Grace and Holiness

I know it has been a while…sorry. I have been thinking about this since Easter.

The following is from the Meet the Press that aired on Easter Sunday. It was a panel discussion on various topics that ranged from religious progressivism to why the political “right” seems to have a monopoly on religious perspective.

The panel was quite ecumenical and brilliant, save the dope from a “mega” church. It was sad to see the “evangelical” focus on feel-good-ism and not Jesus. But what else do we expect from American Protestant consumerism that assumes away Jesus to get butts in the pew!

Mr. Russert asked Father Neuhaus if all people were welcome in the Catholic Church and his answer was beautiful—it was filled with Jesus. The following is an excerpt of his answer. At times it does not flow well (in a written forum because it was an oral discussion) but I hope you can get the since of his argument, especially the points I emphasis. It serves as a brilliant synthesis of grace and holiness:

REV. FATHER NEUHAUS: “Here comes everybody”; otherwise known as a holy mother church, and a very promiscuous mother indeed, who reaches out to everybody. And as our Lord said, you know, “He came not to be served, but to serve.” And the church is the embodiment of Christ, the body of Christ. Now at that same time, we are sinners who are forgiven sinners and called to be saints. And so there is a universal call to holiness and entering in to the church is not simply to be entertained and spiritually uplifted and to find little, you know, spiritual tricks that make you feel good. It is a call to follow Jesus, and that is a most demanding and challenging call. As he said to the disciples, “Take up your cross and follow me. In this people will know that you love me, that you obey my commandments. There is not greater love than this, than to lay down your life.”

The struggling with that, what does it mean to respond to the universal call to holiness? What does it mean to walk the way of the cross? And there, thank God, there are a great diversity of ways. You call them apostolates, careisms, whatever, and they don’t fit any left, right, liberal, conservative kind of template at all. I mean, what was Mother Theresa? A conservative, a liberal? It just doesn’t make any sense to, to talk in those terms. You’re talking about people who have been, in the words of the great John Paul the Great, who history will surely call John Paul the Great, and he said, you know, to all these in the World Youth Days—I was talking to an old man once in Poland who had known John Paul when he was still—before he was still a priest, and I said, “What is it that is this electrically charged relationship between John Paul and these hundreds of thousands and millions of young people that gather on these World Youth Days?” And he says, “Oh, it’s very simple.” He says, “Lolek”—that was his nickname—“Lolek has just been saying the same thing for all these years. He just finds a thousand different ways to say it.” And so I said, “Well what is that?” And he says, “Well, what he is saying to these young people is settle for nothing less than moral and spiritual greatness. That’s what God created you for, and don’t cheat yourself.”

And I think that’s right. And that’s the invitation of the Catholic Church. Here comes everybody. Wide open, great diversity, disagreements, arguments at times, but all joined by the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ and responding to the universal call to holiness.