chesterton hints at this point hilariously in his book, The Catholic Church and Conversion, when he says, and please forgive me for the length, but he’s too funny to quote briefly –

To this I owe the fact that I find it very difficult to take some of the Protestant propositions even seriously. What is any man who has been in the real outer world, for instance, to make of the everlasting cry that Catholic traditions are condemned by the Bible? It indicates a jumble of topsy-turvy tests and tail foremost arguments, of which I never could at any time see the sense. The ordinary sensible sceptic or pagan is standing in the street (in the supreme character of the man in the street) and he sees a procession go by of the priests of some strange cult (i.e. Catholics), carrying their object of worship under a canopy, some of them wearing high headdresses and carrying symbolical staffs, others carrying scrolls and sacred records, others carrying sacred images and lighted candles before them, others sacred relics in caskets or cases, and so on. I can understand the spectator saying, “this is all hocus-pocus”; I can even understand him, in moments of irritation, breaking up the procession, throwing down the images, tearing up the scrolls, dancing on the priests and anything else that might express that general view. I can understand his saying, “Your croziers are bosh.” But in what conceivable frame of mind does he rush in to select one particular scroll of the scriptures of this one particular group (a scroll which had always belonged to them and been a part of their hocus-pocus, if it was hocus-pocus); why in the world should the man in the street say that one particular scroll was not bosh, but was the one and only truth by which all the other things were to be condemned? Why should it not be as superstitious to worship the scrolls as the statutes, of that one particular procession? Why should it not be as reasonable to preserve the statutes as the scrolls, by the tenants of that particular creed? To say to the priests, “Your statues and scrolls are condemned by our common sense,” is sensible. To say, “Your statues are condemned by your scrolls, and we are going to worship one part of your procession and wreck the rest,” is not sensible from any standpoint, least of all that of the man of the street.

So, yes, one of the things I don’t think Protestants appreciate is just how much they take from Catholics simply by tradition, including Catholic sacred scriptures. I did not appreciate this until I was far along into my conversion. And like Chesterton, I can understand how impartial observers would say the Catholic religion is crazy. What I don’t get, is how Protestants could say the Catholic religion is crazy, let’s throw everything out, but we’ll keep your holy books. The books are good, well most of them, but everything else we’ll remove and replace. This is especially hard to understand considering that the very existence of the Protestant bible is only due to Catholic traditions and inventions and care for the holy word. Time and time again, I found the Protestant point of view didn’t make sense. It couldn’t go deep into truth, it would stay at the surface. And I found myself even as a Protestant defending the Catholic church on this point and many others. At the very least, we should be thankful to Catholics for composing the new testament and compiling the old and new testament scriptures.

To take 73 Catholic sacred books, remove seven, and say that those remaining 66 are the only holy ones just began to seem ridiculous. And even ungrateful. Ungrateful to the church that not only composed many of the sacred writings, but also compiled and cared for them so that all Christians would have holy books. At the very least, I thought Protestants would be thankful for the many Catholics across the centuries – the many Catholic priests, and Catholic bishops, and Catholic monks and Catholic saints and Catholic lay folks – who painstakingly copied by hand and preserved the scriptures through centuries until the printing presses could be invented by a Catholic or the digital world brought forth more recently. It seems odd to take Catholic holy scriptures, including a Catholic new testament, and not at the very least give great thanks to the Catholics who preserved them. And as a Protestant, the more I learned about what Catholics did to protect the faith, whether composing creeds to defend the trinity, or making proclamations to defend Christ’s dual nature (his human and divine nature), or compose and compile and clarify the sacred scriptures, I realized gratitude was the right response to the Catholic church. Gratitude for all they have done for Christians all over the world, including serving Protestant Christians by giving them a holy bible they could later claim as their own. And so, as a Protestant I began to become very thankful to the Catholic church for all that she had done for Christians everywhere. As G.K. Chesterton says, once you become fair to the church you begin to find yourself fond of her.

And once gratitude and fondness set in, I found myself in a very dangerous position. Because, I then began to think, what if someone 1600 years from now took the American Declaration of Independence and Constitution, formed their own nation, could they still call themselves American? And that was a difficult question because the answer seemed so ludicrous, so simple, and for some reason I found a blind spot in my own beliefs. Because yes, someone could take American documents and form a new nation, but Americans would take American documents to preserve the nation, not form a new one. If they went forth and formed a new one, they’d be forming something else, maybe a New America, or a Second America, or something entirely different. And so, Protestants could take Catholic sacred writings and form new churches, be it Lutheran, Anglican or any other type of church, but it wouldn’t be the church Christ founded. It would be something different, a new religion. And I realized, I wanted to be in the church Christ founded thousands of years ago, and not part of a church founded hundreds of years ago by ex-Catholic men, nor did I want to be part of a church founded decades or even months ago by American men. I wanted to be in the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic church. I wanted to be among the Christians who stayed with the church, not the ones who left to form new churches.

And that’s where I started to find other things that were peculiar about the sacred scriptures. Again, the books themselves are not self-evident as holy scriptures. We rely on the Holy Spirit working through Catholic church councils to define these books as holy. Nowhere in the sacred scripture does it say, “yes the sacred gospels are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John but Thomas’s gospel is not sacred.” Nowhere does it say, “the book of Tobit is holy and so is Deuteronomy.” These are all traditions that came from within the church – the Catholic church. And so, the compiling of the canon of sacred scripture had to be decided by people, the people of God. Yes, the canon was decided by Catholic church councils. And when I found out that Catholics trace their popes all the way back to St. Peter, this made sense to me. For our country traces itself to our first president, George Washington, so, why wouldn’t our church trace itself to the one Christ appointed and said, “upon this rock I will build my church”? Unfortunately, I realized all the churches I was a part of traced their beginning to 20th century America. But I didn’t want to be a part of an American church; I wanted to be a part of the universal church; I wanted to be a part of the Catholic church. For only the Catholic church is the church founded by the king of the Jews. I didn’t care to be part of a church founded by the king or queen of England, or a priest from Germany, or a French lawyer or an American preacher. I wanted the church Jesus built.

Again, it’s only obvious in hindsight what books should make up the books of the bible. It’s never recorded in the bible which are the books of the bible. There is no table of contents in the holy scriptures about what books should be considered sacred. Instead, the church guided by the Holy Spirit had to decide what makes up the bible. It’s only obvious once the books were chosen and maintained by the Catholic church for over a millennium. Yes, I think this is a point that Protestants overlook too easily, the whole process for how the canon of scripture was chosen. They take for granted how the Holy Spirit worked in the Catholic church to codify a canon, that they take most of that canon as their own, and ignore that they relied on Catholics to determine their own sacred texts. Again, one would think all Christians everywhere would at least be thankful for the Catholic church that did so much to preserve the bible. Even the invention of the printing press was a Catholic invention. Among Guttenberg’s first printed books was a Catholic bible, the Vulgate. Not sure why this side of the story isn’t told more. Other than its part of a larger conspiracy to keep the truth from the masses so that the masses miss out on the mass.

