When first attracted to the Church, one naturally notices the areas where she says "no" to one's assumptions and beliefs, the same way the immigrant to a foreign country first notices all the differences and especially the differences that make his time there harder — different ways of queuing up in shops or different relations to time and schedules, for example, or different attitudes toward private property. But the experience ought to lead one to a deeper vision of the whole, in which the questions cease to be so pressing because the beauty and coherence of the whole become more obvious. The immigrant adapts to the differences, and begins to understand and enjoy the culture they express, and eventually to think and feel the way the natives do.
Although, and this is something converts should remember, he will never think and feel exactly as they do because he did not grow up there. What for them is instinct will always be for him to some extent analysis followed by choice. Many practices will always feel awkward and many ideas dubious because he does not know everything they know, even if they don't know all they know. The Thing he loves will always be a mystery.
The particular arguments and answers were important to me, but increasingly so as confirmation of the whole. I was moving from the point where I could think the Church is right about this but wrong about that, so that the decision to join was prudential and comparative — Where can I serve God best? How does it look next to the alternatives? — to the point where I could only believe that the Church was right about everything or reject her, the point where the decision to commit or not had to be total and final.
Here again the process was like falling in love: There comes a time when you must either marry the girl or break up with her. If you don't do one or the other, you will be trifling with her affections, which is an offense not only against charity but against truth. And imprudent for you as well.
Read the rest.
H/T
ALSO: The Permanent Scandal of the Vatican or, Why, Having Married Her, We Don't Divorce Her Now.
1 comments:
Thanks for sharing those. I agree with David Mills that while apologetics books have their place, the biographies of converts are the most moving. I recently read and so enjoyed Literary Converts by Joseph Pearce.
I love the analogy made to marriage, and just read an interview in the National Catholic Register that referenced the same analogy: "I don’t think I have a trace of “infatuation” with the Church. I love it like you love your spouse after 40 years of marriage. I love it in its faults and failings. I love it all the more for the intensity of its humanness; perfection is not part of the bargain."
http://www.ncregister.com/register_exclusives/change_in_vatican_culture/
Joseph Bottum's essay puts the whole media frenzy and public reaction in perspective.
This will help me stay calm and carry on against the storm.
In Christ,
Lucy
www.mysticalrosedesign.blogspot.com
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