Question: Hello, I came across your blog I am a Christian, without a real denomination. I am huge on the body of Christ unifying and not diving themselves. Even if we have certain practices, like praying to Mary for Catholics, it should not divide us as a whole. We follow Christ first above our churches. Do you consider other denominations just as important as yours? Would Catholics have a problem serving with other Christians as one under Christ? Just curious, I don’t know too much about the beliefs(:

Answer: 

Awesome question, and thanks for sending it in

Alright, let’s talk about the first part. YES. We are all part of the body of Christ. We all belong to the same God. And….we’re all going to the same Heaven. He loves each and every one of us unconditionally, no matter what religion we profess. Romans 12:5 clearly states that “in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.” Also, in Galatians, Paul writes that “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)

So in that respect, I totally agree with you. Christians were meant to be unified.
So as Catholics, do we consider other denominations as important as our own? Absolutely. And would we ever have a problem serving with other Christians under Christ? Absolutely not.

But what do Catholics believe about other Christians?
We do believe that the Catholic Church has the fullness of truth. We do have beliefs such as purgatory, the Pope, Mary, the Saints, etc. that set us apart. However, the word Catholic literally means “universal”.

That’s the basics. We’re different, but we’re all Christians and it comes down less to the denomination, rather than the denominator. (Christ)

I really appreciate the question and thanks for reading! I know this wasn’t super direct because a lot of questions can come from this, but I definitely want to encourage you to keep on sending them in.

Peace,
Avery

This is part of our new Ask Catholics ministry! Check it out

Also, like us on facebook! 

Here are a couple of  links that may be of interest to you: Franciscan Friars of the Renewal  and   Catholic Underground

Peace,

- Joe

I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the lives of the Saints, our holy brothers and sisters in Christ lately. I’ve been reading St. Louis de Montfort’s book on the consecration to Mary, and I’ve just been thinking.

It’s time to go deeper.

I came across the quote from Luke above and it really hit home for me. We’re either with Christ, or we’re against him. A middle ground doesn’t really exist.

As C.S. Lewis said, he’s either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord. And if we believe that Jesus Christ is Lord, we need to follow the disciple’s example, take up our nets, and follow him.

Now I’m not a fisherman. I’ve maybe caught two fish in my entire life and it happened to be at one of those tacky off-the-interstate fun family activity kind of ponds. So when I’m saying that I need to take up my net and follow the Lord, that’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about abandoning it all to Him. My struggles with school, ministry work, modesty, chastity, humility, trust, spiritual warfare, friends, family, fear, frustration. All of that.

If I’m either for Christ or against Him, I need to be willing to be COMPLETELY open to His will.

But I’m not going to lie. That kind of scares me.

Reading the book on the consecration to Mary made me sick to my stomach. Not because I don’t think it’s a beautiful thing to do, because I’m scared to death that it will take me to a place I’m not ready to go. It involves not just the trust in God that you hear about in country songs. It requires the trust in God that you hear about in Abraham. And St. Miguel Pro. And people like that.

Pouring my life out to God isn’t nearly as comfortable as just dressing up pretty and going to church on sunday and following the rules and being a “Good Catholic”.

So to be completely honest, it’s frightening.

Abandoning my heart, my life, my soul to the Lord scares me.

But the Bible tells us time and time again, be not afraid. (365 times, actually!)

Cause here’s the thing: I’m not strong enough alone. I can’t do it by myself.

But Luke 1:37 beautifully shows…nothing is impossible with God. 

With the faith of a mustard seed, we can move mountains.

Only with God, only through God, and only for God.

So faith and trust is an all or nothing thing.

Be not afraid

I’ve been doing some reading on the lives of saints lately, and I’m falling in love with St. Ignatius of Loyola.

I’ve wondered many times about a saint that I could really think of as my patron, and as I was reading some of his works and a bit about his life, he really struck me.

He was a five foot-two, readhead guy from Loyola who started out life with all of his priorities out of whack. After he was dramatically wounded in battle, he had quite a lengthy time of rest and recuperation. During that time, he didn’t have much to do, and this is where his faith really took off.

He grew in knowledge, followed by a growth in humility. Funny how that happens sometimes. We think we know it all until we actually know something…and then we realize just how much we DON’T know.

Everything about Ignatius’s life changed during his time of recuperation. His inner contemplative side was released, and he took a vow of chastity and love for God. He went into retreat on a mountainside do develop what we now know as “spiritual exercises”. He then became a traveling missionary, setting the world on fire for the Lord.

He also had some cool stuff happen: he levitated (hello electromagnetism, way before your time!), his face literally SHINED during prayer, and Mary appeared to him multiple times. The Lord even appeared to a man who hated Ignatius to tell him to support Ignatius rather than persecute him. He cured people of epilepsy. Flames appeared above his head during mass when he said mass. He bilocated. He drove out demons. People that put flowers on his grave were miraculously cured from their illnesses. Like, what a man!