And this process of compiling the canon took the church hundreds of years. For the first 300 years of the church’s existence, the church had the eucharist, but it did not have a complete, codified and final canon of agreed upon sacred scriptures. And so, while some of the earliest Christians surely had some sacred scriptures, all early Christians had the Eucharist. While they were waiting for a final codified canon of new testament scriptures, they were able to celebrate the Lord’s supper weekly if not daily. And so, they did have the true new testament, as in the new covenant Christ established with his disciples. As Dr. Hahn says, the new testament was a sacrament long before it became a document.

This becomes another point, Christian tradition is extremely important, especially Catholic tradition. What makes an American is more than someone with a copy of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and reads it, in fact, an American is simply someone who has citizenship. And surely an American would become a better American if they understood the principles of our Declaration and Constitution. But what makes a good American isn’t simply someone who reads old documents, even if they are cherished, old documents. What makes a good American is someone who understands our culture, our ideals, our way of life and lives out the best of our precepts. Similarly, what makes a Christian is not simply a handful of texts; it’s our culture, our traditions, our way of life lived out according to our ideals and in relationship with our good God and Savior. And while the documents and writings are important, they have their place, it’s our citizenship that makes us American or Christian, not our regular reading of important texts. That would simply make us a good American or a good Christian, hopefully. Again, a Uruguayan or a Cuban can love the U.S., read the Constitution and Declaration every day, love its ideals, but that would not make them American. To be American, they need citizenship. Similarly, a Christian becomes Christian when he is baptized in the in the name of the Father, Son and holy Spirit and dedicates their life to living in community with our triune God and his people. Our citizenship is in heaven. And by entering into the heavenly mysteries of faith, we enter into the divine life and enjoy our heavenly citizenship. This is how Christians are made. And our ability to read is not nearly as important as our baptism.

And so, the more I looked deeper into the origins of the different churches and Christian religions, the more I grew to appreciate the Catholic church for what it has done for all Christians, and the more I started to see the peculiar inconsistencies in Protestant logic – like celebrating Christmas while not actually going to mass, or not being thankful to the church that produced the bible. With this came the realization that a Christian is not made by scripture alone, but by living a life close and intimate with Jesus, by living a life according to the sacred tradition given to us by God for his people, by living a sacramental life. The more I was fair to the Catholic church, the more I became fond of her. The more I learned about her, the more I loved her and wanted to be in her.

There are more things to cover in about traditions and writings. We could talk about how writing is a great tool to preserve culture – you write down what’s important to record, remember or communicate, and so written texts at best could only be a poor reflection of unwritten traditions. For example, visiting Rome for oneself (or Jerusalem), would be infinitely better than simply reading a book about Rome (or Jerusalem). Likewise, the experience of true religion is way better than reading about true religion. Reading engages the mind, but true religion engages all the senses, true religion engages all the mind, heart, body and soul of a person, not just the eyes. True religion engages sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. But let us leave our reflections on the importance of tradition and honoring traditions to consider some thoughts on the trinity. For one, the trinity is a Christian tradition. But also, understanding the Christian understanding of the trinity can help us uncover some other important insights into the beauty of the Catholic church and explore some more the sacred traditions handed down to us.

Trinity

“They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers.” – Acts of the Apostles

The word trinity is not in the bible – nowhere. Jehovah Witnesses (who call themselves Christians) will use this as an argument against Christ’s divine nature saying something along the lines of “Christ is first amongst creatures” rather than the church’s creed, “he is one with the Creator, the only begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages, God from God, light from light, true God from true God.” As a Protestant, who would welcome any discussions on religion, I studied the scriptures deeply to try and reason with JWs and found that all we did was prioritize different scriptures. In doing so, we made our arguments about our theology based on a variety of scriptures. But we were simply talking past each other, we had no common foundation. They said one verse was important, I pointed to another, and there was nothing to unite us. At the time, I thought they simply prioritized the wrong scriptures and took the scriptures out of context to fit their argument, rather than simply seeing the truth from the scriptures. And they thought the same of me. And this continued to add to the “Sola Scriptura” troubles, and I continued to find “Sola Scriptura” neither true nor helpful in my discussions with other Protestant Christians. We didn’t find solutions and unifications, but disagreements and division. We both went to similar scriptures, and we divided over them and rarely ever united. Even though I agreed with them that the word “trinity” is not explicitly mentioned in the bible, I did find it to be an accurate description to describe God, and more importantly, I never saw that one scripture which said, “everything I believe must be found explicitly in the bible.” Instead, I found the bible points me to Christ. And as we already discussed, Christ himself says “you search the scriptures thinking you find life yet fail to realize they point to me, and do not come to me to receive life.”

I came to realize the term trinity is a definition that we use as Christians to represent a deeper idea about the mystery of God. In time, I realized even though the term “trinity” is nowhere found in the bible, it is a great term to help us understand who God is and describes the God of the bible. Trinity may not be explicitly found, but trinity is implicitly known.

This experience talking with JWs made me realize, seeing trinity in the bible becomes easier the more we understand the culture and traditions of the Jewish people. It’s there, if we scratch the surface and judge by more than mere appearances. And because the original Christians were Jews, they would have seen these connections much easier than those of us so far removed from the time and culture of Christ. They would have seen the deeper meanings because they were in tune with the culture, it was their culture, not a foreign culture.

But the second thing that happened is I went searching for Christian writings on the trinity. And I found them in places I didn’t expect. There was an outpouring of amazing writings on the trinity from Christians in the fourth century. I was reading writings from St. Augustine and St. Athanasius to understand the trinity, and I started to realize a lot of other things. For one, the best Christians writers were Catholic, and they often had the word “Saint” preceding their name, though not always (we still need to give time for Fulton Sheen and G.K. Chesterton to name a few awaiting official sainthood). But the second, and more important thing I found, the early creeds from the church were also defined in this time period of the early church. Whether it was the Apostles’ Creed, or the Nicaean-Constantinople Creed, or the Chalcedonian Creed, I found the early church had come together to debate and resolve these huge issues. And they composed creeds to teach the faithful what we believe. The wrote down their insights so we wouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel but could keep rolling down the road of faith. In fact, the issues and discussions I was having between different Protestant groups were issues the early church had already dealt with and resolved. As a Protestant, I was sampling bringing up settled arguments and longing for creeds that settled key points to know. Little did I know of the Catholic creeds. I began to feel like I was reinventing the wheel, and it bothered me because I would rather have received the teachings and moved onward. Instead, I was searching to figure out what was common and basic to most Catholics, and having to figure out these basic teachings all on my own. But I wasn’t on my own, I had Catholic saints guiding me from the fourth century.

In fact, I even found Christian writings that expressed the orthodox viewpoints in the first century? The same century as Christ and during the time of the Apostles! I realized, what for me was an interesting line in the book of the Acts of the Apostles about the early Christians, “they devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers” was filled with depth and meaning that I little grasped as a Protestant. For example, “the breaking of the bread” is another way to say the Eucharist (or the Lord’s supper, or the new manna). For me, I’d rather learn from others than on my own, and I can’t imagine a better group to listen to and learn from than the apostles. Or their successors. And I didn’t realize as a Protestant that there are Christians that claim to have a direct line of succession tracing all the way back to the apostles, and this is exactly what occurs with Catholic and Orthodox Christians. I started to think, if the Christian faith is a vine, I’d want to be as close as possible to the root, having access to the nutrients and systems for carrying nourishment for the soul. I’d want to be as close to the apostles’ teaching as possible, and not on a later branch, even if it did bear fruit. I wanted to be near the source, not on the edges. The edges are cut off all too easily.

