Easter Vigil

So. Easter Vigil. I realize that what happened on Easter Vigil is arguably more pertinent for me to write about than was the sacrament of marriage. But that was a late addition to My Catholic Year, which, as much as anything, was supposed to be a time for absorbing as much of what the Church has to offer as possible. And so it felt wrong somehow to not mention that before getting into Easter Vigil.

As I've said before, I joined the Catholic Church by way of a Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter parish. So although I thought I knew what the process of being welcomed into the Church would be like, I was very mistaken.

First, there was the small matter of my baptism to get straightened out. I was baptized back when I was 16 by my grandfather. He was an elder at his local Church of Christ church. But there are some difficulties there. For starters, that was half a lifetime ago for me. I truly have no idea if he baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. It stands to reason that he would have. But I couldn't swear to it.

Second, even if he had and even if I remembered it, I don't have a certificate of baptism. For one thing, that's not really a Church of Christ thing to do. But even if it was, it still wouldn't matter because I was baptized at a church but not by that church. My grandfather baptized me at the church I attended at the time. It was my church; not his. Someone from the church came down, unlocked the building for us and my grandfather baptized me. But it wasn't done by the church proper.

Third, that church technically no longer exists anymore. Or if it does, not in the form it was in back when I was 16. And certainly not at the same building.

The combination of all these things made me a very good candidate for a conditional baptism. If that's an unfamiliar term, a conditional baptism should be self-explanatory. But if it isn't, it's basically the priest offering words to the effect of "If you weren't baptized already, you are baptized now". It doesn't "rebaptize" you as such because that's impossible. You can only baptized once. But in cases where one's baptism is up for grabs, a conditional baptism is a good way to settle the matter once and for all.

However, since that potentially leaves half a lifetime of unconfessed sins on the table, there's really no way to do it during the proper Easter Vigil because the priest can't very well stop the Mass to hear confessions from people who may have already been licitly baptized before. So that part had to be done earlier in the day on Saturday.

And I must say that confessing my sins to Father was a pretty unusual experience. I expect it'll get easier in the future but it was hard to think of very many major sins I've committed. But some very important mortal sins I've committed came to mind and needed to get straightened out. It'd be stupid to mention them here but by any standard this is definitely stuff to mention in confession.

What I discovered though was simply talking about them and getting them off my chest helped a bunch. I'm really sorry for some of the things I've done in life. I did them with my eyes wide open, in spite of everything my own conscience, Sacred Scripture and probably even the Spirit could say to dissuade me. But I did them and then I confessed. Father absolved me and prescribed my penance.

Earlier today I took care of my penance. And you know what? Danged if I don't feel like a burden I was never even aware of has been lifted.

Now, don't misunderstand me. I've never been one of those fuzzy-wuzzy spiritual feeeeeeeeeeeelings types. It's just not my thing. Subjective experience is fine in its place but there is such a thing as an objective reality and experiential nonsense usually isn't what motivates me. But at the same time, I can't pretend something important didn't change, first, by confessing and, second, by doing my penance.

Once the baptismal rite and then confession had ended, it was off to get dinner just before Easter Vigil started.

Now, I come from a decidedly Protestant family. My friends are either Protestant or not religious. Because of that, I wasn't expecting much of anything in terms of recognition from anyone for joining the Church. So imagine my surprise when my girlfriend presented with me rosary beads, a Catholic Bible, 'Heretics' by GK Chesterton and a few other things!

After that, it was back to church for Easter Vigil. Now, I knew this was going to be a major lu-lu. I'd heard that this was the single longest Mass the Catholic Church has to offer. Apparently it's second to none in terms of length. And I found that to be quite true.

Even so, the sights, sounds, prayers and chanting, incense and everything else... I mean, THIS is how you worship God. So I didn't mind the length of the Mass.

This is probably a typical experience for a lot of people but I was not expecting total strangers to want to take pictures of and with me just because I was joining. But that's what happened. My fellow candidates and I were almost treated like celebrities or something with everybody, of whom not least was the parish's photographer, wanting to take pictures of us standing with our sponsors in front of the altar, standing with Father in front of the altar, standing otherwise alone as a group in front of the altar, standing as individuals in front of the altar, etc. It was nuts!

But then they just saw all of us get welcomed into the Church. As converts. Whatever our lives would've become before we joined the Church, that's all changed now. We have a new destiny. A better destiny. And they witnessed us take our first clumsy steps in that right direction. And as adults in such a traditionalist church, you can well figure that we're probably doing it for all the right reasons. And so perhaps that is what those people wanted to commemorate.

Either way, it was hard to not get a little emotional about the whole thing. I've been trying to join the Catholic Church ever since October 2013. My fellow candidates only started in July 2014. If, shall we say, "time served" is a factor, I don't think the experience meant as much to them as it did to me. This took a long time to finally get sorted out. It was worth the wait, to be sure, but joining the Church has been uppermost in my mind for a very long time now.

And now that I'm officially a member, I don't quite know what the next step is. But I'll figure something out.

Considering A Sacrament- You're Not As Prolife As You Think

It's funny that I've struggled so much lately over challenges I've had lately with my new faith considering how much investigation and research I did about Catholicism long before even joining RCIA. But problems I've had lately relate to two of the Church's more controversial positions, which go hand-in-hand with each other: Sanctity of life and prohibition of contraception.

I say these are struggles for me because I agreed with the Church's teachings about them and because of that, I thought I understood them. But I'm coming to learn that I don't. Which isn't to say I disagree with the Church. It only means that I didn't completely understand where they were coming from.

Take abortion, for example. To me it was human life. Simple as that. And since we don't know exactly when "life begins", the cautionary principle we should proceed from is that life begins at the moment of conception.

And while I suspect the Church agrees with that sentiment, it doesn't go far enough in describing the fullness of the person or the problem. My problem, though, was that I didn't feel any great intellectual compulsion to proceed from there. And that's why the reasons for the Church's teachings have caught me so off-guard.

From the Catechism:

2270 Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception.

From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.

Pretty straight forward, right?

2271 Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion.

This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable.

Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law:

...

Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes.

So in a nutshell, that tells us what the Church teaches concerning abortion. But it doesn't tell us the fullness of why things are the way they are. This is more or less where I'd always stopped with the formation of my pro-life views. "It's murder". Pure and simple. And, again, it is. But there are other factors at work in this far beyond even that. My problem was that I thought the above was enough by itself. And as Anglican (as I used to be), it might've been. But the Church always has two or three reasons (at least) for believing what they do. So what are the other reasons in play here?

It relates to the life and purpose of the sacrament of marriage. A man and a woman, once married, are to bond in the marital union. Their love for each other and this sacrament given from above are powerful. So powerful, in fact, that (in ordinary circumstances) the end result can be new life.

The purpose of marriage isn't to do whatever you want, if you catch my drift, with your spouse. Your wife is not a sex object. She's your wife. She has the full dignity of being made in God's image. As a man, you're to cherish her, protect her and love her as Christ loves the Church.

From the Catechism...

2249 The conjugal community is established upon the covenant and consent of the spouses. Marriage and family are ordered to the good of the spouses, to the procreation and the education of children.

