What Does It Mean To Be Faithful

Something occurred to me when it comes to Calvinists: no one who attends your run-of-the-mill Presbyterian church on a typical Sunday would consider themselves reprobate. According to Calvin's theology of double predestination, God chooses some to be saved (the Elect) and some to be damned. If one is not part of the Elect (and, thus, reprobate or damned), there is nothing you can do about it. No point in attending church on Sundays or living a moral life, because this is not a matter of free agency, but God's salvific grace that has passed you by. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't, so to speak. It would logically follow then that those in the pews listing to Rev. Lovejoy's sermon at First Presbyterian must presume themselves as part of the Elect because, otherwise...well, why bother? 

Of course, as Catholics, we know this is "double predestination" is heresy and not the true nature of God, for "The Lord delayeth not his promise, as some imagine, but dealeth patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance" (2 Peter 3:9). It is the mystery of the cooperation with grace and that man may be redeemed by choosing the good--not the total depravity purported by Calvin--that gives Catholics hope. No one is beyond His terrible mercy.  We are not pre-determined to damnation.

On the other hand, you have the "once saved, always saved" contingent among Evangelicals who, unlike Catholics, do not believe that one can lose their salvation once they have been "born again." "Wherefore he that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall" St. Paul tells the church at Corinth (1 Cor 10:12). To these Christians, perdition is not possible for a child of God to sin in such a way that he will be lost. And yet, they may find themselves on the outside of the door on account of failing to carry out God's will, being told "I never knew you" (Mt 7:23). "And all the people shall hear and fear, and no longer act presumptuously" (Deuteronomy 17:9-13).

Somewhere in the middle, the Catholic finds himself. He knows he is a child of God and member of His family by nature of his baptism. He "has been saved, is being saved, and hopes to be saved." He knows "none is righteous, no not one" (Ps 14:1) and yet he knows if he has sinned mortally he is one confession away from Paradise. He knows even should he ascend the heights of sanctity, like the Ladder of Divine Ascent icon of Mt. Sinai, though he may be two rungs from the gates of Heaven, demons stand ready to pick him off by way of pride, presumption, and other temptations to drag him to the worm that never dies waiting for him below. The Catholic recognizes this tension, and the mystery of salvation, that we can't wrap up in a box-and-bow and put in our back pocket. 

As a married man, I am always cognizant of the fact that my faithfulness, or that of my wife's, is not a guarantee in which one can sit back on their laurels in self-assurance. When the Lord tells Joshua after the death of Moses to lead the people he instructs him "to be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left." (Joshua 1:7). 

In marriage, it's the "looks to the left and to the right" that can get you in trouble. We make these vows when we stand on the altar "to be true...in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health...to love you and honor you all the days of my life." There is an exclusivity there that can be undermined in a moment, even after years or decades of faithfulness. One lie makes a liar. One affair makes an adulterer. 

Aside from the Lord, and my parents and immediate family, I have put all my eggs in the basket of my wife that she will be with me, and I with her, til death. That radical kind of exclusive trust--faith even--in another human being who has the capacity to hurt you more than anyone on earth and is privy to your darkest secrets, allows for a love that surpasses that of common relationships. 

I have always been faithful to my wife for the eleven years we have been married, and she has always been faithful to me. What would it take to drive her away? Infidelity? Violence? Financial Ruin? We have not been through these trials to date. I trust her with our children, our finances, and my very life. She has a greater capacity to hurt me than anyone I know. And yet she refrains from doing so for the most part, out of faithfulness. I, for my part, try to do the same.  

My issue, however, is not with my wife, but questioning what it means to be faithful to the Lord in the context of my relationship with Him. I can only think of this relationship as it relates to marriage, because my faith and my marriage are my two bedrocks when everything else seems to be shifting beneath my feet, particularly when it comes to friends. 

I had a text exchange with a close friend the other day that got heated. It affected me more than I thought it would, and I was out of sorts for days. I have friends who I rarely talk to anymore who I thought I was close with on account of all this stupid vax 'n mask stuff. I'm realizing that these are not unconditional relationships, but dependent on a minimum of congealing factors that can fluctuate depending on circumstances. 

"We should esteem highly health and friendship," St. Augustine writes, "and we may never despise these. Health and friendship are natural goods. God created the human being so that he or she could exist and live a life that is healthy. But in order that the human being should not be alone, he or she desires friendship. Now, friendship begins with wife end children, and then reaches out to strangers." [Sermon 299D.16.1] 

It has always been hard for me to accept that friends or people I am close with now may not be here in five or ten years. I may slight them in some way, step out of line, and without the assurances of the kind of bond I have in my marriage, that they will always be there. I once got very angry at a friend in high school who said they loved me unconditionally, because I took it as a lie. Friendship almost always comes with conditions, and can be hard to be faithful to through thick and thin. "The saddest thing about betrayal is it never comes from your enemies" as the saying goes. 

I even question how faithful I am to the Lord these days, and how I show Him that faithfulness and how I love Him. This comes by way of comparison, I think, when I see principled people taking morally admirable stands at great costs to prove their fidelity to what they believe, and publicly so. They have a tribe, small as it may be, but fiercely loyal. I have been mediating, instead, on the words of the Lord, "who has no place to lay his head" (Lk 9:58).

As much as I started this post with thinking about Calvinists and their presumption of being part of the Elect, I had also been giving a lot of thought to the traditors and the Donatists of the 4th century. Donatists adopted “Deo laudes” (“God be praised”) as a their slogan to counter the ancient Catholic “Deo gratias” (“Thanks be to God”). This was the rallying cry with which they harangued Catholics. One distinctive characteristic of the Donatists was their desire for martyrdom. Donatus taught that death for the “cause,” even death by suicide, was holy and merited a martyr’s crown and eternal life. They did their best to incite Catholics and pagans to kill them. When their provocations failed, they sometimes took their own lives, a favored method being to leap from high cliffs with the cry “Deo laudes!”

It is not sin that turns us into traditors, Judas', but kisses. We exchange our loyalty in the inner circle for silver pieces offered by outsiders, enemies. And when we realize the depths of the betrayal, a Judas does not weep as Peter does, but despairs unto death. He is cast out, but also casts himself out into darkness. 

What does it mean to be a faithful friend, a faithful Christian, and a faithful spouse? To not betray with a kiss? It may be too much (I have always been "too much") to think one could be loved and befriended "unconditionally." I have been hurt, and I have hurt. I have always wanted my friends to (unrealistically) stay awake with me perpetually in the garden of my dark night.

And yet all my friends become strangers at some point, and I mourn it every time like the seasons. Like the dunes that remain after the tide rolls out, my faith, wife, and family remain.