bearing blog

Regarding being raised Catholic vs. being a convert — I said I was going to mention an insight I’d been chewing on, and then Amber sidetracked me into the last post, which led to some good comments (thanks commenters).   

Just a day or two ago I came across B16’s commentary, in Jesus of Nazareth, on the parable of the two brothers, aka the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15).  I had always read the two brothers first as the story-on-its-face, and also as representing the pagan world and faithful Israel.  Indeed B16 discusses this common and traditional interpretation.  But he also goes on to describe another angle:

…[W]hat Jesus says about the older brother is aimed not simply at Israel…but at the specific temptation of the righteous, of those who are "en regle," at rights with God… In this connection, Grelot puts emphasis on the sentence "I never disobeyed one of your commandments."  For them, more than anything else God is Law; they see themselves in a juridical relationship with God and in that relationship they are at rights with him.  But God is greater:  They need to convert from the Law-God to the greater God, the God of Love.  This will not mean giving up their obedience, but rather that this obedience will flow from deeper wellsprings and will therefore be bigger, more open, and purer, but above all more humble.

Let us add a further aspect that has already been touched upon:  Their bitterness toward God’s goodness reveals an inward bitterness regarding their own obedience, a bitterness that indicates the limitations of this obedience… There is an unspoken envy of what others have been able to get away with.  They have not gone through the pilgrimage that purified the younger brother… They actually carry their freedom as if it were slavery and they have not matured to real sonship.  They, too, are still in need of a path; they can find it if they simply admit that God is right and accept his feast as their own.  In this parable, then, the Father through Christ is addressing us, the ones who never left home, encouraging us too to convert truly and to find joy in our faith.  (pp. 210-211)

It’s kind of cliche (and almost new-agey sounding) to write that everybody needs to find their own way, but here is Benedict coming right out and saying it:  They, too, are still in need of a path.  Everybody needs to make a journey of conversion.  Without that, living the righteous life is just a bunch of rules that somebody else foisted on you because you happened to be born into one family and not into another.  And it’s pretty discouraging when you find out that following the rules doesn’t always get you where you think it ought to get you in this life.

Benedict points out that the elder brother’s response is not given to us.  It’s left open whether he  stomped off angrily, refusing to have anything to do with such an unfair dad, or whether he accepted the father’s generosity and joined in the rejoicing.  Maybe he went off to try out being prodigal himself.

But at least it gives me a model to think of the position that the "cradle Catholics" that are my children might be in. 

Thoughts?

Amber commented on my post below about the temptation to wonder if a child has a better chance of coming out a lover of the Catholic faith if she is not actually raised Catholic.

I know what you mean – as an adult convert who has seen so many lukewarm and fallen away Catholics I too wonder how to keep my kids from joining that group.

…I think that it can’t just be a matter of the head – cramming them full of knowledge about the faith and hoping that’s enough. They have to fall in love with the faith and fall in love with Christ – their hearts have to open to him and to his Church. But you can’t force love! All you can do is create moments for intimacy and closeness, try your hardest to keep out that which would create obstacles and pray that they are open enough to hear God calling to them. I think too many parents when raising their children in the faith focus too much on the head and not enough on the heart, leaving them with an anemic faith that can’t withstand the rigors of puberty and early adulthood….

Gee thanks Amber.  This is exactly what I worry about!  For me the "head," or brain anyway, is so much easier.  It takes all kinds, right?  Well, my kind is an extremely cerebral, not-very-visceral Faith.    I don’t relate very much to it on an emotional or "gut" or "heart" level.  It’s just not my way; I don’t relate very much to anything on that level.    I’m just a "brain" person.  (not the same as a head case) 

Being a "head" or "brain" kind of person, and being a homeschooling parent, and looking around and seeing a huge number of people who obviously haven’t (a) been well catechized or (b) ever learned how to think logically — just look at how most people react to, say, statistics — my impulse is mainly to inoculate my kids against ignorance and wrongheaded thinking. 

Study the Bible.  Memorize the catechism. Learn Church history.  Stimulate the thinking with well-chosen works of Christian literature, exegesis, and theology (not to mention plenty of mathematics and natural science, because you’ve got to understand Creation to really appreciate the Creator).   Teach rhetoric and logic. 

I think I am going to have to rely on others to help with the "heart" part.  Some of that has already started.  And anyway, the ways of the heart are hard to see from the outside.  Who knows what will inflame this child or that?  There are certain aspects of mathematics that give me a religious thrill, a kind of cerebral ecstasy.  So do parts of the liturgy.  So has the experience of being married and raising children, just in and of themselves. 

Oscar was asking me some questions the other day.  I didn’t know the answer — it was one of those "nobody knows" questions, not something you could look up.  (UPDATE.  Oh, I remember — he asked me what was the first language on earth.)   

He said, "I think God made some questions that are so interesting but you can’t know the answer, so that we would want to go to heaven where we can find out."

And I thought — that’s it!  That’s the essence of this brain-faith thing that I have, that feels so awkward in a room full of heart-faith people.   Some people express their desire for heaven as a desire to see the face of the Lord.  For me it feels a little more like a desire to know His mind.  God is Love and God is Truth.  Maybe Love and Truth are one thing.   

Maybe a desire for perfect truth that, receiving it, responds with truth — though comparably neglected in our tradition — is as much a means of salvation as is a desire for perfect love that, receiving it, responds with love. 

I struggle with lingering doubts — arising from my own experiences — about whether it’s better for kids to be raised Catholic than not. 

Stop!  Don’t flame me before I explain myself.

1. A significant number of people I know who love the Catholic faith, really love it, really know it, really try to live it, were not raised Catholic.  They are converts, or they grew up relatively unchurched and "churched themselves" later. 
2. A significant number of people I know who were raised in apparently faithful Catholic households, are no longer practicing Catholics or lukewarm Catholics.  They’ve converted to something else,  or they’re just not all that interested anymore, or they attend rarely or not at all.  This number is higher if you count people who might have turned out this way had they not fortuitously married someone described in the previous paragraph.
3. I am of the unchurched, self-churching variety, so I lack a lived experience of being taught the Catholic faith as a child.  OTOH, I have a lived experience of having come to love it on my own despite parental opposition.

This combination sometimes tempts me to wonder if statistically, here in the U. S., one has a better chance of coming out a lover of the Catholic faith if one is not actually raised Catholic.

More on this later, including an insight I’m chewing on today, when I get back to the computer.  Feel free to comment though.

The highlight and capstone of our Catholic Vacation Bible School. 

The picture to the left is reposted with permission from Margaret’s post.  It shows only some of what was a couple hundred kids — some as young as four.  They are facing the monstrance from all sides of the altar, kneeling, singing hymns and praise songs.  It lasted about  half an hour.

I’m told that VBSs often end with a pageant or recital in which the children gather to perform for their parents the songs or skits they learned during the week.  This is kind of like that.

Only it’s totally different, as I hope you can see.  Because they’re not performing for us.  These kids are prepared.  They’ve spent all week working on it.  They know who it is they’re singing for, and they are totally focused on Him.  You really have to see it to believe it.