And yet, this was not for Ignatius. Ignatius realized that it wasn’t about him, and that none of that was possible without the Lord. His motto was Ad majorem dei gloriam , all for the greater glory of God. It is a reminder that we are always called to live for the Lord.

That’s a daily choice we make, and it’s one that we can ask for St. Ignatius’s prayers for helping us. He had an incredible boldness for the Gospel that we can pray to have. He is the perfect saint to ask for prayers when we feel unprepared to share Christ or when our spiritual season seems to be lacking. Let us remember that in every moment, it is for His glory.

Make the choice today: For the Lord 100%, or not.

There’s not really middle ground.

So here we go: Let’s go forth to set the world on fire.

“O my God, teach me to be generous, 
teach me to serve you as I should, 
to give without counting the cost, 
to fight without fear of being wounded, 
to work without seeking rest, 
to labour without expecting any reward, 
but the knowledge that I am doing your most holy will.” 
― St. Ignatius of Loyola

I was super procrastinating today on starting my exam studying and was just going through my news feed on facebook today, and I saw a quote from Mark Hart that really struck me.

“Don’t wear a cross around your neck if all you’re going to do is complain about the one on your back.
Prayer is where the cross changes shoulders.”

Amen.

Carrying the Crosses.

So here’s the deal…

As Christians, we all have crosses in our lives. Illness, stress, spiritual attack, the burden of a sick family member or divorcing parents, the list of anxiety can go on and on.

But the thing is, we’re NEVER alone.

It’s cliche to say, but so many times even as Christians we slip into the darkness of self pity. We make our pain all about ourselves. We forget that every. single. other. person. on this whole wide world is carrying their own cross. Only the Lord knows fully what those crosses are.

We can’t wear crosses on our necks and scapulars on our chests and claim to be followers and disciples of Jesus Christ if we live our life expecting it to be super easy and all about us and our comfort. Christ carried the cross on Calvary. He suffered the ultimate pain for us. The God of the whole universe who created the trees and the people and the giraffes and goodness knows what else, HE carried the cross of Calvary.

HE took upon the suffering of persecution and rejection with grace. He didn’t have a pity party because no one liked Him because it was all a part of the plan of Salvation History.

Suffering is…joy? 

In suffering, many times it is so easy to forget that we belong to something so much greater than ourselves. Look at the lives of the Saints, just for an example. Then name one who didn’t suffer greatly.

Suffering can be seen in two ways.

1. as a bad thing.

2. as a blessing.

Think back to James 1:2. We’re called to consider it JOY when we face trials of many kinds. Now, that’s easier said than done.

So…how is it done? 

Prayer is where the cross changes shoulders.

We have the beautiful grace in our Faith to speak to our Lord and humbly make our requests known before Him. Before HIM who created us, before HIM who knows every hair on our head, before HIM who suffered on Calvary for us.

Putting into perspective what we are facing is so important. The world often presents us with this message that “problems make us stronger” and “just smile and everything will be okay”. It sounds nice, but really, here’s the thing.

Without Christ, none of that is happening in the long run. Only He is strong enough and only through Him can we smile and find joy.

In praying to the Lord, Jesus reaches out and carries that burden with us.

So…then it’s all rainbows and butterflies? 

Jesus never promised his disciples that life would be easy. He promised them that it would be worth it. We must carry our crosses daily but we again have two choices.

We can consider it suffering, or we can consider it joy.

Go ahead with James 1:2. It’s up to you!

I think many times the spiritual battles we face are hard to recognize. They disguise themselves as modernly accepted traits: indifference, busyness, exhaustion. Often even extolled, these force us into the belief that we must “find the balance” between our spiritual life and the reality of the day to day world.

This, really, is a lie that many believe in the Church.

Pope Benedict XVI (Papa B16) has something to say about this:  “Dare to be glowing saints, in whose eyes and hearts the love of Christ beams and who thus brings light to the world”

Think of your favorite saints. St. Francis, St. Augustine, St. Joan of Arc, St. Padre Pio, whoever comes to mind.

Do you think their eyes and hearts could radiate the love of Christ and bring light to the world if they were just like 50% committed? Like what if they just felt like being holy and pure and sanctified by the Lord half the time?

No. They wouldn’t be the people they are today.

With Christ truly as our core, there simply lies no need to balance. There’s nothing to balance. It’s all or nothing. Total joy and surrender and obedience, or…not. There’s really not a gray area once we really come to realize our calling. His Grace guides us and He so graciously invites us to be set free. We need not worry or dwell on balancing our “crazy lives”. We can simply give them up to His will.

If we worry or dwell on the balancing act it leads to spiritual exhaustion: that which relies simply on the self to work for the Lord. That’s not working for the Lord. That’s idolizing the self and calling it service to the Lord, a lack of humility. Humility is the recognition of truth, and the surrender to the Lord, the source of Truth. It is by Him, with Him, and through Him that all things come to be. And if we can simply recognize that, our so called “crazy busy lives” have incredible direction and purpose.

