The Old Woman in the Trees

One could say it's been one of those weeks in our neck of the (soggy) woods.  It began with my wife Kimberly being hospitalized last weekend for emergency surgery.  Thankfully, she's doing fine now--and we're all catching-up on sleep after a challenging week.  (It's not as much fun as one might think getting along on two hours of sleep; fortunately I stayed out of new car lots last Saturday.)  


This is going to be a short entry today, but I did want to quickly share a a short story that illustrates...well nothing really, but I wanted to share it anyway.  So, some of my readers know that I work for the State of Oregon as a number cruncher.  Sometimes my work makes it necessary to make personal visits to homes.  These visits can be weird--to say the least.  When I worked for a previous state agency, they were often a little more stressful than today.  Still, anything can happen, and it often does.


Some (undisclosed) time ago, for example, I visited a rural residence.  I parked my state car and, after my standard "safety" pause, I headed for the front door.  I immediately had a strange feeling at this particular home.  This may have had something to do with all the bugs gathered in the area of the front door.  It was the kind of place you felt dirty even standing outside.  I brushed cobwebs from my face and tried to wave away the bugs, slapping a mosquito or two in the process.  I knocked loudly on the front door and noticed that the curtains were not drawn, but the inside of the house was comparatively pitch black.  I could see the top edge of a rocking chair inside, silhouetted by a crack of light from a window to the rear.  


With some uncomfortable curiosity, I noticed the chair begin to rock as if someone was rising out of it, but I couldn't see anyone, and no one came to the door.  Brushing the flying bugs out of my hair, I began to leave one of my standard notices on the front door. It was a couple minutes before I left the notice and turned around to return to my car.  As soon as I had walked a couple steps, however, I noticed an old woman just staring at me from the corner of the house.  I'm not sure how long she'd been standing there quietly watching me, but, all in all, the conversation that followed was not altogether a "comfy" one.  It was also oddly disquieting that she didn't really look at me when I spoke to her, but her eyes seemed to look just beyond or behind me.  Fortunately, at least, no spooky music began to play and no old farmer appeared carrying a shotgun.


Why share this little work-related adventure?  Because, I suppose, it's worth bearing in mind that we're not really in control of what happens to us.  We can plan and use common sense, but the good, the bad, and the pain weird and ugly are still going to come our way.  The best thing to do is to take each day as it comes, offering it up, and hoping that the one that follows will be a little better than the last.  I don't know about you, but I hope I don't see that old woman again any time too soon!

Harold Camping & His Lie (Updated May 23)

With May 21st come and gone, it's easy to make light of the people predicting the end of the world yesterday.  As I was doing a little research for this entry, though, I came across the Facebook "Wall" of a young person (not the one pictured in the photo above) who had been publicly proclaiming this terribly misguided prediction.  She had been very much caught up in the lie and had obviously invested a great deal of her time and energy (not to mention credibility).  From scanning the most recent Facebook entries, I was struck with what a wedge its obviously created within her family.  A family member had posted a comment that included the following excerpt: "your Dad and I love u and will always..."  (See part of her response at the bottom of the page.)

This sentiment reminded me that, while there is an element of the ridiculous here in the larger picture, the close-up picture shows many brokenhearted (albeit, very gullible) people and broken families.  It makes me all the more angry at Harold Camping.  In fact, here's a copy of a letter I sent him late last week.  (It's been edited at a couple points.)


Harold Camping,


Given Christ's stern message of Matthew 24:36, you're placing your supposed special knowledge above the very words of Christ.  Besides joining a long list of thoroughly discredited spiritual prognosticators, you're either denying the deity of Christ or you are declaring Him a liar; not a good position for a man claiming to be a minister.


When May 21 comes and goes, I hope you will pause before making yet another foolish prediction to your misguided followers.  Should you pause to take spiritual stock of your life's mission, I think you may begin to recognize yourself for what you are: a common false prophet, preaching an old lie (dressed in the cheapest of "new clothing") to the most gullible.

I urge you to seek forgiveness--as well as real reconciliation with the Christian faithful--before the opportunity to do so becomes impossible;Christ does not look kindly upon those who lead His sheep astray.

Like many other people, I've been following this tragedy of sorts for the past few weeks.  It's hard to watch some people running off a precipitous credibility cliff.  In the particular case of Harold Camping, though, it wasn't particularly hard to watch.  Two things that made this issue of particular interest were the Premillennial Dispensationilist view as well as the danger of religious organizations centered on an individual--as opposed to Christ.

