Ziggamafu Posted January 20, 2009 Share Posted January 20, 2009 Life becomes magical in the holy sense of the word. Beauty is suddenly a living magic, as are observations of truth and charity. Creation - all of matter, space, and time - is drawn up into this magic that has its source and standard in God. Suffering and pain are the experiences that attempt to rob us of this magic, to distract us from it; and yet, this magic of grace bubbles over and overtakes even these evils, transforms them and even redeems them. Therein is described, for me, the mystery and romance of Catholicism. It is the experience of all created life as a wedding bed to be shared by God and his Beloved, from which an army of saints is born and ever-flowing springs of grace are produced. See my old blog post: [quote]Many non-Catholic Christians have a gripe (or fear) of one particular aspect of Catholicism: it seems awfully similar to magic. Such complaints are not far off base. The mystery and ritual of it all – incense, oils, candles, robes, formulaic prayers, and more – make the Catholic Church look like it belongs in the pages of a fantasy novel. Catholic Christianity has certainly had an exciting plotline! Stories of good leaders struggling to keep the forces of evil at bay and stories of good peasants driving out the infiltrating forces of evil from among Church leadership abound. Every century of Catholicism, it seems, has been full of drama the likes of which Shakespeare could only dream about. Places of worship resembling castles, towers, or earthy hobbit-holes house blessed odds and ends, volumes upon volumes of sacred texts, and the bones of ancient heroes buried beneath an altar. Legends and folklore abound, and any elderly Catholic will be happy to share a story with the willing. Chants and songs can relax or excite the mind and soul, taking the keen listener away from struggles left (with all other mental baggage) outside of the heavy sanctuary doors. Even the vibrant tapestries and banners change color with the seasons, bringing to mind the night sky's swimming journey through the year, and signaling a deeper shift in spiritual reflection. The similarities to magic grow stronger. For beyond mere appearances, very real supernatural occurrences have been claimed by thousands upon thousands of witnesses. The story of Our Lady of Fatima contains perhaps the most well documented and irrefutable miracle since the resurrection of Christ. Some occurrences are ongoing and dare the skeptic to make an investigation. Take the allegedly ongoing apparitions of Mary in Medjugorje, a small village in Bosnia-Hercegovina, which have enough credible evidence behind them that a hardened skeptic, Rolling Stone editor Randall Sullivan, walked away a believer and wrote a book about his experiences. Or visit any one of the long dead saints whose body – or at least a part of it, say, the heart or tongue – has mysteriously remained incorrupt without the aid of any embalming or preservation techniques. Blessed salt, sacramental artifacts, holy water, healing springs, weeping statues, archaic languages, bleeding crucifixes, and the love of the physical along with the metaphysical, Catholics sure do seem to be involved in a magical form of Christianity. And you know what? We are. I love every bit of it. Makes me feel like a kid again. There is, however, one blessed difference between "magic" (as it is traditionally defined) and the spirit of Catholicism. Whereas magic seeks to control life and bend the universe to the will of man, Catholic Christianity seeks to surrender life and bend the universe to the will of God. Whereas magic attempts to control God, Catholicism attempts to obey God. See? Magical, but not magic. I think the reason some non-Catholics take issue with all the pomp and honor given to life and worship by us Catholics is a fear of the physical. Catholicism certainly doesn't fear the physical. God made it. We're in it. We enjoy it. Hilaire Belloc said it best: [b]Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine, There's always laughter and good red wine. At least I've always found it so. Benedicamus Domino![/b] Not only do we enjoy the physical, but we uphold the belief that God conveys his grace through the physical. Just a few of the many, many examples from Scripture: 2 Kings 5:10 – Naaman must dip in the Jordan seven times to be healed. 2 Kings 13:20ff – Elisha's bones bring the dead to life. John 9:6 – Jesus used mud to bring sight to the blind. Ironic, huh? Acts 15:5 – God even used Peter's shadow to heal people. For these reasons and especially because the sacraments of the Church come directly from Christ, Catholic Christianity may be magical, but is certainly not guilty of the sin of magic as it is suspected by a few leery non-Catholics.[/quote] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest nvzbl Posted January 20, 2009 Share Posted January 20, 2009 Not being able to explain the immense truth God has intervened to us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest nvzbl Posted January 20, 2009 Share Posted January 20, 2009 and explaining the unexplainable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kafka Posted January 20, 2009 Share Posted January 20, 2009 the continual search for Truth Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liturgos Posted January 20, 2009 Share Posted January 20, 2009 The Eucharist in itself and its adoration! