Happy New Year!
Am I too early? Too late?
I can’t believe a year has gone by since this thread was posted. What a year it’s been for me. Tumultuous but very gratifying at the same time. I'm very optimistic about the year to come even though as every new year rolls around I realize that this could be the year I lose one of my parents, as they really are aging and becoming more frail.
I really want to express my gratitude to God for all that he’s given me in my life, and especially for my buoyant spirit -that’s straight from God- and what a wonderful gift it is, bitter-sweet, though it can be.
Blessed be God and his angels and his saints.
I went to Mass Christmas day with my family. Almost a year has passed since I’ve been inside a Catholic church. I cry when I’m in Church almost all the time, and it doesn’t matter what Church. The Presbyterian Church I’ve attended is quite small, so the Pastor could always see me, and I often felt that I should shield my eyes.
When Mass was ended my Mom said to me “let’s go wish Fr. a merry Christmas,” so I followed her lead. The rest of my family had already headed out to the car, so it was just her and I. The priest is talking to a family so we wait for him to finish up, which he’s just doing, and we overhear him talking to a woman who has just revealed or reminded him that she is no longer a practicing Catholic. She looked ill. I say that because it appeared -even though she was wearing a hat- that she’d lost her hair. Anyway, the priest was asking her what she planned to do for her funeral service, in a very normal tone of voice. He reminded her that she could always turn to St. Joe’s. She replied, shaking her head “I’m not credited.” He smiled and shrugged his shoulders a bit and said to her, “who is going to know?”
“Who is going to know?”
I don’t know whether it was the priest’s way of working his way through an awkward situation, and that what his answer really amounted to was his way of inviting her back to the church or what. But his answer seemed to be the final exclamation point as it relates to this year long journey of mine. His reply, “who is going to know” just kept reverberating, beckoning me to consider or rather consider again the importance of doctrine. Because of how doctrine was treated in my Catholic days, I have an aversion to it. It conjures up images of pack-mules and land-owners and plebs and poverty and misery. And I have a bone-deep aversion to the odious and pernicious doctrine of the 'development' of doctrine. I want to shed my aversion to doctrine, but not to its development.
I bought a few books last weekend. One is titled On Being a Theologian of the Cross and the other two books are works of Herman Sasse, a Lutheran theologian, whose intellect is staggeringly immense. I love great minds. Calvin’s mind is particularly sharp when he expounds on the Providence of God. His intellect was also staggeringly immense. Let the devil take good looks, they’re worthless without a great mind. Less than worthless, if such a measurement exists.
The title of the two editions of Sasse’s work is The Lonely Way, and there are gems inside that are too precious not to share. The first is Luther’s Legacy to Christianity, the second which I will post when next I get a chance, is Erasmus, Luther and Modern Christendom. I think both an appropriate way to celebrate the anniversary of a great thread, peopled by great posters.
I'll post each piece as a stand alone.