As a former Evangelical Protestant before becoming Catholic, I was reminded in one sense of issues we had struggled with in the past--only much more extreme, of course, in the case of the Harold Camping situation.  The whole Premillennial Dispensationilist view points to how easy it is for some to get carried away with these end of days predictions--which each new generation thinks has arrived.  Of course, a literary example of this is the whole Left Behind series.  While I enjoyed listening to Jerry Jenkins in-person a few years ago, his books paint a picture unsupported by either Scripture or Christian tradition.  


In fact, the Protestant view of rapture most often would have Christ coming not twice, but three times!  (For more details on the history of this dangerous line of thinking, read Carl Olsen's Will Catholics be Left Behind?)  Lastly, the Catholic understanding of end-times also doesn't usually hold to a view of the Church being taken away before the period of tribulation.  After all, this view diminishes the suffering of the Christian faithful in centuries past; why are we too good to suffer for Him today?

To a lesser extent, the controversy also reminded me a bit of what happened when a loved pastor of our church at the time decided to leave.  In the wake of his departure, the small church of the Lutheran Brethren tradition almost fell apart.  An older retired minister within the congregation tried to insert himself into the pulpit, and things seemed to get worse from there.  It was almost as if the church was more about the personality of the ministers than focus upon Christ.  It was a sad time, and we left the church. While I'm sure there are many Catholic examples of churches experiencing hardships and struggles at the departure of a loved priest, it doesn't seem to go as far as the rifts and divisions created in Protestant circles--e.g. new churches aren't usually the result!

At any rate, that's all for today.  I hope you have a great week.  A special thank you to those who prayed for our family's health struggle this week.  We are happy to have her back home safe and sound.  God's protection was evident throughout the entire struggle. We thank Him for that most sincerely.




Updated (May 23)


Below is a letter from someone who still believes that May 21 was indeed the start of the end.  It sheds some light on the reasoning of their thinking...and it couldn't sound like much more of a cult.  Please pray for the young person who wrote this.  She's obviously bright and kind, and enthused with her faith; what a waste.




"Hi Karl,

Actually, no one was misled. May 21, 2011 was the beginning of Judgment, spiritually. I am saying this off my own studies. All of the timelines lead to that date and God did save a great multitude of people by the end of May 21, 2011. The door is now shut for salvation.

The problem with the "prediction" is that all of us believed that all of the key events related with Judgment Day (a 5 month period) would occur simultaneously in one moment ie. the earthquake, rapture etc. That's where human error came into play. But God is perfect and Judgment Day is here, spiritually. As the other events unfold over the next 2-3 days, the rest of the world will see the truth. Everyone needs to pay attention but they won't...then sudden destruction will come as spoken of in 1Thes5:4

They cannot see it now because it was only the spiritual part of the Judgment. That's why it looks like a "failed" prediction. But God is perfect and does everything in His perfect will and time. We are all watching in the Bible, praying as He reveals His perfect plan.

I hope that helps."

Reductive Materialism in the Crosshairs

I had a lot to choose from to write on this evening.  First, I was tempted to write on the benefits of humor, then there was the lesson on civility (or lack thereof) we might all learn from an Amtrak passenger named Lakeysha Beard, or my letter to the latest misguided spiritual prognosticator, Harold Camping, but I finally decided to pursue a more cerebral discussion this evening.


I'm nearly done with two books I'm reading, more or less, simultaneously: Dinesh D'Souza's Life After Death, The Evidence and Bernd Heinrich's Mind of the Raven.  In case you think this reading strategy is a strange habit, I'd probably have to agree.  I'd also have to disclose, though, that there are other books, too.  I think a good rule for me is to avoid picking-up a new book until I've finished two--but I digress.


I've already mentioned Bernd Heinrich's fine book in an earlier blog entry titled "The Cougar and The Raven...and Science," so I need to preface tonight's comments by sharing some thoughts on Dinish D'Souza's book.  First, I have to admit I had perhaps unrealistically high hopes with regards to this book when I began reading, but I still have greatly enjoyed it.  As someone who has helped save a life, it was my hope that this book would address some areas with a bit more depth--life after death accounts, for instance.  Its strength is really the distillation of complex concepts and beliefs into much more easily understood terms; he simplifies things to a point that most anyone can grasp where he's going fairly easily.  Strangely enough, an argument might be made that this is also perhaps one of the book's weaknesses.


That is, there's a tendency within the book towards over simplification at times.  This bothered me less, though, than the author's repeated paraphrasing of his opponents' positions, sometimes coming fairly close to the debater's error referred to as the "straw man argument."  That is, he seems to articulate his opponents' in such a way that they are more easily refuted.  While I agree with his arguments for the most part, I think it might have been better to include more text quoted from his opponents.  Still, in all fairness, perhaps it's not easy obtaining permissions in these circumstances?


