I just came back from the all-night vigil. It's still going on. We're chanting the Psalms and the Gospels. People are taking turns. I'm definitely exhausted now, but I wanted to post before falling asleep. I'm realizing more and more that Orthodoxy is much different from either Catholicism or Protestantism. From the outside, Orthodoxy may look like Roman Catholicism, with the devotion to the saints, to Mary; with the sacraments, the priest, the feast days, etc. But, once inside, you realize that each of these is understood in quite a different way than the Roman Catholic Church understands them. Orthodoxy is lived in the Liturgy, and her beliefs cannot be separated from the Liturgy and studied individually, as they often are in the West.
I've found myself in a strange situation: what to think of the Protestant and the Catholic faiths? In several ways, certain Protestant churches come closer to Orthodoxy than do the Roman Catholic churches. Not all Protestant churches, surely, due to the great variety. Yet, many Protestant communities have a strong sense of the local church as the Church of Christ. The Church is not a confederation of churches united together, as seems to be the case with the RCC (even though the Pope openly rejects this depiction). Many Protestant churches, like the Orthodox Church, seek to effectively teach both God's justice and his mercy. Whereas Orthodox do not declare, as do Protestants, that man is unable to fulfill the commandments, there nontheless is a similarity between the two: both carefully profess both the harsh reality but also God's merciful solution. We are all sinners; we are all weak and prone to sin, but God has abundant mercy on us, no matter how greatly we sin. Finally, in both Protestantism (certain forms as least) and Orthodoxy there is a true appreciation for the wisdom of God, above the wisdom of men.
But the RCC I sometimes think is closer in other respects. It holds dear the Church Fathers, even if it does not always follow them and regards them as less advanced than the scholastics who systematized the Fathers. The RCC pays adoration to Mary and venerates the saints. Protestants generally do not do this. The RCC places high value on philosophy and human reason in learning about God and receiving divine revelation. This is one area where I think the RCC and the EOC part. The EOC focuses much more on a true revelation of God's light, his uncreated energies, which enlighten the human soul and draw one closer to God. In the RCC, revelation is often described in terms of a rational coming-to-understand--God guiding reason to put the pieces together.
Well, that's all for now. I'm raked.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Nikolai Gogol
I just finished reading "The Overcoat," a short story by the Russian novelist Nikolai Gogol. Quite bizarre. I'm still thinking about what Nikolai attempts to convey with this short story, if anything. The last story I read by Nikolai was "The Nose," which I read nearly a year ago. My duties have prevented me from reading too much fiction besides that which I am required to read.
Monday, April 21, 2008
I Missed Fr. Gilquist
All today I waited in anticipation for the work day to end. Fr. Gilquist was expected to speak at an Orthodox parish within short driving distance of my workplace. Well, the end of the work day arrived, and do you know what I realized? I had missed his speech. He was to speak on April 12, and today is April 21.
I'm hoping to move back to near Pittsburgh soon. Keep me in your prayers. I need to find a job out there.
I'm hoping to move back to near Pittsburgh soon. Keep me in your prayers. I need to find a job out there.
Holy Week
It's Holy Week, and my first one in the Orthodox Church. It was somewhat odd feeling for me to receive palms this past Sunday, when the Palm Sunday for the West was what now seems long ago. Perhaps God's irony: it poured constantly all Sunday. In any case, I was looking forward to some new pussy willow. Last year, before becoming Orthodox, I attended an OCA church on the eve before Palm Sunday. The priest blessed and gave us pussy willow branches. I understand this is the Slavic custom. I'll survive, I suppose.
I spoke with a friend today, and she informed me that, in Europe, the Eastern Catholic churches celebrate Easter the same time as do the Eastern Orthodox; whereas in the U.S., the Eastern Catholic churches celebrate according to the Roman Catholic Calendar instead. I did not know this and found it interesting.
I spoke with a friend today, and she informed me that, in Europe, the Eastern Catholic churches celebrate Easter the same time as do the Eastern Orthodox; whereas in the U.S., the Eastern Catholic churches celebrate according to the Roman Catholic Calendar instead. I did not know this and found it interesting.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Origen: Well Regarded in his Time
I'm reading selected books of Eusebius' The History of the Church. I previously have read several of his first books on the Apostles and the earliest Church, but for some reason I never took much time to read about Origen (at least from the pen of Eusebius). From my studies, I've known he in his own time was regarded as a Biblical scholar par excellence. What I did not know, and what Eusebius makes clear, is that many bishops, even patriarchal ones, came to Origen for spiritual guidance.
