Today marks my one year anniversary in the Catholic Church. I reflect more on my first year as a Catholic in my first Catholic Stand article, coming out before Easter. But today I want to spend some time reflecting on a specific person that has been an inspiration to me on my faith journey.
What’s In A Name?
When a person is Confirmed into the Catholic Church, he or she is asked to choose the name of a Saint to take on as they are confirmed. This Saint will be someone that this person admires, and desires to model his or her life after. A Saint that you feel connected to. Name changing at specific pivotal live moments happens several times in Scripture… we have Abram becoming Abraham, Simon becoming Peter, etc. It’s a beautiful tradition, and while you all still know me as “Lorelei,” last year on this day I also took on the name “Teresa.”
As in Saint Teresa of Calcutta. Known as Mother Teresa during her time here on earth.
Saint Teresa was someone I knew about during my formative years, but only vaguely. And then, more recently, when I became more aware of the social justice issues of our times, I felt more connected to her, and the heart that she had for the poor and underserved. Before I even entertained the idea of becoming Catholic, I had purchased a piece of art for our home that contained a quote from Mother Teresa.
There are a lot of things about Saint Teresa’s life that I can look up to, and strive to model. I can only hope to grow to a point that I can live as selflessly as she. Today I want to specifically write about one of my favorite quotes of hers. She said this in response to a nun wanting to follow in her footsteps and move to Calcutta. Saint Teresa gave her unexpected advice:
“Stay where you are. Find your own Calcutta. Find the sick, the suffering, and the lonely right there where you are — in your own homes and in your own families, in your workplaces and in your schools. You can find Calcutta all over the world, if you have the eyes to see. Everywhere, wherever you go, you find people who are unwanted, unloved, uncared for, just rejected by society — completely forgotten, completely left alone.”
-Saint Teresa of Calcutta
It is difficult to always know how we are serving God in our day to day lives. But this is such a beautiful reminder that Calcutta is everywhere.
When I am teaching students, some of whom desperately need routine and structure, and all of whom need love, I am in Calcutta.
When I respond to my baby’s cries for me, I am in Calcutta.
When something I have written has been an encouragement to another soul, I, without even knowing it, am in Calcutta.
What else? Who are the people in our neighborhoods who are sad or lonely? Who are the people in the pews around us at church who need friends? The orphans and widows in our own communities… People at the grocery store, in traffic… the homeless person on the street corner. And also at home, our children, and our spouses.
Even just thinking about this I am realizing that there are a lot of opportunities to serve my Calcutta that I am missing. I am far too often engaged in my own head and thinking about my own things, that I miss many opportunities to make eye contact, to see and possibly fill a need, to be the hands and feet of Jesus to those I encounter, if even briefly.
And this serves as a good reminder, on my anniversary, to continue to work to consider the needs of others before myself. With the hope that every single soul I encounter continues on knowing they were treated with dignity.
Saint Teresa did that beautifully. And it is something I am convicted to improve in, and glad to strive towards. Confirmation has given me many graces, but connecting me spiritually with a Saint has been one of the most beautiful gifts.
So, while my official name continues to be Lorelei, I ask, on this day of my Confirmation Anniversary, that you pray for me and for us all to grow more like my Confirmation Saint, Saint Teresa of Calcutta. And also, that we all pray to remember to find the Calcutta that is all around us.
– Lorelei
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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.
One of the big concerns I had as a non-Catholic was that Catholics don’t believe in Sola Scriptura, or Bible Alone theology. Catholics accept the Authority of the Catholic Church on interpretation of the Bible, and to discern other Truths important to the faith though Tradition and the Magisterium.
I now view the Authority of the Church as the lens through with I view Scripture. And making sure that lens contains Truth is very important indeed. Which is why I don’t place my trust in myself. Because I don’t have to, and, I suggest, was never meant to in the first place.
What is Essential?
When I was Protestant, I enjoyed the idea that: “In the essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things love.” And now, as a Catholic, I still appreciate the sentiment. However, at some point during my conversion journey, I started asking these questions: Who decides what is essential? What gives them the authority to do so? Who decides what isn’t essential? What if we think something is a non-essential, that actually is an essential?
Case in point. There are some churches that believe infant baptism is essential. Others that believe adult or “believers” baptism is essential. Still others that don’t believe baptism is essential at all. Who is right? How can we be sure?
Most people, when they are talking about essentials, in essence, mean the Gospel. Which, is pretty much agreed upon by everyone. But, we can’t even agree on the implications of this essential. Some believe in Once Saved Always Saved… that you can’t lose salvation once you convert. Others believe that you have free will and could genuinely convert, but then choose to genuinely reject God at a later point in life. Again, who is right and how do we know?