At any rate, both books are very good.  It just so happened as I began reading this evening that an intriguing thing happened.  I realized that both books (on entirely different subjects) were discussing the source and nature of human consciousness.  D'Souza's book was discussing it in terms of suggesting that one's brain and one's mind cannot be the same, and that our consciousness rests in the more mysterious mind, separate from the biological neuron network of our brains.  This powerfully illustrates one dimension of the fallacy of reductive materialism.  That is, the reductive materialist says everything can be explained by breaking it down to component parts, taking it apart.  Of course, we can stare all day at someone's brain, and that's not going to give us any insight into his thoughts or mental state.


From the philosophical perspective, Mind of the Raven takes the reader on a more biologically-centered journey.  The author's position is that consciousness is simply an evolutionary outgrowth required for intelligent living beings to make decisions.  His emphasis is on consciousness as simply necessary to enable the animal to test different courses of action in its mind before choosing one action over the other.  For example, raven behavior is often very complicated, posing a challenge to those trying to decipher the birds' choices--e.g. to cache food, or not, or to bond with predators such as wolves in the creation of unlikely alliances.


While I wouldn't describe the latter author as a reductive materialist, he certainly seems uninclined to recognize the deeper meaning of what he has spent his life studying.  Ravens, after all, mate for life, demonstrate great care in the raising of their young, and display a level of intelligence in play and work hard to reconcile with simple evolution.  Hawks are wonderful hunters, for instance, but the raven's brain is far superior.  Has this made it a better hunter than the hawk?  Not necessarily.  


This also touches on the false idea many of us may have heard in our youth concerning the supposed inability of animals to really feel pain or emotion.  We're not engaging in anthropomorphic fancies to reject this simplistic view of God's creation.  


In short, our very consciousness and awareness of who and what we are testifies to the glory of God just as do the other marvelous works of His creation--spiders excluded, of course. 

On Saints and the Airwaves

As some of you may have heard, I had the good fortune to be on KBVM 88.3 FM in Portland last week.  In case you missed the broadcast, please take a listen via the links at the bottom of the page.  Thank you to KBVM for permitting me to share this recording online.  I also would be remiss not to mention University of Portland.  I had a few minutes to wander the attractive campus after the interview, and I really enjoyed that, too.  As a matter of fact, I visit Portland regularly, but I think it was my first visit to this particular campus.  All in all, May 10th was a very memorable day for me.


It's been a busy week for our family.  Yesterday, my cousin was married in north Portland.  We greatly enjoyed the experience, and it is my sincerest prayer that their relationship be always blest and protected by heaven.  The day also brought back a lot of memories of our own wedding in Dallas, Texas in late September of 1990.  Today, I thought I'd adapt some thoughts I had prepared to share on the air concerning  saints and clarify things further by drawing upon our experiences with family and friends.

When it comes to saints who have made a particular impact in our life,  I would have to say Saint Augustine, Saint Francis, Saint Thomas Aquinas, and also Saint Thomas Moore have all been important to us.  Saint Augustine comes to mind because of the impact Confessions made on me.  It truly is a man’s confession before God.  He was a man with failings like any other man, but Christ came to him in the garden, and his life and purpose changed 180 degrees.  (In a sense, Thomas Merton’s moving Seven Storey Mountain is like a modern version of Confessions.  Sadly, Merton's life seems to have veered too far from the Cross in its latter years.)

Saint Francis, because his life so exemplified a simple, yet profound life lived for Christ.  He also shows us what it means to love nature, not for nature itself, but because it is God’s fingerprint--all about us.  Saint Thomas Aquinas, because his writings demonstrate the dovetailing that is possible between faith and reason.  Lastly, Saint Thomas Moore is important to us because we learned that he appears to be a distant relative on my wife’s side.  

As we learned this not long after becoming Catholic, it was a strangely encouraging to know of this connection.  Also, as a government employee, his last words before his beheading are particularly poignant.  "The King's good servant, but God's First."

I know many good people reading this will say that saints are simply an example of extra-biblical Catholic devotion, but, in truth, it's the logical conclusion to Christ's victory over death.  In 1 Corinthians 15:55, for instance, Saint Paul reminds us that death has lost.  Its sting is powerless when faced with the Everlasting power of Christ our Savior.  In other words, there is no death in Christ.