It started to dawn on me how all the apostles were all Jews. They were a part of the same religion and tribe as Jesus. So, when he said things like “destroy this temple in 3 days and I will raise it,” they were equally perplexed at his saying. For how could Jesus raise a temple in days that took decades to build? But after his resurrection, they remembered his words and the holy Spirit taught them about the true temple, the temple of his body. But their old and ancient religion provided a common foundation to build from.

And so, what the apostles’ teaching does is transform the Jewish religion into a universal (‘Catholic’) religion, a religion for all peoples, at all times, on all continents. And so, in 33 A.D. the true and new temple was raised. And by 70 A.D., the old temple could be laid aside as it was no longer needed. When Christ rose from the dead, he created a crisis in Jewish religion that fractured the Jewish religion into many religions under the domain of many rabbis. One rabbis is king and reigns to this day, and the rest of the rabbis teach different brands of Jewish religion while waiting for the king. Yes, the Jews fractured into religions ruled by rabbis. Christians united in a religion ruled by our king, a first century rabbi. For Christians, we saw in Jesus the fulfillment of the old testament prophesies and the rabbi we follow. This rabbi transformed our experience of religion and revealed the reality of the shadows seen in the old covenant. Jesus’s religion is the universal religion and this rural rabbi cause a revolution in religion that his apostles took to the world, fulfilling his command to “go to the nations and make disciples from all, baptizing them in the father, son and holy spirit.” He also said, “go, and you will be my witnesses to from Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth.”

And that’s exactly what the apostles did. They took the Jewish religion and made it Catholic, meaning universal. Every time we hear Catholic, universal needs to reverberate in the back of our minds because the Catholic church could easily be translated as Universal church. That’s what Catholic means.

Now, why this explosion of great saints and writers in the 4th century? It had to do with the Roman empire. The Edict of Milan (313 A.D.) was passed and permanently established religious toleration for Christians. Prior to this Edict, the Christians were severely persecuted, seen as an upstart religion that was destabilizing the powers and principalities of the world, and a threat to the empire. But when Christians started to practice their religion freely, no longer underground and persecuted and now able to communicate openly, they found a major heresy had crept into the church. As Saint Jerome stated, “the world groaned and found itself Arian.”

Arius was once a Catholic bishop, but he taught falsely about Christ. He did not hold to the teaching of the apostles but created his own teachings. And he tried to pass off his own teachings as Christian teaching. At the time, the church was Catholic by a thread and threatened to no longer exist as Arius’s false teachings spread like leaven through the church. Finally, the issue became so destructive that church councils were convened so leaders (that is, bishops) of the church could settle the issue once and for all. Great saints like Saint Athanasius helped form the creeds that led to our deeper understanding of the trinity. The concept of the trinity describes as best as we humans can make of the mystery of God. It is a statement revealing how we humans grapple and make intelligible statements regarding the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And these statements are clear, beautiful, believable, Catholic, but most of all true. And they are what was taught about Christ from the time of the apostles, from the beginning of the church, from the first days of the new covenant. And these creeds help give a foundation for which we can understand the scriptures, for one, it helps us understand how to interpret the sacred scriptures.

The apostles would never have needed to write about the trinity in the 1st century. They would have understood that God is one, but they also knew that when Christ was raised from the dead, he not only fulfilled their scriptures and but proved true his testimony that he was the only begotten Son of God. This made him equal to God, and for this reason on multiple occasions, the Jews threatened to stone him. They thought it was blasphemy for a man to make himself God, but the apostles came to learn Christ simply testified to the truth. Christ did not make himself God, he was God. Although he did not count equality with God as something to be grasped, he humbled himself and was found in human likeness and was obedient, obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. But God can’t stay dead, he is from everlasting to everlasting, and so he took up his life on the 3rd day to remain with us forever.

But when nearly 400 years had passed, some of the bishops had strayed from the original teaching of the apostles regarding Jesus’ divine nature. The church rose up as one in the fourth and fifth centuries to deal with this issue. And from here came the creeds and writings and teachings that confirmed what I had come to learn about God in reading the bible – that Jesus is God and God is one. The same message you will hear every day in the liturgy.

I began to realize, if there was something implicit like the trinity within the sacred scriptures, which was a huge thing known by the apostles, taught by the apostles, but some of the church lost the clarity of the teaching over time until others stood up and defined clearly what the apostles’ taught, what other implicit things could I be missing by not being close to the teaching of the apostles? What other things do I lack in understanding which first century Jewish Christians took for granted?

And so, maybe what was lost as our culture in Western Europe shifted from Catholic to Protestant might resolve a lot of questions regarding things easily found in Catholic tradition but confusing to Protestants. Things like the mass, Mother Mary our Queen, and the many other cultural differences between Catholics and Protestants. And I’m not here to go through each difference one by one, but what if the Catholic church held to the apostles’ teaching better than the Protestant churches? Then they would have a different expression of religion and these points would need to be looked at one by one.

To make a long story short, whenever I went searching for answers that perplexed me with respect to Christian scriptures, things like the immaculate conception, the trinity, Christ’s divine nature, I found every time I read both respected Catholic and respected Protestant writers, I always thought the Catholic response to have a greater awareness and application of the whole of scripture. And like I mentioned, in a short period of time, I realized that all my favorite writers were Catholic, with many of them having the word Saint preceding their name. Convinced not only by the truth of their arguments, I also desired to be a part of the church that could produce such great writers like Saint Ambrose and Saint Augustine, such great defenders of the faith like Saint Ignatius of Antioch and Saint Athanasius, and such great minds like Saint Thomas of Aquinas and Saint John Henry Newman, let alone other wonderful writers like Dante, Shakespeare, Chaucer and Chesterton.

Returning to the topic of the trinity, ironically with JWs, Protestants are experiencing the same errors 400 years after their first churches formed. This is the same experience as Catholic church history. And only with reliance on Catholic creeds will Protestants settle those issues and errors. Unfortunately, whereas we united, they will continue to divide unless they unite with the Catholic church.

Today, Protestants defend and defeat the heresies of fringe Protestant groups with Catholic creeds and Catholic scriptures, and to the extent they understand Catholic doctrine they will have good answers. The more they study the logic, reasoning and faith of great Catholic saints, like Saint Athanasius and Saint Augustine, the better prepared they will be to defend the true faith. These ancient saints continue to help all Christians learn our faith and who God is, including understanding difficult concepts like the trinity and dual nature of Christ, something handed onto us by the apostles and their successors. The church was proving to be just as Saint Paul wrote of her, a great “bulwark and foundation for the truth.”

Sacrifice

“Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. Go and learn the meaning of the words, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.” – Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews

Last section, we briefly touched on the revolution in religion brought by a rural rabbi named Jesus. Let us dive deeper now. Jesus transformed Jewish culture and traditions and made them universal. He showed us how the shadows of the old testament hinted at the reality of the Son of God, the source of light and life and all that is good. And one of the important distinctions between Catholics and Protestants is the approach to sacrifice, specifically Christ’s sacrifice at Calvary. For both Catholics and Protestants, a one-time event near 33 A.D., but for Catholics, this one-day event is relived every day across the world as we participate and enter into the one-time event through the mass. This is one example, an important one, of the many cultural differences between Catholics and Protestants.

