Theology of Andrew: Roman Catholic Habits.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

Roman Catholic Habits.

Am I partly Catholic? I realize that there are some things I’ve picked up from this divide of Mass, Protestant Service, Anglican Service repeat cycle that I’m on. For one thing, I’m feeling a lot more comfortably Catholic. I took a quiz that Criffton sent me today and it was a ‘what kind of a Catholic are you?’. I found the quiz ironic, as I am not officially anything more that a questionably baptized Baptist, but I took it anyway. I got “conservative Catholic”, I still contend that I do go to mass more than most Catholics do, but in Niagara, that isn’t saying a lot.

The other day I had to park in a space at the airport that was way too small and I didn’t think I would make it, suddenly I found myself sub-consciously whispering “Hail Mary”s at a rapid pace, and then crossed myself once after successfully parking. I still pray the rosary on occasion, I cross myself every time I pass a Catholic Church. I used to constantly ask for the intercession of the saints, but since a few weeks ago I tried to force myself to stop. Then today, I had a horrific day, probably one of the worse days in sooo long. Long story short I needed a miracle, and the first thing I found myself saying was ‘Blessed Mary ever virgin pray for me…’ and before I could stop myself I ended up asking for her intercession. I also still pray the Catholic meal prayer and cross myself.

Sometimes when I get home late at night and I’m really tired and I don’t know what to say I just pray the “Our Father” and then kiss the crucifix on Mel’s Rosary. I’ve screwed everything up because I couldn’t make these RCIA meetings at St. Alexander’s and ended up leaving a message that said I was only interested in talking with Father Peter and not officially becoming Catholic, so that kind of closed that possibility, at least at St. Alexander’s anyway. And even though I have been re-reading Romans and find myself feeling that Sola Fide and Sola Gratia are really the message, I still find that I feel at many times unashamedly Catholic.

I am trapped in this nexus between the two realms.

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Quotes For Thought

"If baptism is the beginning of my life, and the day of regeneration is the first of days, it is obvious that the words spoken when I received the grace of adoption are more honorable than any spoken since....Through this confession I was made a child of God, I, who was His enemy for so long because of my sins. May I pass from this life to the Lord with this confession on my lips." - St. Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit, par. 26.

"To know Jesus and Jesus crucified is the sum total of my philosophy." - St. Bernard of Clairvaux

"Oh the extraordinary goodness of God toward man? The just of the Old Testament thank God in the weariness of long years; but that which they obtained, by means of a long and heroic service pleasing to God, Jesus gives to you in the brief time span of an hour. Indeed, if you believe that Jesus Christ is the lord, and that God had raised him from the dead, you will be saved and you will be introduced into heaven by the same one who introduced the good thief." - St. Cyril of Jerusalem

"He made us to believe in Christ, who made for us a Christ on whom we believe. He makes in men the beginning and the completion of the faith in Jesus who made the man Jesus the beginner and finisher of faith" - St. Augustine

"Nor must we trust in holiness of origin, in forefathers, or in
the gifts of God which we enjoy. We must look to the Word alone and judge thereby. Those alone who truly embrace the Word will be as immovable forever as Mount Zion. They may be few in number and thoroughly despised by the world, as were Noah and his children. But God, through these few, preserved to man the truth of that promised mastery when he had not even room to set his foot upon the earth." - Bl. Martin Luther "Commentary on Genesis"