Again, the purpose of marriage is in the majority of cases the creation of new life, which carries with it the inherent responsibility of educating the children in the faith. Push comes to shove, this is what the two of you are here to do.

1653 The fruitfulness of conjugal love extends to the fruits of the moral, spiritual, and supernatural life that parents hand on to their children by education. Parents are the principal and first educators of their children. In this sense the fundamental task of marriage and family is to be at the service of life.

And let's be realistic, that may not always fit into your game plan. If the two of you already have your hands full with a little one who's still in diapers and want to space the next child out, there's nothing wrong with consummating only during non-fertile times. You're both open to procreation but your preference is to wait at least a while.

Here's the thing. You will most assuredly feel the desire for each other during fertile times. But you can't act upon it. That's a sacrifice the two of you have to make. Again, your spouse is not a sex object. The minute you don't respect how powerful the marital union is, you may end up with an unexpected pregnancy.

1652 "By its very nature the institution of marriage and married love is ordered to the procreation and education of the offspring and it is in them that it finds its crowning glory."

Children are the supreme gift of marriage and contribute greatly to the good of the parents themselves. God himself said: "It is not good that man should be alone," and "from the beginning (he) made them male and female"; wishing to associate them in a special way in his own creative work, God blessed man and woman with the words: "Be fruitful and multiply." Hence, true married love and the whole structure of family life which results from it, without diminishment of the other ends of marriage, are directed to disposing the spouses to cooperate valiantly with the love of the Creator and Savior, who through them will increase and enrich his family from day to day.

Now, this policy has been treated as an authoritarian power play by the secularists. "They only want women to be wombs with feet!" Well, let's be realistic for just a moment. Which worldview objectifies women? The Catholic viewpoint that says both husband and wife should respect each other's souls and bodies at all times and never treat one another like a piece of meat because their union is so powerful it can create new life? Or the secularist view that says you can do whatever you want with whoever you want as often as you want with absolutely no commitment whatsoever as long as you remember to take your Pill?

You cannot use contraception without in some way or another cheapening what the sacrament of marriage is supposed to be. Consequently, there may well be times when you have to sacrifice the pleasure of your physical union with your spouse. But that's a sacrifice you must be willing to make.

Besides, if the Church truly wanted to reduce women to "baby factories", they would not forbid in vitro fertilization. But they do. Infertile couples don't miss out on the fullness of the marital union simply because they don't have children. But they're still called to sacrifice by not having children.

1654 Spouses to whom God has not granted children can nevertheless have a conjugal life full of meaning, in both human and Christian terms. Their marriage can radiate a fruitfulness of charity, of hospitality, and of sacrifice.

But you never hear that argument in anti-Catholic rants in the media. All anybody seems to remember is the Church's prohibition against using contraception. But if the Church truly viewed women as baby outlets, they would not forbid artificial fertilization procedures.

So much for women's rights!

Ultimately it comes down to the dignity of marriage, which is inextricably linked to the dignity of the human being which is itself inextricably linked to the value of human life. And that leads us right back to abortion.

Considering the reverence the Church manifestly has for marriage as a sacrament for procreation, is it any wonder then that the Church views abortion the way it does? If one's view of marriage is as high-minded as the Catholic Church's, the only logical conclusion must be that abortion is a wicked practice of barbaric moral evil.

I thought I was prolife, pro-marriage and anti-contraception before but it took the Church to show me understand just how right and yet how far away I was.

Of Commissions and Synods

The end of RCIA draws ever nearer. I've only got just a bit more to work through with Father, not least of which is a one-on-one meeting to, I assume, work out the finer details of my baptism. True, I've been baptized before but (A) I can't prove that as I don't have a certificate and (B) I truly can't remember if it was done in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

So a conditional baptism it is!

There have been a few teachable moments in recent months though. I haven't had much chance to write about it but it's interesting to me to compare the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission conference on the LGBT movement over and against the Church's Third Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops.

In the case of the SBC, many people have interpreted comments made by a lot of their high muckety-mucks as a new direction in SBC policy. Change comes from the top and comes slowly but, so the expectation goes, in ten years, we might be looking at a very different SBC. This is based on remarks such as these by Dr. Albert Mohler:

"Early in this controversy, I felt it quite necessary, in order to make clear the gospel, to deny anything like a sexual orientation I repent of that."

And why not, the SBC is losing tens of thousands of members every year. These are predominantly those under the age of 35, for whom "LGBT rights" border on a sacrament. Push comes to shove, they're perfectly willing to turn their backs on Christianity in solidarity with their LGBT friends.

Compare this to the Church's Synod, where some bishops might've wanted to open the door a bit more for the LGBT community but the Church's Magisterium asserted itself and, in the end, the most you could say is that the Church repeated the existing policy of treating LGBT's with dignity and respect but not even coming close to "accepting" them in the ways that Protestant denominations have.

To be sure, this approach isn't necessarily winning the Catholic Church admirers in that same under-35 demographic either. But the difference is that the Church won't change their policy to fit the climate of the times. Homosexuality is a sin and, rise or fall, the Church will stand by her historic teachings in this regard. Nothing has changed. Indeed, nothing can change.

Think of this as another in a long list of things that Protestants have compromised to keep the lights on. For as big a deal as they make over it, it seems that scriptural authority is capable of being overruled by popular demand.

Who knew?

My Catholic Year Update

Man, has it really been over two months since I've updated this thing? Why, yes it has.

Not to worry though, I've got a few things to talk about this time around. You know, rather than the usual "things are going along as normal".

First off, things with RCIA are going along as normal. Father and the rest of us in our tiny little group have been working our way through a book called This is the Faith. Apart from being very instructive as an introduction to Catholicism, it's also sort of a commentary on what evangelicals call "the peculiarities of Catholic faith"... which would probably seem less "peculiar" if they just read the stuff. But I guess that's not happening.

I expect we'll be going on hiatus for stuff related to Advent and Christmas. My guess is Father is going to become really busy really soon. In fact, the Friday, 12.12.2014 meeting may be our last for a while. But I have no idea.

To move on to other things, part of my mission for My Catholic Year has been to take in different Catholic liturgies. At best I've had mixed success with that. Sure, there's the regular Novus Ordo Mass. And I've gone on the record saying I'm not a big fan of it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those who question the validity of it. I mean, is that really my concern? But at the same time I'm not a huge fan of it either.

I've also written about the Latin Mass. And I LOVE the Latin Mass! It's hard to really get the Latin Mass until you actually attend one. And once you do, odds are you'll see what the fuss is all about.

But that was about it for quite a while there. There simply aren't very many licit liturgies available in my area besides those two... except for an Anglican Use parish near my work.

Now, I've tried to avoid getting too personal in this Blogspot because I don't want to get too personal in this Blogspot. But this time it's a little unavoidable. Basically my work schedule uses up my time from 7am to 4pm on Saturday and Sunday. I'm off every Thursday and Friday (which made time off for Thanksgiving and Christmas this year totally a piece of cake). But the down side is that it's an incredible pain in the neck to come home from work, change clothes (because I work in a very come as you are casual work place), turn right back around and go to Mass. Something about coming home from work usually requires me to stay home for a while.

