Continuing the Journey Wherever It Takes Us

I just received a very touching phone call from a sweet little lady in California. She explained to me that she was a Catholic as a child but faded away from the Church for a long time. Now, at age 84, she has returned and is trying to do her best to get back into the swing of things.

She had been given a copy of Handbook for Today's Catholic, (Liguori Publications) and had a question about something she read in it. This particular book is an all time bestseller for Liguori. Revised and updated about four or five times, it has sold over 5 million copies in the last thirty years.

Through the years I have heard the stories of a lot of folks who have "fallen away" from the Church for one reason or another. I have to confess, I have been a "cradle Catholic" all my life and never experienced a period when I did not go to Church regularly. Even as a teenager (which is when many start to fall away) I played the organ at Sunday Mass and Tuesday devotions to Our Mother Perpetual Help in my hometown parish. That probably gave me something to do at Church so I never got bored there, as many people claim is the problem.

Liguori Publications has quite a number of books, videos, pamphlets and leaflets on the subject of Catholics who have fallen away from the Church and later want to return. One in particular is a new one by author Sally Mews: Catholics Continuing the Journey. The great thing about this book is that not only is it useful for "returning" Catholics, but it makes a great study guide for small groups of parishioners who always have been active in the Church. Here is an excerpt from its preface:

Is the status of our relationship with God determined by loving choices or obedience to laws or by both?

Many people do not want to love because love is hard work, time consuming, frequently frustrating, never absolutely certain, and requires involvement of the heart and surrender of deepest emotions.

And then Jesus comes along and says to us: "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35).

...It may well be that the only thing that Jesus will ask us after our death will be the question he asked Peter: "Do you love me?" And if the answer truthfully is yes, the doors of heaven will swing open.

Now that's an attractive brand of religion!

What Do We Believe About Each Other?

Unfortunately, so much of the political turmoil in the world today revolves around religious differences. I remember the theme song from a movie that was produced back in the 1970s or 80s: Billy Jack. One of the protagonists in the movie was a strong-willed woman named Jeanne. She would remind you a little of the role Barbara Stanwyck frequently played in westerns - righteous and stalwart. She reminded me a great deal of my 8th grade teacher whose name was Sister Mary Jeanne.

Anyway, a phrase in the theme song went like this:
Go ahead and hate your neighbor;
go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do in the name of heaven,
you can justify it in the end.

There's a new book out by popular writer Sister Joan Chittister, called In Search of Belief. The catalog copy for this book states, "we live in a world where religion has become a tool people can use to their advantage rather than a means of growing closer to God."

The elections here in the U.S. this past week seemed to be a struggle between the Christian right and everyone else. People are suspicious of Muslims, and Jews, and liberal Christians, and humanitarians.

I recently attended a memorial service for a young Jewish man that was held in a Christian church with two women ministers and a woman rabbi all playing parts in the service. The rabbi spoke profoundly when she said, "This shows that there is much more we have in common as a believing people than we have that divides us."

Liguori Publications has published a series of small pamphlets titled What Catholics Should Know About... . These tracts could be useful to a member of any other religion as well. Among the newest titles in this series are WCSKA Mormons, WCSKA Judaism, WCSKA Islam, and WCSKA Evangelicals. Each of these pamphlets was written by Father Vincent Heier who is an expert in ecumenical relations. He a priest in the Archdiocese of St. Louis.

I just seems to me that knowledge about each other will take away the fears people have of each other. Only then can we begin to live side-by-side in peace with respect and even reverence for each other's beliefs and traditions.