Origen often receives much flak for his concept of the pre-existence of souls; but what I find surprising is his Christological response that points to Jesus as divine in his own proper sense (Origen's subordinating tendencies besides present consideration). Beryllus, the bishop of Bostra in Arabia, had erroneous views; he believed that the Son did not have his own divinity but instead only was indwelt by the divinity of the Father. Many bishops challenged Beryllus on this point, and Origen was brought into the dispute. Interestingly, Origen set Beryllus back on the orthodox path, supposedly by highlighting the proper divinity of the Son.
Many "scholars" today write about the "birth of God"--as if Christians viewed Jesus as God only beginning at Nicaea. According to the scholarly myth, prior to the heavy-handed Council of Nicaea in 325, Christians generally did not see Jesus as God; Nicaea made the norm that which never was. The evidence of history points to the contrary. Christians believed in the divinity of Christ from the Apostolic Age--Jesus is God. For the early Christians, it was not an argument over whether or not Jesus is God, but rather a debate on how Jesus is God, and how Jesus as the Son of God relates with the Father, who by Christians (even heterodox ones) is undisputed as fully divine, fully God.
The early adoptionists went to one extreme, claiming that the Son is only an adopted human son of God--that the divinity of the Father indwells in him, but that the Son himself has no divinity proper to himself. This, of course, is unorthodox. Yet, there was always another side that elevated the especial nature of the Son as God, and which demonstrated, if less perfectly at first, the Son as ontologically distinct from the Father. Nicaea recognized the latter as what was passed down from the Apostles and contained in their inspired writings.
Origen often receives much flak for his concept of the pre-existence of souls; but what I find surprising is his Christological response that points to Jesus as divine in his own proper sense (Origen's subordinating tendencies besides present consideration). Beryllus, the bishop of Bostra in Arabia, had erroneous views; he believed that the Son did not have his own divinity but instead only was indwelt by the divinity of the Father. Many bishops challenged Beryllus on this point, and Origen was brought into the dispute. Interestingly, Origen set Beryllus back on the orthodox path, supposedly by highlighting the proper divinity of the Son.
Many "scholars" today write about the "birth of God"--as if Christians viewed Jesus as God only beginning at Nicaea. According to the scholarly myth, prior to the heavy-handed Council of Nicaea in 325, Christians generally did not see Jesus as God; Nicaea made the norm that which never was. The evidence of history points to the contrary. Christians believed in the divinity of Christ from the Apostolic Age--Jesus is God. For the early Christians, it was not an argument over whether or not Jesus is God, but rather a debate on how Jesus is God, and how Jesus as the Son of God relates with the Father, who by Christians (even heterodox ones) is undisputed as fully divine, fully God.
The early adoptionists went to one extreme, claiming that the Son is only an adopted human son of God--that the divinity of the Father indwells in him, but that the Son himself has no divinity proper to himself. This, of course, is unorthodox. Yet, there was always another side that elevated the especial nature of the Son as God, and which demonstrated, if less perfectly at first, the Son as ontologically distinct from the Father. Nicaea recognized the latter as what was passed down from the Apostles and contained in their inspired writings.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Part II: About my Conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy
[continued from Part I]
While the charismatic Catholics had not convinced me of the legitimacy of the charismatic movement, they did introduce me to the little, to me unknown, school of Franciscan University of Steubenville. They told me it would be a great place for me to attend. At the time, I simply smiled and said I would look at the brochures they gave me. After I left the group, I worked at home for several months. I was still depressed and ill, and extremely frustrated that medicine, doctors and prayer were not apparently helping me. I ruminated on my possibilities. I considered working towards an M.A. in English, but, to be honest, I considered myself not in a good position for this. I was spiritually and mentally exhausted from my years of college study, at a time when I was at the lowest point in my life. In many of my classes, I felt as though I were the sole student on the side of traditional values, be they Catholic or Protestant. I did not want to spend two years of my life studying Derrida, Foucault and a host of other thinkers who I then considered to be deranged and opposed in their ways of thinking to the Truth. I did, however, want to move ahead in my life, regardless of the difficulties besetting me. I opted for studying theology at the M.A. level. I investigated several programs, some well-ranked and in appearance quite intellectually challenging. I chose the M.A. in Theology at Franciscan University. While I understood the program there might not challenge me as much as, say, a similar program at CUA or the University of Scranton, I wanted a spiritually alive environment, a place where I could development the human relationships that I was deprived of for the past several years.
