Holy Halitosis

 

Appreciating the strangeness of our Catholic faith

12/10/2025

Matthew 18:12-14 Jesus said to his disciples: "What is your opinion? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray? And if he finds it, amen, I say to you, he rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not stray. In just the same way, it is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost."

Sometimes we Catholics get so used to our faith we don’t realize how truly strange it must seem to others. C. S. Lewis once compared this phenomenon of strangeness to halitosis, bad breath. Everyone else notices a person’s bad breath except the poor soul himself. Consequently, if we want to appreciate the strangeness of our Catholic faith we have to see it through a non-Catholic’s eyes, or better, smell it through a non-Catholic’s nose. Of course, in the case of Catholicism, it is a holy halitosis.

For example, we have a wonderful couple who converted from the Church of Christ a couple of years ago, and now are very devout Roman Catholics. Last night they attended the 6 p.m. Mass for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, and it was bilingual. The music, provided by one of our 5 Hispanic choirs, was booming and filled the church with praise of God and the Virgin Mary.

As this couple was leaving Mass, the lady complimented the choir by saying: “Wow, that sounded like the Church of Christ choir!” I was pleased that at least our music could compete with the Protestants. This same couple has signed up as Extraordinary Ministers of Communion and the woman is a lector at Sunday Mass.

Whenever she lectors at Mass, it is easy to tell how familiar and comfortable she is with reading the Sacred Scriptures, like putting on a old pair of jeans that fit perfectly. And she never struggles with the archaic language or Hebrew names that Catholics always stumble over. And most importantly, they still tithe like Protestants. In other words, it is easy to smell the holy halitosis of Catholicism through their noses.

In the gospel today, we should not feel too comfortable with Jesus’ words that we miss their strangeness, the shocking nature of what he teaches. He describes a man who cheerfully abandons 99 sheep to go in search of one stray. And Jesus presents this parable so matter-of-factly, as if no one would take umbrage to it. But if we stop to think about it seriously, we see how his parable flies in the face of all common sense.

We would all cut our losses and forget the stray to safeguard the 99. And that strangeness, even illogic, is Jesus’ point: our heavenly Father thinks, calculates, and plans very differently than we do. And just like my Church of Christ friends, we too must learn that heavenly logic. We must become familiar with smelling Catholicism as holy halitosis, which of course is nothing other than incense.

I am convinced that this strangeness is one of the chief features of our faith that is drawing crowds of people to the Catholic Church. Heck, yesterday all our Masses were packed, and that never happens on a holy day. And it fell on a Monday, right after everyone had gone to Mass on Sunday.

Now, what other church requires its members to attend services on Sunday and Monday just because that Monday happened to be December 8th? And that strangeness and being out-of-step with society and common sense, is walking in-step with God’s logic and living at his level.

There seems to be a growing unspoken but general consensus that what our modern culture offers people is shallow and meaningless. By contrast, human beings feel deep in their bones that we were created for more than this world offers. And more and more people are finding the true water than quenches their thirst in the very strangeness of the Catholic faith.

They are sensing that God’s logic of leaving the 99 and searching for the one stray is perhaps the best way to live, and even the most human way to live. Why? Because human beings are created in the image and likeness of God, and so when we adopt God’s mind and heart, we discover our own deepest identity, peace, and joy.

I am grateful to my Church of Christ friends who have helped me smell the holy halitosis of my Catholic faith. And we Catholics should refuse to take the breath mint the world offers us.

Praised be Jesus Christ!