I sit here, smack dab in the middle of Holy Week, anticipating the approaching daylight, but still knowing we have the darkness of Good Friday and Holy Saturday to pass through on our way to it.
And I am in awe. In awe of the fact that we exist. We are on a ball floating in space, constrained in the exact position necessary to sustain life due to the gravity of the sun and a bunch of other factors I probably will never understand. We exist in a universe of black holes, and asteroids and fiery balls of light. The whole thing could have been, and perhaps, according to the odds, should have been, chaos.
But it isn’t.
No… not only does out planet sustain life, but it sustains intelligent life. There is chaos, yes, but there is also an astounding level of order in our world to the largest magnitude and the smallest degree. The chaos is subdued, and here we are. What are the odds?
You know something else that has me in awe, every single day of my life? The fact that over 2,000 years ago a man walked this earth and claimed to be God. That man was crucified for his claims and he died.
His followers claimed he rose again.
What are the odds his claim was true?
This man, Jesus, was clearly, and only, one of three things. He could possibly have been a liar. Just a normal man making grandiose, yet fictional, claims about himself. He could possibly have been insane. A God Complex to the highest degree. The third option, is he is who he said he was.
Based on the nature of the claims, I suggest it is actually pretty important for us humans to figure out which one of those three options is true.
What do we do with the historical information surrounding the life of this man? What do we do with the ancient prophecies his life fulfilled? What do we do with the fact that ten of his twelve original disciples were martyred for their belief in him? And the many, many more martyrs in the times that followed up until now? Were they, too, all crazy or liars? What do we do with the eyewitness corroborative accounts of the things this man said and did? What are the odds the eyewitness accounts would hold up to both scrutiny and history? What do we do with the fact that this religion, despite a multitude of efforts stomp it out, still exists, thousands of years later? What do we do with the billions of lives changed over the course of history because of this man’s teachings?
What are the odds…
Well… according to the odds, we humans shouldn’t exist. But we do.
So… if we exist against all odds, perhaps looking into the claims of the Christian faith isn’t that far fetched at all. Perhaps the Christian faith is more than just stories and morals. Perhaps the Christian faith contains something so surprising, and so True, it will knock your socks off.
Perhaps there is unfathomable depth there, and incomprehensible beauty there, and abiding peace to be found there. Perhaps He who holds everything in this universe together, against all odds, did something so significant for you, that it could change every breath you take every moment forward for the rest of this life and onward into eternity.
So… what are the odds you will take another look at the God Man Jesus? Whether you’ve believed passionately, or nominally, or not at all-ly… let’s give the claims of this man the scrutiny they deserve. Fair warning: Those who believed His claims were true? They were forever, immensely changed.
If you’re willing, Easter is a great time to start.
Here are some resources to being learning about the Christian faith. And, as always, feel free to ask a question via comment or email. We would love to be a part of your journey in any small way. And, if you live in our neck of the woods, we’d be pleased to have you join us on Easter morning.
Lorelei is the author of creepy, magical, hopeful stories for children. Her debut, The Circus of Stolen Dreams, released in 2020. Her second book, a magical retelling of The Secret Garden, released in 2022. Both are available for purchase wherever books are sold.
Has there ever been a time in your life when your actions have been misunderstood… or, worse yet, you have been misunderstood? When someone took a piece of something you had done, or a piece of who you are, and then turned that bit of truth, or added to it, or took away from it, or scrutinized it so severely that the context got lost? So much so that what that person ended up with was not an accurate representation of you or your actions at all?
I am sure many of us have been there, at some point.
It happened to me personally this week, regarding my Catholic faith. And it was in a situation where I was unable to say anything back at all. Because the person misunderstanding me was in a video on YouTube.
A friend of mine was sent a video by someone she knows. A video sent to her because some people in her life are concerned she is spending so much time with a Catholic. Because some people in her life are concerned she has attended Mass with us a few times.
The person in the video was a scholar who studied theology from the Reformed (Calvinist perspective). He was being interviewed by a couple of people on the problems with Roman Catholicism.