This difference is driven by the central moment for Catholic worship – the mass. This is tough for me to express, because I only began to understand this after becoming a Catholic. To look back with the twenty-twenty hindsight that I didn’t have at the time as I journeyed into the church is much easier than to walk through that experience. It’s much easier to look backwards than forwards. Backward is filled with certainty, it’s already finished. To look forward is filled with uncertainty, there are many doubts. But what Catholics have is not only a priesthood of all believers (like Protestants), but also the office of priests (unlike Protestants). With priests, we are able to have sacrifice. And with Christ’s sacrifice, Christians were able to change all the cultures where the gospel seed took root. We did this by transforming not only the pagan practices in the light of truth, but also the old testament practices in light of the new covenant. Christ did not come to abolish the law but transform it. Let’s consider what transformation looks like.

The religion Jesus had was one that inhabited every single action of life. Work six days and rest the seventh out of gratitude to the God who sets people free from slavery. Before the people were set free, every family was told to sacrifice a lamb and eat so that their firstborns would be spared when the angel of death passed over Egypt. Once they were baptized in the Red Sea, and came into their homeland as a new nation under God, sacrifices and offerings were made on a routine basis – daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly rituals were now instituted. Every year Jewish men were called three times to make pilgrimages to Jerusalem to celebrate the national (and therefore religious!) holidays. We call these holidays Passover, Pentecost and the Feast of Booths. (These holidays are not far from Americans gathering as families in their hometowns during Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the 4th of July).

For the Jews, each one of these holidays involved offerings and sacrifices. These sacrifices were bloody, the sacrifices of Passover would create rivers of blood outside the temple as blood mixed with water and flowed out the city gates. The sacrifices of the old covenant were bloody, and still are. But centuries before Christ, prophets were proclaiming a time when the sacrifices and offerings would be purified (note: not abolished, but purified; not done away with, but transformed).

Malachi said, “my name is great among the nations; incense offerings are made to my name everywhere, and a pure offering.” Jeremiah wrote of not only perpetual kingship but also many priests to serve the kingdom of heaven, “for thus says the LORD: David shall never lack a successor on the throne of the house of Israel, nor shall the priests of Levi ever be lacking before me, to sacrifice burnt offerings, to burn cereal offerings, and to make sacrifices.” And Isaiah spoke of the many offerings on God’s altar, “Arise! Shine, for you light has come, the glory of the LORD has dawned upon you. The wealth of nations shall come to you, they will be acceptable offerings in my altar, and I will glorify my glorious house.” This is a short sampling, we could keep going, but one of the many messages of the prophets was that sacrifices weren’t going to stop, but they would be transformed. They would be pure.

Now, the more I studied the Catholic religion, the more I realized the Catholic religion to be a transformation of the Jewish festivals and feasts and traditions and culture whereas, in contrast with the Protestant religion, Protestant religion abolishes everything except for the Bible, like G.K. Chesterton noted and as we quoted earlier. Everything was stripped away – the priesthood, the feasts and festivals, the sacrifices, the offerings, the altar, the temple, the queen mother, and so on and on and on. With Protestants, all was gone save the scriptures and a personal relationship with Jesus. With the Catholic religion, nothing was stripped away, and all was transformed. Everything is transformed in Christ. Not only Jewish culture, but also the Roman empire and Pagan religions under which the church was born.

In the time of Jesus, sacrifices all over the empire were common. This becomes more apparent the more we read ancient literature, whether Greek, Roman or Jewish. Sacrifice was a key component of the life of all ancient peoples and tribes. And wherever the gospel seed has yet to take root, sacrifice continues to be a key component of human life. In contrast, wherever the gospel seed has taken root, those cultures eliminated bloody animal sacrifices. The gospel changed that for a few reasons, including, once you’ve sacrificed God, what else is there left to sacrifice? Once the perfect son is made flesh and offered to God, what else can be offered? That is the only offering we can be a part of, which is why the church celebrates that one offering daily. In doing so, the imperfect is drawn into perfection through faith and love. And let us note, it’s not that Christ is offered many times, he is only offered once, but that eternal moment is shared across time. In the Catholic religion, we relive that sacrifice at every mass. Jesus, knowing the sacrificial system would be transformed quoted the Prophet Hosea on multiple occasions, “I desire mercy not sacrifice, I came not for the righteous but sinners.”

And so, yes, I still find Catholic culture peculiar and foreign and odd, even as a Catholic. But our citizenship is in heaven, and therefore our supernatural culture will be foreign to those naturally minded. Christian routines, values, and behaviors will be different than those whose citizenship is only on earth. Our kingdom is not of this world, and so the worldly will look on it with confusion and in perplexity. But just like we grow in what it means to be American, we too must grow in what it means to be Christian. And the many mysteries and perplexities about Catholic culture are better resolved by going deeper into the Jewish culture, not further away. And when we look to the Exodus accounts of the people of God, we see the sacrifice of the Passover lamb saves from death and sets people free. And we see the command to relive that sacrifice every year in perpetuity and re-enter into the mystery of Passover, “for this day will be a day of remembrance for you, which your future generations will celebrate with pilgrimage to the LORD; you will celebrate it as a statute forever.” An abolishment would be a removal (like the Protestant approach). In contrast, a transformation would be a fulfillment, and this would result in finding a new way to continue its practice, a transformed way to relive every day called today (like the Catholic approach).

And what happened in the time of Christ is that so many Passover lambs were sacrificed for the families of Israel that rivers of blood would flow from the temple mount as millions upon millions brought the wealth of nations to Jerusalem to participate in their religious holidays. Jews from all over the Roman empire, and maybe beyond, would flock to the City of David to celebrate the Passover sacrifice. And today, the river of blood still flows. Now, rather than from the temple mount of Jerusalem, the flow is from the side of our last Adam, for while he slept the sleep of death on the cross, the blood and water flowed from his side, and his bride – the church – was born and brought to life through the sacraments. And 50 days later the holy Spirit was poured out on the people, three thousand were added on that day, and countless more continue to be added, more than the stars in the sky and the sand on the shore.

And so, I didn’t realize until I became Catholic, how much is retained by fulfilling and not abolishing. Catholics not only have a last Adam but also a new Eve, not only the King of Kings but also the Virgin Queen, not only a high priest but the office of the priesthood, not just angels but saints, not just baptism but the eucharist, not just forgiveness but the sacraments. Our religion is different because we allow it to be fulfilled and transformed, rather than abolished and made simple. And I’m so thankful to have entered the Catholic church, the Church of churches, otherwise I would never have seen these things so clearly. What was a fearful step in faith ended up being a walking into the light. And I could never leave the church, for the Catholic church is the best saint-maker around, and no other churches come close.