Except that doesn't work so well with my weekend obligation, now does it?

But I realized that my work place is right by an Anglican Use parish! Why, I bet I could go there directly after work! And this past Saturday, that's exactly what I did. And man, talk about high church! Bells, smells and everything else I always loved about Anglicanism. It looked and sounded to me like they were working off Rite I. It was beautiful, majestic and moving.

The other thing though was that it showed me just how much I've come to miss Anglican liturgy. I spent all of 2013 in the Anglican church. And I'd be there still but I came to realize that separation from Canterbury bothers me less than separation from Rome. But, man, I really MISSED that beautiful Anglican liturgy and worship style.

Because of all that, it was really comforting to go to the Anglican Use parish, secure in my communion with Rome while still enjoying everything I'd come to love and adore about Anglicanism. Best of both worlds!

Sooner or later, my work schedule's going to change again and I'll have to figure out something else. Hopefully I'll have weekends off again and can resume attending the Latin Mass. But if I don't, it's comforting to know the Anglican Use parish is so near my work that I can go there on the way home.

I would like to find some other liturgies and Rites in my local area before the end of the year but that may be impossible, especially at this point.

To move on to more other things, another part of my mission for My Catholic Year has been to pray very Catholic prayers and be diligent about it. And this has been more successful than finding other rites. I started off simply enough. I printed a couple of Catholic prayers off Wikipedia and just prayed those.

Then I realized having a printout of them is kind of stupid so I created a PDF file of them and put it on the ol' iPad. And I've largely stuck with that for a while now.

But then I purchased an iPhone 6 a while back and realized I can probably find at least a few apps to use for my daily prayers. And boy oh boy did I find some really good ones! Some of them even have little commentaries and stuff about the prayer, how far back it dates to and other trivia.

Another app will walk you through the Liturgy of the Hours. Rather than having to carry a zillion books with you, you just pop the app open and it'll show you the appropriate prayer based on the date and time.

The other app will walk you through a Rosary, which I've never done by myself before because I don't really know how to do it by myself. So this app will come to my rescue!

Anyway, this stuff was only today though so I haven't had a chance to do much with any of the apps yet. But at the same time, it's nice to know that I've now got my choice of different prayers and don't necessarily have to stick to the same ones every day. That'll be a nice change of pace, mmmkay?

Looking back on it, I originally designed My Catholic Year to begin immersing myself in the Catholic Church's teachings, prayers and worship. The idea was that when I was welcomed into the Church, I'd have at least a starting point for my disciplines, I'd have some kind of perspective on the various Rites out there and I'd be pretty much ready to go.

Very bluntly, we can argue how well most of that stuff has turned out. As I say, the prayer stuff seems like it's under control but I haven't tried all that hard to soak in other Rites. Crap, I've been pretty lackadaisical about attending Mass like I should. So there's definitely room to improve here.

But then I remember that I haven't been officially welcomed into the Church yet. Technically I'm not expected to have all this stuff mastered by now. And even when I am a member of the Church, should I goof on any of this stuff, there are ways of fixing it. It's not the end of the world.

I guess my point in all this is that I've made some pretty dumb decisions in life. It's not hard to think up a few really good examples. But joining up with the Mother Church... this could be the best decision I've ever made.

What does that mean for the future of this Blogspot? Don't really know. Technically it was only supposed to last for 2014. I'd expected to be welcomed into the Church by now. But I think we all know how that turned out.

So I guess I'll keep updating (however sporadically) until I am welcomed into the Church. After that... well, who knows?

Summer Break

Not much to say about My Catholic Year right now. But I've got other stuff on my mind.

You know what I don't get? There's a group of people out there who regularly get burned in effigy for taking a summer recess each year. It'd be accurate, I think, to say they're lazy, unproductive and utterly unremarkable. And this is not to mention their various and sundry sex scandals.

Yes, the United States Congress is a truly worthless bunch in most cases. And they're often criticized for it.

But there's another group of people who get nothing but sympathy and encouragement for taking a summer recess each year. It'd be accurate, I think, to say they're lazy, unproductive and utterly unremarkable. And this is not to mention their various and sundry sex scandals.

Yes, school teachers are a truly worthless bunch in most cases. But, in spite of the fact that most of them are even worse than Congressmen, they're almost never criticized for it.

They both regularly fail to perform to even the most minimal standards of their job, basic morality or even common decency. They both have amazing retirement packages way out of proportion to their personal ethics or professional success.

And yet, only Congress regularly gets lambasted by everybody. School teachers, in spite of having every bit as dismal a success rate with their job performance, are all but sainted by society even though they absolutely suck at their jobs and can't even teach children how to write so much as a corporate memo.

I mean, what's up with that?

My Catholic Year- The Traditional Latin Mass, The Ancient Way

How about a REAL update on My Catholic Year?

I said in my last post that I'm not terribly interested in bickering over liturgy. What I'm convinced of is that evangelical liturgy (and yes, they DO have a liturgy; their refusal to put it in writing doesn't change the facts) is weak sauce and often hypocritical. Beyond that, your liturgy of preference is between you and your God.

That having been said, I went to the Traditional Latin Mass this morning at that FSSP parish this morning and HOLY CRAP!!!

When I was slumming it with the Anglicans, I REALLY enjoyed the High Church services they did. It wasn't as High as it might've been but I figured it was still pretty good. But if you've ever been to the TLM before, you know that it blows the doors off the Anglican liturgy, duct tapes them back on and blows the doors off again.

Anglicanism ruined me for evangelical Christian worship. The Traditional Latin Mass has ruined me for every other liturgy. THIS is what I want from my worship. It all feels so ancient and reverential and, most of all, AUTHENTIC.

With all due respect to Pope Paul VI, I have no idea how or why the Church could ever go from the TLM to the Novus Ordo. Having now been to both, I can understand why people are so partisan about it these days. I don't think it's worth the grief and bloodletting it's caused over the years, you understand; I'm just saying I understand why people can get so fired about it.

From the standpoint of communion, part of why the TLM works for me is because it's primarily in a dead language. Yes, the homily and related matters are in whatever language they're in. But by and large, the Mass is in Latin. Apart from the mystery aspect of it, there is (or would be) solidarity in knowing that basically all of us are having basically the exact same Mass in basically the exact same way. It'd be as mysterious to me as it is everywhere else in the world.

Obviously that isn't how things are right now. I'm just saying it'd be nice.

I've never questioned my decision to join the Church. But at the same time, I've also never been more positive of where I'm supposed to be.

Apart from that, I made plans with Father Charles to meet later this week. My work schedule has changed so I probably won't be able to make it to Mass on Sunday for a long while (which I'm not happy about, especially now, but it's the hand I've been dealt) but he said he's willing to meet with me one-on-one and go through the Catechism with me so that I can pick up basically where I left off in RCIA.

Besides all that, I have every Thursday and Friday off from work now so I can still go to Mass on those days. Being as Father Charles is hopefully going to be my mentor through this whole process, I'm thinking my lack of attendance on Sunday won't be a major problem for him. My guess is that it'll be a fairly Low Mass on those days (although I'd love to be wrong!).

