Monday, October 23, 2006

Why I Am Catholic

I love the concreteness of Catholicism, the reality of it. In it, I touch and smell and taste. Yet it remains faith. Invading me through my senses, it captures all of me.

It embraces things created and, through them, sees its Creator, refusing to separate the material from the mystical. It is ash, leaf, and oil; it is water and fire; it is bread and wine - and these very material things are the vehicles and accidents of the mystical. The tangible conveys the intangible. The visible unveils the invisible. Catholicism is incarnational.

The formative years of my faith were spent as an evangelical Christian. There, I learned of Jesus' love for me. Now, as a Catholic Christian, I am staggered by His touch.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

The posts in this series are not meant as theological treatises on Catholicism and its "rightness." Rather the posts are to be, in some sense, descriptions of my joy and discovery, as best as I can frame them now.

Of course, I will be happy to have conversation about any theological implications that arise in the posts, here in the comments.

Hope said...

Staggered here too.

truevyne said...

Dear Scott,
I found salvation in my first church home. I understood the meaning of true community in my second. In my third, I felt His touch. In my fourth, I suppose I'm learning a greater lesson on obedience.
Though I am not Catholic, I have found peace in suffering there.