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arpy Posted January 21, 2009 Share Posted January 21, 2009 Knowing that God will always love and forgive me The Mass Grace Having absolute tons of church history and tradition Cool stories about saints Awesome words such as Particle and transubstatiation Catholic girls Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tinytherese Posted February 3, 2009 Author Share Posted February 3, 2009 [quote name='Arpy' post='1756909' date='Jan 20 2009, 07:05 PM']Catholic girls [/quote] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tinytherese Posted February 3, 2009 Author Share Posted February 3, 2009 (edited) G.K. Chesterton gives his testimony on why he became catholic. [url="http://chesterton.org/gkc/theologian/whycatholic.htm"]http://chesterton.org/gkc/theologian/whycatholic.htm[/url] There's also this beautiful video on youtube. [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0nSjxDKJEo"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0nSjxDKJEo[/url] Edited February 3, 2009 by tinytherese Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tinytherese Posted February 19, 2009 Author Share Posted February 19, 2009 (edited) I'd also like to add an essay I wrote freshman year of college last year for my english composition class. In the assignment, we had to write about something that we believed in and why we believed in it or why we stopped believing in something and we were supposed to address it in the form of a letter to someone younger than us. I wrote about being catholic to my little brother. Dear Little Brother Little brother, I know that you are still very young and that it will be several years until you read this, but now is the time for its composition, Ben, as you must gain a firm grasp on who you are and what you believe in. The world will portray the Church as a narrow-minded old person with “retarded progress” for advancing civilization (Russell 338). The Catholic Church is beautiful, alive, and well. To begin with, what does the word “Catholic” mean? Catholic is defined as “universal.” When something is universal, it is timeless and applies to everyone: male, female, young, old, single, married, vowed religious, rich, and poor. Catholicism is a paradox in that it is both communal and individual. We are united in the same doctrines, yet everyone has their own personal approach to God. St. Paul uses a wonderful analogy to explain what the Church is. He writes that we are many parts of the one Body of Christ (1 Cor 12:12-13). We come together as a family, and, in this family, each of us has their own task to fulfill. Everyone has their own personal vocation, and we must live whatever it is out. Just look at the saints whom the Church has lifted up as examples for us to live by. They came from many different backgrounds, circumstances, countries, and stations in life. Some of them died very young, others lived to be very old, and then others died somewhere in between. These holy men and women had many of the same traits, and yet each of them was unique. Our modern era has coined the phrase “Cafeteria Catholicism.” This refers to Catholics who pick and choose which Church teachings to believe in. They select beliefs just like a person in a cafeteria selects which foods to eat. This, however, is not what a Catholic should do. If you avoid any of the spiritual foods of the heavenly banquet, then you will go hungry. We all desire truth and are incomplete without it. Many criticize the Church for being conservative. In response to this I would like to quote the famous author, G.K. Chesterton: “People have fallen into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum and safe. There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy” (Orthodoxy 107). Ben, I know that you really enjoy watching Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Wars, Spiderman and other such films. You like them because they are exciting adventure stories. Well, these exhilarating tales are nothing in comparison to the adventure of living out the Catholic faith. Some people just do not realize how exciting it is. I know from experience that every day one’s convictions are challenged. The challenge is a good thing because we get to see what we are truly made of. Indeed, the Church is very old, but let us take a closer look. In the earliest centuries of its existence countless people gave up their lives for their faith. The Roman Empire thought that this new religion would die out, but it not only survived but thrived. The numbers of the faithful constantly increased. The Church has fought against heresies and other ideas that have contradicted it. This “has been one whirling adventure” avoiding all of these popular fads (Orthodoxy 107). How easy it would be for the Church to conform, but it always stands firm. It has struggled against great difficulties and risen above them. As Christ said, “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it” (Mt 16:18). You cannot stop the Church. In our age people claim that the Church is closed minded, but actually the Church is at first open minded. The pope and cardinals look into issues. They look up scripture, study Church history and tradition, do research on the subject, and advise one another on the matter. After a long period of study and discussion, the Church finally makes a decision. Picture yourself trying to walk on your way to righteousness. The problem is that you cannot move because of all of the garbage that is in your way. The Church seeks to remove what is worthless and even harmful to the soul so that we are able to walk on the path of truth. When addressing the young people in St. Louis, Pope John Paul II passionately declared, “Christ is calling you; the Church needs you; the Pope believes in you and he expects great things of you” (Soucy). This is supposedly from the same institution that is old, cranky, and uncaring about the young people. Do not fall for the world’s distortions. The Catholic Church is beautiful, alive, and well. Works Cited Chesterton, G.K. Orthodoxy. 1908. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1995. 107. Holdstein, Deborah H., ed. Challenging Perspectives. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005. The New American Bible. Ed. Hartman, Canada: World Bible Inc., 1987. Russell, Bertrand. “Why I Am Not a Christian.” Holdstein 338. Soucy, Jon. “What do Catholic youth want?” Adoremus Bulletin Vol. VI, No. 4 (2000): 1 par. 17 Oct. 2007 <http://www.adoremus.org/6-72K.Jon.html>. Edited February 19, 2009 by tinytherese Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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