Just heard a major rumble of thunder outside so I guess I'd better call it a night.

My Catholic Year Update

Man, been a long time since I updated this thing. As usual, there's not been much to say so I didn't bother updating. Until recently, that is, when a few interesting things came down the pipeline. So now's not a bad time to talk about some of that stuff.

For one thing, as I've said again and again, I haven't been able to attend RCIA at the Catholic parish I've mentioned a few times because of my work schedule. But we recently did a shift bid at my office and so my schedule has changed. My Thursday nights are now free. It's my Sunday mornings that are unavailable now.

No, it's not an ideal situation since RCIA requires Thursday nights AND Sunday mornings to be free. But it changes the equation at least a little.

Another thing is that I decided to wash my hands of the Catholic parish I'd been attending. I love the Church and I submit to her authority, don't get me wrong, but it really felt like they weren't even TRYING to meet me halfway on this. They have a model and they're sticking to it no matter what.

My decision to find a different parish coincides with moving to a slightly different part of town. There are two different parishes nearby. One is part of the FSSP. The FSSP's big claim to fame is their preference for the Latin Mass. I've written about the Latin Mass before but I've never really been to one before. But I really like what I know and what seen of it.

I must be honest though, there's an incredibly High Church Anglo-Catholic parish near my new apartment and it was VERY tempting to start going there. I rationalized that I really tried to join up with the REAL Church but they didn't seem interested in having me.

In the end though, that seemed like an excuse. I like Anglican liturgy more than the language and liturgy currently employed in most Catholic Masses, it's true, but that's not a good justification for turning my back on the Church. Ultimately, communion with the Church founded by Our Lord is more important than liturgy. Besides, I figured I could find an FSSP parish and try my luck with them.

So that's what I did today. I called the pastor of that FSSP parish, explained my problem and the impression I got from him is that he's surprised that this tiny problem has gotten as big as it has (and he's not alone on that either). But no matter what, he said he'd be open to meeting with me and working through the Catechism of the Catholic Church with me in lieu of a standard RCIA arrangement.

Just like that! He said that to a total stranger like me! How awesome is that? The guy couldn't pick me out of a police lineup if his life depended on it but he agreed to help anyway.

I'm still in the process of getting things sorted out in terms of moving from my old place into my new apartment so all my nice clothes aren't in my closet yet. So there's probably no way to manage going to the Latin Mass tomorrow. But I can definitely work it out next week.

There have been some hiccups along the way. This whole process turned out to be a lot bumpier than I was originally expecting. But I'm making progress here and that's ultimately what counts the most.

Work Training, RCIA and The Kids Today

As I said before, I've started training for a new job. Also as I said before, that's eaten up most of my free time lately. When I get home from work, all I feel like doing is eating and then going to bed. This won't last forever but it's how things are right now.

Still, there have been a few interesting developments lately.

First off, in my last post, I mentioned I'm not sure what my future is with RCIA because it will conflict with my work schedule once training ends. Unfortunately, I don't know any more now than I did when I first posted it because the outreach director at my local parish has been kind of incommunicado lately. No idea what will happen here.

Frankly, it irritates me because how hard can this possibly be to deal with? Surely they have issues like this pop up all the time. You'd think I'd have more to show for myself after an entire week of waiting for answers. But you'd be wrong.

Every once in a while, articles like this one pop up that make it sounds like The Kids Today are starting to embrace liturgical worship, this is the way of the future, evangelicalism is dead, etc.

Now, more and more it's hard for me to take evangelicalism as a form of church worship seriously. I can't deny that. At the same time though, you can't really underplay evangelicalism as a cultural force. I don't dispute that either.

What bothers me about articles like this is (A) the superficiality of them and (B) the abject lack of distinction between short term trends and long term cultural transformation.

Yeah, sure, The Kids Today might find liturgy interesting... today. But that doesn't say anything about what they've preferred over the past several years or where they're likely to stay in the years to come. It's simply right now that they dig going to Catholic Churches or high Lutheran places.

As interesting as that may be, it says nothing about what's happened in the past, what's likely to occur in the future and possible causes for this sea change in worship style.

It's just kind of there. And that's about it.

More to follow.

RCIA- Inquiry Phase

Haven't posted too much this week. The main reason for that is because I've been crazygonuts busy every single day this week. Start training for a new job on Monday and goings on with that has occupied most of my time and attention lately.

Not sure how this will affect RCIA though. Guess I'd better ask my Catechist about it but basically my new work schedule will require me to work during the normally appointed time for RCIA. Of course, by then the Inquiry phase will be over so it may not make a difference at all. We may not even meet on Thursday nights anymore.

But maybe we will. And if we do... I honestly don't know what the next step from there might be. I may ask the pastor for a dispensation on the grounds that in some ways I'm just spinning my wheels in RCIA anyway since I already believe what the Church teaches so in a sense RCIA isn't really necessary for me anyway.

But that's the last resort. There may be other options on the table.

More to follow.

Lent & Other Musings

I gave up soft drinks for Lent. My Catechist said that as my fellow Inquirers and I aren't members of the Church, we actually don't even have to participate in Lent. But if we already believe, there's no reason not to participate.

So here I am.

And as I say, I gave up soft drinks for Lent. I mainline caffeinated beverages: Coca Cola, Mountain Dew, Dr. Pepper and other things. I have two major vices in life: caffeine and nicotine. And, thankfully, they're both legal. So giving one of them up for Lent was a pretty courageous thing, if I do say so myself.

Of course, cutting off the soft drinks means pretty much cutting off my main source of caffeine. In case it's not obvious where this is going, I had a pretty roaring headache for a couple of days. Took forever to subside.

I tend to plan ahead. Not always but usually. As such, I had items in the hopper waiting to be posted so I went ahead and posted them. The reason for that is because the idea of posting new material with THIS kind of headache struck me as pure insanity.

Since my headache has subsided though, I think I've settled into Lent pretty well. The fasting aspect hasn't been too difficult. And as I've said before, I've been improving my prayer life. And let's face it, Lent isn't a bad time to do that sort of thing. I've heard of people going to Reconciliation/Confession more often during Lent but as an Inquirer, I don't think I'm permitted to do that just yet. But the concept does interest me.

In other news, today Barry the Teleprompter Messiah delayed Obamacare's individual mandate for a period of two years. As a total coincidence, the Democrats lost the special election yesterday for a House of Representatives race yesterday. I'm sure these two things are completely unrelated to each other though.

sigh

I can't help it. I don't want to run an overtly political blog but things like this are why I don't believe in universal suffrage. Not just anybody should be able to vote.

The Evolution of Belief and Theology

I've not talked a whole lot about the evolution of my beliefs over the years. Now, that's not to say I haven't blabbered on at length about my path to the Church. Because I have. At great length.

When I started getting serious about faith at the tender age of 24, I knew the most important thing obviously was theology. If you don't know the how and the why, it's hard to accept the way and then believe in the Whom. Makes sense.

So in short order I started off on the basis that the Catholic Church is full of wackadoo teachings that aren't worth listening to, they're off the reservation about basically everything and I should just move on.

