How Pope Benedict XVI made me Catholic and some insights during Adoration
Be kind to others, forgive other, preach the gospel
Let me pause just for a moment and speak about something from my own past which may help us understand why not everyone sees the Eucharist for what it is. I know first hand, from experience, that not everyone believes this, because I didn’t believe it either. About twenty years ago I was speaking to a chaplain who was Catholic. We were discussing the Eucharist and the need to be married in the Church and that if I were to get married I should marry a Catholic or that the person I marry should convert. I wasn’t fully Catholic at that time and was only baptized Catholic. I hadn’t been confirmed or received first holy communion. I wasn’t really going to church except on occassion. My girlfriend, now wife, and I were looking to be married but she was an evangelical Christian and I just a lapsed sort of Catholic. My blinders were on and didn’t want to see what this Catholic priest were telling me. He told me in very plain language the truth of the Eucharist. For some reason I couldn’t see what he was saying. I didn’t want to see it. Some ten years later I did return and finally became confirmed, went to confession (ouch) and received holy communion. Had I known that if I hadn’t been baptized when I was younger I could have avoided that first confession… For all the Catholics who came into the church at a later age and received baptism they know what I’m saying, forty years of sin wiped away. Nice. But in all seriousness I believe that a Catholic who is baptized young has a grace with them as we are taught, an indelible mark, and it is this mark that brings us back. We need more baptism, not less. This was Easter 2013. Not too long after that Pope Benedict XVI resigned the Papacy. Pope Benedict was a main reason for my conversion I believe or reversion. I am a revert more that a convert, it just took me longer to get there.
There were two things I believe were pivotal moments in my life that reverted me. One, in 2005 while in Iraq, Pope Benedict became Pope after the passing of Saint Pope John Paul II. I remember being in the chow hall and I saw images of Pope Benedict while watching the news and almost started weeping for reasons I didn’t understand. I couldn’t hear the audio but could see the headlines that there was a new Pope. I kept my emotions in check and hid my odd bout of joy. This I believe was the first thing, just the image of Pope Benedict drew me into the church. Then, maybe a few years later while still not practicing I started praying for the Pope, the Bishops and the Priests of the church. I don’t know why I did, but I did. I was being drawn into the church. After that, it was game over, I rapidly found myself seeing things differently. Previously, when speaking to the Chaplian, the Catholic priest, about the Eucharist, I could not see or hear what he was saying, which was pretty basic stuff. He was telling me that it says in the bible you must eat the flesh and drink the blood of the son of man. Then, some ten years later, I could see. The difference was the grace of God, that can be the only explanation. One day in 2012 I stumbled into a Catholic church and sat in the back. It was very odd to be there and I felt so out of place. After Mass, I found a deacon who I thought was the priest and said I wanted to learn about coming back to the church. He had no idea what a mess I was at that moment, so confused, and he nonchalantly said, all you have to do is go to RCIA. I didn’t know what that was. When I went to RCIA I was asked why did I now want to become Catholic. I replied “the Eucharist.” Ever since then, the Eucharist has been at the center of my faith. I share this because I know first hand that one may not see the truth at first so we have to be patient and that there is something that blinds us one day but through God’s grace we are allowed to see the next. And by the way many think this means we must be cannibals. Are Catholics cannibals? The short answer is no, we are not. We cannot understand what it means exactly that Jesus said to us we must eat the flesh and drink the blood but that he also says the flesh avails nothing. The spiritual aspect of the Eucharist is the food we are consuming, the Lamb of God, in a fashion likened to the Jewish people who ate the lamb that they killed; and it was from this lamb they used the blood on their doorposts so that their home was passed over.
Recently, I had the pleasure to go to Eucharistic Adoration. I’ve gone to adoration many times but this time was different. Many times I feel the presence of God there but this time I felt a wave of the presence of God like the ocean. One wave would come and then go away only to be replaced by another wave. I cannot tell you in words the powerful presence of God that was with me. I experienced a sense of relaxation I haven’t felt in years. I was practically falling asleep while not feeling tired. When I say I was relaxed that doesn’t do it justice. I was sinking into my chair and was fully awake but at the same time asleep. I was in a deep trance like state and didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world at the time. It’s funny there was only six people in the room. The church is on a busy street and you can hear cars going fast and loud engines revving up and cars taking off quickly at the lights. My thoughts drifted to all the people outside, most not realizing that there are six people who believe Jesus is present with us just a short distance away. There was wave after wave of the presence of God with me and I was there for what seemed like a short time but ended up being an hour and a half.
