The questions this week get right to the ugly bit about reforming the Church: There would be no need for reform if people weren’t doing things wrong.

To be a disciple of Christ is to concede that you do a ton of things wrong.  That it’s your mission in life to find out what you’re doing wrong, and to change — through your own willingness, and through your cooperation with the grace of God.

All this would be unbearable if we were condemned for our sins.  The reason to stick around for Christianity is because God does not demand our blood, He offers his own.  We don’t have a religion that let’s us brush off our sins as “no big deal” or “not really hurting anybody” or “just a mistake”.  It is a big deal.  We do get hurt.

And we freely choose to do wrong even when we know better.   Venial sin is worse than the measles, to quote the much-maligned children’s Baltimore Catechism.  Mortal sin is worse than cancer, to quote I’m-not-sure-whom.  You only die of cancer once; you die of mortal sin for all eternity.

I’m persuaded that Christians today, in addition to having a loose grasp on the reality of God and everything else, haven’t got much of a notion of forgiveness.  We observe (correctly) that our friends are eminently likeable people, so we decide that must mean they are innocent.  We observe (correctly) that God loves our friends, and therefore they can’t possibly be headed to Hell.

The results is that when someone really betrays us, or really commits some serious, shocking harm, we have to switch over to demonizing.  I’m reminded of a murder I read about in the newspaper once. The neighbor observed that the murderer (a mother) loved her children dearly, evidenced by the fact that she made her children brush her teeth every night.  Surely a mother who makes her children brush her teeth before bed wouldn’t murder them in the morning?  Except that she did.  The clean-teeth rule doesn’t hold.

I happen to like just about everyone, so the Do I Like You? method of moral theology doesn’t satisfy.

In our parishes, the reality that our leaders sin (and err) does not negate everything they do.  A devoted musician, a kind catechist, or a generous priest, doesn’t cease to be devoted or kind or generous on account of this or that unrelated shortcoming.  “How can you say Mrs. Beazly wasn’t prepared for her lesson!  She loves the children so dearly!”  Well yes, she does love the children, and that’s to her credit.  She still needs to brush up on her theology.  And since she loves the children, surely she’s willing to sit down for a quick review of the creed, to make sure she’s got her facts right, no?

And it works the other way.  “How can you say that man is a good priest, when he presides over Disco Mass every Sunday?”  Well, yes, the disco Mass really must go.  But that doesn’t mean Father needs to go.  May the disco Mass perish in the netherworld, and Father chuckle with relief in a safe, happy place where we’ll spend 10,000 years with never a glimpse of shag carpet*.

So on the one hand, sin and stupidity ought to be shocking.  How *could* you spend all these years in church leadership, and not even have a personal relationship with the Lord? Seriously?  And on the other hand, sin and stupidity are such part and parcel of our everyday lives, it gets a little boring.

Which is not to say we shrug and put up with up with it.  Measles, remember?  Vaccinate, prescribe, rest and fluids, visit the sick person, recover slowly, be careful about hand-washing and sharing cups.  But you would no more hate your friend for catching the measles than you ought to hate your friend for catching original sin.  It happens.

Forgiveness is that moment when we let go of the natural horror of realizing things are really, really wrong, and step in and help out the sinner in whatever way we are able.  Sometimes all we can do is pray. Sometimes, for the eternal safety of ourselves and others, spiritual quarantine really is the only prudent option.

(Said with full force of the virtue on that ‘prudence’, not a wiggly fearful over-caution hiding behind the real thing.)

Other times, we can do something more.  When we can, we do.

*This vision of Heaven has not been approved by the Church.  But if there is shag carpet in Heaven, it will be some kind of Divine shag carpet that persons actually want in their homes. Purgatory, on the other hand? All bets are off.

My experience with ‘openness’ dates back to my in-between period, when I’d left the Church during college, and then, surprise, found myself wanting a religion.  Not in the sense of, “I observe that I should want a religion.  I shall look about and find the proper one.”  I just kept doing things that, looking back, were all about spiritual restlessness.

So, for example, I took a course called “Islam and Revolution”, and between that and taking a year of Arabic*, I spent a short time “open” to Islam.  Which had been getting favorable press in the Utne reader, for those who remember that spell.  One evening at Barnes & Noble I stood over the bargain bin and read a short, photo-filled book of Muslim apologetics.  It all made perfect sense.  I was open to it.

(It didn’t take.)

Paganism did take for a while — nothing in my Catholic upbringing prevented it.  If it’s easy for pagans to become Catholics, turns out that road runs both ways.  I was open enough to anything spiritual, and paganism was the most convenient religion around, so easy to fall into.  [See: Utne Reader. There are a few liberal-sized holes in the Bible Belt, mostly around academia.]  Bhuddism, too.  Open open open.

Which makes this stage of faith so treacherous for the Catholic in the pew.  Because honestly, you can join the Church and sing in the choir for 40 years, and still really just be “open”.  It’s not that you’ve made this firm decision that being Catholic is the only way; it just happens to be where you are and what you’re doing, and if it’s enjoyable, you can fall into it out of pleasant habit.  Which is not all bad.

