1:MY FAMILY HERITAGE I was born in 1954 to a Methodist mother and Presbyterian father. Most Catholics don't have a clue as to what this means, but my Protestant brothers and sisters in Christ know exactly what I mean. It is a setup for conflict that can make a child theologically schizophrenic at times! Presbyterians were founded by John Calvin, one of the three pillars of the Protestant Reformation. The Reformers were trying to amend some of the abuses found in Latin rite Roman Catholicism at the time. Calvin believed very strongly in the providence of God, and believed in an extreme predestination of both the saved and the damned. Methodists were founded by John and Charles Wesley around a hundred years later. Charles composed many of the hymns that we now sing even in Catholic churches, albeit with updated lyrics. Methodists believe very strongly in human free will. This sets up a seeming contradiction and division: One relies on predestination, and the other on human free will. Because my mother was born of a long line of Methodist ministers, we were raised predominantly in the Methodist Church. But my Presbyterian father just thought that it was all predestined, so it was cool anyway! In my missions I joke with the Presbyterians and tell them they were predestined to be at a Catholic event. And then I really get the Methodists in trouble by saying that they actually chose freely to come. We have a lot of fun in our missions. And here is the real punch line: We Catholics believe one hundred percent in both! We believe in the predestination of those who follow Jesus, but not of those who do not, and we believe in the free will to choose between the two. Theological logic alone cannot grasp the fullness of that stance. It seems like a complete contradiction. But we Catholics have an answer for this: It's a mystery! This always gets a self-aware belly laugh from Catholics. Indeed, the center of the Catholic Christian spirituality is sacrament, especially the sacrament of the Eucharist. Sacrament simply means "sacred mystery." (In the ancient Eastern Christian Churches they rarely speak of "sacrament," which is based on a Latin word; rather, they speak of "mystery," based on the Greek µ?st?????, or mysterion, from "to shut the mouth," meaning simply something beyond words.) This means that while there are things about our faith that we can understand and explain, there are also many things that are real and deeply true, but that cannot be fully understood or explained. This is true because the essence of our Christian faith is God's love, and love remains a mystery. There are things that we can understand about love, and there are things that we cannot fully understand. In essence, God's love can be partly but not fully understood. This is because God is infinite. Scripture says, "What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him." (1 Cor 2:9) Yet there are things that we can definitely know about God. Especially in Jesus we can say with John: "What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we looked upon and touched with our hands concerns the Word of life-for the life was made visible; we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was made visible to us-what we have seen and heard we proclaim now to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; for our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ." (1 Jn 1:1-3) There are two mistakes to avoid here. First, believing love is only a feeling; and second, believing love is only an act of logic. Love is a decision and an act of the human will. But the will is neither feelings nor cold logic alone. It is a decision that includes and guides the emotions. Feelings alone rise and fall. And logic alone leaves us cold and heartless. Theologically these two approaches can be expressed through the ideas of transcendence and immanence. He is "wholly other," beyond creation and transcendent. But he is also immanent-he can be seen in and through creation. Jesus is the ultimate emanation of God in the Incarnation, which means "in flesh," or "in red meat." I come from a long line of Methodist preachers and evangelists on my mother's side. My grandfather, James Cochran, and my grandmother, Maggie, were a Methodist preacher and his wife who started churches all over eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas. My grandfather would sing and draw a crowd, and then he would preach the gospel to them. Then they would start a church in a town where there were no churches yet. When my grandmother was in her eighties I had the pleasure of spending some time with her after becoming a Catholic and beginning my current life and ministry. She had lived a wealth of American history during her lifetime, ranging from the time right after the Civil War to the moon landing, and I wanted to just hang out with her to listen to her life stories and gain some of her wisdom. We would sit together while she watched her "stories" (the soaps) on TV, and occasionally talk. At one point she looked intently at me. I was dressed in my monastic habit. She looked me square in the eye and said, "Johnny, now that you have become a Catholic ." And I thought, "Oh, baby, here it comes!" She continued, "I think you're a better Methodist than ever." I smiled in great relief. True Catholicism takes the best aspects of human ideology, philosophy, and religious belief, especially Christian ones, "baptizes" them through the waters of apostolic tradition, and brings everything together in a way that is universal and full. Jesus said, "I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly." (Jn 10:10) The word catholic comes from the Greek ?a??????? (katholikos), meaning "universal, full." So I had no problem thinking of myself as a Catholic "Methodist." After all, John Wesley was a genius of organizing small renewal groups in the Anglican Church in a way not unlike St. Francis in the thirteenth century. Francis said, "The world is my cloister." John Wesley said, "The world is my parish." So if Grandma wanted to call me "a better Methodist than ever," it worked for me. Now let me tell you a joke that my saintly Methodist grandmother told me as we sat in her den in Muskogee, Oklahoma. In the early days of the twentieth century when Grandmother and Granddad were ministering in Oklahoma, a tent revival came to their town. Back in those days Southern Baptists usually conducted the tent revivals. Pentecostalism started in America in 1904 - 1906 in Topeka, Kansas; Hot Springs, Arkansas; and Azusa Street in Los Angeles. But it had not yet spread across the nation, so the Southern Baptists had a corner on the market of tent revivals, and this tent revival was Southern Baptist. Since my grandmother was the wife of the town preacher, she figured that she should go check it out. They were singing, clapping their hands, stomping their feet, and raising the roof of the tent (which is not the way Catholics sing!). It was really inspirational. Then the preacher got up to speak, and he motivated people. He didn't just dispense doctrine, but motivated folks by sharing his faith. (Faith has a way of stirring up faith.) Then he called folks forward in an altar call to give their lives to Jesus, and most everyone came forward that night. Grandma liked it because Granddad was an inspirational singer who attracted crowds, preached to them, and founded churches. Finally, they gave the benediction, and then dismissed the people. On the way out the people were aggressively shaking the pastor's hand and saying demonstrative things like, "Praise God! God moved powerfully in our midst tonight!" The pastor would answer in a similar manner. One by one, the congregation filed out in much the same way. Then my little Methodist-minister's-wife grandma came up to him. Now, if Methodists are anything, they are polite. (Just make sure to bring a covered dish!) She gently took him by the hand and she got really excited and said, "Pastor, I want to thank you for such a lovely, lovely, lovely service. The singing was so inspirational, and the preaching was so motivational. And when you called everyone to come give their life to Jesus, I wanted to come too, but, you see, I already had." He looked back at her and said, "Well, sister, I thank you, and I can see that you're a woman of faith. But do you mind if I ask you what church you attend?" She said, "No, pastor, that would be fine. I'm married to the local Methodist minister, and his brothers are all Methodist ministers, and their daddy before them was a Methodist minister, and all his brothers were Methodist ministers. So, pastor, I'm a Methodist." Now, you know what he was thinking: "You can sleep in the garage, but it doesn't make you a car." St. Augustine said pretty much the same thing when he...
