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Sunday 5 August 2012

JonathanCatholic Today



On the Perilous Cliff, or the Stalwart Rock?

In my last few posts on this blog I’ve focused on the identity of boys and men, but now I want to discuss an entirely different topic: Protestantism. As a convert to the Catholic Faith, I have always been very interested in analyzing Protestantism and Catholicism, and comparing them in order to see the essential differences in principles that shape our respective understandings of Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Holy Church. As St. Thomas Aquinas teaches us, ideas always have consequences. Hence it is helpful, whether Catholic or Protestant, to be aware of what separates us in our ideologies and the perspective we come from as we approach the Sacred Faith of God made man, Jesus Christ. In this post I want to talk about one of the most striking differences that I have noticed in the fundamental outlook of Protestants and Catholics regarding the relationship between God and His Church.
In the title of this post, I refer to a perilous cliff and a stalwart rock; this analogy I use to compare the basic identity of the relationship between God and the Church in the Protestant mindset and the Catholic mindset. What strikes me so powerfully in the conversations I’ve had with some of my Protestant family, and in my own recollections of my thought prior to my conversion, is the sense that the Protestant worldview is like a man clinging to the side of a sheer cliff hundreds of feet off the ground. The Church of Christ in their view is like that man, and the Cliff he is clinging to is like Christ. In this mindset, suspicion abounds. No authority to them is established by God and thus no authority is exempt from being questioned, no ancient belief is out of bounds to be judged, and no orthodoxy is safe from being condemned, all of these coming at the whim or feelings of the individual Christian, feelings often motivated by fear of falling off of that Cliff Who is God and His Truth. It’s ironic, really, that as much as Protestantism emphasizes the grace of God and the relationship between Christ and an individual Christian, in the grand scheme of things regarding no less of a matter than determining the content of the Christian Faith, an individual Protestant cannot believe that the Church is protected by grace and has an irrevocably covenant with God whereby God steadies Her with His Hand and Spirit, and will not let Her fall nor fail Her mission in the world: the mission of the salvation of souls and the fighting of evil. Rather, the Church from Her earlier times clings to the Cliff that is God, struggling to find a toehold, fighting heresies without any authority to do so, and God will not even lift a finger to keep Her on track. Eventually, She fragments into tens of thousands of separate, broken shards as She falls from the Cliff and shatters on the ground, and still, God will not right Her nor pick up the pieces.


Contrast this with the Catholic Truth. Catholic mindset regarding the Church of Christ and her relationship with Christ her Divine Spouse may indeed be likened to a stalwart rock. The individual Christian need not trouble himself with worries that the Father’s grace and promises in the Holy Spirit will not preserve the Bride of Christ solid as a rock, and us in Her. Yes, the Catholic Church is as a stalwart rock, and we dwell upon that rock, upon the Chair of Saint Peter, the Pillar of the Church and the sure ground of unity and truth. The Lord protects His Church by His Grace to remain ever what She is, and His relationship to Her is steadfast, unfailing, and unmovable, like a Protector husband. The reason why the Catholic Church is solid and unmovable is because at Her core, you find dwelling in the Church and in all the hearts of every Catholic the Blessed Virgin, who is the Church personified and the ever-Virgin; eternally faithful to the Triune God, and the Church Militant in Her likewise.
Glory to God for His promise that the gates of hell shall not prevail against His Church!