But that leaves you just as open to falling right back out the way you came in.

***

See, the Church is full of wretched sinners.  So much so that we have not just one but *four* sacraments that involve forgiveness of sins.  And three more that assist.

Which means there’s a decent chance someone is going to do something really horrible to you during your time in the Church.  And if you’re only ‘open’, you’ll be just as open to moving on when the friendships or the music or the you-name-it suddenly evaporates, and all you’re left with is your non-faith.  Why be Catholic when it sucks?  No real reason, unless maybe it’s true.

If I were to bet in some spiritual gambling hall where the dealer could report the state of all souls after the bets were placed, I’d hazard that the bulk of American Catholics are “open”.  I say that because everyone I know is real happy with the good stuff they experience at Church — not at all suspicious, no reservations about turning out.  But also, an awful lot of Catholics I know consider the faith up for comparison-shopping.

I’ve watched a nearby parish lose half it’s membership over the last several years, and that tells me two things: (1) Someone in administration there has done something really really bad (if I gather correctly, just all-star jerkiness, no particular crime), and (2) most parishioners were only temporarily Catholic.  (No fault of their own, I assume). But it turns out that a large percentage who left have taken up with Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians — and a few just decided sleep late on Sundays now.  They want something, and they’d rather it be Catholic, but frankly they’ll take the best gig they can get, and not worry so much about details.

That’s normal in the ‘open’ state.

What that tells me is that if my parish is privileged to have a regular attender in our pews, we need to be doing everything we can to help that person solidify their faith.

Discussion Question from the Study Guide: Over the next six months, what changes can you personally make to help your parish disciple those who are at the threshold of openness?

We have a couple things going on.  Over the summer, the SuperHusband and I have hosted a little real-life book club of _Forming Intentional Disciples_.  To my surprise, people keep coming back.  And have expressed a desire to work on their own personal relationship with Jesus.  So, yeah, I’ll totally vacuum for anyone who wants to come to my house and talk about God for a while. Or at least I can sweep select public areas.

Another thing that stunned me:  I asked a homeschooling friend to do a little teeny-tiny cooperative revolving around one small thing I wanted to add to our curriculum, and knew I’d never have the self-discipline to stick with if I did it on my own . . . and she said “maybe”.  Next thing I knew, we’d formed a parish ministry, and the local Catholic homeschool moms  got sucked in like ants to a shop-vac, and now I’ve just gone and submitted a whole roster of course plans to my pastor to get his green light on a regular Friday 10-3:30 event.  I had a mom ask for an apologetics class, and a pile more say they wanted in on that.  Mom who swore she could only do every other week, suddenly wants weekly classes. We built the schedule around Mass, adoration, and a chaplet of divine Mercy, and the thank-you e-mails flowed in.  I haven’t told my pastor yet, but there’s a little movement to see about a confession time once a month, if enough moms are interested.

Is it going to be huge? Nope.  (Don’t even know if it’s going to be at all – see “submitted to pastor” above.  We could end up meeting at the library, if we’ve made the poor man faint from this sudden burst of activity — as Simcha says, we aren’t the only people in the congregation.  One of a father’s jobs is saying No when it’s warranted.)  But I’m increasingly aware that if it is a go, it must become one of those ‘overlapping opportunities’ Sherry Weddell talks about — those places for parishioners to find their safe spot to discover the faith.

Not an enclave.  Not a ‘you have to be good enough for us’. A spot where anyone who feels comfortable among the Nerd Moms can hang out, maybe join in the preschool program, or provide us with a lone competent voice for our CD-directed “chorus”. (Bwahahaha . . . but we are DETERMINED to teach our children traditional English and Latin hymns, and no amount of musical incompetence is going to stop us.  Why no, I can’t sing.  When did that ever stop me before?)

And I think that’s the key.  A pile of Catholics in the parish, each being themselves and doing their thing, but always open to the open.  Come on in, and if you like us, stick around.  If not, the St. Vincent de Paul ladies are a lovely bunch, go say hello to Mrs. B, she’ll steer you right every time.  Real choir meets on Thursday.  Youth group on Sunday, they need adults to help with ice cream, why don’t you sit in on the Bible study since you’re here?

The thing about ‘openness’ is that you can end up in a parish just because you found a little group of friends who like you and share a common interest.  And the clincher is that the parish needs to respond with not just We’re a Club for People Who Scoop Ice Cream for Teens on Game Night, but with an invitation to the next step.

*Funny story about the Arabic: 99.9% of that knowledge is now lost in a fog deep in my brain.  Sometimes I get a surreal experience, when I happen on my old class notes, of seeing Arabic words I used to read and write comfortably, and now mean nothing to me.  I was not a particularly good student.  Also: It makes me smile as I remember back to those semesters, to opening a note book and looking at my mysterious scrawl, and wondering which alphabet the notes might be written in.  I suspect one reason I never became Muslim (the Grace of God being the other) is that I heard how much the Arab world values beautiful handwriting, and knew I’d never make the cut.

I’m running late on my Forming Intentional Disciples post this week because I was sidetracked by a funeral.  I have some longer, essay-type comments up at the Catholic Writers Guild, for those who want a different set of thoughts.

