I’ve read this last post by St. Francis over and over again, and just feel that a clarification is in order. But first, I think that it is wonderful that you and those like you have found something that is meeting your needs for a relationship with God. This is well, good, and necessary in the order of things.
You also need to know, in all justice, that there are those who leave the Church who do so in good conscience within themselves and for good reason according to their best lights. Not everyone, perhaps, and there may be those who fit your discription on here of fear and hate. But those are the animal emotions of negativity and may not apply to all whom you look at and deem to be “against” the Church. What if we are for something that the Church hasn’t given us?
That was so, at least in my case and the cases of many that I know. We have no ax to grind with the Church as you know it, but it is insufficient, as a belief system, for our particular needs. And that is not from a misunderstanding of what we allegedly think the Church is, or because we want to go and do our own thing, or have an excuse to “sin.” Sorry, that doesn’t wash in this case.
And as for something that would “change not just their lives, but their idea of reality,” it is precisely an unexpected, sudden, and necessary change in that idea that eventually led me to leave the Church. The Church just doesn’t cover, to the best of my ability to find it, the dynamic of my experience. I had to go elsewhere. But I was supremely fortunate. I found a system of understanding that has proven over the last thirty odd years to be increasingly useful and practical in explicating the dynamics of experience, including the Church’s view. In fact, it has over time led me to somewhat of a reconciliation with the Church, though on a radically different footing.
So this is simply to request the kind of honesty that regards the life experience of some, who are no longer Catholic in the religious sense, with other than an attitude that we hate or fear the Church. Neither of those is loving, and both of those are immature. They may yet apply to some, I don’t know. I am only speaking on behalf of myself and those who left as a necessary result of conscience, however contradictory that might seem to the pious faithful of Catholicsm.
In this regard I feel it also necessary to point out that there is as well a seeming fear and arrogance inherent in the unquestioned attitudes of those who claim that Catholicism is the bigger picture when they are faced with the opportunity to look at the contexts and roots of Catholicism in other than a pious exegesis. If such simple faith as you have is sufficient for you, well and good. But that is not reason to vilify those who have been blessed with the need to know beyond simple faith.
Some of us are in the position of the monk seeking enlightenment who saw the joyous family living their happy life on the river bank. They were satisfied and happy, and they thought they knew, and that was enough for them. But some have experiences that force them into a deeper inquiry, one that is not supported by the dynamics and dogmas of the Church. It may be useful to know that I say that as a very well catechized and formerly zealous missionary minded Catholic. As such I tried my best within the clergy and literature of the Church to discover a fitting solution. Such was not only not forthcoming, but I was discouraged by many clerics in my inquiry. It became clear that this discouragement was not stemming from any teaching of the Church, but from the embarrasment of its representative’s inadequacy based on those in dealing with my questions.
So as I said on another thread "I’m sure that it is wonderful to have the simplicity of that kind of security that is engendered by simple belief. Some of us are not that fortunate. We are engendered with a curiosity that forces us to make demands of ourselves to take the risks of perception necessary to explore the bit of infinitude of this astonishing creation while we have the brief chance of this little short life on Earth.
God made this astonishing Unverse and it is His art work. For me as an artist I believe it would be a slap in the face, a refusual of an infinite gift, to not explore the glory of posssibiity inherent in the phenomenon of the world not only around us, but in us and as us. We cannot be separate from the wonders of this creation, and to know it as thoroughly as we can is to know ourselves and God as well. It says in may places, times, and many ways “Gnothi Seauton.” “Know ThySelf.” This is not a frivoulous injunction.
If God is the root of creation and of conscious awareness, then I will, like a child learning to walk, make my tiny steps and take my tiny falls. I will refuse to give up my right to fail, and will stumble on the landscape of life and maybe die from my bleeding and bruises. But I will know where the rocks are, and the cool grasses and the fresh ponds and the lovely trees. I will have met sages and sabre tooth tigers and taken my stripes from each. I will fall exhausted at heavens gate, laughing, whooping, crying, yelling “What a ride! Thank you, thank you, thank you.!”
I will go where I have earned to go and be what I have earned to be. But I will go there and be that in good conscience and having faced the encounter offered to me by this exhorbitantly generous gift of possibility with energy, curiosity, and a willingness to make my errors and learn from them. I will give back as best possible the gift of appreciation for the bit of infinitude that was mine to make use of and learn from.
Heaven, as I understand it, is the feeling of Unity with God. Hell is the feeling of separation. I wish to know God as His Creation as thoroughly as possible and never have to say I didn’t try when I had the chance. Will God fault me for making my best effort by my best conscience?"
But I think that the entire marriage/divorce/annulment thing is a barrier for those of us who haven’t grown up Catholic.
Me: chocking laughter.