Feeling Catholic

Learning to let go to feelings to find our faith

09/12/2018

Luke 6:20-26 Raising his eyes toward his disciples Jesus said: "Blessed are you who are poor, for the Kingdom of God is yours. Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice and leap for joy on that day! Behold, your reward will be great in heaven.  For their ancestors treated the prophets in the same way.

Almost overnight it feels very different to be a Catholic. To be honest in the past few weeks I have experienced the full range of feelings – from anger to sadness to bewilderment to betrayal – and now mostly I just feel numb. Maybe you felt a lot of emotions as you watched the news yesterday about our bishop’s decision to release the names of priests who have been credibly accused of child abuse. Even though the actual publication of that news occurred on Monday, it did not become widespread and commonplace until yesterday, ironically, on the infamous date of September 11.

John Allen Jr., a well-respected reporter on Catholic news, made that connection between our country and our Church on this date. He wrote: “If Church leaders were to stay in this pensive mood for a bit and play out the comparison to 9/11, it might be worth considering whether, in either case, the institutions targeted have truly learned their lessons” (Crux, September 12, 2018). One implication of such a comparison might be that just as many Americans felt numb after 9/11, so many Catholics may feel bereft of emotions after our own 9/11, however imprecise that comparison maybe.

Up until I watched last night’s newscast, I always felt proud and pleased to be a priest, but afterwards, I felt ashamed and awkward. I can’t help but wonder what people think when they see me in public with my Roman collar. I could safely assume in the past that most people held Catholic priests in high esteem, but now I suspect they hold us in low esteem or no esteem. But one good thing has come from this flood of feelings, and that is I remembered that true faith does not rest on our feelings but on a fact: God’s love for us manifest in Jesus, who suffered, died and rose again for us. Once all our feelings fly away, when we feel nothing at all and are numb, we can discover our faith again, faith in the person of Jesus.  And it is our faith that is fundamental.

Jesus knew we might rely too much on our feelings instead of real and raw faith so he predicted times like today, when we would not feel very good about being his followers. Our Lord taught: “Blessed are you who are poor, for the Kingdom of God is yours. Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice and be glad on that day! Behold, your reward will be great in heaven.” Obviously, Jesus is not referring to the clergy guilty of child abuse, but we know how a few bad apples can spoil the whole bunch, and all Catholics are seen by some outside the Church as guilty by association, at least we Catholic priests are. But Jesus’ larger point is that it will not always feel good to be his disciple, but in precisely those moments we will be blessed because we will have found faith in him, and no longer follow our Lord for a feeling.  Faith, and not our feelings, is what is fundamental.

Folks, how are you feeling about your faith in these troubling times? Are you glad or sad or mad? Or maybe you are like me and feel numb, emotionally exhausted, and just wish we could finish this chapter and turn this page of church history and move on. But maybe we should stop and reflect in the middle of this crisis and focus on our feelings, or the lack of feeling, and realize that faith was never a feeling at all. Rather, faith is an act, a choice, a response of love to Someone who has loved us first, Jesus. Every romantic relationship reaches a pivotal point when the feelings fail and then the couple must make a choice to move forward without the feelings that sustained them thus far. I would suggest to you that is when the real relationship is born, when true love enters the picture. It is only when our feelings fail us that we find true love, and our faith.

Let me conclude with a line from Scott Hahn’s book called The Creed, where he indicates the inestimable value of faith for a Christian. Hahn wrote: “To confess the faith of Christians was a matter of enormous consequence. To confess faith in Jesus was to accept the stigma he bore – to agree to share his inglorious death – in hope of a share in his glorious Resurrection” (The Creed, 33). In other words, sometimes we have to forget our feelings in order to find our faith. And it is our faith that will save us, not our feelings.

Praised be Jesus Christ!