Do You Flinch At The Confidence Of Tradition-minded Catholics? If so,... .

St Luke 5:1-11 | While the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret. And he saw two boats by the lake; but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat. And when he had ceased speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” And when they had done this, they enclosed a great shoal of fish; and as their nets were breaking, they beckoned to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the catch of fish which they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; henceforth you will be catching men.” And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.

Duc in altum

Many Ordinariate Catholics—former Anglicans, Methodists, and others—who cooperated with the Holy Spirit and the Bishop of Rome, Pope Benedict, to be more specific, to found the Ordinariates, gave up the familiarity and security of their former parishes to embrace the Catholic Faith. Clergy, with no guarantee of continuing as clergy, and laity together launched out into the deep, trusting in God's providential care. Their commitment to this new journey reflects a profound desire for spiritual authenticity and unity within the Church. Embracing their rich traditions while integrating into the Catholic community, they have become a vibrant testament to faith and resilience.

Diocesan Catholics, among whom this blogger was a former member, who seek reverence, spiritual depth, and beauty—specifically those who have undergone a second conversion (such as to the transcendentals of God)—find these qualities in traditional liturgies of the Ordinariate, in communities offering the older form of the Latin Mass (e.g., FSSP, ICKSP, IBP, Canons Regular of St. John Cantius), and in the various ancient liturgies of the Eastern Rite Catholic Churches.

Encounters

Given the uneven formation of Catholics of the past sixty years, it makes sense that some or even many diocesan Catholics could be perplexed or even intimidated by the fervour for which Catholics in the Personal Ordinariates established by the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus are known. Similarly, diocesan parishioners are frequently puzzled by Catholics attached to the older (Latin) form of the Mass.

The following two stories are intended to present for readers accounts of how important authentic catechesis is for supporting recent converts, and for nurturing in cradle Catholics a heart and mind united in a confident commitment to Christ and Church. These narratives highlight the need for authentic deep and ongoing catechesis.

1. Lens of Ignorance

A former Catholic and before that an evangelical protestant, received into the Church some ten years ago, now a member of a non-Catholic English-speaking Byzantine community, tends to defend his apostasy by noting the many beautiful aspects of his newish experience but does so with a hint of condescension, a triumphalism without merit. His enthusiasm is tinted with a hint of insecurity, a need to defend a choice by passively denigrating an experience that required a larger investment from everybody, catechists included, to sustain his conversion to Christ and His Catholic Church.

"Now wait a minute..." objects the disputant. "Catholics frequently strut their superiority!" Not founded by men in the 16th century nor by eastern patriarchs whose communities had frequently fallen into heresy while Rome remained orthodox, the Catholic Church founded by Jesus is superior by the fact that Jesus promised to protect the Church that He, the Messiah, established upon Peter. Unlike all eastern patriarchates of the non-Catholic kind, the Church of Rome has never taught (ex cathedra) heresy. Roman pontiffs presided over all clergy and people until proud men decided they knew better. That charge applies to non-Catholic easterners as much as to Protestants.

To be sure, some Catholics have behaved badly toward eastern non-Catholics and Protestants. That said, bad or even atrocious behavior does not diminish the reality that all Christians are called to visible unity with Christ and His Church, i.e., the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, shepherded by the Bishop of Rome and those bishops in communion with him.

The person who is the topic of this section, a former evangelical Protestant, was not well catechized. The product of a diocesan parish RCIA/OCIA program, historical and liturgical formation was shallow at best. No wonder he left for a community adorned with many beautiful customs and most of the Apostolic Faith but not all of the Catholic and Apostolic Faith found only with Peter and his successors. Perhaps if he had drifted nearer to an Ordinariate parish or a Byzantine Catholic parish, he may have been persuaded to stay. His diocesan experience did little to provide him with the substance needed to navigate the call of God and to keep him in the Catholic fold.

Many evangelicals gravitate toward eastern "Orthodoxy" because it is not Roman. Little do they realize that the other sui juris churches (autonomous eastern churches in Catholic communion) are in communion with Rome or returned to communion with Rome precisely because being out-of-communion with the Church that Jesus founded is practically untenable at best and an affront to God at worst. Jesus prayed,

John 17:21-23 | I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me.

Many former evangelicals who have entered non-Catholic communities have not repented of a subtle bigotry. It is difficult to point out that particular condition of mind to someone who is snared by an ecclesial experience reinforced by centuries of hostility and insecurity, a habit of mind hosted to defend schism. One wonders if the SSPX, known for its rigorous traditionalism, will remain in the fold or drift sideways as non-Catholic easterners have done. The SSPX, populated by disaffected Catholics and well-meaning rebels, is at risk of succumbing to a toxic religiosity that appears orthodox but lacks the virtue of authentic unity with the Church. That said, diocesan communities could benefit from an increase in zeal founded on love for Tradition, the Gospel unvarnished, that communities like the SSPX and the non-Catholic eastern communities demonstrate.

Why Catholicism and Not Eastern Orthodoxy?

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrkakBDT2bo&t=17s

Biblical Evidence for Catholicism

• https://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/

2. Lens of Fear

A diocesan Catholic acquaintance seems quite content with her lukewarm religiosity. She lacks an appreciation for liturgical depth and beauty. With one exception, her children are nominally Catholic. Her marriage is sound, some 40 years. Her husband has remained Protestant. He has felt no need to convert because his wife capitulated somewhat and accommodated his point of view.

