Do We Need A 'Catholic Identity'?

T.S. Elliot once famously said, "Good writers borrow. Great writers steal." All budding writers start out borrowing from their favorite authors, parroting and trying on different styles and voices. The end goal (usually after years of trial) is to find your own voice that is distinctly yours, giving homage to your influences but no longer feeling the need to draw from them anymore. Writers are famously insecure at their core, craving affirmation and simultaneously guarding themselves while tenuously putting their most intimate thoughts and emotions on full display. I'm not sure if writers ever fully transcend that feeling of insecurity ("Am I good? Am I worthy? Do I matter? Tell me I'm good, that I'm worthy, that I matter!"). But if one does, you can be sure they are not far from the Kingdom of God.

Half the battle of being human is knowing who we truly are, not who we purport to be. But the other part of the equation as, unique to those who are Christian believers, is knowing who we are in Christ. For "in Him we live, and move, and have our being" (Acts 17:28). In the early stages of conversion, we are "putting on the new man" and shedding our old lives as a snake sheds its skin; then, we are figuring out not what to live for, but how to live. For those who have grown up with the faith of their parents passed on to them, it is a variation of this metamorphosis that involves finding one's own faith and claiming it as one's own. 

Catholics are not a homogeneous group, but there is some shared commonality in what we believe (credo), the language we use, and how we conduct ourselves. This is the social/cultural component of religious affiliation that secularists are not privy to. There is also a lot of room for a diversity of individual thought and expression, which is why I love our Faith--it respects who we are while anchoring us to something beyond ourselves.

Have you ever met someone who didn't seem to be comfortable in their own skin? There's always that humorous example of the guy who drives the big truck who may be, er, compensating for shortages in other areas. Or someone who drinks too much and talks loudly with bravado to cover up the emptiness and fear they feel in social situations. In any case, it's always a little awkward to be around, because people should, in theory, be who they are and accepted for it. But the social element of being human is a strong current, and sometimes dictates we conform rather than stand out (See my post, The Hardest Thing For A Person To Do Is Go Against Their Tribe, 18 November 2021)

We often flex what kind of Catholic we are in little ways. It's a good case study in religious anthropology.It could come out in saying "the Holy Ghost" instead of "the Holy Spirit," or calling the pope Bergoglio, instead of Francis, or in the shows one allows their children to watch on TV (or shunning entertainment altogether). Oftentimes this is just because people make conscious choices about how they want to live their lives or express their faith which is perfectly legitimate, but sometimes it's also to fit in and fold themselves in to the social current. 

These are the external adornments and expressions of our faith, in both primary and secondary matters. It's often objective and clearly defined. What can be harder, though, is tapping the well of the inner spirit where God dwells and translating the whispers (1 Kings 19:11-13). This is the realm of the subjective--the soul, the conscience, intuition, the sanctuary (where we abide in mental prayer), the commands of God that are decreed with wordless words and expected to be carried out unique to our circumstances. 

When we don't spend time in prayer, we don't spend time with the Lord. Period. And one cannot know Him or be saved who does not pray. 

But it is not enough to just pray--we must learn how to love--we can only love because He first loved us (1 Jn 4:19), and we can only love Him by the grace of the Holy Spirit. Then we are expected to love others as Christ loved us (Jn 13:24), which must be carried out in word and deed (1 Jn 4:20). We can know God because of the Incarnation. But we come to know Him through devoted time in personal prayer and immersing ourselves in his Word.

Just as God issued the primary Commandment to love God with all one's heart, soul, and mind (Mt 22: 36-40), so too must our primary identity as Catholics be in Christ and Christ alone. For Catholics, the understanding is that Christ is inseparable from his Bride, the Church, and so to imagine a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" apart from the Church is untranslatable. The relationship of the Catholic Christian to the Church should not be as a member of an exclusive country club. As in today's reading, we are expected to be wearing garments suited to the wedding feast lest we be thrown out (Mt 22:1-14). 

But that should not be our primary preoccupation--the external trappings of our religious heritage. Instead, our focus should be intimacy with Christ, forging our identity in the furnace of personal prayer, purgation, and penance. In this kiln, we come to know who God is, what He wants from us, and how to carry it out. This is the realm of conformity to the Divine Will, not imitation of others for the purposes of fitting in with a religious bloc. If we keep our focus in this realm, it will inspire a great grace, and that is confidence. 

Any woman knows that a man with confidence fans the flames of attraction and commands response. And any man knows that a woman who knows her true, inalienable inner worth is a beauty to behold. These qualities, however, cannot be cheaply imitated any more than you can force-feed a flower chemical fertilizer in order to get it to bloom faster. When a Christian has confidence in God and his standing before God, he knows he answers only to Him. He lowers his eyes before the majesty of God, yet raises them steadfastly before men. He knows he will be judged on the state of his heart as well as his deeds, not on the length of his proverbial phylacteries or his temple offerings. 

And so his preoccupation is not on fitting in to a Catholic club, but on pleasing God and doing His will at every moment. He does not overcompensate, because he doesn't have to; he was nothing to prove, because his deeds are beyond reproach (1 Tim 3:2) and his contrition sincere. Being Catholic should be as natural as breathing.

God inspires confidence because He is trustworthy. Likewise, the confident Christian inspires others because he simply reflects that confidence of his standing before God into the world; not as a man wearing a cheap, ill-fitting shirt that doesn't belong to him, but one who wears a tasteful, tailored suit that was custom designed for him by a master of his craft. 

When we lack in this confidence in ourselves (that is, who we are in Christ), we tend to latch on and attach to a need for a Catholic or Christian identity to prove (either consciously or unconsciously) how "Catholic" or “Christian” we are to others. This may satisfy a social need, or come from a place of insecurity or overcompensation when we are unsure of who we are as Catholics/Christians. And so we seek out the affirmation in the externals, rather than entering into the cold, quiet cell of our hearts where the real work takes place, the way someone would read books about prayer rather than praying, or be preoccupied with the right cleats and gloves instead of spending hours in the batting cage. 

Remember--we will be judged on one thing and one thing alone: our charity--to God, and likewise to others, especially the most vulnerable. And we will be judged alone, apart from our communities and parishes, where nothing will be hidden and all will be revealed. The Divine Judge will see straight into our hearts at that time so piercingly that we will feel our nakedness with an unrivaled acuteness. And the love with which He does so will be so pure, so unfiltered that it will completely undo any of our feeble defenses that we were so preoccupied in keeping up in this life. We will know who we are once and for all, and see ourselves in that moment as Christ always saw us. Our true identity as adopted children of God will then be the only thing that matters. There will be nothing left to try to prove or compensate for--only Love to accept and embrace.