Kingdom

“It was preparation day for Passover, and it was about noon. And he said to the Jews, ‘Behold, your king!’ … Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross. It read, ‘Jesus the Nazorean, King of the Jews.’ Now many of the Jews read this inscription, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek.” – Saint John’s Gospel

Never before in the history of the world has a king inaugurated his kingdom by laying down his life for his people on the day of coronation. Christ was crowned king and robed in royal attire before being stripped naked and facing our worst enemies, sin and death. On that day, in preparation for this momentous moment, Pilate proclaimed to the people “Behold, your king!” The people shouted crucify while the Jewish priests said, “we have no king but Caesar,” and thus was the old covenant being fulfilled in the midst of inaugurating the new one. A death had to take place to fulfill the old. A sacrifice had to be made. A king had to be crowned. And a messiah had to defeat our true enemies, our oldest and last, sin and death.

When Pilate proclaimed Jesus as King of the Jews – and this is missing in the Protestant old testament – as the Roman ruler of the region, he had the proper authority to name the king of the Jews. In the Catholic sacred books of the Maccabees, we learn that the Jewish people had centuries early created alliances with the Roman people, and in doing so looked to Rome to appoint its leaders, including the high priest, governors, or kings. So, when Pilate proclaims Jesus “king of the Jews,” as the Roman governor of the region, Pilate has the proper civil authority to make Jesus king.

Obviously, as Christians, we know that God is guiding these moments. But it should give us faith to see the level of detail and depth by which God provides his testimony. God does all things well, and he is not only infinite in wisdom but also intimate in detail. He made sure the Son of David was crowned king by the right and proper civil authorities. And the testimony of his kingship remains to this day, because like the prior great dynasties of the world, we still tell time by the life of our great king, Jesus. And so, to this day, we tell time in relation to King Jesus. Our king continues to reign. While other kings are lucky to rule for decades, our king rules forever. The angel Gabriel promises this when he proclaimed to Mother Mary about her son “he will rule of the house of Jacob forever and his kingdom will have no end.” And God himself promised through the prophet Nathan when he told King David, “your house and your kingdom are firm forever before me; your throne shall be firmly established forever.”

Now, whether Catholic or Protestant, we all agree on the kingship of Christ. What I’d like to do here is draw out the distinctions on how Catholics see the kingdom of heaven, sometimes referred to as Christendom, and draw out some of the parallels we find in the old testament, principles which Saint John Henry Newman pointed out previously in his masterpiece Apologia Pro Vita Sua. By looking at the past, we have some insight into our current state of affairs and might better understand how to interpret what God allows.

Towards the end of King Solomon’s reign, the people of Israel had difficulty with the heavy burdens and taxes placed on them. By the time his son came to receive the kingdom, his poor handling of the situation led to the split in the kingdom of God’s people, the ten tribes of the North becoming the Kingdom of Israel, and the two tribes of the South becoming the Kingdom of Judah (‘Praise’). Both kingdoms had divinely appointed kings, priests serving the people, and prophets speaking truth to power. But the kingdom of Judah had something more, they had the forever promises of God. They had the kingship of the son of David. More so, they had the temple in Jerusalem, the place of the sacrifices, the ark of the covenant, and the Queen Mother. When exile threatened both kingdoms, only the Judeans had promises of returning to the land. They had promises of the savior, and they were entrusted with keeping the faith to await the fulfillment of the promises of God. The parallels to the situation of the church is very similar. In fact, a lot of the peculiar aspects of Catholic culture find their roots clearly in the Judean kingdom. Like the trinity, certain aspects of Catholic culture are seen throughout the scriptures, but we need eyes to see and ears to hear. Two examples should suffice to continue to draw out this principle, the Queen Mother and the Prime Minister.

First, the Queen Mother. The Judean Kingdom like the Catholic church had a special role for the Queen Mother. Solomon, son of David, built the temple and reigned, and he is a great example of this principle. Consider, when you have 300 wives, which one is Queen while you reign? Your mother. No matter how many wives the ancient Judean kings might have had, they only had one mother. And so, in 1st Kings, when we hear the stories of how Bathsheba helps her son secure the kingdom, and the honor King Solomon pays to the Queen Mother, we see the “king stood up to meet her and paid her homage. Then he sat down upon his throne and a throne was provided for the king’s mother, who sat at his right.” There early in Solomon’s reign we see the beginning of something we see throughout the book of Kings. As we trace the rest of the Judean kings, we see the Queen Mother is always introduced with the Judean kings, save maybe a couple of instances when they were atrocious kings. To understand the Catholic approach to Queen Mary, we need to look to the Jewish culture and tradition. To rightly understand various passages in the new testament – like the angel’s annunciation, the visitation with Elizabeth, Mother Mary at the wedding feast and at the cross, the figure in Revelation, and the strong allusions to the ark of the covenant in Saint John’s writings and Saint Luke’s – we need to look to the writings of the old testament. To properly understand Catholic culture, we have to understand the Judean kingdom and culture. All these old testament allusions are shadows until we find their reality properly in Christ, the son of God. They may be explicit or implicit in scripture, depending on the particular story and craftsmanship of the holy Spirit, but it’s everywhere once you have a Judeo-Catholic cultural understanding. So, once we understand how the ancient Judean kingdom functioned, we will see the continuity in how Catholics view our Queen, Virgin Mother Mary.

Our second example is about the Prime Minister, the Pope. The Judean kingdom had not only a king but also a high priest. King David was not the high priest. In a good king like Josiah, we see the positive impact a good high priest can have on the kingdom, similar to the positive impact a good pope can have on the church and the world. In modern days, we had Pope Saint John Paul II unite with President Reagan to defeat communism – pope and president working together for the good of all. Peace and prosperity are brought to the world when a good ruler and a good religious leader unite for the good of the people.

Likewise, the books of the prophets are filled with examples at what happens under bad kings and bad priests – chaos descends on the kingdom. And the world suffers. Just like under bad rulers and bad popes and bad bishops and bad priests, chaos descends on the church and Christendom. But either way, the precedence of the existence of the pope, bishops and priests are found in the old testament scriptures, and they are everywhere. But this understanding only comes by learning to read the sacred scriptures in the appropriate context.

And practically speaking, if you were Jesus and knew you were about to ascend to the Father, would you leave your disciples without leadership? Would you leave your kingdom without an earthly head or representative? In corporate culture, leaders delegate power when they go on vacation or are away for a period of time, would Christ be any less of a leader than our earthly corporate leaders? No. It makes sense that Christ would appoint leaders in the church like the Apostles and a chief leader by which he can say “feed my lambs” and “tend my sheep,” and a chief leader held responsible for shepherding Christ’s flock.

And so, these aspects of Catholic culture – like the Queen Mother or the Pope, our Prime Minister – are clearly found in the sacred scriptures, especially if we learn to read them how first century Jews understood them. This means we love and cling to the stories of the old testament, which is our history and our freedom. And these items not only shed a light on church life, but also how Western Europe is ordered. I was always perplexed as a kid why Europe had monarchies and prime ministers. Why did they not simply have a President like us? And what was the need of a king and a prime minister? Why both and not only one figurehead? But turning to Catholic culture, we see it common to have a king and a prime minister (like a bishop) or a king and a high priest (like in the Judean kingdom). These roots in how to govern society were adopted by Europeans from their understanding of God’s design for his kingdom. To then read Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and see that he justifies a democracy by looking further back into Jewish history, looking to the earlier designs that predated the monarchy while under judges, one only starts to realize the depth that our forefathers, whether American founding fathers or their English ancestors, relied on the wisdom of the church. The church was fundamental to our heritage, whether in the traditions or the sacred scriptures, as well as in the institutions we created, and the church is the key foundation that built our Western society.

