Continuing to Grow

September 4, 2012.  My 32nd birthday, and the day that Matt asked me to do him the highest honor, and be his wife.  Matt agreed to being married in a church BY the beach, even though he would rather have been married ON the beach.  We compromised and he got to wear leather flip flops instead of real shoes.  (I mean, really, it's the beach!)  

 

During our planning, we made the decision to go to Pre-Cana through the Catholic Church, and also do pre-marital counseling through Matt's church, Port City Community Church, aka PC3.  I was very nervous about who our marriage mentors would be, and prayed that God would assign us the perfect couple for our "situation".  I was nervous I would be shunned for being Catholic.   

In keeping with God's constant faithfulness, our mentors were perfect for us.  They never once made me feel uncomfortable for being Catholic.  They were supportive, and helped us talk through our faith differences.  I'll never forget a particular meeting where we were discussing our concerns, and "Mr. Marriage Mentor" was earnestly trying to help us get to the bottom of it.  Finally he looked at Matt and asked, "Does it really bother you that she confesses her sins to Jesus through the priest?  She's still seeking Jesus' forgiveness."  

I think the most awesome moment for me, was being able to share my relationship with Our Lady, aka Mary the Mother of God.  I think she is one of the most misunderstood aspects of Catholic teaching.  I was able to share that she is our Mother, because she is Jesus' Mother, and He is our Brother.  In keeping with the commandments, Jesus honored her, and so should we.  There is a difference between honor and worship.  They had never heard that explanation before, and they didn't judge me for it.  They showed me nothing but Love.    

They gave us the permission to "place in common what we have received from our respective communities, and learn from each other the way in which we each live in fidelity to Christ."

We know that God never intended for His Church to be so divided, I think any Christian would admit to that.  The division is a result of humans being left to their own devices.  Jesus never said that the "Catholic Church" is the only way to get to Heaven.  On the same token, he doesn't ever say that the "Baptist Church" is the only way to get to Heaven.  (Insert any Christian denomination into that equation.)  He says, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me."  

Please don't misunderstand me, there is always a time and a place for discussion and debate regarding doctrine.  Listening to Catholic and Protestant leaders debate has actually helped me understand both sides better.  (If you would be interested in these debates, any discussions with Dr. Scott Hahn representing the Catholic perspective would be a trustworthy resource.)

Someone once asked Mother Theresa "What has to change in the Church?"   Her response was  "You and I".  We all need to turn our hearts towards Jesus, so that we may more fully understand the way we each worship Him.  This isn't an easy task, but it is necessary.  

St. John Paul II wrote in his encyclical Ut Unum Sint:

"Christ calls all his disciples to unity. My earnest desire is to renew this call today, to propose it once more with determination, repeating what I said at the Roman Colosseum on Good Friday 1994, at the end of the meditation on the Via Crucis prepared by my Venerable Brother Bartholomew, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. There I stated that believers in Christ, united in following in the footsteps of the martyrs, cannot remain divided. If they wish truly and effectively to oppose the world's tendency to reduce to powerlessness the Mystery of Redemption, they must profess together the same truth about the Cross.¹ The Cross! An anti-Christian outlook seeks to minimize the Cross, to empty it of its meaning, and to deny that in it man has the source of his new life. It claims that the Cross is unable to provide either vision or hope. Man, it says, is nothing but an earthly being, who must live as if God did not exist.

No one is unaware of the challenge which all this poses to believers. They cannot fail to meet this challenge. Indeed, how could they refuse to do everything possible, with God's help, to break down the walls of division and distrust, to overcome obstacles and prejudices which thwart the proclamation of the Gospel of salvation in the Cross of Jesus, the one Redeemer of man, of every individual?"

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25051995_ut-unum-sint_en.html

This last week, I realized that not everyone is going to come around.  There will always be people on the Catholic side and on the Protestant side who choose to focus on what separates us, rather than what brings us together.  That is unfortunate... but I am not going to let that stop me.  We must "respond with generosity and holiness to the calls and challenges of our time." ~St. John Paul II

Learning to Love

Early January 2011, I headed to a party at a friend's house.  I opened the sliding glass door and stepped inside.  As I scanned the room, I noticed this tall, dark and handsome man at the other side, but continued in to greet my friends since "guys like that never like me anyways."  

After a short time, we ended up standing back to back in two different conversations, when Matt overheard me talking about my love for the Washington Redskins.  He turned to engage me in conversation and high five me over our shared love of the greatest team in the history of the NFL.  (What? You don't agree?)  The evening progressed with conversations of ocean life and C.S. Lewis.  He drove me home that night, and I was officially smitten.  

A few days later, he called to tell me that he was currently in the process of ending a relationship, and couldn't, in right conscience, begin dating me at that time.  DEVASTATED.  Of course this great Christian man couldn't date ME.  That was the name of the game for me at that time.  He was going on a surf trip and was planning to take the 10 days as an opportunity to do some soul searching.  I decided to pray a novena for him during that time, and had accepted that I was just praying for this man, with the very good chance that a relationship between us wouldn't happen.  (A Novena is a form of worship consisting of special prayers on nine successive days.)

Long story short, he returned from the surf trip, officially ended the other relationship (they were already taking a break), and our first date was January 29.  That February he gave me 4 dozen roses for Valentine's Day.  In March he told me he loved me, and by April, I was catching the bouquet at my sister's wedding.  

As our relationship progressed, we knew we wanted to get married... except there was just one problem.  He was Protestant and I was Catholic.  EGADS!  I became more intense about "the importance of making sure Matt knew everything he could know about the Catholic faith."  I gave him a journal in which I had written down all my favorite prayers, and why my Catholic faith was important to me.  I made him listen to Scott Hahn's conversion story on CD.  After one "argument", I grabbed my bible and started bombarding him with Scripture.  That is never a good way to communicate, but that's the thing, I didn't know how to properly communicate my beliefs.  In the past, I was always defending myself against the misconceptions so many people have about the Catholic Church.  I could never just explain, I was always defending.  

We finally realized it had to stop.  If we were going to make it, we had to have a serious conversation about our future.  Matt took the matter to the Lord in prayer, and I did what any good Catholic girl would do, I grabbed my Catechism!  (Don't worry, I prayed too.)  We sat down to have our meeting, glass of wine in hand, and I read to him straight from the catechism what the Church has to say to couples like us.  "Differences of confession between the spouses does not constitute an insurmountable obstacle for marriage, when they succeed in placing in common what they have received from their respective communities, and learn from each other the way in which each lives in fidelity to Christ."  

Wow... and there you have it.  This is how Catholic and non-Catholic Christians should be treating each other.  Focusing on what we have in common, respecting one another, and learning from each other.  The Protest is over.  It's time for a season of unity.

I fully understand that sometimes that can be easier said than done.  We had to have difficult conversations about how we would raise our children.  It was hard, and it's still hard.  You have to make compromises, and you have to really evaluate what's important.  It takes a lot of prayer and humility, but it IS possible to love your way through disagreements and differences with Christ's love.

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; 5 it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; 10 but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. 13 So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love."  (1 Corinthians 13)