What Makes The Catholic Church Catholic?

The Catholic Church has been around for more than 2000 years and from the beginning, people would recognize Catholics because of one thing.

Even now, this one thing that people recognize as Catholic makes us a object of persecution and derision. Yet this one characteristic of Catholics determines what makes the Catholic Church Catholic.

What you are now, what you do now, is what makes the Catholic Church Catholic.

How? Deacon Michael explains.

written by Laura Weston, widow of Deacon Michael

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One of the things that fascinates me about Christianity, Catholicism specifically, is relationship: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The Father and Son loved each other so much, the Holy Spirit flows from it. The relationship of the Father and the Son, the Son Who is wholly human, wholly divine, the Father Who is The Divine, and the Holy Spirit Who is the breath of the divine over the earth.

The fact that Jesus comes to earth and has a mother. And most importantly, is the way that He redefines God's relationship with us: our Father. You read the Old Testament, you don't see them saying, "Well, you preach Our Father," it's Almighty God; it's The Lord; it's powerful and all this, but not Our Father.

We have Jesus coming to us when He is on the cross. He says, "This is your mother." A relationship.

And then He tells us, "You're not slaves; I'm not the master." "We are friends." "You're my brother."

He redefines the world, and in redefining the world He gives us a definition of how we are to treat the rest of the world. And it again is a relationship word. It is probably the most important relationship word that exists. And that is love.

We are called to love one another.

We see in the first reading, and we have talked about the Council of Jerusalem earlier this week, but you we see them talking about what is necessary to become Christian.

Do you have to follow the rules of Judaism? They, at the council, were guided by the relationship word "Love."

If we look at someone who wants to become Christian and say, "You have to do all of these things,” many of which are unpleasant, how is that an articulation of love?

We look at the commandments, the Ten Commandments, set aside loving God, because that's the first Great Commandment, but every other one of them relates to the relationship of love. If you truly loved your neighbor, none of the other commandments will be broken. It is that by definition.

You go, "How am I supposed to act in the world?" Can you spend all of your time loving? Well, unfortunately, the practicalities get in the way and to give everything you have it's hard because we have to balance those.

But when we deal with people, how do we decide how to deal with them?

I have to admit, this is more of an instinct than anything else, but I was raised by a woman and I have been married to a woman who, they both were incapable of opening a door if I was there. Or a male relative especially. If the door wasn't open, and there was a man to open the door, for some reason they would just stand there and wait.

Yet from the perspective of the male, the son, the loving husband, if I love, why aren't I opening the door for her?

If I love someone, and I've said this before, I love coming to Church on Sunday if for no other reason, where in the world can I go where I'm going to, I'm going to love everybody that walks in? They're wonderful people by definition.

If I love my neighbor, why don't I greet them like I love my neighbor? "Hey! How are you doing? I love to see you!"

Someone's new? Great! "What's your name?" Find out something about them. Tell them how wonderful it is to see you. Flatter their babies. That's the best thing.

It's all driven by love. And so ultimately, when we look at the world, we go, "Oh the Catholic Church is so complicated. They have, what, five, six, no, seven sacraments? There are priests and there are deacons. I'm not entirely sure what the difference between a priest and a deacon is.” I always explain to them that I have sleeves. “And they walk around wearing dresses?”

And they do all these things; that's not important. It's just not important. What is important is love. That is the way that we show that we are followers of Christ, of loving one another.

And the easiest way... Wisdom's over there so I can't pick on Wisdom today... you're going to be picked on... is if you look on the world and you go, "You know there are just certain people that I don't like. And I know I don't have that much hair on the top of my head. But I don't need to have people who are big enough to look down to see the top of my head and know that I don't have a whole lot of hair on the top of my head. I don't like those tall people." "I love my neighbor. I especially like short people who can't tell. They're always looking up. They can't tell that I don't have hair on the top of my head."

"Those... them."

Any time we engage in a situation where we look at another person as "them", as someone different from us, for any reason that in our mind seems to be... I was going to use "rational", but I don't think we go through the process... seems to be appropriate, we need to examine our relationship with Jesus and our relationship with the commandment to love.

Because He places no restraint on it whatsoever.

There are people who wouldn't fit into this group at all. [People who would say] "I just don't like being around old people." You have to examine. "I just don't like being around young people. They are so loud." You have to examine.

Because Jesus' commandment, no, Jesus' life, that we are supposed to be aspiring to and His commandment, is love everybody. He was unequivocal. And we are supposed to be, too.

So when we are going through life, and it is so easy, especially when you see them, "I don't like those people." "Oh, look at those people doing this and that." That's not what we are commanded to do.

We are commanded to love one another. And Jesus makes it explicit that everybody is included in this commandment.

And that's what guides the Church. That is at the very core. Love God, and love neighbor. And when you look at that, you have made major steps towards putting yourself in a position to be able to spend all eternity with God in Heaven, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, with the blessed Mother, Queen of Heaven and Earth, in a relationship that Jesus unequivocally defines as Love.

May 24, 2019 2