I entered Franciscan University in 2005. I still confessed Catholicism as my religion, but in reality I was a closet Orthodox. Although I retained a strong admiration for traditional Latin religion until my final year, my identity with the Orthodox Church became increasingly prominent. I attended a Byzantine Catholic church nearby for two years, and during this time I developed a awareness of the differences between Eastern and Western ways of thinking. The many friendships I developed, including those with Eastern Catholic Christians, more firmly secured me in the Eastern tradition. But here I began to act differently from my friends. Whereas they were content and desiring to remain Eastern Catholic, I internally could not acquiesce to the unique Eastern Catholic positions. I fancied in a kind of Branch Theory whereby both Orthodox and Roman Catholics were equally Catholic, but I could not reconcile this personal belief with the formal credences of either Church body. The Pope of the Roman Catholic Church promulgates Latin ecclesiology as the standard for full catholicity. The Byzantine tradition cannot suffer this; while not mutually exclusive, they are different, and the differences cannot be casually disregarded. In my studies, I found the Byzantine tradition truer to the Patristic and Conciliar witness, although I acknowledged the existence of papalphil quotations going back to Pope Leo.
My social and academic experiences at Franciscan University also were important to my spiritual journey. While I cannot go into great detail here, I will simply comment that there were some experiences at Franciscan that confirmed for me that Roman Catholicism is not where I am meant to be--at least not mainstream Roman Catholicism. I became friends with two Traditional Roman Catholics, both converts from Protestantism. I spoke extensively with one friend over my first summer (we roomed in the same house) on traditional Catholicism, and it was about this time that I attended my first High Latin Masses, primarily at an indult TLM community at St. Boniface in Pittsburgh, but also once at an SSPX chapel. My other friend did not have a car, and on a few ocasions I drove her to Pittsburgh for the TLM. I hoped it would lift her spirits and make her happy (there were no TLM's in Steubenville at the time), but I also was searching for myself, and I was interested in that which I felt I was deprived for the first two decades of my life. I thoroughly appreciated the reverence of the TLM, and even to this day I have a natural affection for its beauty, even if I do not completely agree with all of its implicit theology. I graduated with a M.A. in Theology in 2007. I still was canonically Catholic, and I even received the Eucharist at Eastern Catholic churches on certain occasions, but by then I wanted to become Orthodox, and I happily would have identified myself as such, except that I did not want to indulge in a fiction. I still was Catholic (in a strange sense).
The year is 2008. Between the date of my last day at Franciscan and the present date of this composition, much has changed. 2007-2008 has, from a human perspective, assailed me with the worst situations imaginable. The depression I suffered for years worsened under the harrowing circumstances associated with my new job. God, if before seemingly distant, now appeared non-existent. How else could He allow this amount of unmitigated pain, and at so many different levels, drag the course of almost a decade, a decade oft considered "the best years of your life"? In my heart I wanted to become Orthodox. I had a good idea, based on my previous experiences, that becoming Orthodox would not be the magic cure. I did not expect full healing from conversion. But I thought, just perhaps, I would receive the spiritual healing that would enable me to effectively confront any problem the Devil placed in my way. Orthodoxy tugged me in, I think, not because of the gilded icons, the ritualism, the splendor or the antiquity, but because of the faith that could co-exist in rags as equally, if not more, as in riches. I was no longer Catholic. I would not accept Catholic communion. I no longer went to a Catholic priest for confession. But I was stranded. I spiritually grew into the sacraments, but now I was cut off from them altogether. I am half-ashamed to admit what follows. My emotional state was far from prime. A lot had happened to me over the years, and the buildup remained untouched even after the most rigorous of applications. I was in a lot of pain, but I held on to what I believed. Being rational, I was nonetheless burdened and in fear. I am not one to make major changes easily, and while I seriously spoke with an Orthodox priest about becoming Orthodox, I just did not have the nudge to make this life-changing decision. The nudge came in the form of a breakdown--another deep strike--and ironically from the direction that I considered my last tie to Roman Catholicism. In reality, I should have converted earlier. I allowed personal feelings, concerns of the world, and especially fear of the effects in the future, to hold me back, and back again, over the course of two years.
I'm now Eastern Orthodox (ACROD). I'm still far from perfect, and I still am dealing with certain difficulties in my life. I cannot say I feel better than when Roman Catholic. Orthodoxy is no sweet cake, and her leaders are not always saintly or right. The Church is not a miracle solution that with raise of the hand cancels all woes. It's a hospital for the spiritually sick, to be sure, but like most hospitals, the convalescence includes suffering. In short, I'm finding Orthodoxy twice as difficult to live as Roman Catholicism. But, I don't regret at all becoming Orthodox. It had to be done, and while the impetuous of my decision may not have been fully proper, I pray that the reasons behind the muck have been sound.
