The Conflict of Being Catholic

The backstory is found in Acts 14:8-20. Suffice it to say that Paul and Barnabas were preaching and evangelizing in Lystra. The Jews didn’t like it. They stoned Paul and left him for dead. When the disciples gathered around him, he got up and went into the city. The next day they went to Derbe where they continued proclaiming the good news and made disciples.

“After they had proclaimed the good news to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, then on to Iconium and Antioch. There they strengthened the souls of the disciples and encouraged them to continue in the faith, saying, ‘it is through many persecutions that we must enter the kingdom of God.’” [Acts 14:21-22]

Through many persecutions … through many tribulations … we must enter the kingdom of God.

The words cause me to stop, think, and personalize them … a personalization that recognizes the realness of the conflict that confronts us as Catholic Christians, and especially Catholic Christians in the Deep South Bible Belt.

The world has always been diabolically opposed the Church.

Why think that it will change its position when the picture painted by John’s Revelation [and other parts of Scripture] point to a latter end when things will be hot and hard against the Church? Our Catholic understanding of the “end-times” rejects the Rapture theory found in millennialism and teaches that the Church will go through a hard time of purification [persecution] during the last days before Christ returns. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in paragraphs 675-677, plainly and succinctly addresses the end times issue.

Can anyone honestly say that the global state of affairs [or even our own National state of affairs] presents a scene that is hospitable to the precepts and principles of Christ and the Christian faith? These states of affairs are anything but hospitable and rapidly increasing in their hostility toward the Christian faith. The BBC, Newsweek, FOX, and other media platforms tell us that the persecution of Christians in parts of the world is at near "genocide" levels and that in some countries Christianity is near extinction.

We do not [yet] know in this country what it means to choose Christ at the peril of dire persecution and loss of life. How would we fare, would we persevere even to our death, if [when] these conditions challenge our Western "easy beliefism"? We can speculate an answer but we'll never honestly know unless presented with the opportunity to receive the martyr's crown.

There is the opposition and conflict that comes from the world of fundamental evangelicalism [of which I was once a part].

I think, where this opposition and conflict with fundamental evangelicals is concerned, that their [at times angry and vehement] opposition is based more on ignorance than anything else. My former opposition and protest against Catholic Christianity were, when it came right down to it, based on my own ignorance and indoctrination.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen made the statement that “There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate the Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be.” I discovered that it is impossible to hate the Catholic Church once you are able to finally see her for what and who she is.

I think that, as a matter of Christian unity and in the spirit of ecumenism, with the growing hostility of the anti-christs [which, by the way, includes the aggressive overtaking nature of Islam and its creeping Sharia Law] it would behoove Christians of all stripes to stand shoulder to shoulder as One body and One voice in support of the historic Christian faith and morals handed down to and promulgated by the Apostles of Christ.

There is the conflict within myself.

 “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 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 refuse, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, based on law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith; that I may [1] know him and the power of his resurrection, and may [2] share his sufferings, [3] becoming like him in his death, that if possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” Philippians 3:7-11

I like the part about knowing the power of the resurrection with all its good feelings. It is in the rest of the story where the struggle resides; inside this business of knowing the fellowship of his sufferings and becoming like him in his death where the daily challenge occurs. The first third of the Christian life equation, the part that can be called the “jump and shout” of the matter, is only a third of what the Christian life is about. As long as the “jump and shout” remains our priority and focus, we will never honestly know Christ as fully as he wants us to know him or, for that matter, as fully as we need to know him.

Benedictine monks and nuns take vows of Obedience, Stability and Conversatio Morum. Benedictine Oblates make Solemn Promises to these same Benedictine standards. Conversatio Morum is usually translated as conversion of life. It signifies a commitment to dying daily to self in order to realize and internalize more of the life of Christ into our own lives and lifestyles. It signifies a transformation or conversion of the heart … an internal transformation evidenced by a change in external behavior and attitude.

I confess that it is easy for me to grow comfortable and complacent. It is also easy for me to be attracted to distractions. The struggle within myself never really goes away. I have to make conscious efforts toward the Solemn Promises that I made in order to continue progressing in this lifelong challenge that Saint Benedict called Conversatio Morum … the very process wherein I may [1] experientially know him and the power of his resurrection, [2] enter into and share in his sufferings, and [3] personally become more and more like him in his death while I live my life in hope of my own resurrection from the dead.

So, in consideration of these things, I recall the words of John and leave them here as a marker along the Oblate Reflections pathway.

“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If any one loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides for ever.” 1 John 2:15-17