Becoming "more" Catholic

I was reading on a friend's blog, a revert, his musings about wanting to, and gradually succeeding in, becoming "more" Catholic... in other words, a fuller feeling of being Catholic within the faith.

I think the biggest step in doing so is to learn to trust not only Jesus but his family. Not worship, but trust. Catholics take for granted, and often are not even conscious of their feelings of trust, nor could they articulate it, a living trust relationship with Mary, Joseph, the Apostles, disciples and the saints. Catholics have a feeling of inclusiveness, where they feel a part of the family of the saints. There are many stories of saints or lay people who when a child, upon losing a mother or father, or being orphaned, turned to Mary or Joseph and thought of them as their earthly parents in replacement for the lost parent. This used to be an extremely common feeling, though with split families being more prevalent, the loss of a parent often has a sad "normalcy" nowadays. But in the times when parents were often lost due to sickness, war, famine, or disaster, many Catholic children and young adults instinctively had a deepened personal relationship with Joseph or Mary. Notice that this has nothing to do with theology. That is the key. Catholic children open their hearts to the saints and allow the saints to "adopt them." Their prayer is their parent-child conversation, not worship. They venerate Mary and Joseph as the ones who merited being the parents of Jesus Christ, and who now adopt the child in his or her loneliness and sorrow.

Non-Catholics have a very judgmental and miserly undercurrent in their attitude toward the Holy Family and the saints. They worry that they should not "worship" anyone but Jesus Christ (forgetting God sometimes ha ha). They worry that Mary or Joseph somehow siphon away devotion to the Lord. They secretly judge whether Mary, Joseph or the saints pass some sort of "non corrupted Church test." This is very sad and very much in error. This is why there feels like a glass wall between Catholics and converts or reverts. The general reason for that is the lifelong Catholic sitting beside you on the pew is born into a feeling of the Holy Family and saints as extended family. It's preservation and extension of the traditional family that used to have fostering even within the family, apprenticeship, adoption, many "brethren" during Biblical times and as the Holy Family lived. As saints lived and died, they live on as members of this family. Catholics are born with the understanding that they are entitled to being in this family too. People who come to Catholicism often can't put their finger on what exactly it is that gives lifelong Catholics a feeling of fullness, but that is what it is. It comes down to this. Catholics trust the Holy Family and the saints. It would never occur to them not to do so. People from outside of Catholicism are burdened with a caution that borders on suspicion, which is the unfortunate legacy of expecting all details and "allowables" of Christian life to be printed in black in the Bible, otherwise it does not exist and is to be suspect. But even the most detail oriented scripture writer would never even think of explaining to readers that they are supposed to view the saints as trusted family, since that was the mode of belief already in operation in both secular and religious life. It's only in "modern" times that the very Holy Family and the saints have to "prove" to people they are allowable and worthy to be loved and venerated.

Remember the Apostles wanted Jesus to zap the town that was rude to them? Just think how they would react to hearing people say they are "suspicious of Mary worship" or dubious of the piety and correctness of any of the saints recognized by the Church. Yikes, they'd be mad. The Holy Family, in the person of Mary, and also the brethren who were Apostles and disciples, lived among and taught the scripture authors for goodness sakes, so they were family in every meaning of the word. They were loved in day to day familial and secular affection in addition to being within the family of the Church.

So Catholics who have this "fullness" of being Catholic do so in a very large part because they feel the fullness of the family and the reciprocal love and family ties between the saints and the living. That is their baseline and foundation, and they never "assess" the "appropriateness" of this huge glorious family, and they do not confuse it with the worship that is due to God alone.

People have favorite saints like they have favorite siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, or stepparents. It may be unconscious but a "full" feeling Catholic always knows that Mary and Joseph are there as the perfect, totally loving and understanding "fall back parents." People are often led to their veneration of Mary, Joseph, or one of the other saints by what they first feel is the totally reliable family tie in a time when bodily family members cannot be relied on, or are lost. A child grows up with a picture of Mary, for example, and has the knowledge that Mary is "always with her." People put the cart before the horse when they think it is idolatry or worship. It is not. What outside critics don't realize is that Catholic children have traditionally felt the constant reliable loving presence of the saints just as if they were grandparents. This is probably the largest key to understanding that fullness of feeling "Catholic."

It's a very big family album! Ones that you can count on too ha ha.