I asked the Lord what He would have me do. His reply was what I think He would tell all of us: be kind to others, preach the gospel to whoever will listen and forgive as we are taught to do in the Our Father.
Be kind to others? That is hard task number one. Does that mean I have to smile and talk to people? Do I have to listen to what they are saying or can I just nod my head and say “hmmm, interesting” or “uh huh” from time to time? I prefer writing but I’ll give it a go. But being kind to others means we follow the golden rule of doing to others as we would have them do to us. Being kind to others is an unnatural act. I mean I’m not mean to others but to be kind… I don’t know.
What about the second one, to preach the gospel? Hard task number two. Who will listen to me and why would they? What is the gospel? That’s a serious question. If someone said “preach the gospel to me please” what would you say? And how to preach? Should we go out onto a street corner or just keep it to the confines of church? And isn’t preaching someone else’s job? We can share the gospel with others who we meet. Do we confuse others because we love God but we are sinners. We love God but don’t preach the gospel, is that confusing? We love going to Mass but we don’t invite others. Why? It’s a tradition of the church that Catecumens (those who are preparing to enter the church) leave before the liturgy of the Eucharist so I don’t know how that would work anyways. If you invited a co-worker to Mass do we leave before the liturgy of the Eucharist? Can you imagine inviting someone to Mass just for the bible reading and the homily? That would be the surest way for them to not want to return. Someone who is not Catholic wouldn’t understand the Mass and it could even be a turn off for them becaue they might feel excluded.
Evangelical Christians invite others to their services. I loved going to evangelical services. There was a coffee bar and I could bring my coffee into the service. People were laughing and smiling which is not very Catholic. We’re serious, no laughing allowed. But wasn’t it David who danced before the presence of our Lord? There was a great rock concert and then some dude talked for an hour. Didn’t like that part. But then the rock guys came back out and it was fun again. So, how do we Catholics preach the gospel in a meaningful way which I believe would include getting them to join us at Mass? What if we had “protestant” services for non Catholics before Mass or on Wednesdays? Music and the preaching of the word. Why not? We could even include Eucharistic Adoration. How we “preach the gospel” is a bit of a problem. We won’t even baptize you until you’ve suffered through RCIA for six or more months. Something to think about, I’m not saying anythig definitive nor trying to be negative, but how do we actually do it? That is the question. If you’re answer is to do the same thing, how has that been going for us? Why are we not out there more doing more? If I weren’t a Catholic I may ask myself if Catholics believe what they say they believe since they don’t preach the gospel and they don’t invite me to church. Now, of course, we do preach the gospel and we do invite others to Mass but we don’t really do that at the same time. We kind of just focus on our own walk and don’t worry much about others. Right now, protestants are our feeder church. They do the work of preaching the gospel, baptizing and they get butts in seats. Do we do the same? How many people became Catholic over Easter at your church? One, two maybe? It seems if there are hundreds of thousands or even millions of people in your town or city it should be more than one or two. This is my deficit too. I am a sinner and need to do better. How can I be nice to others if I don’t share the gospel with them in some way even if I don’t use words?
The last one was a call to forgive others? Another difficult thing to do. We like to hold onto to our spite, it comforts us. The Our Father prays to God to “forgive us our sins as we forgive others…”. If we withhold forgiveness, does God withhold His forgiveness from us? If we forgive does that mean God forgives us? Or does “forgive us our sins as we forgive others” mean that we, humans, forgive, so we ask God to also forgive? What does it mean to ask God to forgive us as we forgive others? I wrote in an earlier post how forgiveness is at the heart of the gosepl because ultimately it is us who are being forgiven and so we need to also forgive. How can we expect forgiveness if we do not forgive? As Jesus taught us about the man who begged for forgiveness over a large debt but then was brutal towards another who only owed him a little and that is how it is with us. We are forgiven a great deal but we do not want to forgive Sally May Johnson who didn’t say hi to us once while at the coffee maker in the break room and it’s been twenty years since we spoke to her. “And I’ll be damned if I ever speak to her again” we say. Maybe, we will.
Being in the presence of the Eucharist gives one perspective but it is fleeting and when we re-enter the world we forget the simplicity that comes with God. There is nothing to want for nothing is like God. If there is a God shaped hole in your heart, Jesus says in the Gospel of Mark “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
What is the gospel? St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:1–4:
Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you — unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.
And that’s pretty cool because if Christ died and resurrected from the dead and then ascended into Heaven, and if He said we can also go there, then that is something worth sharing.