Truth be told, by now I have heard most of the arguments that Reformed theologians have about my faith. But when we were converting, none of it made any sense, as I had never before come fully into contact with the Reformed perspective’s wrath against the Catholic Church. And it’s still never fun to hear.
In the video (which I cannot recommend at all, and thus will not be linking to,) the scholar said Catholics and Christians have a different gospel (this is the Reformed perspective, not all Protestants believe that). He strongly implied that Catholics believe Priests to be some sort of deity. He said Catholics had no means of experiencing true Shalom (peace). He implied transubstantiation was not believed by the majority of Early Church Fathers. He misconstrued the relationship between Scripture and Church Authority. He said the Catholic Church was incapable of reforming. I could go on…
When I started watching the video, I was chuckling. When I finished, I was unbelievably sad. Because when misunderstanding and half-truths are being spread about something important to you, it hurts.
This video reminds me why some people from the Reformed church we left to become Catholic, no longer continued a friendship with us. And it reminds me why Pastors from that church sat in our living room and told us we were not, and never had been, Christian.
If that surprises anyone reading this, I understand. It was a very jarring experience to go through. If you are reading this and that is your perspective, I hope this helps you understand what that experience was like, and also challenges you as to where you choose to receive information about things you disagree with.
It’s a lot easier to joke about the number of conditions a Catholic would have to meet to receive salvation on a YouTube video, sitting next to people that agree with you than it is to look another human being in the eye and do the same.
It’s a lot easier to propagate stereotypes and misconceptions than it is to share a meal with someone, and get to know them and their faith personally.
Because I bet if anti-Catholics did that, even if they never experienced an inkling of desire themselves to become Catholic, that Catholics and the Catholic faith in general would become a lot less scary and mysterious. And who knows, maybe they would make some new friends.
I will say the Reformed (Calvinist) view of Catholicism, the view that says true Roman Catholics are not Christian, is in the minority among Protestant Christians. People in the Calvinist tradition don’t even think it appropriate to serve alongside Catholics in ecumenical ministry. Now, just because something is a minority, doesn’t make it untrue. But, the fact that among Protestant Christians, Calvinists stand apart as very anti-Catholic, while other Protestant groups and Catholics view each other as brothers and sisters in Christ at least is something worth mentioning.
But, my main point is this.
If I wanted to accurately learn and understand democracy, would it make sense for me to interview an anarchist about the democratic system? Would someone anti-government be a good and reputable source of information to accurately understand government?
If I wanted to learn about and understand the history of minorities in America, would it make sense for me to interview a white supremacist? Would someone with extreme prejudices against a group of people be a good and reputable source of information about the history of the people they are prejudice against?
If I wanted to learn about the Pro-Life movement in America, it’s motivations, history, strategy, and practical implications, would it make sense for my primary source of information to be someone adamantly Pro-Choice? Would they be likely to give an accurate representation of those that believe life begins at conception?
I hope we could agree in all of those cases that the answer would be an emphatic No!
It follows, then, if you have only learned about the Catholic Church from anti-Catholic sources, is that likely to be a a good and reputable source of information about the Catholic Church?
I hope our answer again is, unequivocally, no.
I know this based on logic. I know this based on the misunderstandings I have experienced in this regard. But I also know this based on my own faith experience.
The man in the video said Catholics cannot have Shalom. And, I admit, he rattled mine a bit for a couple of days. But, the reason I lost my peace wasn’t because I’m Catholic. I have never been at more peace in my life than I am now living out my Christianity through my Catholic faith. I lost my peace for a bit because I was reacting to being grossly misunderstood.
I realize I didn’t have to give that man the power. I think it all stems back to my desire to be liked, which I recently wrote about in detail, because it reminds me that people I have cared about stopped being friends with us for some of the reasons the man in the video stated. And I also think part of it was a just reaction to a legitimate concern. There is a difference between communicating our faith with each other, in the hope to help bridge gaps, and spending one’s time defaming another faith, with the intent to increase divisions. There is something beneficial to understanding each other better. There is something terribly dangerous about spreading half truths.
