Chapter 1: A Walk

Wooded acres stretch out from the back of my house, seemingly endless woods. They begin rather abruptly at the crest of the hill that rises up from the quiet pond; they have always been present, mysterious, wanting exploration, and quietly beckoning. I've heard godly people tell stories about the woods, horrific stories: It has lapped up the blood of the martyrs; within it there is worship given to strange gods and goddesses. But I wonder at them, for there are also those whom I've heard, other godly men and women, tell such beautiful stories about it - of celebration, of fullness, of seeing their Lord.

As a Protestant, one of the first things that one notices about Catholicism is its otherness. It is, in many ways, wholly different than Protestantism.

I was in the Catholic church until I was about ten. Baptized into the Church, old enough to take First Communion, but not yet old enough for Confirmation. So when I think about the Church, much is familiar and much is foreign.

As I draw nearer, I discover that the forest is carpeted in yellow daffodils and shades of mossy emerald - it is that time of year. A time when all things are being made new. The air is incensed with honeysuckle.

Protestantism did not spring up out of a vacuum. Christ did not come down from Heaven and establish the Church in the sixteenth century or bring her a new rigidity in the twentieth century, but most of the time we believe that it is so, we act as if it is so. "Ah," we say, "after 1500 years we have reclaimed the true church - we are like that first-century church." We pretend that, immediately following the death of the Apostles (John, A.D. 100), the entire Church began to go off the rails and that by the fifth century, institutionalized and now the state religion, she no longer even resembled what Christ had called her to be, made her to be.

I read about her early councils and find the Trinity, the Virgin Birth, the hypostatic union of Christ, the canon of the Scriptures - our heritage, our life, the very substance of who we are, the very hope of who we will be, the very charity of Christ.

She is not perfect. But then did anyone ever think she would be? "Of course not," I hear, "but that imperfect?"

The Church has had truly miserable moments in her history as well as truly glorious ones. She has been both adulterous and faithful, murderer and Mother. Sometimes more miserable than glorious. But as I rise to condemn her, I realize that I am she.

Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.