The Lessons Continue

 The overall theme of my Lenten experience has centered on 'Listening".  Be still, Leslie, and just know deep in your heart that God has your best interests at Heart and that He is walking this path with you. Be still and listen to what people are saying or posting or proclaiming with red-faced insistence, asking only one question:  Where is God in all of this?

It occurred to me that this part of my journey had the foundation set years ago during one of the Bosco Conferences I attended. The speaker - a learned woman from England - used a phrase that resonated with me:   "the eyes of Faith".  She used it in the context of how a Catholic could view the messy history of The Church and the People of God under both covenants - the Original and the New - and how putting on those pair of glasses could offer insight into what happened, what could happen and what is happening now.

I was intrigued by this concept.  Unfortunately, I did what I usually do when something strikes me as being solid and true.  I assumed I was catching UP rather than catching ON.  I just put it in my pocket and figured that this is how all the smart people in The Church view the world and its upheavals and went on my merry way.  The light had been turned on for me.  Surely, that light had been part of the Intellectual Tool Chests of my fellow Catholics.  Of course, they had been using it all along.  Wasn't it grand that I had finally found my light and figured out how to use the on/off button?

I then make the error of thinking everyone must have known about this deal and that I had simply been absent that day when it was taught in school.

What does it mean? 

What I heard that day is for me to be willing to evaluate actions in terms of historical context as well as the higher purpose of that action.

For example; when we examine the actions of Bishops during some of the more important councils held by Holy Mother Church over the centuries we encounter some pretty shady behavior.  There are Bishops who instigated blockades, bribed emperors, tried to poison each other and emptied entire city treasuries in order to get other Bishops to vote, or not vote, a certain way on a different theological doctrine being examined.

Now, I can look at those actions and think, "What a horrible bunch of scoundrels!  They cannot possibly be considered saints or looked upon with any kind of admiration!"

Or, I can ask myself, "Are they demonstrating that the teaching being discussed was so fundamental and important to Truth that they were willing to let the treasures of an entire city go in order to protect it?  Were they so concerned about the heresy being promoted that they were willing to risk their mortal soul to stamp it out?"

Frankly, both can be true of the situation.  It is quite possible that a saintly bishop from the 3rd Century is so worried that a fundamental truth of the Catholic Faith will be discarded for a heresy that he lost his Trust in the Holy Spirit and decided to take things into his own human hands.  It is also possible that the bishop in question is a saint in heaven, a man who can be regarded with love and admiration, who rose up from sin and shook it off in his lifetime.

What I want to be able to do is listen to those people screaming that the end is near and do so with the ears of Faith.  I do not want to simply dismiss them as wacky wacky; rather, I want to listen and ask myself if it is possible that both things are true.  They are wacky wacky and they are also genuinely concerned about the state of the Church and whether or not they are being abandoned by Her leaders.

With that in mind, I hope to develop the ability to listen to the pain and fear they are expressing and remember that it comes from both a love for The Faith and a lack of faith, an inability to fully trust that God's got this just as He has me in my daily journey.  In other words, I want to remember always that these people are creatures who are scared.  They may sound and look smug.  They may wave their arms and make declarations.  They might take selfies that reveal their hidden defects of character and lay bare their sins before the world because their trust slipped from God to a particular politician who led them astray.

All that may be true, but if I am looking at them with the Eyes of Faith, I must also be willing to look for God in their behavior and their actions.  Even if He is just barely there, He is there.

God, in YOU I will place my Trust.