My friend sent me the link to that video because she wanted to know, from a Catholic perspective, if the things he said were accurate. And, even though it was difficult to watch, I’m so glad she did. She went to the source and she valued our friendship, and she wants to know me and my faith because she cares about me as a friend. This is all good stuff.
And it feels a lot better to get my thoughts out in some capacity, even if I can’t respond directly to the man in the video. I’m ready to move on.
Because, at some point, as another good friend of mine often says, we need to meet at the cross, and work together to get out and be the hands and feet of Jesus to a hurting world. And I am so happy to do so with my many Christian friends of various faith backgrounds who are willing to serve alongside me. Because we can accomplish more together. Because we are the Body of Christ on this earth. And because we have much work to do.
-Lorelei
Purchase Lorelei’s Books Here:
Lorelei is the author of creepy, magical, hopeful stories for children. Her debut, The Circus of Stolen Dreams, released in 2020. Her second book, a magical retelling of The Secret Garden, released in 2022. Both are available for purchase wherever books are sold.
When I was a teenager, friends were very, very important to me. As they are for most adolescents. I remember keeping a journal, and writing in it a list of all the friends I had at the time. I like having friends, and I like having friends be happy with me.
Now, full disclosure, I was not a popular kid in school, if we are using popular in the sense of “cool.” I had this one shirt I loved in 5th grade that had a cartoon picture of two cuddly cats on it. It originally belonged to my grandmother, and I thought it was the best, so she let me borrow it. I wore that shirt to school with pride. In an era when name brands were starting to become a big thing- Gap, American Eagle, Abercrombie and Fitch… I was wearing cat shirts.
At this point, it may not surprise you to learn that I was also kind of a “nerd.” Which I’m sort of thankful for nowadays. I avoided a lot of drama by being nerdy. I wasn’t cool enough to get invited anywhere I could get myself in trouble. But, even though I was nerdy, I still cared a lot about what other people thought of me, and being different was often hard.
I think in many ways, it’s normal to want to be liked. No one is like “Man, I really hope people hate me today.” So, this is probably a universal thing.
But I think where my own struggle began is when I started to associate part of my own value as a person with how many friends I had at any given stage of my life. Like somehow how many people liked me somehow correlated with my value. Like I said, I like to keep people happy.
Friend Count
Now, there are seasons in life when it’s normal for one’s ‘friend count’ to go down. Situations in which you don’t actually lose friends, but when your normal peeps are inaccessible. Moving comes to mind. But I wasn’t really prepared for the shift that occurred when we transitioned to the Catholic Church.
We lost some friends because of our decision. We drifted away from others due to not seeing them at church on a weekly basis. And others, we thankfully were able to keep. But talking about the Catholic Stuff, which has become a huge part of our family life, still is a bit weird and awkward, and sometimes avoided altogether.
It’s difficult to not be able to talk about your faith openly with your friends, because you know they disagree with you. It feels like an entire part of my being, and theirs is not okay to bring up. And that’s really hard.
It’s difficult knowing that some people I know think I’m at best a bit misguided, and at worst a bit crazy for becoming Catholic. I know that reaction, because I’ve had it too towards other people who make what I think are odd decisions or hold what I think are incorrect beliefs. There are times when I’ve been like “man, I really like that person for a lot of reasons, but in this one regard I think they are a bit out there… too bad.” Becoming Catholic, to some people, means I’ve lost some street cred. It means everyone isn’t totally in love with every part of me, which, let’s be honest, they probably weren’t anyway to begin with. I may or may not have my fair share of flaws. And that’s something I should be expecting from people anyways. I know that’s my own weakness talking because the only One who is ever going to love me completely is God. I don’t need to seek to have that hole filled by people. It isn’t a fair expectation to make.
Another tricky thing about this, I think, is that women in particular base friendships on commonalities. You become friends because you have things in common. And then, when you have a friendship formed based at least partly upon a certain common thing… when that common thing changes, it adds some challenges.