While this isn't the place to attempt a full explanation concerning the Catholic understanding of saints, it's important to mention that we see our intercessory prayers to be basically like you going to a friend and asking them to pray for you.  The saint is not being worshipped in any way, but we are seeking their help. While it doesn't replace prayers to Jesus, it is a way to deepen one's spiritual devotion, and sometimes the answers to this kind of prayer seems to be especially full of gracious surprises.

As we try to understand the nature of saints and intercessory prayer, I wanted to offer a real life illustration of its power.  To protect the privacy of the family, however, I won't be using any real names.  One Sunday evening we introduced ourselves to a large Catholic family sitting behind us.  My wife made a reference to their children being a real blessing, and they both looked at each other, smiling.  They agreed it was and asked if we wanted to hear a story.


When the couple was first married, they were unable to have children.  A doctor finally explained that the wife would be unable to bear a child for medical reasons.  They were heartbroken--to say the least.  At about that same time, the wife's grandmother was known to be dying.  One day the wife went to her grandmother to ask her for a most special favor.  She asked her grandmother to ask Jesus for children of their own when she came to heaven.  The grandmother smiled and promised to do so.


A few days later, the grandmother passed on to heaven.  The wife had all but forgotten of her request some months later when she was found to finally be pregnant. (As I recall, I think she learned this on a special day associated with the life of her grandmother--perhaps her anniversary.)  When the day of the birth finally came, the child was born on her grandmother's birthday.  Today, the family happily fills nearly a complete pew with its beautiful children.  Not only does this remind us of the blessing children truly are, but it also is a great example of a kind of intercessory prayer.


If you would like more reading suggestions concerning the Catholic understanding of intercessory prayer, please contact me.


That's it for now, and I hope you have a great week.

Radio Interview 

I did try to share audio only, but I ran into some "technical difficulties," so opted to do it this way.  Before long, I hope it will be accessible via the radio station's website.  Sorry about the static on Part 1, by the way.  TwitVid is looking into the problem.  As you may have already guessed, my talents are not of the technical sort.


Radio Interview, Part 1


Radio Interview, Part 2

Gnawing, Biting, Breaking, Hacking, Burning...."The Shack"

First things first...  Apologies to one of my favorite Catholic fiction writers, J.R.R. Tolkien.  I couldn't resist a little fun with the blog title this evening.  Being a writer who is deeply connected with all the latest goings-on in the deepest reaches of the publishing world, I just heard about the legal controversy surrounding the awful little book called The Shack.  Of course, it is nearly a year-old and hardly breaking news, but that misses my main point: I really dislike this book.  


Seriously, though, I had really high hopes for the book when I purchased it while on a trip in Texas a couple years ago.  The photo above is one I took in the summer of 2007 at Lake Wallowa in the far northeastern corner of Oregon.  This is the setting for some critical passages of the book, and that's one of the reasons why I thought I'd enjoy it.  Sadly, being a fan of the Blue Mountains was hardly enough to salvage my opinion of this tale.  


Since I am a little pressed for time this weekend preparing for next week's radio interview, I thought I'd share my ...um...gentle review of this "interesting" little book.  Now, I realize in retrospect that my review may be considered a little long by today's standards, but please understand that I drank really strong coffee back then, so that clearly explains the slight tendency towards what might be technically characterized as a presentation style of the written word leaning or bending (or possibly swaying?)  towards what might be called by some (but not you) verbosity.  Again, sorry...  :)


Without further ado, then, I give you Tearing Down The Shack .  If nothing else, I hope my work will provide readers with one or two tools of destruction when it comes to shady books of this depressing ilk.


PS.  Did I mention that I really don't care for The Shack?  Just checking.

Art, Music, and the Church

After watching the (recorded) Royal Wedding, I started thinking about the complicated issue of liturgical music in the context of the Catholic Mass.  While it's ridiculous to think that we can achieve anything so grand in our local churches, I think it offers some food for thought.  While this can be a delicate (and time-consuming) topic, I'm going to restrict my soapbox time to just to a few paragraphs today.


The first thing I like to do when addressing this issue is to preface my comments with a thank you to all of those who give of their time and talents to serve in the capacity of choir members or music directors.  While I may have complaints with regards to where our music is today, it gives me no less appreciation for the selfless work of these people who try each and every Sunday to give us beautiful music sounding within our churches.  After all, many of them are distressed over the same issue, but can't speak out.  With the exception of cathedrals and abbeys, the musical problem, as I see it, appears to be fairly well entrenched everywhere I have visited.


