Here we are in the season of lent. As mentioned in my previous post this is actually the first year I have ever decided to observe and participate in this season of lent. As you may have been able to guess I have been researching and looking deeper into the Roman Catholic faith. I have been since my youth. At first I wanted to understand my Grandmother's faith, I wanted to know if my Grandmother truly had faith in Jesus Christ or if she followed a faith of rules, ritual, and religious legalism. Before making any judgement for or against the Roman Catholic church I wanted to first understand. I find so many people have ideas and have listened to teaching that doesn't actually reflect the Roman Catholic faith and as a result have misrepresented the Roman Catholic faith because of their ignorance and inability to truly understand what was being taught within the context of tradition and doctrine. I didn't want to be ignorant.
Much of my informative years growing up involved attending church. I've experienced a wide range of denominations and traditions growing up and very early I had become cultured if you will to various styles, denominations, teachings, and tradition. I hear people speak against the tradition held in the Roman Catholic church but if we look good and hard at the church we're currently attending... there you will see tradition... the tradition just looks different but it's tradition nonetheless. I spent many years in the Pentecostal church and even attended a Pentecostal Bible College. I learned the tradition, the doctrine, I learned the language and behavior that was acceptable within the context of church community. The mass alter calls to receive salvation, the alter calls to surrender one self to Christ, the alter calls to make another step towards our commitment and service to God, the alter calls to make steps of obedience to the high calling we have in Christ, the raising up of our hands in worship with our eyes closed, the dancing with flags ... I know because I was there and have done that... many many times over. What is that? That is tradition. What else do we see, we see attending church both Sunday morning and Sunday night, we see a mid week service on Wednesday evening, we see bible study groups, prayer groups, we see Saturday night worship and if you're youth there is worship or some form of gathering Friday nights... that's tradition. And in some Conservative Evangelical churches you will see liturgical traditions that are very similar to the liturgy you will find if you were to attend Mass. I know because I have experienced all forms of liturgy and worship experiences throughout my life. The more I study the deeper the mystery.
Much of my informative years growing up involved attending church. I've experienced a wide range of denominations and traditions growing up and very early I had become cultured if you will to various styles, denominations, teachings, and tradition. I hear people speak against the tradition held in the Roman Catholic church but if we look good and hard at the church we're currently attending... there you will see tradition... the tradition just looks different but it's tradition nonetheless. I spent many years in the Pentecostal church and even attended a Pentecostal Bible College. I learned the tradition, the doctrine, I learned the language and behavior that was acceptable within the context of church community. The mass alter calls to receive salvation, the alter calls to surrender one self to Christ, the alter calls to make another step towards our commitment and service to God, the alter calls to make steps of obedience to the high calling we have in Christ, the raising up of our hands in worship with our eyes closed, the dancing with flags ... I know because I was there and have done that... many many times over. What is that? That is tradition. What else do we see, we see attending church both Sunday morning and Sunday night, we see a mid week service on Wednesday evening, we see bible study groups, prayer groups, we see Saturday night worship and if you're youth there is worship or some form of gathering Friday nights... that's tradition. And in some Conservative Evangelical churches you will see liturgical traditions that are very similar to the liturgy you will find if you were to attend Mass. I know because I have experienced all forms of liturgy and worship experiences throughout my life. The more I study the deeper the mystery.
I recall what I kept hearing over and over and over again as a Bible College student, the more you know the more you realize what you don't know. In my experience I can recall attending Pentateuch class and I sat there in class a mess! Half way through that semester I had become such a mess at the site of my own brokenness and half way through that semester I basically dropped out and I no longer cared about whether or not I could improve my grades because at that moment in time it ceased to be about getting good grades and working my way to pleasing others in my life or even pleasing God... as I continued to sit in class God began to reveal to me in deeper and more profound ways that I really didn't know Him, I thought I knew God but I came to the point of believing and recognizing that I didn't actually know Him as well as I thought and worst of all, I could only see my inadequacy and my inability to do live a life that we as Christians are called to live. This idea of holiness, of purity, of making the choice to turn away from the idols we create and turn to worship God... that idea for me seemed unreachable and unattainable. By the end of that semester I failed to hand in the rest of my term papers and didn't show up to take my final tests... I just waited it all out and when it was time to pack up my stuff and move out of the dorms that's what I did. I said good-bye to Bible College and good-bye to my faith... at least my faith as I knew it. There are 3 parts to my story as I began this pilgrimage of faith. There is my story of coming to believe in Jesus as my God and my Savior, There is the journey of healing and coming to understand who I am in Christ which today is still ongoing... and then there is the story of my conversion which I'm coming to believe is as much a process as is the process of sanctification... the lines between being redeemed, being converted, and then allowing for a spiritual pilgrimage to transform you from the inside out... the process from my perspective are beginning to mix altogether... the lines are being blurred and I am left to cry out to God... "Lord have mercy on me a sinner" and with the lines being blurred I stop feeling the need to be assured of somebody else's salvation... and begin to trust more in the kindness of mercy of our God... I stop evangelizing people and simply be in relationship with people allowing for their own pilgrimage in Christ to take root while allowing my life, the way I live my life and what others see be the gospel live and walked out in my daily life and like Francis of Assisi said, "Preach the gospel at all times and if you must use words" The most powerful tool of evangelism is in how we live our life and how we respond to those around us. The 4 spiritual laws really is not all that effective... really there should have been a 5th spiritual law and that is commitment towards obedience to Christ because believing in Jesus and acknowledging what Jesus taught involves something on our part, it involves some kind of action that physically shows a certain belief held. In other words, true belief will eventually lead to conversion, a changed behavior, an act of physically turning in another direction with the understanding it is only by the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that any of this is even made possible.
I like what I heard from Fr. Barron on conversion... it draws me in to want to hear more. I think it fits within the context of lent.
Sometimes in conversation with friends I am now finding myself conveying a message...if we truly believe, if we truly have faith, if we're truly converted there will be a change in behavior and if not one has to question if conversion has even take place. It's one thing to say yes to Jesus but it's another to journey with Him through his suffering and death on the cross while knowing that what we're being called to as believers in Jesus Christ is to actually be willing to die. The Apostle Paul in Philippians said, "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain" and in Philippians 3:8-11 says this, "Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith --- that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead." People are so used to hearing the prosperity gospel and people are so ingrained to trust in their fallible interpretation of scriptures and many fall prey to false teachings because they will hear a gospel that will comfort them in their sin instead of the one that causes grief, discomfort, and the allowance of secret shame to surface all of which only draws us to what is needed and what is needed is first to acknowledge the sin in our life that we may confess our sins and truly truly turn to the Lord and receive His free gift of salvation and the grace needed to be empowered towards holiness. The process of sanctification really is found the midst of wrestling with sin, wrestling with struggles that hit deep down into the core of who we are, and the surrendering up of our will so that Christ may live in us. That is a gospel that few will ever teach because it is a hard teaching because few don't want to really pass through the inevitable experience we must travel through if there is any hope of the resurrection both now in the present and in the future to come... If we want to share in His resurrection we must first die. It is the death on the cross that brought us victory. I have heard that this part of the journey is liken to the dark night of the soul... few want to go through the dark night of the soul but it is there we are further refined and further shaped into the image of Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. Why? I think it is in this place it's like the refining of silver which involves the allowance of the impurities to surface and it is there we gain a deeper understanding of our own weaknesses and we see it like it is and it is there we come to the place of true humility in Christ and it is there we can begin to see life from the perspective of Jesus.
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