As I've written before (again, here), I'd long been interested in Anglicanism. It's kind of like Catholicism, but less so; all the ritual, half the guilt, none of the Popes. What's not to like?

The issue there is that the Episcopal Church USA was a mess. Now, to be fair, there's never been a moment in my life when TEC wasn't facing some crisis or another. I was born only a couple of years after the Anglican Communion decided, oops, you know what? Women can serve in the priesthood after all! It really has been downhill for them ever since.

By 2006, when I began casting about for a denomination to call home, I was faced with the choice of entrusting my soul to a group of weirdo Episcopalians who didn't even seem to have a basic understanding of the clear teachings of Scripture. Female presiding archbishops, gay priests, transgendered bishops; what a mess!

So, with regrets, I ventured into Southern Baptist Land and didn't come up for air until about five or six years later. Still, I had a spark of interest in liturgy and formal worship. A liturgy that's been refined over the centuries just seemed more trustworthy to me than some dude who graduated from "Bible college" up there extemporizing.

Besides, on a practical level, I never appreciated the emotional and/or responsive manipulation of a lot of Southern Baptist worship. A good example of what I mean is Jonathan Stockstill's song "Let the Church Rise". The lights go down, the "worship team" (can't call them a choir, no no, that'd be BAD!) begin the song softly and right as they build to a rousing crescendo with the chorus, the lights come back up, which is your cue to rise (heh, get it?) to your feet.

And whatever, there are people out there who get off on manipulative nonsense like that. Far be it from me to judge. I'm just saying I found it shallow and almost offensive.

But, and here's the odd part, Southern Baptists are not at all averse to more atmospheric things like darkened rooms and candles. They simply always remember to plug in their electric guitars. So it felt, at once, kinda sorta formalized but with just enough informality to appeal to... actually, I'm not sure who's supposed to be interested in that neurotic presentation. But their churches are packed every Sunday so what do I know?

All I can say is that I tolerated that stuff because I had responsibilities at SB Church #1 by that point. Originally it was editing, mixing and then uploading the podcast of the pastor's sermon each week. Then it was taking attendance for my small group of 20 and 30-something singles. And ultimately it was teaching that small group.

So as I say, the worship "praise section" didn't interest me much but I didn't feel right about turning my back on people who needed me.

Oh, if I knew then what I know...

But I didn't, that's the point. Anyway, but becoming a small group teacher requires you to learn and study a lot, which is how I became more deeply entrenched in "reformed" theology. And as I did so, I reached the conclusion that there was no unity here. None.

Now, in today's post-evangelical world, that word needs some definition. What I mean is that no two Protestants agree on the meaning of any given verse in the Bible. The joke I always heard (and never found funny) was that if you get five Southern Baptist pastors into one room, there'll be nine opinions. Apparently we're supposed to find the lack of unity amusing.

It may seem like a small thing but think about it for just a minute. To a man, they all believe in Sola Scriptura. Which is to say that the Bible is the first, last and only infallible source of authority man has access to. I've poked holes in that before so need to do it again. But teaching this small group was my first real look at how little Protestants have in common even with each other.

I think it can fairly be said that there's no single doctrine or interpretation of Scripture that all Protestants would agree about, up to and including the Messiah's identity and relationship to the Father.

That alone suggests that there's something very severely wrong with the Sola Scriptura doctrine as the Bible is made up of God's Word, God's Word is made up of individual testaments, those individual testaments are made up of individual books, those individual books are made up of words and words have meaning. "X" cannot be "X" and "the opposite of X" at the same time and in the same context. Words have meaning because the Author wants to convey an idea. It's crazy to think that He'd long tolerate such wasteful disarray among His own (supposed) followers.

That bothered me but I never made a big deal out of it because, like I said, I had responsibilities at SB Church #1. People were depending on me, after all. But eventually I was pretty much shown the door at SB Church #1 and my reputation was smithereens as a result.

The issue here is that it was easy for my enemies at SB Church #1 to take me out because I'm not ordained. Moreover, I barely knew any of the higher-ups at SB Church #1. I was teaching a group in their Singles Ministry but I'd never even met the lead pastor of SB Church #1 face to face. None of them knew me. There was no relationship there. But my enemies had friends in very high places. At least one or two were deacons, in fact.

And like I said, things didn't work out so well at SB Church #2 because some familiar faces from #1 started showing up there since our former group was such a mess.

So by the time I started casting about for a new denomination, I'd learned some hard lessons. Some of them were:

Sola Scriptura is a weak, illogical, self-refuting doctrine

Women need a warm glass of STFU when it comes to church leadership

Laity have no business teaching or holding positions of authority unless they're closely monitored by someone with a true, genuine calling

So when I began searching for a new home, I not only knew that the Southern Baptist Convention was out of the question, but whether I liked it or not, I had doctrinal issues to work out. I made this decision in 2012, by which time the Anglican Church in North America had come into an existence as an alternative to TEC.

It felt like this was the continuation of something I'd started back in 2006 but had to abandon because TEC was such a mess. Now, Anglicanism's roots in Catholicism mean it isn't a Sola Scriptura denomination. They relied upon other authorities, not least of which is tradition.

Tradition plays a major role in their beliefs, practices, liturgy and theology. Makes sense. History is (or should be) a guide both in terms of what to do and what not to do. So by way of demonstration, the Anglicans helped knock down my belief in Sola Scriptura. Not that there was much belief left in it by that point.

The transition to Anglicanism was easier than I first thought. Sure, making the Sign of the Cross was a new idea for me. But you adjust. I eventually veered over to Anglo-Catholicism, which required a bit more effort because... well, it's in the name. Catholic.

Eucharistic theology is a good example of what I'm talking about. I'd been raised to view the Lord's Supper as a strictly commemorative act. I think I was 26 or so before I even realized there were differing opinions on the matter. But the ACNA parish I attended was decidedly Anglo-Catholic and about as high church as they could be given the parameters in which they had to work. And they made it clear that they believe in the Real Presence.

I rationalized it at the time. "Well, just because they think of the Eucharist as the Lord's body and blood doesn't mean I have to. It can be a strictly symbolic memorial for me." But I soon stumbled across the letter written by St. Ignatius to the Smyrneans wherein St. Ignatius identified as a heretic anybody believed the Eucharist wasn't the Body and the Blood. Historians differ on whether Ignatius was taught by St. Peter, St. Paul or St. John, but what seems sure is that he was trained by at least one of the apostles.

Considering how far back in history that was, wouldn't St. Ignatius know what he was talking about?

His view of the Eucharist as the Body and the Blood of Our Lord was a game-changer. It was also the first time I'd given Catholic theology real consideration. No "reformed" nonsense, no Anglican middle step, pure, straight-up Catholic doctrine. And for the first time I realized Catholic teachings held up to scrutiny.

Most people have common objections to Catholic theology. My objections were no different. And what I found was the Catholics had a good justification for everything, no matter how small. Take a crucifix, for example. I had the usual evangelical reservations about them, and found easy answers for why Catholics tend toward crucifixes rather than empty crosses.