I started thinking that all this hubbub about essentials and non-essentials goes against our common understanding that Absolute Truth is important. Is some Truth worth more than others? Did God allow any part of Scripture to be written where he was like… “meh, this part isn’t that important?” And, if its all important… why are we so keen on tiering the value of different Truths? And, how do we know we are weighting them correctly?
A Simple Message
I’ve also heard it said many times that people over complicate things when it comes to the Gospel. That it’s a really simple message, and is easy to understand.
In many ways I still agree with this. The Gospel, for example, was explained to me as a young girl. I understood it, and was able to accept it with my childlike, yet still very valid, faith.
But, as simple as the Gospel message is on the surface, I think it is also important to remember that we are talking about a God who is infinite. That compared to God, our minds work like babies. And that though, yes, many aspects of the Gospel and also the Bible as a whole can be understood by most with relative ease, the Bible is actually not a ‘simple’ book.
And what I mean by that is, yes, we can get a lot out of the Bible through personal study. And as Christians we should be in personal study, frequently. But, like any great book ever written, what you can garner from a surface-level understanding and what you can garner as you peel back the many layers are two different things.
And the Bible has many, many complex and beautiful layers.
And how do we ensure we are understanding those layers as they were meant to be understood? Herein begins my exploration of the problems involved in not having an authority.
Peeling Back the Layers
A few examples:
If we do not understand Jewish culture and practices, we could possibly misunderstand some things in Scripture. Specifically… we can read about the Last Supper in the Gospels, and have a decent, basic sense of what went on that night. However, we miss out on the deeper meaning of what Jesus was doing if we do not understand Judaism, as Jesus’ actions in the Last Supper were ripe with meaning for his disciples… who were all Jews. They would have understood Jesus’ actions and words in a much deeper way, simply because they understood the culture they were living in. It was a given for them. For us, 2,000 years removed from the Jewish culture of Jesus’ day… we are in danger of missing a lot.
If we do not understand the literary forms used in the Bible, we could misinterpret things. What was meant to be historical, what was meant to be allegorical, what is poetry, what is parable, what is symbol, what is fact? If we don’t understand the original language, and the specific meaning of the words Jesus chose… then we could be interpreting things wrong. John 6, and the Bread of Life Discourse is a prime example of this. Catholics use John 6 to substantiate our belief in the True Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. Those who don’t subscribe to this belief, might argue that Jesus wasn’t being literal. That he was using symbolism. But, when you look back at the original language, and the reaction the people who heard Jesus speak had to what he was saying… it is very hard not to understand that Jesus meant what he said. Literally. We are reading the Bible in English, and sometimes imperfectly translated from the original languages. And therefore, if we don’t understand Greek and Hebrew… we, on our own, might be interpreting things incorrectly. (And which English translation are we to use anyway?!)
The same applies if we don’t understand the politics and history of the times in which books of the Bible were written. So many times books of the Bible relate to the historical context of the times. They mean certain things for certain people at a certain time in history. We can learn from and apply the purposes of many of these things to our world and life today, but we cannot assume that context is irrelevant. Again, we can lose meaning, or conclude meaning incorrectly if we are going at this on our own.
This was a difficult pill for me to swallow. Looking back, I think I didn’t want to believe that I couldn’t figure out the whole Bible on my own. Or that it wasn’t okay for me just to pick a theologian I liked and trust their interpretation. I had grown up believing that it was simple, and that I didn’t need an authority. Initially, realizing that I was wrong was difficult.
The Fallacy of Individual Interpretation
Most Christian people I speak with would agree that God has a specific intention and purpose for every word that he has, through human beings guided by the Holy Spirit, written in Scripture. That there is Absolute Truth. Yes, either God intended “This is my body” to be literal, or figurative. Not “either or” and definitely not both.
So, how do we know who has it right?
I believe I am paraphrasing a famous theologian and Catholic convert Dr. Scott Hahn when I say that I believe God is loving. And that a loving God wouldn’t leave us with an inerrant Bible, but only broken means to interpret it.
Most Christian, non-Catholic people that I speak with also firmly believe that the Holy Spirit guides Christians to interpret Scripture correctly.
But… with our general assent that God did, in fact, have a meaning in mind for what he allowed in the Bible, and the absolute fact that there are over 30,000 Christian denominations worldwide… we can only conclude one of two things.
1- That the Holy Spirit actually isn’t guiding us all to individually interpret things correctly… because this Christian believes in Calvinism, and this Christian believes in Arminianism. Because this Christian believes in believers baptism, and this Christian believes in infant baptism. Because this Christian believes in ordaining women, and this Christian does not. Because, because… If the Holy Spirit is genuinely guiding all those who are genuinely seeking him through their own personal interpretation of things… why are so many Christians coming to so many different conclusions? If this is the case, God gave us a Bible, and didn’t give us any way to know for certain what he meant! That doesn’t sound very loving to me.