While the charismatic Catholics had not convinced me of the legitimacy of the charismatic movement, they did introduce me to the little, to me unknown, school of Franciscan University of Steubenville. They told me it would be a great place for me to attend. At the time, I simply smiled and said I would look at the brochures they gave me. After I left the group, I worked at home for several months. I was still depressed and ill, and extremely frustrated that medicine, doctors and prayer were not apparently helping me. I ruminated on my possibilities. I considered working towards an M.A. in English, but, to be honest, I considered myself not in a good position for this. I was spiritually and mentally exhausted from my years of college study, at a time when I was at the lowest point in my life. In many of my classes, I felt as though I were the sole student on the side of traditional values, be they Catholic or Protestant. I did not want to spend two years of my life studying Derrida, Foucault and a host of other thinkers who I then considered to be deranged and opposed in their ways of thinking to the Truth. I did, however, want to move ahead in my life, regardless of the difficulties besetting me. I opted for studying theology at the M.A. level. I investigated several programs, some well-ranked and in appearance quite intellectually challenging. I chose the M.A. in Theology at Franciscan University. While I understood the program there might not challenge me as much as, say, a similar program at CUA or the University of Scranton, I wanted a spiritually alive environment, a place where I could development the human relationships that I was deprived of for the past several years.
I entered Franciscan University in 2005. I still confessed Catholicism as my religion, but in reality I was a closet Orthodox. Although I retained a strong admiration for traditional Latin religion until my final year, my identity with the Orthodox Church became increasingly prominent. I attended a Byzantine Catholic church nearby for two years, and during this time I developed a awareness of the differences between Eastern and Western ways of thinking. The many friendships I developed, including those with Eastern Catholic Christians, more firmly secured me in the Eastern tradition. But here I began to act differently from my friends. Whereas they were content and desiring to remain Eastern Catholic, I internally could not acquiesce to the unique Eastern Catholic positions. I fancied in a kind of Branch Theory whereby both Orthodox and Roman Catholics were equally Catholic, but I could not reconcile this personal belief with the formal credences of either Church body. The Pope of the Roman Catholic Church promulgates Latin ecclesiology as the standard for full catholicity. The Byzantine tradition cannot suffer this; while not mutually exclusive, they are different, and the differences cannot be casually disregarded. In my studies, I found the Byzantine tradition truer to the Patristic and Conciliar witness, although I acknowledged the existence of papalphil quotations going back to Pope Leo.
My social and academic experiences at Franciscan University also were important to my spiritual journey. While I cannot go into great detail here, I will simply comment that there were some experiences at Franciscan that confirmed for me that Roman Catholicism is not where I am meant to be--at least not mainstream Roman Catholicism. I became friends with two Traditional Roman Catholics, both converts from Protestantism. I spoke extensively with one friend over my first summer (we roomed in the same house) on traditional Catholicism, and it was about this time that I attended my first High Latin Masses, primarily at an indult TLM community at St. Boniface in Pittsburgh, but also once at an SSPX chapel. My other friend did not have a car, and on a few ocasions I drove her to Pittsburgh for the TLM. I hoped it would lift her spirits and make her happy (there were no TLM's in Steubenville at the time), but I also was searching for myself, and I was interested in that which I felt I was deprived for the first two decades of my life. I thoroughly appreciated the reverence of the TLM, and even to this day I have a natural affection for its beauty, even if I do not completely agree with all of its implicit theology. I graduated with a M.A. in Theology in 2007. I still was canonically Catholic, and I even received the Eucharist at Eastern Catholic churches on certain occasions, but by then I wanted to become Orthodox, and I happily would have identified myself as such, except that I did not want to indulge in a fiction. I still was Catholic (in a strange sense).
The year is 2008. Between the date of my last day at Franciscan and the present date of this composition, much has changed. 2007-2008 has, from a human perspective, assailed me with the worst situations imaginable. The depression I suffered for years worsened under the harrowing circumstances associated with my new job. God, if before seemingly distant, now appeared non-existent. How else could He allow this amount of unmitigated pain, and at so many different levels, drag the course of almost a decade, a decade oft considered "the best years of your life"? In my heart I wanted to become Orthodox. I had a good idea, based on my previous experiences, that becoming Orthodox would not be the magic cure. I did not expect full healing from conversion. But I thought, just perhaps, I would receive the spiritual healing that would enable me to effectively confront any problem the Devil placed in my way. Orthodoxy tugged me in, I think, not because of the gilded icons, the ritualism, the splendor or the antiquity, but because of the faith that could co-exist in rags as equally, if not more, as in riches. I was no longer Catholic. I would not accept Catholic communion. I no longer went to a Catholic priest for confession. But I was stranded. I spiritually grew into the sacraments, but now I was cut off from them altogether. I am half-ashamed to admit what follows. My emotional state was far from prime. A lot had happened to me over the years, and the buildup remained untouched even after the most rigorous of applications. I was in a lot of pain, but I held on to what I believed. Being rational, I was nonetheless burdened and in fear. I am not one to make major changes easily, and while I seriously spoke with an Orthodox priest about becoming Orthodox, I just did not have the nudge to make this life-changing decision. The nudge came in the form of a breakdown--another deep strike--and ironically from the direction that I considered my last tie to Roman Catholicism. In reality, I should have converted earlier. I allowed personal feelings, concerns of the world, and especially fear of the effects in the future, to hold me back, and back again, over the course of two years.