And now, writing on a Catholic blog when many of my friends are firmly Protestant holds its own unique challenges.
And, I’m in this really interesting place because I know both Protestants and Catholics and people of other world views are reading what I write.
And I need to be authentic to my faith.
On Being “Safe”
It’s almost been like… it’s okay to many that I became Catholic if it has helped my faith walk, but I think maybe if we don’t talk about it too much or I don’t write about it too much then people can attempt to think I’m only Catholic in the “safe” ways to be Catholic. Like with the connection to history, and the liturgy, and the reverence. All the things that set the Catholic Church apart, but don’t offend people who disagree with the Church. And this has mostly come from me. I’ve been the one to emphasize how much I like the “safer” aspects of Catholicism. Because I don’t know how to bring up how much I love The Eucharist to a friend who doesn’t believe in the True Presence, or how much going to Confession or Adoration recently helped me refocus my prayer life, or how much I love praying the Rosary. Literally I know almost all those things sound weird or crazy to my friends that aren’t Catholic. I know, because that’s how I felt when I wasn’t Catholic. Catholics were to be loved on, but also kept at a safe distance… because they were a bit loco.
But… if I only write about those “safe” Catholic things, then I’m not really being true to myself, or the totality of my faith. I didn’t join the Catholic Church for only the “safe” reasons. I am fully Catholic. That means I believe in the Authority of the Catholic Church, and the Communion of Saints, and asking for the intercession of Mary and the Saints, all the Catholic teachings on Mary and Purgatory, and the True Presence in the Eucharist, and Confession, and that the Catholic Church is the Church Jesus founded during His time on earth. I am Pro-Life. I don’t support the use of contraception. I also believe that everyone, without knowing it, who has a genuine Christian faith is to some degree, though imperfectly, united with the Church Jesus founded.
None of this is a recipe for having everyone like me, or keeping everyone happy. And that is something, as I mentioned, that I have really struggled with since my youth.
As a former Protestant, I know that many of those aforementioned things sting when you aren’t Catholic. And that they bring up many, many thoughts and feelings and reactions.
I know hearing that the Catholic Church claims to be the Church Jesus founded stings, because as a Protestant I felt like people were telling me that my own faith was somehow not enough. Even if that isn’t what they meant, it felt awful to have someone tell me that there was a fuller version of Christianity out there that I didn’t agree with. It felt arrogant. It made me feel defensive. It made me mad.
I had no idea what my Catholic in-laws were talking about when they talked to me about things like the necessity of Mary being Ever-Virgin. I thought they were super weird, and had no frame of reference to understand why that would even be important. I cried a few times because I had no idea what these people were talking about.
The idea of accepting the Tradition of the Church on the same level as the Bible was offensive to me. I didn’t have any context for what it meant, and I had grown up my entire life hearing over and over again that The Bible is the sole authority for Christians on matters of faith.
The Nature of the Claims
I remember watching a video series by Protestant Pastor and Author Tim Keller on The Reason For God. The book and video series were awesome tools in my own faith walk as I discerned whether or not Adult Lorelei believed Christianity to be true. Keller met with a group of people who were not Christians, and explained Christianity to them in a series of videos. They then had free discussion, where they would ask him questions, and he would answer them in a loving, yet truthful manner. One discussion was on the exclusivity of Christianity, and the idea of why are the perameters so narrow in the sense of Christianity having a corner market on Truth. Mr. Keller responded, basically, by saying, that Christians aren’t being exclusive just to be exclusive. It’s an inevitable side effect of the “nature of the claims” of who Jesus claimed to be. And if Jesus was truly who He claimed to be, by the nature of His claims, the perameters become narrow.
I guess I could ask my Protestant friends to pardon the seeming exclusivity of the Catholic faith. If the claims are true that Jesus founded The Catholic Church, then, by the nature of the claims, all the Catholic stuff is going to be true- the safe and the non-safe issues. I don’t know how much of a help that would be, but it is one way to look at it.