With the split in Christendom, the Catholic church plays an increasingly important role in the kingdom of heaven, like the Judean kingdom, she is the keeper of the promises, the authoritative body leading God’s people, composer of the new testament letters, compiler of the sacred scriptures, original witnesses to the resurrection, and entrusted with the office of the priesthood to forgive sins and share our Lord’s body and blood with his people. And the Protestant churches, when they left the Catholic church and forever changed Christendom, left the office of the priesthood behind, hence they still have symbols of Christ’s body and blood but not the very substance thereof. Protestants share in baptism as God’s children but not the Lord’s table. The table they share is symbolic, it has to be, as they have no priests. Without priests, there is neither sacrifice, nor forgiveness of sins, nor Christ’s body and blood; there is only baptism and fellowship and brotherhood, which is still supernatural and amazing and a divine gift. Only, it’s not the fullness of God’s gift for us. And as Jesus told his disciples “he who is not against us is for us.” And so, we can still have union in Christ, only not the deepest union available to Christ’s brothers and sisters. But again, without priests, Protestants have to approach through symbolic representations what Catholics have in reality, whether sacrifice, the eucharist, the office of priesthood, or any other aspect where Catholics and Protestants differ. Again, Protestants have the symbols of reality, Catholics have reality itself, as much as God lets us take hold of the reality in our mysteries.

In hindsight, I would never have seen these things about the kingdom of heaven and Christendom and the world had it not been for entering the Catholic church. The universal church taught me so much more than I would have ever learned had I stayed a Protestant, had a stayed in protest of these deeper and everlasting truths and promises. For one, as a Protestant, I was only ever hearing one side of the Christian story and seeing that side through Protestant Evangelical eyes. Secondly, as I said before, what was a fearful step in faith ended up being a walking into the light. For Catholics, ours is the king of kings; ours is the queen mother, the prime minister, the sacraments, the saints, the rosary and the devotions; ours are the feasts and festivals, the forgiveness of sins, the message of salvation, and the eucharist; and ours is the universal church and the bride of Christ. And I love the church, for she is not only Christ’s body and his bride, but she is also the keeper of his promises. She not only makes the divine word scripture, but much more importantly, she makes the divine word flesh.

Church

“Jesus said to him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so, I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’” – Gospel of Saint Matthew

As a Protestant I was missing a framework to interpret passages like the one above about the leadership role and authority Jesus granted uniquely to Peter for the benefit of the church. For the longest time, I did not grasp the clear allusion to Isaiah, chapter 22. Isaiah is an interesting book. Jesus Christ and John the Baptist quote it frequently, and Matthew explicitly references Isaiah ten times during his gospel, which is more than any other book save the Psalms! Saint Matthew and the early church create the clear picture that the Prophet Isaiah is highly important. And when the church reads this passage quoted above from the Gospel of Saint Matthew during our celebration of the mass, it is frequently complimented with the old testament reading from Isaiah, chapter 22. These passages are clearly related, and the church ensures we make the connection through the readings organized during our liturgy. In doing so, the church is doing what she often does, drawing out explicitly what lies hidden in the texts. And when the church does this, we see Peter’s leadership role was about an office, not simply about a person.

The President of the United States matters because of the office he holds, and similarly, the Pope matters because of the office he holds. It’s not about President Trump or Pope Benedict, it’s about the office they hold. And when Christ appointed Peter as the rock of the church and gave him keys to the kingdom of heaven, he was not simply honoring Simon as a person, but he created an office that would last in perpetuity. He placed Simon in a position, the position of the rock of the church, he created the office of the Pope. And I was very impressed when studying the church to find that Catholics trace all our Popes back to Saint Peter. From the current pope to the first pope, Catholics trace a clear line of continuity, just like Jews trace a clear line from Abraham to David to Jesus. Only, rather than 42 generations, we trace 264 popes in a continuous line to Saint Peter. And once I learned that, I wondered why something so self-evident in the secular world – leadership and lines of succession – was so hidden and missing in Protestant churches.

For governmental comparisons, the English fought centuries of wars over the succession of kings, and our American forefathers were wise in declaring a process of determining the President, which means we have a new leader every 4 or 8 years. Let us not take for granted how much turmoil was caused throughout history due to changes of leadership. And let us not forget how much people in places like Cuba or Venezuela or China long for tyrants to pass away while we simply wait for the next opportunity to vote to have our voices heard and votes registered, and new leaders proclaimed. Assuming our votes are counted fairly, of course.

And so, for Christ to appoint leaders is not surprising. The King of Kings wouldn’t leave us without leaders who have the authority to serve others. If worldly organizations understand the importance of leadership, delegating authority and power, with clear processes for leaders and lines of succession, would not God’s people similarly understand the importance of leadership? It makes not only spiritual sense, but common sense, and is seen common across the world. Every country, company, community, and church have clear leadership lines and processes in place to elect, chose, or transfer leadership, and with it, power. Otherwise, those corporate and communal bodies would cease to exist with the death of their leaders. And, with Protestants in America, I found the leadership would go back to a man who founded the particular church, often not more than a few decades back. In contrast, with the Catholic church, we find leadership that traces itself in an unbroken line of apostolic succession covering two thousand years. We trace today’s pope to the first pope, all the way to the time of Christ founding the church and saying to Simon, “You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church.” Hence, Catholics confess every Sunday “I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.” If we think it a miracle that a nation can sustain itself over 242 years and 45 presidents, how much more a miracle that a church can survive 2,000 years and 264 popes! Again, Protestant churches have nowhere near such longevity or sustainability.

I realized that what I didn’t have as a Protestant was an understanding of the church, of authority, leadership, and loyalty. If I didn’t like a church, it was easy to go and find one I do like. In a place like America, where the 1st Amendment guarantees freedom of religion, that literally means hundreds of churches in any city large enough. And as easily as we choose bars and fast food joints, we choose churches. But loyalty to Jesus demands similar loyalty to his bride, the church. But 21st century Americans hop churches and denominations like we do fast food joints. That doesn’t seem right because it isn’t, that is more an example of America influencing the church and not the church influencing America. It is an inversion of how things are meant to be.

With the Catholic church, I finally found that one church that I could be loyal to, that in times of difficulty I wouldn’t leave and look for or start a new one, but would instead stay and be among those striving to make things better, because ultimately, the Catholic church is the church Christ founded, the church Christ died for. The Catholic church is the one that spans seas and centuries, that holds countless saints and saves sinners, the church that forgives sins and makes holy. And I’ve found with the Catholic church, the one church that we will always need to build and repair and reform, but from within not without, for this is the one church Christ established. There is no need to establish another church, let alone tens of thousands of other churches. The name alone, Protestant church, should have been a warning, and the fact that the old Protestant churches all took names of their leaders or practices, like Lutheran, Baptist, and Calvinist, for example. To be or not to be, that is the question, to be a part of the universal church or the churches that Protest the one, holy, and universal church? Again, just looking at it from a simple perspective, the decision to be Catholic seems so easy in hindsight and so obscured as I walked in faith trying to find answers to my questions.