I'm now Eastern Orthodox (ACROD). I'm still far from perfect, and I still am dealing with certain difficulties in my life. I cannot say I feel better than when Roman Catholic. Orthodoxy is no sweet cake, and her leaders are not always saintly or right. The Church is not a miracle solution that with raise of the hand cancels all woes. It's a hospital for the spiritually sick, to be sure, but like most hospitals, the convalescence includes suffering. In short, I'm finding Orthodoxy twice as difficult to live as Roman Catholicism. But, I don't regret at all becoming Orthodox. It had to be done, and while the impetuous of my decision may not have been fully proper, I pray that the reasons behind the muck have been sound.
About my Conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy
I was born about 25 years ago in Columbus, Ohio. My father was raised Latin Catholic; my mother was raised LCMS (Lutheran), but when she married my father she agreed to becoming Catholic. My earliest memories of religion are vague and indistinct. Since my earliest youth, I have had a wooden crucifix and a children's Bible. I never paid much attention to either of these until the late teenage years. Crucifixes were to be found in several rooms of the house, however, and during much of the year I remember seeing dried palm branches stuck behind the crucifix in the hallway and wondering what it all meant.
My formal introduction to Christianity was, as you may already guess, through Catholicism. My parents regularly took me and my sister to a [Novus Ordo] Roman Catholic church from my earliest childhood to the point in my teenage years when the family relations changed somewhat. Although I did not care for the service, I remember feeling awed at the first church we attended, St. Joseph. The beautiful stained glass windows impressed me, and I also thought the place felt very comfortable. Then, when I was probably 5, the parish grew too large and had to split; my parents were chosen to be part of the new church to be founded. The next church we attended was not a church in the sense of building but of community. We met in an old firehall, in a section veiled off from the firetrucks behind. Eventually, the several families of this new community accumulated enough funds to begin construction of a new church: St. Katherine Drexel. It was at St. Katherine Drexel church that I received all my CCD instruction, conducted primarily several weeks during each summer, and where I received basic knowledge on the sacraments.
At this point in my life, in the pre-teens, I was not particularly religious. I hated attending church, much rather choosing to sleep in on Sundays or wake up early to watch Ren and Stimpy. My first real conscious draw towards Christianity occurred around the time when I was preparing for confirmation. To that time, I believed in God, but I also remember entertaining thoughts of pantheism and atheism. To be honest, I did not think much about God, and the only time I really remember praying is when members of my family, or a friend, would die. And even then, I prayed more to a generic God. When in sixth grade, I volunteered with one other student to present the Catholic faith to the rest of the class; but this was not on my own initiative and only because no other persons in the class were willing to present the Catholic faith.
But, in all truthfulness, I saw Jesus as simply a good man (like Moses) and did not then realize He is God. In about the 8th grade I began preparation for the rite of confirmation. One requirement was to write a letter to the priest stating your intent. The letter I wrote was of an honest intent to grow in Christian maturity, and it was about here that I only started to become more involved in my faith.
From the 8th grade to the 11th grade or so, I honestly cannot remember my exact religious convictions, if I even had any. I stopped attending Mass altogether for perhaps a year, maybe two. Difficulties in high school, for at least the first several years, aroused me to a state of silent indignation and frustration, and I dwelt more on these inner feelings than any religious sentiments. But by the 12th grade, my religious views became more attuned. I never brought the Bible or religious books to school, but I increasingly brought them to my workplace after school, where I fervently read them during breaks. How did I become interested in these religious works? It really was a strange change of events. Throughout high school I demonstrated an infatuation for history, particularly ancient history. By 12th grade, I had read Herodotus, Thucydides and several books on the Egyptians, Hittites, Babylonians, etc. In my reading of ancient history, I remembered that the Hebrew scriptures themselves were ancient histories, and so, guided by my fascination in ancient history, I picked up an NIV Bible that had been given to my father by a Catholic priest (don't ask) and started reading the historical books starting with 1 Samuel. The words I read were powerful, even more powerful than Herodotus. I kept on reading. I received my own Bible (Protestant version) and started reading from Genesis. Within the year, I had completed reading about 75% of the Old Testament (excluding apocryphal works).
