The toughest decision for someone raised in a very Protestant family in a very Protestant part of the world is not abandoning the faith but to consider conversion to Catholicism.
To illustrate, consider the following – the first conversation I had with my dad about Catholicism:
“Dad, what if I were to tell you I was thinking about converting to Catholicism?”
…silence…
And then he said, “I would tell you I raised you better than that.”
And that’s about as deep as I’ve ever had an opportunity to really dialogue with my family about it.
Friends weren’t much better. Some just stopped talking to me. Others just don’t like talking about it and so don’t. Which is a pity because if I ever needed a friend to help show me “the error of my ways,” it would have been then. But no friends were to be found.
Except those that were Catholic. Those that were excited, inspired, and encouraged by my conversion. To tell you the truth, I really didn’t need their sympathies/empathies – though they did lighten the burden some. What I needed most were the folks I was leaving behind, but they never came.
Of course, by that time, too, I had burned a lot of my Protestant bridges and many of my friends knew it. I had essentially renounced sola fide (as Protestants understand it anyways). My research into and conversion to the Eucharist pretty much had killed off any sense of sola scriptura. So perhaps by that time, people had already given me up as a lost cause. I hope not, but I really don’t know either way due to the silence.
My family did make the biggest noise about it all… not so much on theological grounds – how could they, they don’t know and don’t want to know anything of substance about Catholicism – but on familial grounds. And it’s still a very bitter pill to this day. For example, I had to tell them that as part of my conversion I should no longer accept communion in a Protestant church, and my family should not accept communion in the Catholic Church. The reasoning is simple: why partake in something you don’t believe. I think I can make an argument by familial bonds in the case of me taking in the Protestant church, but the reverse does not hold for my family.
So I was only left with my conscience, and I got on the road to conversion with my conscience made confident by faith in Jesus. A journey of 3 years it took me to beat a path to the Emmaus that is Rome: half a year of researching the patristics, Catholicism, and Protestantism individually, and two and a half years of religious formation in the catechumenate and continued research.
I entered the Church on Easter Vigil night 2001. I have attended no other celebration that rivals the Catholic Easter Vigil. It is glorious in every sense of the word. On my night, I was Baptized (because I had never received Baptism) and Confirmed and at long last I partook in the real Flesh and the real Blood of Jesus the Christ in my first Communion.
I am a thief, I am a murderer
Walking up this lonely hill
What have I done? I don’t remember
No one knows just how I feel
and I know that my time is coming soon.
It’s been so long. Oh, such a long time
Since I’ve lived with peace and rest
Now I am here, my destination
guess things work for the best
and I know that my time is coming soon
Who is this man? This man beside me
They call the King of the Jews
They don’t believe that He’s the Messiah
But, somehow I know it’s true.
And they laugh at Him in mockery,
and beat Him till he bleeds
They nail Him to the rugged cross,
and raise Him, they raise Him up next to me
My time has come, I’m slowly fading
I deserve what I receive
Jesus when You are in Your kingdom
Could You please remember me
and He looks at me still holding on
the tears fall from His eyes
He says I tell the truth
Today, you will live with Me in paradise
and I know that my time is coming soon
and I know paradise is coming soon.
by Third Day
When I was a child, not too much older than my oldest son is now, I would play in the backyard. Seeing it today, it does not look half the size it was to me then. It’s perhaps 20 yards deep and 30 yards wide, surrounded by a chain link fence. There was a lone clothes-line pole that I would play on for hours: climbing it, circling around it, and – best of all – after a good rain, jiggling it and listening to the mud.
It was here that I have ever truly been haunted. I remember it vividly.
It was the summer time, and the plants were all in bloom. It was during that part of evening where the sun has passed below the tree line, making the trees silhouettes, and lighting the sky gold. I was standing in the back-left corner, next to Dad’s garden, eating the honeysuckles that grew up along the fence. I can remember the aroma of green garden plants and especially honey-suckle surrounding and embracing me. I can remember the warmth of the evening around me like the warmth of a morning’s bed.
And then I heard someone speak my name: “Spencer”.
It was a woman’s voice: one I did not know: rich and golden like the evening, and she spoke it as though to say hello to a dear friend or her own child.
I turned around looking for her, but I was alone in the backyard.
And, again, she greeted me: “Spencer”.
My heart began to race, and I turned back to the setting horizon, peering through the honeysuckles, looking for she who knew my name.
A third time she spoke my name: “Spencer”.
Fright overcame me for I did not understand what was transpiring, and I ran back to the house and inside.
Later, I related to my father what had happened with a bit of a guilty heart, and he chuckled saying it was not unheard of to hear someone call you in the silence of solitude – that it was nothing but in your head.
I have sought the silence of solitude many times since then, never to have her call me again.
And I am disappointed: I have ever since wanted to answer and see what happens next.
For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen…
– St. Paul, Letter to the Romans, Chapter 9, verse 3
I think in order to make this statement, you would need to have a real zeal and love for your people; a deep devotion that compares to what most people experience only in family. I doubt Paul says anything lightly, and so I think this is perhaps a keen insight into the loving man that is Paul. Not a devotion to theology, but a devotion to his people and his God.
I am deeply committed to my family — not just the one I rear and provide for, but also for the family that reared and provided for me. Their mere being provides for me; their fellowship fills me up; their love inspires me. I am driven to demonstrate how great my family is in what I do – not to earn my place, for that has already been provided, but out of faithfulness, obedience, and love.
And in this way, I find myself before God – my Father through Jesus. How can I be faithful with idle hands – or worse hands that know no obedience? Just as with love, faithfulness is not idle – it is active. And so, my works – my obedience – are needed for my faith. Not to earn my place before God – that has been provided to me by faith – but to demonstrate that I have a place before God, that my faith is real. We know God is faithful to His people by the great things He does for us. Why would the reverse not be true?