Moreover, looking throughout the new testament scriptures, we see they testify to a church that is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic; and a church that is constantly under threat from false teachers. From the prayers of Jesus to remain one, “Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are.” Or the pleas of St. Paul to not forsake the apostle’s teaching, “I am amazed that you are so quickly forsaking the one who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel, not that there is another, but there are some who are disturbing you and wish to pervert the gospel of Christ.” Or the warnings of St. Peter to hold to the teachings of the apostles, “this is now beloved the second letter I am writing to you, through them by way of reminder I am trying to stir up your sincere disposition, to recall the words previously spoken by the holy prophets and the commandment of the lord and savior through your apostles.” Or also St. Jude’s brief letter, “Beloved, I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation, I now feel a need to write to encourage you to contend for the faith that was once for all handed down to the hoy ones. For there have been some intruders, who long ago were designated for this condemnation, godless persons, who pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness and who deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.” Over and over, we hear the testimony of the new testament writings that the church is one, holy, catholic and apostolic, just like we say in our creed at mass on Sundays. And we hear warnings to be aware of those who would divide this church, or teach things contrary to what the apostles taught (the eucharist comes immediately to mind), or that says the church is not universal or apostolic.

And when we look at the world, we see only one church that fits that description of being one, holy, Catholic and apostolic. The orthodox churches are holy and apostolic, but they are not one nor are they universal, for they are often state churches, hence Greek Orthodox or Russian Orthodox. The Protestant churches are not one, instead they number in the tens of thousands, and frequently divide rather than hold unity. They are not Catholic though often they have their roots in being founded by ex-Catholics. They are not apostolic, for they’ve broken union with the apostles in a variety of ways. And they are not holy because God works through his priests to make things holy, and Protestants have no priests by which they can consecrate and make things holy. They may be able to baptize, but that’s about it as far as the sacraments go. In contrast to those other Christian churches, we have the Catholic church, which is one, holy, universal and apostolic.

In hindsight, I wish from the moment I started to know Christ I would have been taught the creed. For that would have saved me lots of confusion about what the church is, as the standards proclaimed in the creed are clear, the church is “one, holy, Catholic and apostolic.” The creed would have saved me lots of separate searching, for the creed offers the Christian standard by which we can measure ourselves. It is the core of what we believe. And there is another line in the creed, that I initially gave little thought to, and now realize I should have given much more thought to, especially at the beginning of my journey into Christ and his church, and it’s the line about the forgiveness of sins. For without forgiveness, there is neither holiness nor love. Without forgiveness of sin, there is no eternity of life. Yes, forgiveness leads us to love, and God is love, so forgiveness is not only the way of love, but also the way to God. For me, the forgiveness of sins was the major road to Rome, the most important reason to join the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic church. In the end, we join the Catholic church because she has the authority to forgive sin, something the Son of Man has given and granted her.

Forgiveness of Sins

“My brothers, if anyone among you should stray form the truth and someone bring him back, he should know that whoever brings back a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.” – Saint James

I really wanted to talk about the sacraments in this section, not simply the forgiveness of sins. And to a certain extent, they remain in the background, because for Catholics it is often through the sacraments that we experience the beauty of the forgiveness of sins. But I must address the forgiveness of sins explicitly, and allude to the sacraments, rather than the other way around. And as I realized this point, that the forgiveness of sins is the stepping stone into the sacraments, I realize that this mimics more accurately my own journey into the church. Because even though I yearned for the eucharist as a Christian, as a non-Christian I yearned to be healed of my sin problem. I wanted forgiveness. And so, while my journey into the church was about the eucharist, my journey towards Christ was about forgiveness.

My sin problem was a huge impediment to my coming to Jesus in the first place. Yes, it set me off in my journey, that inner compass looking for salvation from death and the root of death, sin. But my sin clouded my thinking, as I justified in a variety of ways the behaviors that I would feel tremendously guilt for and deep remorse. As the psalmist cries, “sin directs the heart of the wicked man, his eyes closed to the fear of God, for he lives with the delusion…and has ceased to be wise and do good.” I lived with the delusions, and sometimes still do. And yet, once I had started to realize there was something wrong, there was a pull within my soul to find a solution. There had to be a better way than waking up with hangovers and regrets. There was more to existence than being hopeless, helpless and high. And as I sought with ways to deal with my errors and regrets, my sins, I realized that the Christians I knew were the best at handling and dealing with mistakes. They had something that I didn’t have, they had forgiveness. And this led the good Christians I knew to deal with mistakes in a way that I admired, not by hiding and ignoring or even denying them, but by bringing them to light and attempting to deal with them. Never hiding from mistakes but facing them. A perfect person might not ever need forgiveness, but a good person surely is good because of how they handle themselves amidst their mistakes. Hence, King David, a man after God’s own heart, can pray “thoroughly wash away my guilt and from my sin cleanse me.” He who was a man after God’s own heart knew that something within him needed to be fixed. And I saw in Jews and Christians a model to emulate.

But my issue with sin arose long before I learned the stories about religious heroes and comforting words found in the sacred scriptures. In the beginning, I did not even know what sin was nor that sin needed to be healed – I guess we live in a day and age where it’s easy to lie to ourselves and never face the truth about our sin nature, the dark side of our human nature. It was easy for me to call evil good. But at some point, I realized if I wanted to be healed of my afflictions, I need to be honest with myself, “to thine own self be true.” And when, curious about Jesus because of a good friend’s faith, I finally sat down to read stories about Christ and came to the Sermon on the Mount, I was both amazed and fearful. In Christ’s sermon I realized that not only had I found the most perfect and heavenly and amazing teaching to be found on earth, but I realized I had to face sin and deal with it if I ever wanted to see God, for only “the pure in heart shall see God.” My heart is anything but pure. And so, while I loved the Sermon on the Mount and sayings like “love your enemies and pray for your persecutors,” I stumbled over things like “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” For how could anyone be perfect? No one can be perfect, that’s impossible. We all need to be loved and forgiven.

In fact, the more I strove to be perfect, the more I realize just how imperfect I was. Jesus’s words were almost a taunt, in striving to be perfect I saw my imperfection magnified. For I never thought about perfect before, but now that I wanted it, perfection only seemed further and further away. My very striving revealed my imperfections. But Jesus made promises that no other person in the world had ever made, and spoke words of assurance like “come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” I was burdened with sin, I wanted rest. In other places, Jesus said “come to me that you might receive life” and he told stories about love and forgiveness, like the parable of the prodigal son, and he confirmed to the religious leaders of his time that he “came not for the righteous but for sinners.” And Jesus didn’t just say these things but also performed miracles to prove that he could fulfill his promises. So, before he helps the lame to leap, he tells him “so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins on earth, I say to you rise, pick up your mat and go home.” So, when the lame man leaps and goes home, he knows God has healed not only his body but, more importantly, his soul. For Jesus had told him, “child, your sins are forgiven.” If only we could hear that today!

As I learned more and more about the stories from the people of God, I realized that the sin problem went all the way back to the beginning. That in the beginning, all was created good and that it was in fact this sin problem that brought death and dying into this world. And I could relate, for I always felt that when I was sinning, I was hastening my death. And to be a good man, I had to be more like the Christ followers I knew, to face my sin head on and deal with it. And my commitment to Jesus would in some part be revealed not only in my ability to love others, but in my severity in dealing with my sin, “for if your right eye causes you to sin, better to pluck it out and throw it away and lose one of your members than be cast whole into Gehenna.”