I have made previous reference in this blog to my article entitled "Reflections on a Hymn," but the problematic hymn Sing a New Church  from Oregon Catholic Press is a particularly good example of a bad hymn.  It's taken a rich and beautiful hymn, Come Thou Font of Every Blessing, and replaced its powerful and profound words with modern feel-good drivel.  No less damaging to our musical environment, however, are the simply folksy or poorly-written hymns that we sing so frequently.  In fact, my son's comment that all of the music we sing "sounds the same" has really resonated with me.  Originating with the 1960s, it seems so much of the fare offered by Oregon Catholic Press is sadly deficient in both musical quality (unless its stolen from past hymns of old) or message.  Singing them becomes a chore--not a joy.


My next children's book will be touching on the issue of music and why it's important to sing at church.  ...Yet, there are times when I stop and think about what I am singing, and I just can't continue.  The words serve only to draw attention to our culture's lack of depth when it comes to matters of faith and reason.  The visual arts shouldn't be entirely overlooked in this discussion either; they have also suffered from the same "dumbing-down" occurring within our liturgical music.  This undermining of music and art is important on so many levels.  


Fundamentally, the pinnacle of human nature is found within worship and reflected also in our creation of things of beauty and meaning.  Not only are we failing to truly honor God with our words at those times, but we are failing to instill our children with a foundation and love of real music.  Our children, you see, can often glimpse more of the truth than we are aware of ourselves.  The young learn that sung words fail to mean what we say they do, and that art means anything we say it does; beauty in art and music becomes entirely subjective, which is only step or two removed from moral relativism.


In short, we can't expect a service approaching like we watched on television, and sometimes very small parishes don't have the financial resources or talent to be able to offer what they would prefer.  Still, we can certainly aim to do better in our churches.  When we do, we will also be offering a profound witness for Christ to our world.


(For more on the topic of liturigcal music, please read Anthony Esolen's articles found in This Rock.) 

Is Anything Sacred? ("Glimmers of Heaven")

The first time I ventured into a Catholic Church as an elementary student, I was startled by the statues and art in the sanctuary.  It all looked very foreign to this Baptist Sunday School boy, and I was confused why the Catholic church looked so different from my own church.  I was accustomed to relatively bare sanctuaries with little more than some stained glass and a cross at the front.  I likely remembered what we were taught so many times in Sunday school, something I had never paused to question.   Once the congregation had filed out of its pews and the doors were locked behind them, the church was no different, we were told, than any other place.  After all, wasn’t church about the people and not the building?  It is true that our bodies are the Lord’s temple, and He is with us throughout the day.  It’s necessary, though, to take this discussion a step further.  I soon realized that the Catholic understanding of church was much more than simply a warm place to gather on Sundays.

So, what is the purpose and meaning of the sacred and holy—especially in terms of places of worship—and how do Catholics and Protestants differ in their understanding of sacred places?  If we try to step back and approach the nature of the sacred from a new and unbiased perspective, perhaps a good starting point is the opposite of the sacred.  If there are sacred places, then it stands to reason that there are (or were) cursed places or things.  One of the best biblical examples is certainly the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. As related in the 19^th chapter of Genesis, “Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; and he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.”  (Genesis 19:24)  A similar warning to the unrighteous is found in Psalm 140, “Those who surround me lift up their head, let the mischief of their lips overwhelm them!  Let burning coals fall upon them!  Let them be cast into pits, no more to rise!  Let not the slanderer be established in the land; let evil hunt down the violent man speedily.”  (Psalm 140: 9-11)  King David is calling down the judgement of the Living God on the enemies of Israel.  Of course, the New Testament also contains examples of people and places cursed by God.  In Matthew 10, Christ makes a reference to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah when He instructs the twelve to “shake off the dust from your feet” should they be unwelcome within a town.  Christ’s words in this passage regarding those who do welcome the disciples are important to note, as well.  “As you enter the house, salute it.  And if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you.”  (Matthew 10:13)

According to the Catholic exorcist and writer Francis MacNutt, places as well as things can be made spiritually unclean, corrupted by immoral use.  In his book Deliverance from Evil Spirits, he notes that ordinary items used in occult rituals seem to continue to hold a dark spiritual influence until the item is removed and destroyed.  Dabbling with an Ouija Board may seem harmless enough to some, but Francis MacNutt points out that this kind of experimentation may serve as a doorway into more dangerous occult practices.  He also draws attention to the powerful effect of the Eucharist or sacramentals such as holy water in the arena of exorcisms, which reveals the power of God transmitted through places, people, and blessed things.  It is interesting that most Evangelical Protestants would likely agree that things and places can be cursed, made spiritually unclean, but they are uncomfortable at the prospect of calling a place holy or sacred.  

