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A P.S. To The Last

I wanted to openly say in my last post that the part about Jesus wanting to perpetuate the sacrifice of the Cross really does trip the Reformation antennae that I still have, and God-willing, will never lose. When I stated the objection previously, I don't do it for the easy pickings; I want you to understand that I think the "once for all" objection to the theology of our Eucharistic faith is a good objection, one that I myself made. Let me belabor the point: I'm sympathetic to that objection; frankly, I'm sympathetic to the whole bloody Reformed faith, if you will pardon the pun. I do not consider myself to have renounced having been Reformed, insofar as it is true. In fact, if you are Reformed, everything we could disagree about is in that "insofar." You are talking to a man who loved and still loves everything about it...insofar. I'm sure Bouyer was the same way. Are you kidding me? I've loved so deeply, it's a wonder that I haven't died. If you didn't know, then I failed you, and I ask your forgiveness.

I really like Dr. Peter Leithart's insights (and those of others) as they endeavor to create (or recover) a more rooted, richer non-Catholicism. But that's just it: You're going to find Britain, to borrow a phrase from Uncle Gilbert. Maybe you don't even want to; I totally get that. But you will. It's not cheap apologetics, or manipulation; it's just the truth. And it's rooted in the reality of the one God in three Persons, and uniquely Him who became incarnate as our Savior. We are inevitably moving either toward doubt, alienation, fragmentation, atheism, and death, or toward Christ and His Church. As we enter more deeply into the work of recovery, we are actively opposing--doubtless unwittingly at first--the individualist principle intrinsic to the Protestant revolt.

I find it highly appealing, mind you. If I have sharply criticized any of its leading lights on these pages, it is not because I harbor animus, but rather the reverse. I do not want those who have greatly helped me to be like the man who has slammed right into the spiritual house of the Catholic Church--his own house--but continues to insist against all evidence that he has done so. He may well be a brilliant mind, a great ecclesial and theological John Nash, if I may, but he is alone, alienated by his idiosyncrasy, and charmed by his own cleverness.

I know this: Everything the Church calls "the motives of credibility"--the reasons to believe--is charged with the love of the Incarnate Word, who walked, lived, and died for us. Indeed, He ever lives! This is why I can say in full honesty that moving from Reformed to Catholic is not, and never will be, outright rejection of the former. Just call us Calvin's Catholics, for that is what we are.

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