(So does Charlotte Ostermann – editor’s fault, we ended up with not one but two people talking about discipleship this week.)

***

So.  Death.

Curious thing #1: I like funerals.  Don’t like death, do like eternal life, and I come from a family of undertakers. (The link is to my mom’s cousin — our little shoot of family isn’t in the business, we just lend our moral support from afar.)  I don’t get this whole fear-of-funerals things, not in my blood.

Curious thing #2: I jump on the chance to take my kids along to a good funeral.  Not because I’m morbid, but because familiarity with the rituals surrounding death sure makes it easier to function when the time comes to bury someone you really loved.  And we all end up either buried or burying, so I consider a working knowledge of that corporal work of mercy an essential life skill.

Curious thing #3: When my mom died, a bunch of my dad’s co-workers filled the pews at her funeral Mass.  People I’d never met before, and I’m not sure she’d ever met before.  Most of them weren’t Catholic.  The bulk of the group just filed in, found a spot in the pews, and filed out afterwards.  A few shook hands and introduced themselves to us.  One couple, who had known my parents for years, brought dinner to the house one of the evenings.

All of these were surprisingly comforting.  People always worry, “Should I go to the funeral? I wasn’t really a close friend.”  Yes, you should go.  The surviving family is mourning the loss of one of the most important people in the world to them.  To see that so many people care enough to turn out for an hour or two sends a message I never expected until I was the recipient: Yes, this life mattered to us, too.

[Of course you won’t be obnoxious and insinuate yourself into the family circle, or wail and gnash teeth and beg the survivors to comfort *you*.  But just showing up and praying alongside the bereaved?  Healthy and good.]

Curious thing #4: My mom’s funeral mass *rocked*.  Which is to say, it was just this normal suburban catholic middle-American mass in a large, spacious, dentist-office-inspired building, and we sang Eagle’s Wings and all that stuff.  But Father Nigerian Loaner Priest Who Doesn’t Mince Words laid out a beautiful homily on purgatory and praying for souls and the utter nonsense of instant universal canonizations at funeral masses.

Also, they did the announcement about not receiving communion unless you were a practicing Catholic in a state of grace, and did offer the blessing-alternative, which I know people smarter than myself do question, with good reason, but I’ll just observe that it serves a good purpose, and served that purpose that day.

Curious thing #5: The funeral yesterday was just as good, in a different, non-denominational evangelical way.

Because, Curious thing #6: If a funeral doesn’t draw you closer to God, I don’t know what will.

Which is to say, Curious thing #7: A funeral that does not draw people closer to God is not a good funeral.

***

Head over to CatholicMom.com to read posts from normal people who answered the actual discussion questions and stuff.

This week the discussion guide introduces the five stages of evangelization, then lingers on #1, trust. Hence the discussion question I’m going to answer this week:

How was the bridge of trust built for you?

My answer surprised me: Even as a very-lapsed Catholic, I had an inherent trust in the Catholic Church because I was raised in a Catholic family.

I know it can go the other way: Being raised Catholic can show too much underbelly, too many shortcomings, and you end up the surly teenage daughter of the Church, resentful of Mother because her failings are so intimately known.

But I guess for me, being only mildly-Catholic prevented me from having to think about any hard questions.  The Catholic Church of my childhood, after all, made no particular demands on me.  We were Catholic the way we were German-Irish — didn’t mean we spoke any German or Irish, or possessed any cultural patrimony other than some choice last names.  And yet I felt a certain glow of pride the first time I tasted German potato salad: I knew I’d found my culinary homeland.  The Catholic Church was my religious potato salad.

I was double-helped into the Church by my various 80-something (then) Catholic relatives.  My experience has been that 80 is kind of a magical year, and people really seem to get their head on straight about that time.  (My now-senile Catholic maternal grandmother was an early bloomer — she hit the height of her curmudgeonly powers by her early 70’s.)  So as it turned out, the most interesting and intelligent people I knew were all Catholics.

***

The funny thing about “trust” is what my evangelical acquaintances always assumed, post-reversion, when they found out I was Catholic.  They assumed it was a potato-salad thing.  That I’d grown up with a heavily liturgical Church, and I just liked the script and music and colorful accents, and I was sticking around the Church because it was all homey for me.  For which reason, when confronted with my disparity-of-cult-plagued marriage, their proposed solution was that we visit the lovely evangelical Anglican place downtown.

I think very highly of that particular congregation, and would say so when the suggestion was made, but also I’d shake my head: You don’t get it.  Sure, I’ll admit it, being at home with the Catholic faith, potato-salad-wise, made it easier for me to not to resist that final call to reversion.  And review with me: My reversion was a spiritual event first, and an intellectual one only after.  But trust me, I didn’t end up back at the Catholic Church out of love for the Gather hymnal.

If it were sincerity, devotion, kindness, and good music that I wanted, I’d be as committed an evangelical protestant as you could find.  I left the Catholic Church because I didn’t have any particular reason to stay.  No hard feelings, but what was the point?  I returned to the Church when I discovered the point.  Trust is a necessary part of conversion, but it is not the ultimate cause of conversion.