2- The other option is Jesus never intended for us as individuals to carry the weight of correct interpretation on our shoulders at all. This would be the Catholic perspective. Catholics don’t believe that Jesus left us only a Bible. Which, he actually, definitely didn’t do, because the New Testament wasn’t even a thing for quite a while after Jesus’ life on earth. No, he didn’t leave us just a Bible. We believe he left us a Church. And that Church has been granted the discernment of the Holy Spirit through the ages, to correctly interpret the Bible.
Here’s Why
1 Timothy 3:15 states: “This is the church of the living God, which is the pillar and foundation of the truth.” Here’s a good article on the matter, but in essence, historically, prior to very recent Christian history, no one believed we should interpret the Bible individually. It was accepted and believed that Jesus promised the Holy Spirit would guide The Church to discern truth. The Church he himself established.
I don’t really think it’s that much a stretch for this to make sense. Christians believe that the Bible is inerrant. That God used dozens of authors, over hundreds and hundreds of years to give us an infallible book. God also gave the Church the Holy Spirit, with dozens of Popes over hundreds and hundreds of years to help the Church interpret that book infallibly.
John 16:13 says that when the Holy Spirit would come, He would guide us into all truth. Not just truth on the essentials (whatever those are determined to be), not just some of the truth, but all of it. He planned, from the very start, to give us a means to interpret Truth accurately.
We All Assent To Authority
Regardless if someone is Catholic or Protestant now, everyone assents to the authority of the Catholic Church on some issues.
For example… the Trinity is never mentioned in the Bible. Not once. But, interestingly enough, I was at a small group at my old Protestant church prior to my conversion, and the leader not only admitted that the Trinity isn’t in the Bible, but he acknowledged that we’ve trusted the Church to correctly form that doctrine for us. Now, I don’t think he was meaning to specifically reference the Catholic Church… but at the time the doctrine of the Trinity was formalized…. there was no Protestant Church. It was just Catholics everywhere. So, for all of us Christians that believe in the Trinity, we are assenting to the authority of the Catholic Church on that matter.
We also trust the authority of the Catholic Church with the Creeds of our faith. And we trust the Catholic Church to determine the Canon of Scripture (though Luther did have a few books removed during the Reformation… which in itself is another post).
At what point did God decide that submitting to the authority of the Church He established was no longer the way to do things, and that it was now up to the individual Christian to discern for him or herself what was true? I argue that He didn’t.
I honestly believe, based on the issues that Luther contended with at the time of the Reformation, and given the landscape of Christianity today- Luther would be Catholic. The issues he contended with aren’t issues anymore. He was right- the Church did need reforming at the time. And it did, most certainly, reform. And through it all, sound interpretation of our faith has been preserved. Even in times when there has been a corrupt Pope, or a heresy popping up, nothing doctrinally has been altered to the detriment of Truth. The bad Pope’s didn’t change things. The heresies were called out for what they were and snuffed out. Just like with the writing of the Bible, God is using fallible people to help preserve Infallible Truth.
Conclusion
The long and short of this post is to explain some of the reasoning behind why I accept the Authority of the Catholic Church.
I still read my Bible. Every day (much thanks to Lent for helping me solidify this discipline). But, when something comes up that I’m not sure about, I know where to go. There was just this sort of rabbit hole for me when I was Protestant that became very concerning. I was seeing people even within my own Church have different opinions on different issues in Scripture. How were they to know who was right? They may have taken their concern to the Pastor… well how were they to know the Pastor was interpreting things correctly? The Pastor might refer to a commentary or expository writing on that particular issue… but how were they to know that the author of that writing was interpreting things correctly? And on and on it goes… I’ve come to the conclusion that without a Pope, through whom the Holy Spirit works to protect Church teaching in matters of faith and morals, everyone is kind of their own. And that based on Scripture, that isn’t what Jesus was setting us up to be.
That’s why, ultimately, I saw no other way forward than to accept the Authority of the Catholic Church. Because I believe there is Biblical evidence that Jesus established a Church, and that He promised the Holy Spirit would preserve that Church in all Truth. And because I believe God keeps his promises.
– Lorelei
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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 is the story of a young girl, now grown woman, who looks back on a movie she absolutely loved and watched multiple times throughout her formative teenage and young adult years. It’s about a dramatically changed opinion. It’s about a call to awareness, a call to seek out Truth. And it all starts by giving another look at the seemingly classic romantic comedy called:
Pretty Woman
Looking back, I find it interesting that neither I, nor anyone I know that I watched this movie with when I was younger ever questioned what was going on.
At a fundamental level, Pretty Woman romanticizes prostitution, and creates the fantasy that true, meaningful, lasting love (well, we don’t really know if they last… the final scene in the movie is a grande romantic gesture, not a glimpse into their life together years down the road), can come from a beginning in exploitation and lust.