Having first examined what sacred is not, how do we edge closer to a fuller understanding of what it is?  A good place to begin might be the Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, which defines the word sacred as “set apart or dedicated to some religious purpose, and hence entitled to veneration or religious respect; made holy by association with a god or some other object of worship; consecrated, hallowed.” This doesn’t mean that only cathedrals or churches are sacred places.  As Saint Bernadette taught us with her life of simple devotion, it can just as easily be a “niche in the rock”.  It is a place which has come into association or intimate contact with the heavenly realm.  That’s why going to church is almost like seeing a glimpse of heaven—especially for Catholics who have the fullness of Christ found in the holy Eucharist.  That’s not to say that Christ is not with us in our daily lives and struggles outside of the church, but “where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them.”  (Matthew 18:20)  Is it correct to say that Christ is more profoundly present in our church than elsewhere in our lives?  I think that Scripture leads us to no other conclusion.  

What does the Old Testament teach about sacred places?  When God spoke to Moses out of the burning bush, the prophet was told “Do not come near; put off your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”  (Exodus 3:5)  Similar instructions are also given to Joshua by the angelic “commander of the Lord’s army” at the battle of Jericho (Joshua 5:15), and Jacob’s response of fear and awe at the ladder in Genesis 28:17 again points to the stirring presence of God within a particular place and time.  When Moses receives instruction on the building of the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy of Holies, it’s important to pause and take to heart the meticulous instructions that continue from the 25^th chapter of Exodus through the 30^th chapter.  As we read in Exodus 25:10-12, “They shall make an ark of acacia wood; two cubits and a half shall be its length, a cubit and a half its breadth, and a cubit and a half its height.  And you shall overlay it with pure gold, within and without shall you overlay it, and you shall make upon it a molding of gold round about.”  With this, sacred art is born.  The length of these highly detailed instructions is several times longer than the space devoted to the creation of the world. As a religious artist I know has suggested, if length of text implies importance, then this gives us a substantial insight into the nature and character of God.  He created us to love and honor Him—not just through our hearts, but though all our senses.  Beauty draws our hearts towards God in reverence and reminds us of his limitless power and grace.  

Many Christians are inclined to entirely disregard the Old Testament’s teachings on the honor and reverence which should be paid to God.  While it is true that Christ now stands as the mediator between God and man, having saved us from the Law, the revelation of God’s character and glory found within the pages of the Old Testament has not suddenly become irrelevant.  As God declared to Moses in Exodus 3:14, “I AM WHO I AM.”  The nature of God did not change with the risen Savior, but the door to Him was unlocked.  Whether Catholic or Protestant, our Lord should never be approached in our places of worship in an irreverent or casual manner; He is not our “buddy”, but the Creator of the universe.  (The reverence and formality proper to church, however, should never discourage us from our private devotions.  If we can put our hearts to “praying without ceasing”, we infuse all that we do with a deeper meaning and spiritual significance.)  The holiness and reverence expressed in religious art and sacred music reminds us that Christ did not come “to abolish the Law and the prophets…but to fulfill them.”  (Matthew 5:17).  

New Testament passages referring to sacred places abound.  In Matthew 21, Jesus clears the Temple of the corrupt moneychangers.  “He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you make it a den of robbers.”  From this passage alone, we glimpse a vision of what Christ desires from us in our places of worship: reverent and sacred places drawing hearts and prayers up to God like fragrant incense.  The transfiguration is another instance of a place made holy by the stirring presence of God, as told in the 17^th chapter of Matthew and the 9^th chapter of Mark.  God’s presence was so strong that the three disciples accompanying Him wanted to linger on the mountaintop and even suggested that they construct a place of worship to honor the spot where God made Himself so clearly known to them.

Many other New Testament references teach us of the solemnity of church.  1 Corinthians 11:27-29 reads as follows.  

“Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord.  A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup.  For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgement on himself.”

Not only does this give us a deep insight into the true nature of the Eucharist as described in the sixth chapter of John, but it also conveys an underlying seriousness concerning our worship.  How we relate to and worship God is important.  If some of our separated brothers fall into the enemy’s trap of concluding that all rituals, liturgy, and Catholic tradition are frivolous or extra biblical, they must clearly turn a blind eye to warnings such as Saint Paul’s above.