My point is that they had a logical, coherent answer for everything. Everything! Now, yes, it offended the anti-Catholic sensibilities in which I'd been raised. No doubt about it. But do you turn your back on the truth because people won't like the fact that you found it?

Another thing was that creeds are only divisive when heretics listen to them. The entire point of a creed is to identify the key elements of our faith and distill them down to a quick summary. If you can't recite a creed in good conscience, you don't belong. Simple as that.

Ditto formalized prayers. They're only as robotic and lifeless as the person praying lets them be. If one's heart isn't in it, it's their fault; not the formalized prayer's.

Similar things can be said of other uniquely Catholic practices. My point, however, is that the Church can defend and justify all her beliefs and practices when someone with an open mind gives her the chance.

And ultimately that was probably the greatest revelation of all.

More to follow.

Considering Liturgical Prayer

Back when I first began considering membership with the Catholic Church, if you'd told me that formalized prayer would come naturally, I'd have said you were crazy. I would've assumed that, of all decidedly Catholic practices, that would be the hardest thing to get into.

The above is what you might call "leading the witness" in a court of law. It's a standard practice in a lot of writing. The goal is to produce an unexpected dramatic reversal of what went previously in order to entice the reader to continue reading.

But oddly enough, I've gathered a few formalized that interest me and have begun praying those most mornings with surprising ease.

In terms of unexpected dramatic reversals, how am I doing so far?

Specifically these prayers are the Our Father, Act of Contrition, Hail Mary, Alma Redemptoris Mater and the Apostles' Creed. I chose them either for their frequent appearances in the liturgy or else because they're devotionals that are new and mostly unfamiliar to me but which I still feel I should make a priority.

The results have been as amazing as they have been immediate. These prayers first thing in the morning have so far really changed how I go about my days. I feel a noticeably stronger sense of peace at most times during the day. Now, it feels inappropriate to me to discuss feeeeeeeeelings because they can't be weighed, measured, quantified or even reliably reproduced. What I feel to be a sense of peace relative to my usual state could be a heightened sense of anxiety for some people or a horse tranquilizer for others.

Still, I have to acknowledge that there is room for an individual's personal experience in this. I'm usually reluctant to discuss these things in public though because my fear is being lumped in with those Emerging Church types. Still, I can't really discuss the efficacy of formalized prayer as practiced by the Catholic Church without mentioning my own personal experience with it. So please don't take this as the Emergent brand of oohey-gooey "spirituality" I so detest.

Now, I can't speak for anybody else but I at least don't get to make decisions on my own. Nope. Invariably I have to deal with a committee of rubes, pretenders and pseudo-intellectuals telling me why I'm wrong, hopeless, misguided, heretical or whatever else about anything I choose to do. Be it choices made in my professional life, love life, schooling, hobbies, choice of friends or anything else, there'll always be some jackass who just can't wait to tell me why I'm wrong.

In the case of Catholicism, it's an evangelical with some severely goofed up theology. We'll call him "Donald Bell". On the one hand, "Donald Bell" is a member in exceedingly good standing of a Southern Baptist church. On the other hand, his views and theology owe far more to the aforementioned Emerging Church brand of spiritual pap.

A great many of our conversations regarding religion that don't involve anti-Catholic myths and canards tend to revolve around the false dichotomy of formalized prayer vs. the pure heart and soul of (supposedly) non-liturgical forms of Christianity.

In the first place, I've come to realize that every brand of Christianity has some kind of liturgy. In a sense, what really separates the Catholics from the Baptists is that the Church is willing to put their liturgy in writing while the Southern Baptist Convention is not.

In the second place though, as I said, it's a false dichotomy. The mere fact that some Catholics "go through the motions" of formalized prayer tells me they don't understand the formalization or the prayer. That can't accurately be said of the Church at large though:

2700 Through his Word, God speaks to man. By words, mental or vocal, our prayer takes flesh. Yet it is most important that the heart should be present to him to whom we are speaking in prayer: "Whether or not our prayer is heard depends not on the number of words, but on the fervor of our souls."
-- Catechism of the Catholic Church

Mind you, that doesn't keep "Donald Bell" from leveling the accusation. But it simply isn't true. Further, it assumes that there's no room for extemporaneous prayer, which is just ignorant.

The other thing though, and again this relies on my personal experience, there's simply no comparison between my prayer life now and my prayer life as a Southern Baptist. To be fair, I've only committed to morning prayers over the last week or thereabouts so it's a pretty lopsided comparison. Still, the formal prayer schedule has been easy to abide by and spiritually beneficial for me. "Donald Bell" has frequently said (in approved Emerging Church fashion, I'm certain) that "nobody can argue with personal experience".

I'm very well aware of how anemic my prayer life was before I joined the Catholic Church. As much as I came to admire the Anglican church during 2013, all they really did was change how I viewed my worship. It was a radical change, to be sure, but it wasn't the complete spiritual tune-up I've gotten from the Catholic Church. As a Southern Baptist, prayer was usually what I did during moments of stress and crisis, or else it was done as I was falling asleep each night. Now it's become a vital and indispensable part of my spiritual life.

That's MY personal experience so by his own logic, which should be checkmate with "Donald Bell".

But I doubt it will be.

More to follow.

Liturgy

One thing I've come to realize is that I'm not quite as fond of the Catholic liturgy my parish uses as I am of the Anglican liturgy. The Anglican worship service, in my opinion, is second to none in terms of beauty and elegance. I'm told that ONLY an Eastern Orthodox ultra-High Mass is higher and more elegant than even the best of what the Anglicans do but I can't speak from firsthand experience there as I've never been interested in going to an EO service.

Still, keep in mind the Catholic Masses I've experienced so far are all in English. But I've seen Latin Mass videos on YouTube and those look amazing. So one thing I was considering was checking out the Latin Mass once I've been officially welcomed into the Church because it is available in my area. The one closest to me is FFSP. Actually, there's one closer but that one's SSPX and I don't think I want to go there.

I'll be honest though, in a perfect world there'd be an Anglican-Use parish nearby. The closest one though is WAY uptown. I've traded messages with the rector of my ex-church home, a small ACNA parish, but he (politely) made it very clear that he doesn't want to reunite with Rome even though instruments exist to facilitate that very thing. So those are all out of the question.

But I'd LOVE to attend an Anglican-Use church. Really, it's the language of the Anglican Rite that does the trick. It's King Jamesy enough for me; it's intelligent, articulate and beautiful. As much as I'm coming to love the Catholic Church, the language thereof is just pedestrian.

Don't take my word for it though. See for yourself:

Prayer of Humble Access:
We do not presume to come to this Thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in Thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under Thy Table. But Thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of Thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink His blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by His body, and our souls washed through His most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in Him, and He in us. Amen.

-- Book of Common Prayer, 1662

If anything, it's a reminder to us that as the Church has many things to offer the Anglicans, the Anglicans also have something to offer the Church. They bring something to the table. It's a pretty clear demonstration of how important reunification is.

But wow, I've strayed from my original point. I guess what I'm saying is that lacking an Anglican-Use alternative, I'll give the Latin Mass a shot.