I continued my Bible reading into my first year of college, which I spent at a local college. I found my first year course load surprisingly easy, and during the hours in between classes, I started reading the New Testament writings, beginning with the four gospels. While many of the gospel stories were not new to me (I heard them in the Mass during my childhood) reading the stories together in context and in relation to the whole account of Jesus thrilled me. Something inside me moved me to a greater interest in anything having to do with early Christianity. I discovered the Apostolic Fathers, and I read them alongside the canonical writings. As I became more interested in the Christian faith as represented by the early Christian writings, I concluded that I needed to once again worship as a Christian. As I was raised Catholic, the Mass was the obvious place to return.
Perhaps the most formative years were my last 2.5 years as an undergraduate school at Elizabethtown College. Even before attending, I desired to become a part of the Catholic community on campus. I joined Newman Club, assisted at the Sunday campus Masses, and in between my studies continued reading books on the Catholic faith. Yet, something else transitioned in my life: I became extremely depressed and lonely on campus. Although a member of the Catholic community, I felt as though there were no Catholic person on campus with whom I could faithfully discuss Roman Catholic beliefs. I did, however, become good friends with a Nathan M., who, as a fundamentalist Christian, had an interesting contribution to my faith development. Up to this point in my life, I had a few acquaintances who were Christian, but until then I had no friend who read the Bible with such great frequency and devotion. In the end, we tended to stop discussing religion, since Nathan and I could not agree on the key differences between Catholicism and Protestantism. In retrospect, I probably goaded him, since many of the books I read that shaped my discussions with him were of the Catholic apologetics genre.
I wrote journals on frequent basis during these 2.5. years, and many of my religious questions and struggles are addressed there. I cannot undervalue the influence of my depression on my religious pursuit. When the depression was powerful, I walked (or ran) miles away from campus to secluded places, praying along the way and when I arrived. Several of my school papers focused on Catholic themes, and my library of Catholic books swelled. I also spent countless hours on the internet, posting on Christian and Catholic Christian forums.
Near the end of my time at Elizabethtown, I realized that the depression was not lifting but worsening. I also began to have increasingly difficult back problems that prevented me from running as well and frequently as the first two years. God seemed to ignore all my novenas, all my prayers for mercy. I did not despair, but I definitely grew weary. About this time, as I was developing in my understanding of the Roman Catholic Church, I became informed of the traditional Catholic movement (the TLM and so forth) and the Eastern Catholic (and Eastern Orthodox) Churches. All my life, I had only attended Novus Ordo Masses on a regular basis. I had, on a few occasions attended a Lutheran church, and once or twice a Presbyterian service, but the details of these services had negligible impact on me. I read Timothy Ware's (Bishop Kallisto's) The Orthodox Church in my senior year of college, and I was intrigued by the East. By my senior year, I was unsatisfied by what was going on in the mainstream Catholic church, and I tended to side with many of the traditional Catholic arguments, especially as they appertained to the liturgy. I did not stop attending the Novus Ordo liturgy, but I wished that the mainstream Church were more conservative in her liturgy, and truer to the early Church and the Church Fathers I had read so far (I bought the 10 volume Ante-Nicene Fathers for myself for Christmas, and I found the tone of the early Christians to be different from that of the official voices of Roman Catholicism).
Next: my experience with the charismatic Catholics. I do not recall when or where I first heard of this group. I believe it was the internet. By my last year of college, I was still extremely depressed, ill, and feeling that God was very far away. I felt that the Novus Ordo Mass was not providing me with the spiritual support I needed. Yet, I found some comfort, if limited, in my private prayers to the saints via novenas. I especially prayed to St. Terese (The Little Flower), St. Jude Thadeus and St. Dymphna. I also held out for miraculous healing from a modern day healer, be it Protestant or Catholic (about this time, at least when at home on breaks, I watched the 700 Club in the hope that God would heal me through the prayers of Pat Robertson!)
But, in any case, I fell in with the charismatic Catholics. They did not seek me; I sought them. During a college break, I saw a small ad in St. Katherine Drexel's bulletin for a healing Mass. I attended. I was prayed over, and I did not feel healed. The charismatic Catholics prayed tongues as they laid their hands on me as well, which somewhat freaked me out, and I never became used to it. But I started attending the weekly meetings of the charismatic Catholic group. I must say from the start that they were committed to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. They did not advocate anything against the magisterium, and they exuded a great love for Mary, Jesus and the saints. I found their music, at least then, to be uplifting and a fine alternative to the "Robot Mass" music to which I was accustomed. But the speaking in tongues and the seemingly Pentecostal (Protestant) connections always were a barrier for me. I decided to enter a Life in the Spirit seminar, and I attended all the meetings. I enjoyed listening to the speakers. But what was I really there for? I wanted the depression to end. I wanted to experience the love of God, to know that He cared for me--by feeling it. I thought that by baptism in the Holy Spirit I might be changed anew, and my life change for the better.