In Roy Schoeman’s brilliant book Salvation is from the Jews, he points out that the very location of Calvary is atop the same mountain where Abraham was prepared to sacrifice Isaac.  Schoeman makes the profound point that God the Father offered His Son on the same hill where the father of the Jewish people was prepared to sacrifice his own beloved son two thousand years earlier.  Genesis 22:2, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love…” is a foreshadowing, then, to John 3:16. The faithfulness of Abraham is glimpsed anew in the perfected faithfulness of God to a world lost in sin, as one covenant stands fulfilled by the New Covenant on the same lonely hilltop.  While the temple veil lies torn in two, the Temple (Christ) will rise again.

Nearly a millennium before the rumblings of the Reformation, Pope Gregory the Great addressed the heresy of Iconoclasm.  This particular false teaching held that all sacred images were idols and sought their removal from churches.  There are indications that the movement itself may have been sparked by a Moslem influence, since that tradition shares a fierce opposition to sacred images.   In a letter to an iconoclastic bishop named Serenus of Marseilles, Pope Gregory the Great wrote the following.

"Not without reason has antiquity allowed the stories of saints to be painted in holy places. And we indeed entirely praise thee for not allowing them to be adored, but we blame thee for breaking them. For it is one thing to adore an image, it is quite another thing to learn from the appearance of a picture what we must adore. What books are to those who can read, that is a picture to the ignorant who look at it; in a picture even the unlearned may see what example they should follow; in a picture they who know no letters may yet read. Hence, for barbarians especially a picture takes the place of a book." (Ep. ix,105, in P. L., LXXVII, 1027)

There is so much substance for meditation and further reflection in Pope Gregory the Great’s words.  Even the Catholic understanding of adoration is explained in a startlingly clear light.  In addition to setting the tone of worship and reverence, religious art was like books for the illiterate.  Another excellent reading concerning our grasp of the sacred and the holy is from the twenty-fifth session of the Council of Trent (Dec. 1543). 

“[The holy Synod commands] that images of Christ, the Virgin Mother of God, and other saints are to be held and kept especially in churches, that due honor and reverence (debitum honorem et venerationem) are to be paid to them, not that any divinity or power 

is thought to be in them for the sake of which they may be worshipped, or that anything can be asked of them, or that any trust may be put in images, as was done by the heathen who put their trust in their idols, but because the honor shown to them is referred to 

the prototypes which they represent... [W]e adore Christ and honor the saints whose likeness they bear...” (Denzinger, no. 986).

Some might persuasively argue that the heresy of Iconoclasm has returned and lives well in some Protestant denominations, where religious art is neither accepted nor understood.  The sadness is that many centuries of sacred art and music are summarily dismissed.  There is often little recognition of their religious, cultural, or historical value at all.

Catholics and Protestants certainly agree on one thing, and that is the sacred way with which we treat the Bible, the inspired word of God.  As Saint Jerome put it, “…ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.”  The Gospel of John begins with, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  If we treat the Bible with such honor and reverence, why is it difficult to see the real and substantial presence of our living savior beside us in our churches?  After all, it is not the Bible we worship, but the Living Word (Christ) who gave it to us through the Church.  It is that holy presence in our houses of worship which confers a special grace upon the place—a grace not removed when the congregation leaves.  Churches are unlike ordinary places.  In church, we join with fellow believers of the past, present, and future in praising God.  The mystical body of Christ is no where else so complete as in worship.  As a personal aside, before our family even considered joining the Catholic Church, we used to greatly enjoy visiting the Grotto (The National Sanctuary of our Sorrowful Mother) in Portland, Oregon.  We craved the sacred like a thirsty person craves a drink of cold water.  It made us feel more connected with God and the other faithful across the ages.  In short, it offered us an inkling of what it feels like to be members of the Catholic Church.  It gave us hope.

An alternative way to approach the question of the sacred and the holy is to consider the special way we treat our own homes.  As the saying goes, our home is our castle.  Who can’t sympathize with Odysseus of Homer’s The Odyssey, when he returns home to Ithaca to find his home invaded by unruly and cruel suitors?  

“You never thought to see me back from Troy.  So you ate me out of house and home; you raped my maids; you wooed my wife on the sly though I was alive—with no more fear of the gods in heaven than of the human vengeance that might come.  I tell you, one and all, that your doom is sealed.”  (The Odyssey, chapter 22)

None of us would have our homes treated with disrespect.  Like the cultures before us, we honor and respect the home and family as sacred.  While the people are certainly more important than the place, our homes themselves are not trivial.  They are the places where we laugh, cry, raise our children, and care for our sick or dying.  If our homes are so important to us, then why is it difficult for some of our separated brothers to accept our places of worship as even more sacred and holy?  

