I have been trying to wrap my mind around how to approach this and I feel like I’m almost there but I just can’t quite pull it altogether. If I were in school still I would be writing, pondering and rewriting but alas I don’t have the time available I had then. (Ah, if only I had made good use of that time - before I had a family and house to take care of! But I digress.)
OK, I’m going to take a stab at this and I apologize in advance for this being rough. Let’s start off with the quote that has been elevated to a position of fair importance in this course. “You have an obligation to follow your conscience, even if it is wrong.” (Dignitatis Humanae 3 S 2) The key here is to think about what your conscience is, and how your conscience is formed. There is a lot of wiggle room here! In class we were taught that we start with the 10 Commandments as a minimum. From there, it is a matter of evaulating every action - does this improve my relationship with God, or does it weaken my relationship with God? We have as resources the Scriptures and the Teachings of the Church to aid with this process, so that we don’t have to rely solely on speculation and trial and error, but ultimately we have to use our consciences to make moral decisions.
I think what my RCIA class is getting at is both right and wrong. I think they are right in stressing our responsibility to follow our well-formed consciences, but I think they are wrong in not giving us more information to help form our consciences. Not that everything needs to be covered in class (after all, there are time constraints!) but there should be more tie-ins to some of the excellent apologetics that exist about various points of Church teaching. The class really is at a very high level, and for the most part I think that is where it ought to be… however they should also provide resources for delving into the details. Like Dy said in her comment, “But even the most humble supplicant will not find what he seeks if he does not have access to the teachings God has given us specifically to guide us and help us grow.” The teachings are there, but for the most part you wouldn’t particularly know it from going through this class. I refuse to speculate as to why this is, but I think a resource list or two would be really helpful. I’m not certain by any means that most of the people going through RCIA would take the time to follow-up but at least it would be available if they chose - either now or in the future.
What I think my RCIA class is really trying to teach - and really not so much trying to teach but impress upon our hearts - is that God loves us unconditionally, and that we must do all that we can to turn towards this love and to be and show that love to the world around us. They are trying to impress upon us that God is not aloof and indifferent to humanity - not in the least. I am reminded of something that I just read in Crossing the Threshhold of Hope:
But God, who besides being Omnipotence is Wisdom and — to repeat once again — Love, desires to justify Himself to mankind. He is not the Absolute that remains outside of the world, indifferent to human suffering. He is Emmanuel, God-with-us, a God who shares man’s lot and participates in his destiny.” (Crossing the Threshhold of Hope, John Paul II, p. 62)
It is this love that we need to keep our eyes and hearts on - this love, and the saving grace that comes from it. Without this, there is no point, no point to any of this.
So where do we go from here? Without this love, we are nothing and none of this means anything. What do we do in return with this love? Do we turn and embrace it, giving back as much as we can possibly give, or do we turn away from it, freezing ourselves out? And how do we show that we are returning that love? Well, how do I, as a mother, expect my daughter to show her love for me? Does she show her love for me by cowering in fear, following my word because she is afraid of the consequences? No, she shows her love by listening to me thoughtfully and with due consideration to my word. She shows her love for caring about what I care about. She shows her love through her obdience to my rules. So how can we show that love to God? We can approach his living and incarnate Word, his only Son, with an open heart, a willness to learn and change, and a desire to obey his Word.
From this I think everything logically flows. Once I started approaching God and his Teachings through this framework, I started growing by leaps and bounds. When I first started down the path to faith, I would look at an issue and think, “This is stupid”, and there I would stop. After awhile I realized the limitations to this mode of thought (if you can really even call it that) and I started trying to at least have a slightly open mind. I started reading. Then I started reading some more. And gradually I argued and read myself into believing - no, knowing - that God is there. From there I tackled the issue of Christ and his Resurrection, because afterall, if you don’t have a Resurrection there is no point whatsoever to Christianity! Again, I approached this with an open mind and I added prayer. And then I got there… same goes with the Church Teachings. I generally start with “Wow, this is stupid” (and I’m still going through this process - I recently started wrestling with fasting, but that’s for another post) and then I read, ponder, read, pray, talk to myself, and read some more. And funny thing, I keep coming to terms with what the Church teaches, and I keep seeing more and more of the beauty and wholeness that the Church offers and how it all points to God and God’s love. And this is why, in part at least, I am entering the Catholic Church - because I have seen that it offers the most complete picture and beauty of the Christian faith. Between that and the Real Presence - how can I not hope to enter this Church?
And to all of you who have read this far - Amen, I say to you.
And for all of you non-Catholics (and Catholics, for that matter) I have offended - well, this is all I have to offer
Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets (Luke 6:26)