Introduction

WHEN MY MOM DIED a few years ago, just before I wrote the first draft of this book-she had just turned seventy-three but was not yet "old"-I found myself even more forlorn than I had expected. What kind of world is it where one doesn't have one's mother to talk to? I continually think of things that I wish to tell her and then realize, once again, that she's no longer alive in this world.1

Then there is also my own experience of aging, with some mounting and fairly serious physical problems and disabilities and with hoped-for things that now may never come to be in my life. Of course, I should be immensely grateful, not only for the blessings of my mother's life-including the extraordinary blessing of her strong faith, hope, and love in facing her death-but also for the countless blessings that I personally have received. And yet the future does not seem to be what it once was!

This darkened outlook is a mistake. The future is God himself: the new creation will share in the trinitarian life of unfathomably glorious wisdom and self-surrendering love, and all the blessed will radiate charity and joy: "Night shall be no more . . . for the Lord God will be their light, and they shall reign for ever and ever" (Rev 22:5). This hope for eternal life bears strongly on the present.

Nevertheless, I cannot help but recall St. Marie de l'Incarnation's remark about "how it is possible that one's body can be so close to God and one's spirit so far from him."2 She had her own reasons for making this remark, but for me her insight indicates an experience of aging. Bodily I press on toward eternity (toward God himself) due to the accumulation of years, but spiritually I foolishly press in the other direction, back toward my younger years or toward youthful illusions, resisting giving myself to God and resisting the path that his providence has marked out for me. Dorothy Day warns against this spiritual temptation. She wrote to her friend Catherine de Hueck Doherty, "I was thinking, how as one gets older, we are tempted to sadness, knowing life as it is here on earth, the suffering, the cross. And how we must overcome it daily, growing in love, and the joy which goes with loving."3

This brings me to the central topic of this book: why I am Catholic. I am Catholic primarily because of the deep yearning and existential need to which Catholicism responds by offering joyous union with Christ in communion with those who love him. I yearn to see the Creator God face to face, to share in his life. I yearn to be among the blessed who are filled with love, mercy, and friendship. Because of this yearning, I know that I need a merciful Savior. Like Paul, all too often "I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do" (Rom 7:19). Paul speaks for me when he cries out, "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (Rom 7:24)-and also when he answers, "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Rom 7:25). Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ for the gift of Christ's Catholic Church. I rejoice in the body of Christ that receives his medicine for sin and death and that shares even now in the glorious life and love of Jesus. As St. Sophronios of Jerusalem prays,

May we all-ordering ourselves as we should, brightening ourselves by divine repentance, and binding ourselves together by the bond of love-reap the pleasures and the splendor of that kingdom, and receive the ageless life that does not come to an end, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom, along with God the Father and the all-holy Spirit, be glory, honor, power, greatness and praise for ever.4

I return often in this book to "the sufferings of this present time" and to "our weakness" (Rom 8:18, 26). Let me therefore preface the book with a strong affirmation of earthly life. I love God's good creation and the people in my life: my wife and children, my brother and father and in-laws, my friends across the United States and abroad, a sudden smile of love and joy, sunrise and sunset, a good novel, the wildflowers of Switzerland, raspberries picked straight from the bush, morning at my late grandpa's orchard, the smell of the deep woods, my wife's beautiful face.

I love being a Catholic: Ash Wednesday marked by the cross of ashes on the forehead, the priest lighting the Easter candle by the fire on a chilly Saturday evening, reading and praying with the saints, daily Bible reading, the sacrifice of the Mass, eucharistic adoration, the crucifix, the Benedictines and Franciscans and Dominicans and Jesuits, monasteries and abbeys, the homilies of a faithful priest, vestments and incense, nightly rosary and liturgy of the hours.

Yet, I am among those who are "strangers and exiles on the earth"; I am "seeking a homeland"; I "desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one" (Heb 11:13-14, 16). St. Isidore of Seville argues that Solomon's purpose in the Song of Songs is as follows: "He reveals the unity of Christ and the church in the likeness of the bridegroom and bride, and arousing the soul to the love of heavenly things he incites her to attain to union with God."5 My heart leaps at this prospect. In my best moments, I can say with St. Elisabeth of Schönau that "I hunger and thirst for the kingdom of God more than for any other food or drink"-a hunger and thirst that is rooted in love of God and neighbor here and now, directed toward liberation from sin and death and the salvation of souls.6

Sometimes, however, I think about the buffet at Aroma Indian restaurant during Mass! Put otherwise, all too often I fail to apply to my own life what I know is true. St. Francis Xavier warns young theologians, "I fear that many who study in the universities study more to obtain honors, benefices, or bishoprics."7 Lord, may I never be someone who sacrifices your truth for the safety of a salary or for any other reason; and I ask pardon for every instance in which I have done so.

I wonder whether I easily feel like a stranger and an exile seeking a homeland partly because I have moved so frequently during my life. In fact, before coming to teach at Mundelein Seminary, I had never lived more than five straight years in any one city. Moving to a new city at age thirty-eight, and again at age forty-two (eleven years ago now), made it difficult for me as an introvert to form new deep friendships. The few deeper friendships that I have formed during my time in Chicagoland have had to endure my friends eventually moving away to take up other important jobs and tasks.

Thus, when my mom died, I felt somewhat sorry for myself, envying people who could turn to their foundation of deep local friendships to deal with crises such as the death of a mother. When I was trying to come to terms with my mother's death, I was helped by reading evangelical Christian Allie Beth Stuckey's book You're Not Enough (and That's Okay).8 She emphasizes that only God is enough for us. She concludes that learning to love God should be our main goal in this world, because God is love. This is not a flight from this world, since real love spurs one to care for others.

Stuckey's book struck a forceful nerve for me: Where am I seeking my enough? She makes clear that this world is never going to be enough, just as I'm not enough. Once I reset my sights on God in Christ-which I try to do each day, asking God for renewed conversion of heart-so many blessings shine through!

One of these blessings is something that I am going to highlight in this book on why I am Catholic. This blessing is the communion of the saints, who even after death are alive and active in Christ, sharing in the communion of love that animates his whole body. The apostle Paul calls all believers "saints." But we all know that there are and have been uniquely sanctified men and women, filled with wisdom and love of God. These saints have walked this earth as brothers and sisters in Christ, imitating his selfless love, while also, of course, sinning, repenting, and seeking God anew. The saints are those who, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, have truly learned that only God is enough.

Learning this truth and living it is the foundation of purity of heart. Carthusian abbot Guigo II praises the soul that "humbles itself and betakes itself to prayer, saying: Lord, you are not seen except by the pure of heart."9 The saints reveal precious evidence of what it is like to be pure of heart, by Christ's grace. Something in them-it differs for each saint-testifies that their minds, hearts, and bodies have in their earthly lives been given over to God. St. Gregory of Narek praises the "unquenchable desire" of the saints for the "attainment of God's glory," the kingdom of God.10 In communion with Christ and his holy people, we are called this very day to "walk in newness of life" (Rom 6:4).

In explaining why I am Catholic, I will at every opportunity call on the saints, "so great a cloud of witnesses" (Heb 12:1). Prepare for lots of quotations from them. My hope is that the reality of their ongoing presence in the church will come across in this book. In quoting them, I generally do not introduce who they are because I do not want to place them merely in the past; instead I put their biographical information in a footnote. In this book, they are an abundant chorus of living voices, friends and...