15 years ago today, Bryan Cross became a Catholic. And then, the rest of that immediate family did as well. I would not have become Catholic without Bryan and Carol, and the grace they came to me through them. It's not really about them, though. It's about God, and His mercy.
Without prejudice to what is going on of great value in the other Christian communities, and communities in other religions, it sure seems like God is calling his children back to the Catholic Church. Granted, the Church's apologists have celebrated converts from day one. Also, the Protestant separations are particularly painful for us here in the West, but also for everyone united to the successor of Peter.
I was just thinking that all of us will probably be joyfully stunned by the way God has used us to touch people with the good news of Jesus. In my mind, it was like when you're watching a football game, and they show a "coaching tree" that stems from a coach they want to praise. Sometimes, they do it with quarterbacks, particularly with those who have attained a legendary status while they still play. Bryan Cross's coaching tree is really big.
Believe it or not, there are people who don't like him. More than that, they don't like the apostolic work he has done. For a Catholic audience, I might have said, "They don't like the fruit of his apostolate," but frankly, I didn't even know that word until I became a Catholic, so I chose "apostolic". If the frustration with that work is rooted in a firm commitment of conscience, I suppose I cannot object. But I do think that circumstances are causing Christian people to re-examine the solidity of particular commitments with regard to dogma that may be said to be keeping them out of full communion with the Catholic Church.
All of us must commit ourselves to continuing to be attentive to the voice of the Holy Spirit, especially in Sacred Scripture, and if we find that God who cannot lie is prompting our hearts to ask questions we cannot answer, we must find the answer, no matter what it costs. And it is not a nebulous quest for "my truth" and "your truth," because the Blessed Trinity is a God of order. The God of the Bible is the God of history. The reason history--so to speak--pulls one away from the Protestant Reformation is that the God of faithfulness never stopped speaking, never stopped preserving his people, and never stopped preserving the dogmas which they would profess. And it is a mistake to read the Scriptures against the Catholic Church, because the Scriptures ultimately are the voice of that God speaking to that people--His family--in the house that he built for them. More than this, the Church is the house that we are.
Let me stop speaking poetically, and bring it back to the brute facts. Without a mechanism to preserve what amounts to a "counter-dogma," there is no reason to suppose that any contrary opinion has any divine sanction or force. I myself did not know what to do with the edifice of what appeared to be the Catholic Church and its dogmas, before considering its authority. I do know that without knowing that my counterclaims were rooted ultimately in divine speech and authority, it would have been unreasonable to continue holding them as true in conscience, in matters so grave as these. As a result, the most sensible thing to do is to return to what is known in common. Either God is the origin of everything held in common, or human beings are the ultimate origin of everything that is common, and everything that is distinct. Yet if human beings are ultimately the origin of what is purportedly supernatural, that is a naturalism which ends in atheism. Atheism, it goes without saying, is not an acceptable option for those who believe in Jesus Christ. Therefore, we must find and acknowledge any structure or authority that we find which preserves dogma that we know and hold in common. We will find later that we have to decide what is a legitimate development, and what is an accretion, but we don't actually have to work too hard to find the ancient Church. They wrote to us, and to each other. This is not news for many of you. When it starts to show a coherence and a pattern which challenges our own assumptions about our continuity with the ancient Church, then it can become very challenging indeed.
I did not intend to write a treatise. Suffice it to say, my favorite thing about being a friend of Bryan Cross, and a good number of his associates--familial and otherwise--is our unity in the truth. We continue to share the goal of uniting all Christians in one Church, not only conceptually, but visibly. This is my hope, and this is my thankfulness for this day.
Without prejudice to what is going on of great value in the other Christian communities, and communities in other religions, it sure seems like God is calling his children back to the Catholic Church. Granted, the Church's apologists have celebrated converts from day one. Also, the Protestant separations are particularly painful for us here in the West, but also for everyone united to the successor of Peter.
I was just thinking that all of us will probably be joyfully stunned by the way God has used us to touch people with the good news of Jesus. In my mind, it was like when you're watching a football game, and they show a "coaching tree" that stems from a coach they want to praise. Sometimes, they do it with quarterbacks, particularly with those who have attained a legendary status while they still play. Bryan Cross's coaching tree is really big.
Believe it or not, there are people who don't like him. More than that, they don't like the apostolic work he has done. For a Catholic audience, I might have said, "They don't like the fruit of his apostolate," but frankly, I didn't even know that word until I became a Catholic, so I chose "apostolic". If the frustration with that work is rooted in a firm commitment of conscience, I suppose I cannot object. But I do think that circumstances are causing Christian people to re-examine the solidity of particular commitments with regard to dogma that may be said to be keeping them out of full communion with the Catholic Church.
All of us must commit ourselves to continuing to be attentive to the voice of the Holy Spirit, especially in Sacred Scripture, and if we find that God who cannot lie is prompting our hearts to ask questions we cannot answer, we must find the answer, no matter what it costs. And it is not a nebulous quest for "my truth" and "your truth," because the Blessed Trinity is a God of order. The God of the Bible is the God of history. The reason history--so to speak--pulls one away from the Protestant Reformation is that the God of faithfulness never stopped speaking, never stopped preserving his people, and never stopped preserving the dogmas which they would profess. And it is a mistake to read the Scriptures against the Catholic Church, because the Scriptures ultimately are the voice of that God speaking to that people--His family--in the house that he built for them. More than this, the Church is the house that we are.
Let me stop speaking poetically, and bring it back to the brute facts. Without a mechanism to preserve what amounts to a "counter-dogma," there is no reason to suppose that any contrary opinion has any divine sanction or force. I myself did not know what to do with the edifice of what appeared to be the Catholic Church and its dogmas, before considering its authority. I do know that without knowing that my counterclaims were rooted ultimately in divine speech and authority, it would have been unreasonable to continue holding them as true in conscience, in matters so grave as these. As a result, the most sensible thing to do is to return to what is known in common. Either God is the origin of everything held in common, or human beings are the ultimate origin of everything that is common, and everything that is distinct. Yet if human beings are ultimately the origin of what is purportedly supernatural, that is a naturalism which ends in atheism. Atheism, it goes without saying, is not an acceptable option for those who believe in Jesus Christ. Therefore, we must find and acknowledge any structure or authority that we find which preserves dogma that we know and hold in common. We will find later that we have to decide what is a legitimate development, and what is an accretion, but we don't actually have to work too hard to find the ancient Church. They wrote to us, and to each other. This is not news for many of you. When it starts to show a coherence and a pattern which challenges our own assumptions about our continuity with the ancient Church, then it can become very challenging indeed.
I did not intend to write a treatise. Suffice it to say, my favorite thing about being a friend of Bryan Cross, and a good number of his associates--familial and otherwise--is our unity in the truth. We continue to share the goal of uniting all Christians in one Church, not only conceptually, but visibly. This is my hope, and this is my thankfulness for this day.
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