Finding an Answer
I often ask myself… Why can’t I just focus only on the nice things… parenting, and marriage, and all the other safe ecumenical Christian topics? And I do enjoy writing about those things, and plan to continue. But, again, it comes down to authenticity. And the passion deep inside my soul to help reduce the misconceptions about that which divides us. So I need to write about All The Things. Not just the easy or comfortable ones.
I desire to get better at this. To get better at being fully myself, and allowing others to be fully themselves without feeling like I need to censor so much. And I do so much love writing about my faith. It just hurts to know that what I write might cause any amount of pain or discomfort in another. I think in some ways it is God allowing me to feel the pain he feels at the divisions within Christianity. He meant for us to be one.
So… how to live and write authentically when you know a lot of people close to you disagree with what you believe? I don’t think the answer is to stay away from the controversial stuff. Avoidance inhibits authentic relationships.
I suppose I could take the attitude of “they don’t have to click on it if they don’t like it,” but that isn’t who I am. I care… perhaps too much at times, and not enough at others. But I care about the feelings the things I write bring up in those that read it. But I hope I’m learning not to care so much that it impacts how I feel about my own value or worth. Or so much that I’m scared of sharing that which I believe to be Truth.
I think perhaps the answer is to be authentically me, but also try to write in a way that explains my thinking as clearly and graciously as I can, for those who read that aren’t coming from a Catholic worldview.
Imperfect Me
I think God allowed that side effect of our journey to Catholicism, at least in part, to help reveal an area of sin in my own life. That I care far too much and too often about keeping the peace, and being liked, to an extent that I tend to lose myself when I am in a position of being different.
And I know I won’t be perfect at this. I’ve lived long enough to learn that there is no way to have an opinion about something and also keep everyone happy. And writing is all about having an opinion and sharing it in ways that other people can relate to, or can learn from, or that helps people see things in a new way. But at least this is a way to move forward, and do what I can to be open to conversation, and bridging those gaps.
So, I want to take a moment to thank both the friends and strangers, Protestant and Catholic, and whatever other background that have been reading this blog, especially those who took the time to read this post in its entirety. I respect you, I care about you, and I respect your faith life. I can’t promise that what I write won’t ever offend, or puzzle you… but I can promise that I am going to do my best to be authentic and gracious. I am always happy to answer a question. I hope if you aren’t Catholic, that you are able to learn a bit more about the Catholic Church, and I admire you’re willingness to learn about a worldview that differs from yours. I hope if you are Catholic, that you are able to find a place to be encouraged, and to learn more about this faith we share. And, I hope we can move in a direction of greater authenticity with each other.
What about you? Has your faith ever caused you to feel misunderstood by others? Has there been any part of yourself you didn’t know was safe to share with others? How have you learned to live more authentically in your own life?
Purchase Lorelei’s Books Here:
Lorelei is the author of creepy, magical, hopeful stories for children. Her debut, The Circus of Stolen Dreams, released in 2020. Her second book, a magical retelling of The Secret Garden, released in 2022. Both are available for purchase wherever books are sold.
Today I was pondering something that I’ve pondered for a while: how to teach people things that have made such a deep and meaningful impact in my life. I’m referring primarily to the journey back to Catholicism Lorelei and I somewhat recently made that she has so beautifully expounded on over many posts, but specifically in “On Hating the Catholic Church.” As I say to people, I fell in love with Jesus in the Protestant Church and found him in his fullest in Catholicism.
So what did I do after finding Jesus in his fullest? Obviously, for those who know me well, I kept this to myself and never mentioned it unless asked. Ha! Actually, what I really did was I started talking people’s ears off.
Theology finally made sense to me. After seven years of post-graduate scientific study where I learned more than I ever imagined possible about cells and molecules, I finally could rest assured that God not only exists but that he gave us a Church with a logically consistent set of doctrines and a logically consistent theology. It’s hard to describe how exciting this was, and still is, to me. I am a man of logic by profession. I make a living by logic. Nature works a certain way, therefore if I know what nature does in such and such a situation, I can make a prediction about a particular aspect I don’t yet know about and, granting nature will behave the same way again, I can learn something new about God’s creation. Logic. It’s the name of my game, as it is many other people’s too, not just biomedical scientists.
