My story (part VI)

On with the story . . . I'll see if I can wrap this up in one or two posts.   :)

So I left off with our family attending weekly Mass here in Wisconsin. It's a thriving community here. I was doing my best to be open to whatever God has for me, even if it means swallowing my pride and any preconceived notions of what Christianity is supposed to look like.

Meanwhile, I was growing little baby Mace inside my womb. I was concentrating my energies on growing a healthy baby and educating the older three.

Things began to stabilize a bit after Mace wasn't quite a newborn anymore and I again told Doug that I'd be open to start reading some early church documents on various topics. He purchased Crossing the Tiber by Steve Ray (at my suggestion) and The Fathers Know Best by Jimmy Aiken. The first half of Crossing the Tiber is the conversion story of Ray and his wife. The second half covers baptism and the Eucharist, the big items for the Rays. The second book is basically a compilation of writings from the early church on various topics, especially those most troublesome to Protestants. Crossing the Tiber was very good and I found no problems there. Fathers Know Best is, of course, not light bedtime reading. It has to be taken slowly, like medicine. I've read a good chunk of it but it is easy to get bogged down. But still it was very good for me to begin to read the actual words of the first church fathers.

Clearly I could see from reading the documents that yes, indeed these Catholic doctrines are historical. They all go right back to new testament times. I honestly could not hold to Protestant doctrines that developed over 1000 years later. I found that I cannot, with a clean conscience, hold onto a Christianity that isn't historical. Christianity started with Jesus Christ, who died in 33 AD, and the apostles to whom he passed on the torch. I found it obvious that Christianity couldn't have been "renewed" with rebellious a German monk in 1522 AD.  There couldn't possibly had been some vacuum in the church for one thousand, five hundred years.  I can't imagine a God who'd allow His Church to run amok for one thousand, five hundred years. Something  must have been happening during that millennium and a half.

The other large items on my mind at the time were the canon of Scripture and the notion of sola scriptura. I'm not a brilliant theological mind or history expert but the Protestant ideas here didn't hold their weight on these issues either. One can easily dig up that the canon of Scripture (the official list of what documents were considered "inspired") were finalized at the Councils of Hippo and Carthage. The Council of Hippo took place in 393 AD and the Council of Carthage took place in 397 and 419 AD. Goodness gracious, that is 350 years after the death of Jesus. That's a long time!! That is longer than the United States has been the United States. So how did the "Bible church" function for over 350 years? Clearly there was no "Bible church" yet because there was no Bible. Yes, letters were read to the community and the Old Testament was read in the synagogue  but there was no compiled canon yet.

So how did Christ's Church survive for over three hundred years? By the power of God! Didn't our Lord tell Peter, that the gates of Hell can't even prevail against His church?  How in particular did the Church survive? Oral tradition. Ack, that's a scary word for Protestants, right? Tradition.

So here' s a question: "What is, as Christians, our pillar and bulwark of truth?"

Paul writes in I Timothy 3:15 that "the household of God, which is the church of the living God, (is) the pillar and bulwark of truth."

Wow! So not the Bible alone? Not sola scriptura. Paul clearly says that it isn't the Bible alone that is our cornerstone of truth. It is His Church. Here are some more places where we can see in the Bible itself that sola scriptura isn't Biblical.

Ephesians 3:10 "that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known"

I Thessalonians 3:6.  Paul says "Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is living in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us."

II Thessalonians 2:15. Here Paul states that the tradition could be either written or oral "So then, brethern, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter."

Finally, we can see Paul referring to Timothy about passing the teachings down through four generations.  "What you have heard from me before many witnesses, entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also." II Timothy 2:2  (4 generations: Paul, Timothy, the people Timothy would teach, and the ones they in turn would teach).

So as Christians, we stand firm on the authority and power that God gives us in His written word. But scary as it might be, He also gives power to His Church. And what "church" might that be?  All of them? Or one in particular? Or all of them AND one in particular?  Hmm.  Good question.

Aaaahh, its tough to open all these cans of worms and then just leave them there to just wiggle around.  But I'm trying to focus on my story. These were the thoughts running around in my mind. I'm not really out to try to convince anyone that the Catholic Church is the right church. I'm just here to share my journey and the questions that have arisen in my mind in particular.

I hope I am not skipping around here too much so that I'm not making any sense but I suppose that is how my story does unfold. Life is busy and it does tend to skip around, doesn't it?  But I suppose the question of authority is a natural one. Where does our lense to interpret Scripture come from? It matters. A lot.

So anyways, I read the Steven Ray book and also chunks of the ancient documents from the church fathers. Other than that, I just kept living and praying for guidance. After a while I had a hunch. I had always assumed that I absolutely needed to research every detail thoroughly before I could make any decision about the Catholic Church. But realistically I knew that would be impossible. I would not be able to do that sort of investigation for years and years. Truth is serious business. It's essential to search for it and hold tight to it until end of your days. If the Catholic Church was true, then I knew I must sign up even if that prospect was undesirable for me. But I couldn't do a PhD on the subject at my place in life.

Oh yes, so my hunch. At some point in this last year, I got this hunch that the question for me all centered on the Eucharist. The claims of the Catholic Church about the Eucharist is really what sets it apart from all other parts of Christendom (in my opinion. well, that and the claim to authority). I had this intuition that if I found the Eucharist to really, truly be the actual body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ, then the Catholic Church would be the "most true" room. I was living in Catholic-land and much of this land I could accept BUT the Eucharist. Phew, that's a tough one to swallow. Jesus Christ himself in that little round wafer up there? Hmm. Don't know about that. I wholeheartedly agreed with Jesus's disciples when they murmured "This is hard saying; who can listen to it?"  (John 6:60)




To be continued . . . soon