Now, as a Protestant, I didn’t see a process with how to deal with sin, at least not an adequate process. In some Protestant circles, we’re simply told to pray the sinner’s prayer and we’ll be fine. We can go get baptized as a sign of our commitment or obedience to Christ’s words, but even that is open to interpretation. What matters is praying the prayer, and that prayer said once in truth was enough to save you. Others would say that if you later go back to a life of sin that it was proof that when you said it before it wasn’t in earnest. But, I later came to realize, the prayer might have been said in faith but some churches don’t have the processes in place to help those in faith. I found certain congregations would ask people to leave who had sinned, never offering them the support to heal from their sin. They had prayers but they didn’t have the power to forgive. I found this akin to a doctor turning away a patient in need because they didn’t want to deal with the healing process. But Christ came for sinners! And so, in all Protestant churches I witnessed, I found all this confusion when it comes to dealing with sin. And that became an issue for me. Because I knew the earnestness of so many Protestants in dealing with sin, so many good people who live righteous lives and often pursue the good things of God. But I felt like I needed more than general direction, I needed a process that I understood, and a process that helped me.

And like my sin problem not sitting well with my soul, neither did this lack of process in how Protestants dealt with sin sit well with me. I don’t think important fundamentals should be confusing. And when I finally heard the Catholic answer, I was at once relieved and amazed. Relieved to have a clear answer with respect to sin, and amazed at how I didn’t see how important it was for the church to have clear answers and processes for how to deal with sin. And it’s such a simple answer that even kids can understand. And not only that, but a simple answer that best fits the sacred scriptures.

Because there were a lot of passages that perplexed me as a Protestant. In the old testament, the Jews were commanded to go to priests and confess their sins and offer their sacrifices in atonement of the sins so that they would be forgiven. And Jesus often healed people and told them to present themselves to the priest, like the story of the 10 lepers. The prophet Jeremiah constantly mentioned that Levites would be crucial to the eternal Davidic kingdom and the first story after the healing of the paralytic is the call of Levi (Luke 4), the beginning of Jesus gathering ministers of his kingdom who would be entrusted with the gift of forgiving in Christ’s name. Also, in the passage of the institution of the papacy in Matthew 16, Jesus gave them the power of binding and loosing, which Saint John clearly highlights in his resurrection account when Jesus appeared to the apostles and Jesus “breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.’” Now, how could this be true unless there was some sort of process to confess sin and receive forgiveness? Christ gave the apostles the power to forgive or retain sin. And he very clearly in other areas told Peter that he should forgive as many times as 70 times 7, meaning, Peter should forgive as much as needed, Peter should forgive infinitely.

Forgiveness is the most important thing in human relationships. Forgiveness is what allows relationships to thrive. And the Catholic church has you practice forgiveness often. The Catholic church has a way to deal with asking and giving and receiving forgiveness. Yes, miraculous to discover, the church has processes for seeking and receiving forgiveness. Truly, the church is for sinners. And she turns them into saints. And in the sacrament of reconciliation, you hear Christ’s words, “God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins; through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

And so, I love the Catholic approach to sin. Baptism cleanses you of all your sins, for it is “the bath of rebirth which saves us” because “it is not a removal of dirt from the body but an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” which is why the scriptures record St. Peter preaching at Pentecost and telling the penitents we need to be “baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.” We have the sacrament of baptism to forgive our sins. But after baptism, we still struggle with sin, and in our war with the flesh, we are told by St. James that the “prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed any sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The fervent prayer of a righteous person is very powerful.” And so, we have the sacrament of reconciliation, commonly known as confession, because even though we vow to follow God and are forgiven of our past sins when we get baptized, so the war is won, but the battles are not yet done. We may have defeated sin through Christ, but we still struggle in the flesh. And confession helps us face those battles until the day we die, learning how to walk in freedom while on earth. So simple, a child could follow it. So difficult, a man might avoid confession for fear to look so deeply within his own soul. So healing, that I give thanks that God would entrust such a beautiful gift to his priests. That such divine graces would exist for his people to receive.

And when I look at marriage, I see the perfect model that demonstrates the great gift that is the forgiveness of sins. The day I got married, I took vows to my wife that I would love her forever (much like a baptismal rite). But, from early on in our relationship, we had to have some sort of process and willingness to approach each other and confess our mistakes and receive forgiveness. If by chance, one evening either one of us was hard of heart, and that forgiveness neither sought nor offered, there was a rupture in the health of our relationship. I love that God gave the church a model by which that rupture can be healed, and the relationship made better through confession, forgiveness, and healing. The practice of reconciliation that I had with the sacrament of confession was a huge help in offering me the practical wisdom in how to reconcile with my wife. Not only is there divine grace in the sacraments, but that divine grace bled over and helped my earthly relationships, especially the relationship with my wife. Forgiveness, especially a process for asking and receiving and giving forgiveness, allows our marriage to thrive. And when our marriage suffers it is always due to a lack of forgiveness, for withholding forgiveness dries up the soul like withholding rain withers the flower. In hindsight, it makes since why God would spend so much time in books like Leviticus outlining how the Israelites can approach him and receive forgiveness, he knew it would be healthy for us. We needed a process to live in forgiveness. We need the sacrament that would keep us holy. This sacred mystery holds healing for our souls.

So, I have found in my journey into the Catholic church that the forgiveness of sins as practiced by Catholics was clear, helpful, necessary, and also scriptural. And as I practiced looking into my soul to root out sin by the power of the holy Spirit, and looking to Christ for forgiveness, I came to see why it’s so beautiful that we say at mass “I believe in the holy Spirit, the holy Catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen.” I thank God for the Catholic church which not only encourages the creed in mass and in our prayers, but has processes and traditions to help us live out the creed in our lives, especially the ability to receive the forgiveness of sins, this time not as garments of animal skin, but covered by the blood of our Passover lamb, the lion of the tribe of Judah, who was slain for us and “by his blood purchased for God those from every tribe and tongue, people and nation.”

Of course, I have many other things I could write about with respect to the love of our savior and his holy Catholic church – topics like the rosary or the sacraments or papal authority or even the Marian dogmas to name a few – and I would gladly do so, but these are sufficient that you may come to see a glimpse of why I fell in love with the holy Catholic church, and entered into full communion with her, baptized in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins, and that through this communion found a deeper relationship with my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, son of Mary and son of Man, only begotten son of God.

If more reasons are needed, I will gladly offer them, but they all amount to one simple reason – that Jesus founded the Catholic church. And I want to belong to the church Christ founded, not any other. And so, I hope this helped you understand how my loyalty to the truth of the teachings found only in the Catholic church, and my loyalty to the truth in general, made me realize that I could never again call any other church home. God bless you and thank you for your help in showing me Jesus. Hopefully I’ve helped show you his bride and church in some new way that you hadn’t seen before. Peace be with you.

Next: Part 3 | Country

“The difficulty of explaining “why I am a Catholic” is that there are ten thousand reasons all amounting to one reason: that Catholicism is true.”
– G.K. Chesterton, Why I Am A Catholic