So, having gone through a few years of what didn’t quite feel like logically consistent theology, I routinely struggled with not being able to fully share my faith. I didn’t really even fully have a faith… that is until it finally made sense. And when it made sense, and when I realized that Jesus is to be found in his fullest possible form at the alter at each Catholic Mass, I first went straight to the alter to meet him there, and then I went about telling everyone I possibly could that they could find him there too! And everyone I told immediately followed me right to the alter the very next daily Mass we could find!
Actually…..No again. Why? Wasn’t my enthusiasm infectious? It seemed like people wanted to hear what I had to say. It seemed like they genuinely liked being around me to see this new-found enthusiasm. And I simply assumed all they needed to share in my enthusiasm was my explanation of what made me so enthusiastic to begin with.
And that is where the pondering starts. Why don’t people respond to my explanations of what is so exciting to me with the same excitement I have?
“People don’t care about answers to questions they are not asking.” I don’t know who to attribute this quote to specifically, except to say I’ve heard it from multiple sources in the Catholic Church. It makes sense. It makes sense in my life, and I’m sure in yours too. You ever listen to NPR and wonder how this stuff could be interesting to anyone? Who wants to know about this? Why would I spend an hour of my life learning about that? … But then comes a time in your life, if you’re like me, when you started to get curious about things and all of a sudden NPR is your favorite radio station! What changed? Not the information, but the simple fact that I got curious.
Today I realize that my job as an evangelist and as a father is not primarily to provide the answers but to learn how to teach people to want to learn, to cultivate curiosity. Then, and only then – when people finally really want to know “JP, why do you love the Catholic faith so much, and do you think I could find Jesus there too?” – then the answer I give might cause the effect it did in me.
The funny part about this is that immediately after I came to this conclusion today – as I was driving in slow moving Chicago traffic – I pulled up next to a bus with an advertisement on the side marketing the exact thing I was thinking! If it didn’t say this exactly, it certainly intimated it: “Cultivate Curiosity.” And then it showed a picture of a student.
You see, cultivating curiosity is far more beneficial than ramming facts and knowledge into people’s brains. Parents, let us cultivate curiosity in our children. Don’t fear, they have what it takes to learn how to learn. But the deep seeded burning flame to want to learn, that is a harder thing to instill. Let us start now.
Fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, let us continue to cultivate our own curiosity. I encourage all of us to humble ourselves and admit that there is far more to learn about God and our relationship with Him than we can hope to learn in a life-time. Disagree? Can the created being be greater than the creator?
Let us cultivate our own curiosity so that there is never a dull day in our lives. Seriously, I firmly believe there is nothing boring in our life. If you are at a point where that is true, I encourage you to learn about something new. Start to see how it’s all connected. There is crazy stuff to learn about the thread of material in your carpet. Have you asked why it is there in the first place? Have you asked why doesn’t it vanish into thin air? Have you asked what holds it together?
When I started to learn the science behind the answers to these questions – which include atomic and even subatomic physics – I immediately began to appreciate how vast God is. And when I started to appreciate how vast God is, I then started to appreciate how RADICAL it is that HE, the one whom the universe is not big enough to contain, confined himself to becoming a human being!
And just like each one of us, He started his humanity as a single fertilized egg, made up of a quantifiable set of proteins, nucleic acid, metabolites, etc.
Cultivate curiosity.
And when you finally ask yourself why I love Catholicism so much, please ask me! I’m happy to answer.
-JP
Purchase Lorelei’s Books Here:
Lorelei is the author of creepy, magical, hopeful stories for children. Her debut, The Circus of Stolen Dreams, released in 2020. Her second book, a magical retelling of The Secret Garden, released in 2022. Both are available for purchase wherever books are sold.
This Catholic Family: Catholic Womanhood, Family, and Conversion 