Saint Stuart
July 22, 2024

This article is dedicated to a Catholic brother of mine, at a terminal state with cancer at the time of starting this article, who has recently passed away. God bless his soul.

I decided late in life that I would take upon myself, and felt God’s approval, to join the Catholic Church as a part of my path as a follower of Christ. I grew up going to protestant churches, having mostly a Pentecostal background, and was curious to see how the Catholic teachings would resonate with me. As they recommended, I entered into the RCIA program and took weekly courses for about a year to learn some of the basics of being a follower of Christ and also the traditions of the church, the sacraments and the catechism.

In my life I have experienced a lot of resentment and dissent from others toward the Catholic church. While I listened with a considerate mind, I also found my own beliefs forming over some of the key things that people have warned me about that I address later in this article. There is still a lot of its history that I don’t agree with such as horrors of the past including The Crusades and inquisitions, the many child sexual abuse scandals and especially here in Canada with its role in residential schools. The Church itself, however, is the body of believers and followers of Christ, and the building a house of God, and must be kept pure and functioning in the way Christ intended.

Despite popular opinion among many spiritual people today, religion is good and important. I’ve discovered my own development of spirituality is to respect what religion offers, to become a part of it and to see its value for society, civilization and my own devotion to God. My journey into Catholicism was a part of that, and I value the role that the Church has in the world when it adheres to what Christ told us to do, mainly helping the poor, the needy, the sick, the widow, the orphan, each other and non-believers.

Here is my stance on some of the issues people have warned me about the Catholic Church.

Prayer to saints

“Do not turn to mediums or necromancers; do not seek them out, and so make yourselves unclean by them: I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 19:31)

“You shall have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:3)

What I hear from Catholics is that prayer is not worship, and I agree with that. Also, saints are not gods, but if we were to worship them as gods, that would be wrong, but that is not what Catholicism encourages.

What I’ve compared it to is if we visit the grave of a loved one and say what is on our heart, directing it to them. That is a type of prayer, and in the same way, we can pray to past saints and others who we may have an expression on our heart toward.

Adoration of Mary

Mary played a very special role in God’s plan, but that should not elevate her above others in any way. I think it is very good to adore and admire historical figures for what they did for God’s Kingdom, but to place too much emphasis on them, taking away from the real miracle that was Jesus, I think is getting close to idolatry. In the same way that prayers to saints can be offered, prayers to Mary can also be, and having a heart full of admiration for who they are in God’s plan is very spiritually healthy.

Forgiveness of sins by a priest

“Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” (James 5:16)

“and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.” (Matthew 6:12)

One of the most valuable things I got from the Catholic church was my understanding of the sacrament of reconciliation, which is the act of confessing, repenting and receiving forgiveness. Sin separates us from God, and when we confess and repent we come back to God in a proper relationship with Him.

My daily relationship with God was very important to me, so I was very careful to discern whether or not sin was in my life, and being able to go tell a priest about it was important to me. Yes, we can simply talk to God about it, but many of God’s encouragements are for us to work together with others, and having someone to confide in and open up to about sin is very important in any believer’s walk.

For the most part the process of confession is an assistance by the priest to receive God’s forgiveness, as he may say something at the end like, “God has freed you from your sins. Go in Peace.”

Is it necessary to have a priest there to forgive my sins? No, but I value it greatly if he is there. Also, is it only God who can forgive sins? If that were true, He would not ask us to forgive others. The Lord’s prayer mentions only forgiving others who have trespassed against us, but I think this can extend to others who have sin in their life especially after seeing them make an act of confession and say a statement of repentance, which is exactly what a priest sees when someone does confession properly.

Transubstantiation

This is the teaching that the communion wafer and wine literally become the body and blood of Jesus Christ when we ingest it during the Eucharist. I don’t believe this to be literally true, but when I do take communion I think of what Christ said: “Take, eat; this is my body” (Matthew 26:26). Now the whole ritual is obviously symbolic, but I do turn my mind and heart to believe that Jesus’ body and blood are what I am truly ingesting. It is entirely my imagination, and I feel that that is how symbolic gestures like this are to be treated, as a sort of sacred make-believe, to make us have an intended experience.

As we do this with the communion we can remember Jesus on the cross and His blood shed for our sins. Having the sensory experience of ingesting those things helps us to dwell on it further, and can push us to powerful spiritual revelations, and having the ability to make-believe that it truly is the body and blood of Jesus seems to makes the experience more powerful as well.

I think the intent of Jesus’ instructions is to make the mind believe that the bread and wine really is the body and blood of Jesus Christ, and in doing so we respect those instructions that were given to His disciples. To teach that it literally does become that, however, I think is missing the point of the ritual. The concept of making the mind believe something for the sake of a ritual may be difficult to teach in a dogmatic way, but teaching that it literally changes has no basis in biblical teaching.

“Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.”

This is not a common warning from others about the Catholic church, but instead one of my own confusions and annoyances. This is a statement that is said before communion, taken from Matthew 8:8, a verse that was a roman saying it to Jesus as “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed” when Jesus asked to come to his home. I do believe that I am worthy for God to come into my home, perhaps, though not if I am in sin. I get very uncomfortable saying this during mass, so I do not say it, and I don’t think others should say it if they are right with God.

I also do believe in the latter part of the verse which speaks to the power of Jesus working in a person who believes. The roman somehow knew that Jesus just speaking would have the power to save himself, and the roman’s faith was honoured by Jesus.