So. RCIA. Basically this past Thursday was about God the Father. This is a fairly heavy subject but the video series we've been watching ("Catholicism" by Fr. John Barron) has been top quality. He made a point that I'd not considered before. He said that many atheists tend to reject the idea of God (as an abstract concept) because they can't buy into the notion of some kind of sky-daddy who grants wishes and stuff.
Fr. Barron said he can't either. So he and atheists are in the same boat on that one. The remainder of the video was devoted to spelling out, as best as is possible by sinful man, who and what God is. And isn't.
Now, far be it from me to second-guess Fr. Barron about this. I suspect this his comment was meant to achieve the intellectual interest it garnered from me to facilitate the rest of his points. And in that purpose, he was most assuredly successful. But I've long thought the problem with many atheists is less their understanding of God and more their want to NOT believe in Him.
By and large I find that to be true. Any time an atheists sounds off on God, they tend to use snarky bumper sticker nonsense like "when religion ruled the world, we called it the Dark Ages". The fallacies and historical ignorance there defy comprehension. Nevertheless, it's the perfect atheist soundbyte. Because soundbytes are what they deal in; rational arguments are checked at the door.
In any case though, I found the video enlightening and the discussion thereafter with the Catechists and my fellow Inquirers enjoyable.
The video set up for this coming Thursday relates to Our Lady. Now, I've had a mixed view of her over the years, even when I was a fire-breathing evangelical. I believed that we Protestants had maybe thrown the baby out with the bathwater in our zeal to be different from the Catholics. Fact is I'd thought she deserved more regard that we Southern Baptists had afforded her.
And yes, watching Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ only reinforced that attitude.
At the same time though, I couldn't quite wrap my arms around several Church dogmas concerning the Blessed Virgin Mary. So I was sort of stuck in no man's land where nobody quite viewed her the way I did.
Now, a great big part of this was due to some amount of ignorance about what the Church truly teaches about Our Lady. These days, my belief is that Church teachings are pretty much unassailable... when they're taught accurately. And that generally comes from clergy or else extremely well-informed laypeople.
But that was a realization that I didn't have access to as a good little Southern Baptist. Because of that, I toed the party line that the Catholic Church had a few good ideas but they'd wandered WAY off the reservation with several key doctrines, including (but not limited to) teachings concerning baptism, the Eucharist and, most importantly, the Blessed Virgin.
Yes, I've changed my attitude about a LOT of this; I'm simply saying what my belief was ages ago.
And of considerable interest there were her supposed sinlessness and eternal virginity. Come on, we all sin. All of us. Even the best of us. And as to her private life, she was a married woman. You mean to tell me her husband didn't expect her to be his wife (if you take my meaning)?
The first challenge to that stuff came when I was studying Anglicanism and happened across an Anglo-Catholic blog. I've heard even Catholic priests use this line since first reading this so I don't know whom to credit here.
But the blogger compared Our Lady to Mt. Moriah when Moses first encountered God. Moses was instructed to remove his sandals because this is holy ground. For the Lord is present and where He is is holy.
Think it through. If Mt. Moriah was holy ground because of the Lord's presence, what does that imply about Our Lady as the Mother of Our Lord? Both her sinlessness and her marriage?
Mind. Blown.
It's not perfect. Like it or not, I was raised Protevangelical and I can't magically undo that so some aspects of this are still challenging. So my hope is that the video will clear up my lingering doubts. Or if it doesn't, my Catechist will. Either way, I'll submit to the Church on this
What I'm content with though is that my hunch that Our Lady deserved a higher regarded than I'd given her as an evangelical has been justified.
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