    
After all, churches are not entertainment or recreation centers, but places where we worship the ever-living God, the Creator of the universe.  The desire for a worship style more like entertainment is akin to placing God into a box of our own construction and preferences.  Our culture’s inability to recognize meaning unless in the form of a sound bite, loud music, or a simple-minded chorus points to diminishing attention spans much more than it suggests a changing God.  When Jesus stayed behind at the temple as a child, and his parents confronted him, His response is worth further meditation.  “How is it that you sought me?  Did you not know that I must be in my Father'’ house?"” (Matthew 2:49)  If Christ is our brother, I suggest that we see His Father’s house for what it should be.  Whether religious art or sacred objects, these help to reflect the “visible community of faith”.  As Dietrich Bonhoeffer reminds us in his insightful essay of that same name, the faithful must be the salt of the earth, and the city on the hill.  The light, reflected from our Savior, must beckon to the lost through our living testimonies, and we must not forget that churches should be, above all else, sacred and holy ground where God is loved and worshipped.

One argument put forth by many Protestants is that sacred places are meaningless because of the omnipresent nature of God.  One friend put the question to me like this.  He said look at your wife and family.  Are they sacred?  Look at the sky and the trees.  Isn’t nature also sacred?  One problem with this reasoning, of course, is that if everything is sacred, then nothing is.  Sacred by its nature means set apart and different.  Another concern with this line of thinking is that it seems to draw dangerously near to pantheism.  Saint Francis was one who recognized God's beauty as reflected in his fellow man and nature. In a sense, he revered everything, but he held the greatest part of his reverence and devotion for the particularly profound and real dimension of the sacred found in the Church.  He penned the following poem--reminding us of the layers of sacred from daily life through the holy Sacraments.

"What wonderful majesty!
What stupendous condescension!
O sublime humility!
That the Lord of the whole universe,
God and the Son of God,
should humble Himself like this
under the form of a little bread,
for our salvation" 

"...In this world I cannot see
the Most High Son of God
with my own eyes, except
for His Most Holy Body and Blood." 

As Jeremy Sheehy reminds us in his insightful essay “Sacred Space and the Incarnation,” which is one of eight powerful essays collected in Sacred Space, House of God, Gate of Heaven, our understanding of the sacred also hinges upon the nature and mystery of the Incarnation itself. God relied upon physical material, that is flesh and bone, to convey Truth and forgiveness to a lost world. He could have chosen any other means, but His choice was to send His Son as a man. As Saint Francis made abundantly clear, Creation points to God. We understand that the “fingerprint” of God is found within nature. Now, imagine for a moment that we could be present in Jesus’ own time. Understanding that God is everywhere, are we closer to Christ in front of a tree, or standing beside our Savior Himself?  Clearly, we are closer to Him and His presence, if we are standing beside him, or looking in His holy face. This is yet another reason why churches are not ordinary places. In church, we exit the timeline for a moment as we join with fellow believers of the past, present, and future in praising God. The mystical body of Christ is no where else so complete as in worship. As a personal aside, before our family even considered joining the Catholic Church, we used to greatly enjoy visiting the Grotto (The National Sanctuary of our Sorrowful Mother) in Portland, Oregon. We craved the sacred like a thirsty person craves a drink of cold water. It made us feel more connected with God and the other faithful across the ages. In short, it offered us an inkling of what it feels like to be members of the Catholic Church. It gave us hope.

Through the lens of the sacred, we may see glimmers of heaven’s light.  We can also understand some of the differences between Catholics and Protestants more clearly, if we examine them through our unique understandings of the sacred.  Protestants, for instance, usually see churches as no different from other places—after the congregation has gone on its way.  Catholics, on the other hand, recognize church as a place where we come together to worship and share in the sacrament of the Eucharist.  Since the Eucharist is understood as the body, blood, soul, and divinity of our Savior, we believe that our churches are so much more than ordinary places.  They are blest and hallowed because of the profound and substantial presence of God in the place, as well as in the Eucharist.  The devotion and passion for Christ found among many Evangelical Protestants is praiseworthy.  Since the church is understood the way it is, it also may lead Protestants to have a greater awareness for the presence of Christ within their fellow man and a strong view of the body as God’s temple.  This, however, comes at the expense of a true sense and understanding of the sacred in worship, which means that God is not properly understood for who He is.  This substantial difference in understanding is reflected in our respective theology, architecture, and art.  While the visiting student or newcomer may be caught off guard by the artwork and sense of reverence found in a Catholic Church, this is the way we treat our Father’s house.  After all, the Catholic understanding of church was and is more than simply a warm place to gather on Sundays.  It’s all about Him—not us.