Ash Wednesday

Seems like I've always got more material to write about than I do time to sift through it all. I guess it's the way of all things. The way of the Force.

I've touched on the cake-baking stupidity (Dear Judges. "Free association". Look it up. XOXO, Magnus). Haven't gone near the Holy Father unintentionally dropping the f-bomb. The main reason for that is because the reaction to that has been overwhelmingly positive among non-believers and, from what I've been able to gather, completely silent among my side. The poor guy tripped over his words. Happens to the best of us.

But Ash Wednesday. That's a very topical thing for this blog considering it's supposed to be about my journey into the Catholic Church and stupid political issues keep coming along to trip everything up.

Anyway. Ash Wednesday. Attended a Liturgy of the Word, after which was the Imposition of Ashes. Pretty brief thing, actually. And to be honest, I'm not completely sure I understand what my obligations are for Lent. Being as I'm only an Inquirer, it's up for grabs precisely what's expected of me.

Still, I feel a weight of assurance. There's a rhythm to the seasons and feasts and holy days utterly lacking from anyplace else, including the Anglican church. The authority of the Church is more important than I ever dreamed possible back when I was lost in Evangelical Land. These men are called by God Himself to SERVE. It's their life's mission and they don't mess around with it.

So when the pastor challenged each of us to fully embrace the Lent season with our fasting, prayers and penitence, he wasn't just indulging in persuasive rhetoric. He was using the authority given him by Our Lord to guide us and lead us in life and in our faith.

Compare this to, say, either Southern Baptist church I used to attend, where the pastors thereof would use that as an opportunity to "lead people to Christ" or some such. Okay, fine, but THEN WHAT? What's supposed to happen AFTER they "decide for Christ"? The Southern Baptists CAN'T answer that because the Southern Baptists don't wield that sort of leadership and authority over their flocks. They throw the word "discipleship" around a lot but little or nothing goes on to truly guide people in their faith, challenge them to grow as Christians and help steer them through life's challenges. It's simply absent from the Southern Baptist Convention.

But it's an ever-present thing in the Catholic Church because we CAN'T do it on our own. We need an authority to guide us. So the pastor of my church said that I should embrace the Lent season, he threw out a few examples of what that might entail and then expected us to do it.

November 2013 is when I became persuaded by Catholic dogma. Ash Wednesday 2014 is when I became a Catholic.

Words Have Meaning

This is part of the video we watched during RCIA last Thursday about Our Lady. I mentioned before that this is one of those Catholic dogmas that I struggled with over the years.

On the one hand, I didn't need very much convincing that Our Lady deserves more honor than she's given in most evangelical churches. I'd wondered more than once if the leaders of what I now regard as the Protestant Rebellion hadn't tossed the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to her.

At the same time though, I couldn't exactly fit all that in with what I knew about the Catholic Church's teachings and dogmas concerning her. And the reason for that turns out to be that I was lied to about how the Church views Our Lady. It's not "worship".

Words MEAN something. And speaking as a former-evangelical, total ignorance as to what the Church teaches and stands for is an evangelical specialty. This is especially true when it comes to the Blessed Virgin. It's the evangelical in a million who understands the difference between "veneration" and "worship". Theirs is an alarming tendency to throw words around without an iota of understanding of what they mean. "The Catholics venerate Mary! That's idolatry!" I should not that "veneration" is the act of showing reverence and honor. "Idolatry" is worshiping images of some kind. Praying to Our Lady is therefore neither "worship" nor "idolatry". Grasping those concepts isn't difficult; it simply requires brains and discernment evangelicals apparently lack.

Does this seem harsh? The objective truth is that evangelicals don't understand what the Church teaches. That's not open to debate. The cause therefore is either (A) a lack of intelligence or (B) an agenda to intentionally misrepresent the Church. Incompetence is the lesser evil, wouldn't you agree?

In any case, the Church's views of Our Lady actually make perfect sense when someone qualified to explain them breaks them down for you. So I guess it's like anything else; never trust evangelicals to explain Catholic doctrine.

Now, this all works to convince me on an intellectual level about the importance she plays in theology. But I still struggle with the idea of praying to her. Or, for that matter, any of the saints. You can take the boy out of evangelicaldom but you can't take evangelicaldom out of the boy, it seems.

But I'm working my way through it. I've decided to start small and then work up to bigger things later.

Baby steps.

More to follow...

My Catholic Year- RCIA Update

Man, have I been active with updates lately or what?

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.

Catching Up On My Catholic Year

So. Started RCIA. Night One was on Thursday, January 9. Pretty eye-opening, actually. Not "informative" so much since I'd already discovered all or most of that stuff on my own. But informative more from the angle of the "culture" of Catholicism. That is new. The Catechists talked about Pope Francis a fair bit and what I eventually understood is that they view him the same basic way that a lot of Southern Baptists view the lead pastor at their churches. That is to say the spiritual leader and authority. Admittedly it's not a perfect comparison but it's the best I've got. It never really soaked through until then because I didn't really understand the concept. But it makes more sense now.

I figured most of my fellow Inquirers would be coming at this from more or less the same background as me. However, I was shown to be wrong. If I learned nothing else on that first night, it's that these people have all kinds of backgrounds. Two of the chicks come from Buddhist backgrounds but for everyone else it's the ABC's of Christianity as you might expect. I mention all of this though to say that what surprised me was how diverse the group was. Not just ethnically (although that too) but in terms of peoples' lives and stuff. The Catholic Church is not a homogenized institution by any stretch.

Something else though. Weeks ago, I dug deeper and researched the split that took place in the Episcopal Church USA that basically gave us the Anglican Church in North America and in particular how it affected the membership numbers for both institutions. I reached the conclusion that, by membership numbers, the schism hasn't benefited ECUSA or ACNA.

And that didn't make much sense because the sheer number of churches that split off from ECUSA should've made ACNA an overnight religious force to be reckoned with. I mean, it's just simple numbers, you know? But that's not what happened. ACNA's growth has moved at a snail's pace. It just mystified me. But either way, and as I said before, you can stick a fork in Anglicanism in America; it's done. I just couldn't understand why.

Well, RCIA Night 1 gave me at least part of the answer. Sure, a lot of parishes and even entire dioceses split off from ECUSA. That's been happening for at least a decade'ish. Maybe longer. But not all have moved to ACNA or one of the other Anglican schism groups.

Nope, a fair number of whole parishes joined up with Rome. Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI at different times set up an ordinariate to accommodate Anglican clergy and, if necessary, their parishes. If even 20% of disgruntled Episcopal Church parishes have joined up with Rome, that would tend to account for why ACNA's growth has been so relatively anemic. It seems I incorrectly linked dropping out of ECUSA with joining up with ACNA. Looks like a fair number of Episcopal parishes and clergy washed their hands of Canterbury entirely.

The Catechist then said that the ordinariate for my city is headquartered directly out of the Catholic parish at which I was attending RCIA. As a matter of fact, they have apartments on-site for priests, seminarians and other clergy to live in. And soon they'll have to build more apartments because Anglican clergy are joining the Catholic Church... and the married ones are bringing their families along. And this was where the aforementioned pontiffs had to take an active hand. Normally, as a religious discipline, the Church doesn't allow married people to be clergy. Simple as that. So those Popes had to set up an ordinariate specifically to deal with incoming married Episcopalian clergy.