On the day of my baptism in the Spirit, I was extremely unsure. I wanted to feel better, and I thought maybe God might be using this ritual to fill me with the Holy Ghost which would heal and cleanse me of all impurity. But I also felt that it was not right, that I was not acting in complete accord with my conscience. Throughout the whole ritual, even as the charismatics laid their hands on me praying for me to receive a greater outpouring of the Holy Spirit, I repeatedly prayed, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner." I did not experience anything, although the woman in front of me who had just been prayed over was weeping. I never returned to the group, although to this day I hold no grudge against any member. Each was kind and very caring towards me. It was the theology that I could not accept.
[continued in Part II of next post]
My formal introduction to Christianity was, as you may already guess, through Catholicism. My parents regularly took me and my sister to a [Novus Ordo] Roman Catholic church from my earliest childhood to the point in my teenage years when the family relations changed somewhat. Although I did not care for the service, I remember feeling awed at the first church we attended, St. Joseph. The beautiful stained glass windows impressed me, and I also thought the place felt very comfortable. Then, when I was probably 5, the parish grew too large and had to split; my parents were chosen to be part of the new church to be founded. The next church we attended was not a church in the sense of building but of community. We met in an old firehall, in a section veiled off from the firetrucks behind. Eventually, the several families of this new community accumulated enough funds to begin construction of a new church: St. Katherine Drexel. It was at St. Katherine Drexel church that I received all my CCD instruction, conducted primarily several weeks during each summer, and where I received basic knowledge on the sacraments.
At this point in my life, in the pre-teens, I was not particularly religious. I hated attending church, much rather choosing to sleep in on Sundays or wake up early to watch Ren and Stimpy. My first real conscious draw towards Christianity occurred around the time when I was preparing for confirmation. To that time, I believed in God, but I also remember entertaining thoughts of pantheism and atheism. To be honest, I did not think much about God, and the only time I really remember praying is when members of my family, or a friend, would die. And even then, I prayed more to a generic God. When in sixth grade, I volunteered with one other student to present the Catholic faith to the rest of the class; but this was not on my own initiative and only because no other persons in the class were willing to present the Catholic faith.
But, in all truthfulness, I saw Jesus as simply a good man (like Moses) and did not then realize He is God. In about the 8th grade I began preparation for the rite of confirmation. One requirement was to write a letter to the priest stating your intent. The letter I wrote was of an honest intent to grow in Christian maturity, and it was about here that I only started to become more involved in my faith.
From the 8th grade to the 11th grade or so, I honestly cannot remember my exact religious convictions, if I even had any. I stopped attending Mass altogether for perhaps a year, maybe two. Difficulties in high school, for at least the first several years, aroused me to a state of silent indignation and frustration, and I dwelt more on these inner feelings than any religious sentiments. But by the 12th grade, my religious views became more attuned. I never brought the Bible or religious books to school, but I increasingly brought them to my workplace after school, where I fervently read them during breaks. How did I become interested in these religious works? It really was a strange change of events. Throughout high school I demonstrated an infatuation for history, particularly ancient history. By 12th grade, I had read Herodotus, Thucydides and several books on the Egyptians, Hittites, Babylonians, etc. In my reading of ancient history, I remembered that the Hebrew scriptures themselves were ancient histories, and so, guided by my fascination in ancient history, I picked up an NIV Bible that had been given to my father by a Catholic priest (don't ask) and started reading the historical books starting with 1 Samuel. The words I read were powerful, even more powerful than Herodotus. I kept on reading. I received my own Bible (Protestant version) and started reading from Genesis. Within the year, I had completed reading about 75% of the Old Testament (excluding apocryphal works).
I continued my Bible reading into my first year of college, which I spent at a local college. I found my first year course load surprisingly easy, and during the hours in between classes, I started reading the New Testament writings, beginning with the four gospels. While many of the gospel stories were not new to me (I heard them in the Mass during my childhood) reading the stories together in context and in relation to the whole account of Jesus thrilled me. Something inside me moved me to a greater interest in anything having to do with early Christianity. I discovered the Apostolic Fathers, and I read them alongside the canonical writings. As I became more interested in the Christian faith as represented by the early Christian writings, I concluded that I needed to once again worship as a Christian. As I was raised Catholic, the Mass was the obvious place to return.