Now a member of an association of lay Catholics known for promoting a strong devotional life, it seems she suffers from a disconnect between liturgical life and the practice of the Faith. Virtuous behaviour is promoted, but aside from an awareness of the need to fulfill the Sunday obligation, there is little appreciation for liturgical integrity or liturgical spirituality, i.e., that which enables the soul to find her Lord in the Holy Eucharist, our supersubstantial daily Bread.

She is currently mentoring a man, a non-practicing Anglican, whose wife claims to be an atheist.

The mentor and subject of this section and her husband practiced artificial contraception from their late twenties until she reached menopause. As mentioned, her own children, save one, do not practice their faith. One child is living in sin; another is engaged to an atheist and they are planning to move in together before marriage. A third is married but rarely attends Mass. The youngest attends Mass with mom. Mom is pained by the falling away of her other children.

How, you might ask, does she hope to mentor others when her own family has been so poorly catechized? Mass, for her—if her own actions are any indication—is more a social affair, and being a catechist of sorts affords her the opportunity to reclaim her identity and confidence. If religion were a social media app, she would likely adopt a description of herself as an "influencer."

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

It would seem that these days catechists are a dime a dozen, as frequent as extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion (EMHC) and about as effective. Do we really need additional lay catechists (and EMHCs)? No, if being a catechist means teaching others to compromise and to avoid the soul-saving demands of the Faith that faith in Christ requires.

Saint John Henry Newman | How the devil gains control of a person, or a society.

Do you think he is so unskillful in his craft, as to ask you openly and plainly to join him in his warfare against the Truth? No; he offers you baits to tempt you. He promises you civil liberty; he promises you equality; he promises you trade and wealth; he promises you a remission of taxes; he promises you reform. This is the way in which he conceals from you the kind of work to which he is putting you; he tempts you to rail against your rulers and superiors; he does so himself, and induces you to imitate him; or he promises you illumination, he offers you knowledge, science, philosophy, enlargement of mind. He scoffs at times gone by; he scoffs at every institution which reveres them. He prompts you what to say, and then listens to you, and praises you, and encourages you. He bids you mount aloft. He shows you how to become as gods. Then he laughs and jokes with you, and gets intimate with you; he takes your hand, and gets his fingers between yours, and grasps them, and then you are his.

The world is replete with examples of Catholics who have succumbed to the temptation to compromise with the world and are miserable for having done so. To their way of thinking, the only relief is to stop going to Church because they feel a self-constructed shame and wish to avoid any reminders of their laxity, or they become obstinate and demand that others must respect their right to act as they deem fit, i.e., in a way that allows them to indulge their compromises and refusal to live according to the Gospel. "I'm a good person. God will forgive me."

A Confidence Hard Won

To be an Ordinariate Catholic, any Catholic, that is, is to think with the Church (sentire cum ecclesia) and to embrace fully her teaching. Inspired by those who have returned to the Catholic fold from Anglicanism, Methodism, and other communities, the faithful disciple adheres to the teaching of Christ and does not pretend that the Faith is easy. It is easy, and the burden is light when Jesus is the centre of one's life (St. Matthew 11:28-30). That means keeping Jesus' soul-saving commands, knowing Him in and through His word (Scripture), receiving Him—Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity—in Holy Communion, and living daily a life of prayer and devotion that disposes the heart and mind to the grace of God.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

So then, why do some Catholics flinch at the confidence of Tradition-minded Catholics (TMC)? Is it because the faithfulness of TMCs provokes judgement of their own cafeteria-style religion which does not provide them peace? That is, are they envious but unable to admit to themselves what they could do to embrace what is true and good and beautiful? Do they fear a loss of freedom if they should fully embrace the Catholic Faith? Perhaps they are comfortable in their discomfort, their half-commitment to living the Faith?

St Matthew 6:24 | No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

The two very real (and all too common) experiences cited above can serve to remind that, like any human relationship that meanders between hot and cold and habitually resides in the comfortable middle, a relationship with God in Jesus Christ cannot be lukewarm.

Revelation of St John 3:16 | So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth.

Tradition-minded Catholics are too often confronted with disdain and condescension from other Catholics and people of little or no faith. Catholics who strive for continuity with the historic Catholic Faith, the one Faith of Jesus Christ, in an uncompromising manner, are simply striving to be honest and authentic. Jesus said,

St John 14:15-17 | If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you.

The Catholic-in-name-only, i.e., the cafeteria Catholic, walks a sad story. He ignores his potential and settles for a half-hearted display that only complicates his avoidance of the very life he seeks. This internal conflict often leads to a sense of emptiness, as he grapples with unfulfilled desires and a longing for authenticity.

The preceding experiences illustrate the tragic circumstances which can arise when disciples lack or reject authentic formation. Disciples need the transformative power of education in faith to grow in holiness, in spiritual health. Spiritual growth has its source and summit (Lumen Gentium) in the Holy Eucharist, the Mass, Divine Worship, the Divine Liturgy, where we meet Jesus Who leads us to the Father in the Holy Ghost.