To start, I know Julia Robert’s character in the movie doesn’t have a pimp, which removes a hair of the horrors she would have faced, but she is remarkably unscathed for someone who has been selling her body for a while. She bears none of the apparent effects of trauma from rape, or abuse that women who actually are sold or sell themselves face on a regular basis. But none of that is romantic. Or comedic. So… obviously they had to make her seem normal- healthy even. Like a cool girlfriend you’d like to have, except she just sells her body on the streets each night without any side effects. No biggie.
Reality check. For the past 2 years I have been part of a ministry where I have the honor each month to spend time with and love on young women that are exploited, and let me tell you, none of it is romantic, or healthy. And I mean healthy in the sense of “this is an ok thing that should regularly be happening and is good for the people involved.” There are a lot of myths associated with how people perceive how women “choose” to enter the sex industry, which could be another article in itself. But, suffice it to say, it is very rarely a “choice,” in the sense of a woman, who has had a normal and healthy upbringing, with no abuse or trauma, and just wants to make some extra good money, decides to enter the sex industry of her own free will and with no coersion then, or thereafter. And that woman, with plenty of other options, is free to choose to leave whenever she is ready to be done. Sure. Maybe. Sometimes. I may have met one or two such women during my time in this ministry. But the dozens of other women I’ve met tell the story that the above scenario is most certainly the exception, and not even close to the rule.
But it’s just a fun movie, some might say. You’re taking it wayyy to seriously… Well… that’s a nice thought, but I don’t think I am taking it too seriously. Because I know what the message this movie sent to pre-teen/teen me was. It’s the same message the cover of Cosmo sent to me, and Redbook, and commercials, and a host of other things. And when a young girl is exposed to enough of that message, at least part of it gets internalized. At least part of that message let me know that, when all else fails, a woman can and should use her body as leverage. It let me know that some significant part of my purpose and worth had to do with my sexual appeal to men.
I could go further into detail about my own personal story, but thank God, I have since learned the twisted nature of those lies I was fed. I’m at a point now where my own personal convictions about where Truth resides are solid. I don’t even care what the magazines and the media and whatever else tell me my worth is. I no longer buy the magazines that perpetuate those messages. I no longer go to those websites. I question every source other than my Creator that tries to tell me who or what I am and what I am good for.
But what I do care about, is the many impressionable young and grown minds that don’t view these messages through any sort of filter. I do care about a Men’s Health magazine, with a provocatively dressed and posed woman on the cover, placed on a low shelf, cover out, at eye-level perfect for my daughter and son to see as we check out at Barnes and Noble. I know that the line I’ve been using when I catch Felicity looking at such a cover that “Oops, looks like that lady forgot to finish putting her clothes on! How silly!” isn’t going to work for much longer, and we are going to have to begin having a much broader, much more serious discussion. And, finally, I do care about the women I see each month who so need to know their value, and are constantly fed lies about their worth by the world around them and the men and women who exploit them.
Full disclosure. I more than just “don’t like” Pretty Woman anymore. I’m mad about it it. Maybe not so much the movie itself, but the culture that made it a hit, and the full on lies we women are buying into all too often.
Anything that glamourizes and romanticizes lust and exploitation is something that is a significant concern. And the reason isn’t just because messages like the one Pretty Woman send out into the world messed up my young self a bit. It’s because those messages undercut the absolute, no-hold-barred Truth about the value of women.
Saint John Paul II wrote extensively on the value and dignity of women, and it is the Church that fully reflects how God intended the dignity of women to be seen, and appreciated, and valued. One of my favorite quotes by him is as follows:
“There is no dignity when the human dimension is eliminated from the person. In short, the problem with pornography is not that it shows too much of the person, but that it shows far too little.”
Pornography and all forms of exploitation show a ton of skin, but nothing of the humanity of the person beneath it. And that is the root of the problem. When a human… becomes an object. And not only an object, and object meant for the consumption of another. The woman on that Men’s Health cover is not just an attractive body, but a soul-filled person with an inherit dignity. Removing the person to lust after the body strips her of her dignity. And we, simply, have no right to strip anyone of that.
One of the greatest gifts and encouragements to me on my own journey to understanding my value has been the Church, who, in the midst of the culture described above, reveals a completely different narrative about women, and their worth. It is my hope and prayer that my daughters, the women I have the pleasure to know in all facets of my life, and many others will start to or continue to question the narrative of the world at large about our worth, and instead seek the Truth of our value given to us by God. Like with food, we internalize what we consume. We internalize what we see with our eyes and hear with our ears. Let us turn off the noise and turn up the Truth. Let us question all that we are fed by this culture about our bodies and our sexuality. Let us be brave enough to speak louder than the world to our daughters, so they believe it. Let us stop spending money on movies, magazines, and other media that break down and manipulate the truth that we are a body/soul composite with inherent dignity.
Let us refuse to be seen as anything less than we truly are.
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 