Perhaps the most formative years were my last 2.5 years as an undergraduate school at Elizabethtown College. Even before attending, I desired to become a part of the Catholic community on campus. I joined Newman Club, assisted at the Sunday campus Masses, and in between my studies continued reading books on the Catholic faith. Yet, something else transitioned in my life: I became extremely depressed and lonely on campus. Although a member of the Catholic community, I felt as though there were no Catholic person on campus with whom I could faithfully discuss Roman Catholic beliefs. I did, however, become good friends with a Nathan M., who, as a fundamentalist Christian, had an interesting contribution to my faith development. Up to this point in my life, I had a few acquaintances who were Christian, but until then I had no friend who read the Bible with such great frequency and devotion. In the end, we tended to stop discussing religion, since Nathan and I could not agree on the key differences between Catholicism and Protestantism. In retrospect, I probably goaded him, since many of the books I read that shaped my discussions with him were of the Catholic apologetics genre.
I wrote journals on frequent basis during these 2.5. years, and many of my religious questions and struggles are addressed there. I cannot undervalue the influence of my depression on my religious pursuit. When the depression was powerful, I walked (or ran) miles away from campus to secluded places, praying along the way and when I arrived. Several of my school papers focused on Catholic themes, and my library of Catholic books swelled. I also spent countless hours on the internet, posting on Christian and Catholic Christian forums.
Near the end of my time at Elizabethtown, I realized that the depression was not lifting but worsening. I also began to have increasingly difficult back problems that prevented me from running as well and frequently as the first two years. God seemed to ignore all my novenas, all my prayers for mercy. I did not despair, but I definitely grew weary. About this time, as I was developing in my understanding of the Roman Catholic Church, I became informed of the traditional Catholic movement (the TLM and so forth) and the Eastern Catholic (and Eastern Orthodox) Churches. All my life, I had only attended Novus Ordo Masses on a regular basis. I had, on a few occasions attended a Lutheran church, and once or twice a Presbyterian service, but the details of these services had negligible impact on me. I read Timothy Ware's (Bishop Kallisto's) The Orthodox Church in my senior year of college, and I was intrigued by the East. By my senior year, I was unsatisfied by what was going on in the mainstream Catholic church, and I tended to side with many of the traditional Catholic arguments, especially as they appertained to the liturgy. I did not stop attending the Novus Ordo liturgy, but I wished that the mainstream Church were more conservative in her liturgy, and truer to the early Church and the Church Fathers I had read so far (I bought the 10 volume Ante-Nicene Fathers for myself for Christmas, and I found the tone of the early Christians to be different from that of the official voices of Roman Catholicism).
Next: my experience with the charismatic Catholics. I do not recall when or where I first heard of this group. I believe it was the internet. By my last year of college, I was still extremely depressed, ill, and feeling that God was very far away. I felt that the Novus Ordo Mass was not providing me with the spiritual support I needed. Yet, I found some comfort, if limited, in my private prayers to the saints via novenas. I especially prayed to St. Terese (The Little Flower), St. Jude Thadeus and St. Dymphna. I also held out for miraculous healing from a modern day healer, be it Protestant or Catholic (about this time, at least when at home on breaks, I watched the 700 Club in the hope that God would heal me through the prayers of Pat Robertson!)
But, in any case, I fell in with the charismatic Catholics. They did not seek me; I sought them. During a college break, I saw a small ad in St. Katherine Drexel's bulletin for a healing Mass. I attended. I was prayed over, and I did not feel healed. The charismatic Catholics prayed tongues as they laid their hands on me as well, which somewhat freaked me out, and I never became used to it. But I started attending the weekly meetings of the charismatic Catholic group. I must say from the start that they were committed to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. They did not advocate anything against the magisterium, and they exuded a great love for Mary, Jesus and the saints. I found their music, at least then, to be uplifting and a fine alternative to the "Robot Mass" music to which I was accustomed. But the speaking in tongues and the seemingly Pentecostal (Protestant) connections always were a barrier for me. I decided to enter a Life in the Spirit seminar, and I attended all the meetings. I enjoyed listening to the speakers. But what was I really there for? I wanted the depression to end. I wanted to experience the love of God, to know that He cared for me--by feeling it. I thought that by baptism in the Holy Spirit I might be changed anew, and my life change for the better.
On the day of my baptism in the Spirit, I was extremely unsure. I wanted to feel better, and I thought maybe God might be using this ritual to fill me with the Holy Ghost which would heal and cleanse me of all impurity. But I also felt that it was not right, that I was not acting in complete accord with my conscience. Throughout the whole ritual, even as the charismatics laid their hands on me praying for me to receive a greater outpouring of the Holy Spirit, I repeatedly prayed, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner." I did not experience anything, although the woman in front of me who had just been prayed over was weeping. I never returned to the group, although to this day I hold no grudge against any member. Each was kind and very caring towards me. It was the theology that I could not accept.
[continued in Part II of next post]
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