And these clergy are apparently still allowed to be distinctly Anglican. They're permitted to hang on to their Anglican customs. The main difference is they're in communion with Rome now. But otherwise they're still "Anglican" in terms of their customs.

This all seemed really messed up to me. Frankly, I had a hard time believing any of it so I decided to check it out. And sure enough, a quick web search revealed this very thing is indeed happening and seems to at least partly account for why ACNA hasn't taken off the why I thought the number of ECUSA evacuations would have implied.

The common thread through a lot of the ECUSA dropouts finding refuge in Rome is that these Episcopalians/Anglicans were happy where they were so long as progress was being made (however slowly) to some kind of reconciliation with Rome. But when it became obvious that reunification was off the table (as ECUSA is all in for ordaining women, homosexuals and who the hell knows what else is coming), these priests and even entire parishes had to deal with matters on their own. And apparently they would sooner tempt their fates in Rome than with a breakaway wing of Anglicanism.

Of all people, I understand.

And to be fair to these refugees, ACNA isn't in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury. So these ECUSA washouts faced a dilemma: They couldn't stay in ECUSA but they obviously didn't feel right about joining up with ACNA either. So what the hell other option is there, you know?

All of this is a *VERY* long way of saying that I'd always assumed that the Catholic Church is a fairly monolithic institution, both in terms of membership and of religious practice. Turns out they're a lot more flexible than I ever gave them credit for.

Incidentally, this has also inspired me to e-mail the rector of my old ACNA parish to let him know about the ordinariate as he may not have heard. I love and respect him even now and it would be a joy to see him every Sunday again.

But anyway. There are some complications with all this though. Minor ones but still. For one thing, they want to see my baptism certificate. Normally I'd be willing to comply with that... except I don't have one. Because one never existed to my knowledge. See, I was baptized by my grandfather when I was 16 AT a Church of Christ but not BY that Church of Christ. So if I had to "document" my baptism, I wouldn't be able to.

Not that it matters anyway because that Church of Christ no longer exists in the form which I attended as a kid. There was a split in the congregation, and of all things it was over musical instruments in the church. The Churches of Christ teach that instrumentation is badevilwickednastynobueno.

That's been settled policy for them for decades so why it suddenly flared up in my town is beyond me. Anyway, but apparently the pro-instrument people won because what's left of the Church of Christ from my childhood is now located in some rundown old shack in a dumpy part of town as opposed to the original building.

So even if there was a baptism certificate for me at one time, methinks it's not on file anymore anyway. And this doesn't touch on how I'm suddenly not sure how canonically valid my baptism is because I'm starting to think of the Churches of Christ as a cult.

What I'm driving at here is that I think it might be necessary for the Catholics to do what they call a "conditional baptism", which basically says "If you were baptized before, you're only getting wet right now. But if you weren't baptized before, you're baptized now".

Since I'm here, may as well talk about RCIA Night Two. Basically the original group from the first night consisted of a total of 13 people. Four men and the rest were women. Going from memory, the numbers for the second week were down one man and two women.

People who know a lot more about this stuff than I do assure me the numbers will probably continue dwindling, either through lack of commitment or an unwillingness to obey the Church's teachings.

And to be honest, I think this is where all the study I did before even joining RCIA will pay off because I've already resolved my problems with the Church's most challenging doctrines. My agenda is to join the Church at this point rather than be persuaded that the Catholic Church is right.

I already know the Catholic Church is right.

My Catholic Year Fail

As I said before, Wednesday marked the beginning of My Catholic Year. Obviously it was a Holy Day of Obligation (The Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God) so I planned to attend Mass. That was the plan but not exactly what ended up happening.

Basically I mixed up times because I looked at the wrong web page. The parish I wanted to go to had already finished their services for the day by the time I showed up.

So yeah, that was a fail.

The Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God and Marriage Chaos in Utah

Today marks the beginning of My Catholic Year. And as it happens, today's a Holy Day of Obligation (The Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God) so I'll be going to Mass later.

Still, between my illness and all this holiday craziness, I haven't had a chance to comment on the state of marriage in Utah. First "homosexual marriage" was legalized there followed swiftly thereafter by the effective decriminalization of polygamy.

For years, those who favor the traditional definition of marriage argued that permitting "gay marriage" would eventually lead to a full-scale destruction of marriage. After all, if marriage can be something other than one man and one woman, why can't it be anything at all? The gay lobby constantly shouted my side down, called us paranoid rightwingers and denounced the efficacy and usefulness of slippery slope arguments.

Strangely enough though, they've all been very silent about goings on in Utah lately. A simple oversight, I'm sure.

Reaching Out to the Rad Trads

January 1, 2014 is the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, and that marks the official start of My Catholic Year. My RCIA begins on January 9. Truth is I'm thrilled about both. Can't wait. This feels like the culmination of something I've been searching for my entire life. And now I've found it.

What I've already learned through this experience though is that if you ever want to seriously torque people off, tell 'em you're converting to Catholicism. Some of my friends and family have expressed support for my decision. Others have been outright derisive and snarky.

In an odd moment of cognitive dissonance, a non-denominationalist went so far as to call me "divisive". If that statement doesn't seem odd, ironic or funny to you, reread it until it does.

The one thing NOBODY has said though is "you're doing the right thing". And this includes even some Catholics I am friends with and/or related to.

You see, Pope Francis has been quite divisive among some Catholics I know. And if you're Catholic yourself, doubtless you've run into this very thing yourself. So no embellishment seems necessary. Still, the group the Holy Father seems to have alienated the most is the radical traditionalists.

Now, just to establish my theological and political bona fides, it's not so much that I'm on the right as it is that I AM the right. I'm everything your average seculiberathiest most fears. My answer to every political and economic problem the country faces is "privatize it". My answer to every social/moral problem the country faces is "no".

I am the right.

And yet Pope Francis offends me not. Partly it's because I'm very well aware of the supposed news media's love for misquoting any religious figure, especially a Pope. If they can stir enough controversy, why, they just might be able to cause a schism in the Church! You may think that's far-fetched but keep in mind they've toppled some Presidents while singlehandedly keeping others in power. Nothing is off limits to them.

But the radical traditionalists, already predisposed to have a dim view of Pope Francis, have accepted the media narrative without question. And in a lot of ways it's not my business to second guess the rad trads. Most of them were elbow-deep in the Catholic Church before I was even born. So I'm NOT criticizing them. But I'm not accepting their premise either.

And for all the reasons they championed Pope Benedict XVI. Specifically, they asked a series of questions. Do you believe this is the church Our Lord founded? Do you believe the Pope is His vicar? Do you believe the Church is divinely guided and supernaturally protected from error? Does the Holy Father's authority come from on high or from men?

Do you believe it?

I'm either the very worst person to ask the rad trads those questions or I'm the very best. Eye of the beholder. But speaking as a former Protestant, former evangelical, former Anglican and former Anglo-Catholic, if I can accept Pope Francis, can't you?