I could be wrong, but I think Paul feels the same way.
This post is a reflection on the seeming fork in the Road at Emmaus:
One road leads down a path where the Eucharist is merely a sign, though very significant, of Jesus’s Sacrifice and a remembrance of Him.
The other road leads down a path where partaking in the Eucharist is partaking in the very Body of Jesus Himself.
| Ignatius of Antioch |
“Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God. . . . They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes” (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6:2–7:1 [A.D. 110]).
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| Justin Martyr |
“We call this food Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration [i.e., has received baptism] and is thereby living as Christ enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus” (First Apology 66 [A.D. 151]).
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| Irenaeus |
“If the Lord were from other than the Father, how could he rightly take bread, which is of the same creation as our own, and confess it to be his body and affirm that the mixture in the cup is his blood?” (Against Heresies 4:33–32 [A.D. 189]).
“He has declared the cup, a part of creation, to be his own blood, from which he causes our blood to flow; and the bread, a part of creation, he has established as his own body, from which he gives increase unto our bodies. When, therefore, the mixed cup [wine and water] and the baked bread receives the Word of God and becomes the Eucharist, the body of Christ, and from these the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, how can they say that the flesh is not capable of receiving the gift of God, which is eternal life—flesh which is nourished by the body and blood of the Lord, and is in fact a member of him?” (ibid., 5:2).
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So these were the quotes that pretty much broke me. Never mind everyone else who came after them affirming this position as well. These guys were forming the early church, and there is no question of their faith in Jesus physically present in the Eucharist. All the Protestant arguments about the Eucharist being just “a symbol” could not convince me otherwise: the early fathers say so… how could they get this wrong? To get it wrong is to perpetuate the worst form of idolatry known to mankind let alone Christianity. So, I cannot believe that this teaching is just a simple (or even grevious) error in understanding or judgement by our forefathers: they believed it deliberately, as they were taught, and professed it in faith. Just as I was receiving this teaching from them, they had received it from the Apostles (Ignatius particularly studied under John according to his own letters).
To really get at the heart of the matter, you have to start asking: what, then, is the purpose of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist? What about this tradition makes it so important that I, a Protestant, cannot partake of it? Why would my Protestant forefathers reject it?
Well, the best that I could ever establish to the last question was that the Real Presence just makes no sense: it violates human sense and human reason. Why would God put such a stumbling block up? To that I can only say this: if reason is what keeps you from believing, then are your objections truly grounded in faith and belief? Or is it not that you are objecting to something that deliberately transcends reason and sense and thus requires a true, unreasonable, yet harmless belief?
The last part of that question leads into the purpose and role of the Real Presence in the Eucharist: what is the point? To paraphrase any number of Protestant friends I know on their take on this: sure, believe in the Eucharist and all that other fantastic fancy-shmancy stuff. It’s not like it does you any good even if it were true.
But doesn’t it?!?! I mean, c’mon people, we’re talking about JESUS. This same Lord – that is our means and hopes for Salvation – has, is, and ever will be made present every day around the world in the Eucharist. Is it wise of us to dismiss out of hand this belief as being of no benefit? I cannot see how!!
And so, we’re left to consider of what benefit is the Eucharist: is it more than some highfalutin idea that makes us feel good about our Savior being among us?
And I daresay, yes, even from my own casual meditation on the Eucharist before I began really studying what it is that it means. These are some of the things I have found to be of benefit:
- The Cool Factor: C’mon, it’s just cool. You want a relationship with Christ? You’ve got one. One that you can see. One that you can touch. One that you can devour. One that very personally partakes in the sacrifice that Jesus made for us back in the day, today. In short, it draws us closer to Christ and, in some sense, makes our relationship closer and more personal.
- The Body of Christ: In partaking in the Eucharist, we become what we eat, not just individually but also corporately. There has always been a mystery in my mind what the universal Church is: how it is revealed by the Church to the Church for the Church. It is in this, the partaking of Christ’s own Body that we all have that very real and visible uniting bond. The reality of the One Body in Christ we all wonder about time to time, the Eucharist makes real and serves also as a symbol of that reality.
- The Passover Meal: The Jews in the Passover Meal partake in the flesh and blood of their most perfect lamb. God’s wrath passes over them because this mark of faithfulness is upon them. The Eucharist not only symbolizes this same event to us today, it makes it real for us today and perfects the covenant and the sign of that covenant that God instituted with God’s people then in Egypt.
And from there we return to what the Early Father’s taught. My above sentiments are pretty much in line with them. Augustine especially was all into how the Eucharist brings the Church together into the Mystical Body. It unites us with the poor considering that Jesus, at the time of His Sacrifice, was the poorest among men (John Chrysostom). In drawing us closer to Christ, it helps prepare us with our struggle against sin.
Looking back over this post, I’ve probably done more to reflect on what I stuck with than with the real struggle I went through… but the struggle wasn’t so much in the learning and the debate. I mean, really, there is no debate in light of history: the early Church wins hands down every time. The struggle was with overcoming my preconceptions of what the Eucharist is, faithfully learning the faith of the early Church, and trying to reconcile myself with my faith being at odds with the early Church. In the end, I did not have to so much abandon my faith as much as I had to add to it… but there are some core things that, flowing out of studying the early Church, I had to change.
And the Eucharist is where it all started, and I don’t find that insignificant. It makes sense that all that I believe would change, not over bread and wine, but over Jesus: really, truly present in substance in the Eucharist.
“The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16)
“Therefore whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. . . . For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself” (1 Cor. 11:27, 29)