Many times, at least for me, a challenge in faith is complacency. I stop with just the “okay, my faith is pretty good.” ‘It is easy to fall to the common spiritual battles of indifference, busyness, and exhaustion. But let me sort of explain here.

Indifference- To me, this is just not caring. We hear about something, we learn about something, and we close our hearts to embracing it with the love that Christ shares with us. Indifference is a result of our selfishness. We know that there are people who don’t know Christ, we know that there are starving children in Africa, we know that someone dear to us is suffering….and we just leave it at that. We think about it.

Many times people speculate, analyze, and research, and then they just stop. There’s plenty of statistics about world religion and poverty and hunger and suffering. But the stats are staggering. We like to speculate and analyze and research but we cannot stop there. We must not become indifferent and say, “oh, someone else will take care of it.” or “oh, that’s such a big problem. What can I do?”

Did our glowing saints, did our brothers and sisters in Christ do this? No.

Busyness- This is when we fill our lives up with too much. We join every club and organization and AP course and sport and youth group and facebook page we can. And then we complain that our lives are so stressful and we suddenly lose the crucial time for prayer.

To overcome this spiritual obstacle, one must step back and examine the prayer life they have. Even though sometimes we say, “everything’s good! what should I give up if everything is good?” we must step back and ask what is pleasing to the Lord. It is good to have a full life with activity and service and community. It is when this distracts us from drawing closer to the Lord that it is a problem.

Feel like you don’t have time to pray? Stop watching TV for just a week. Suddenly, instead of wasting away 30 minutes of your life with mindless programs, you can spend a solid amount of time in the presence of your Lord. And I promise you, not only will your live be purpose driven, but the peace and relaxation that comes from being with Christ far exceeds the relaxation of time on the couch.

Exhaustion- This kind of goes with what I was saying above in busyness. Saying “yes” to everything doesn’t make you Holy. It leads you into planning everything and relying on yourself and your smartphone agenda than the Lord. Your focus should be on becoming and showing Christ’s love to others. And if anything—even the “good” stuff— gets in the way of that, it may require discernment.

This isn’t saying “don’t do anything” and just sit around. It’s simply saying to be available. If a friend needs to talk, if something comes up, don’t blame your lack of Love on being tired or hungry or just having a bad day. The eternal Love of the Lord doesn’t come from food or sleep or circumstances—it comes from Christ. And it is our call to holiness to accept and share that love even when it isn’t most convenient.

Anyways, just some thoughts for today. I started writing about this in my journal this morning after chapel, and it really struck me as something I need to evaluate in my life.

Jesus loves you. He loves you so, so much.

O Jesus! meek and humble of heart,Hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed,
Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being loved…
From the desire of being extolled …
From the desire of being honored …
From the desire of being praised …
From the desire of being preferred to others…
From the desire of being consulted …
From the desire of being approved …
From the fear of being humiliated …
Fromthe fear of being despised…
From the fear of suffering rebukes …
From the fear of being calumniated …
From the fear of being forgotten …
From the fear of being ridiculed …
From the fear of being wronged …
From the fear of being suspected …

That others may be loved more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be esteemed more than I …
That, in the opinion of the world,
others may increase and I may decrease …
That others may be chosen and I set aside …
That others may be praised and I unnoticed …
That others may be preferred to me in everything…
That others may become holier than I,provided that I may become as holy as I should…
RafaelCardinal Merry del Val (1865-1930),
Secretary of State for Pope Saint Pius
X

I’ll start with this–I’m 15 years old. So going into the new YOUCAT, I was definitely excited. I had heard so many good things and there was a lot of publicity going up to the YOUCAT’s release.
For the most part, I think it is a great book. However, it is definitely not a replacement for the full Catechism. In some ways, I felt like it watered- down aspects of the faith. Stick figure prostitutes, obscure quotes from Martin Luther, a picture with a guy getting shot….there were places that just felt a little irreverent. The intent of the YOUCAT was wonderful. Pope Benedict XVI himself said, “Study this Catechism! ….You need to be more deeply rooted in the faith than the generation of your parents.” That’s definitely true, but I didn’t feel as though the YOUCAT was doing that for me. I think there were a lot of places that the faith could easily be misunderstood, and I don’t feel like watering down our faith will help us to be more rooted in it.
However, it did have some good information. The YOUCAT is written in question-and-answer format which makes it easy to find related topics. It is well organized and a good resource to just pick up if you have a question about Catholic teaching. It included paragraphs from the original Catechism for each question as well. I also really liked the fact that the questions were relatable to teens. The YOUCAT addresses everything from Holy Orders to why we shouldn’t do drugs to chastity in relationships to Saints. I think it is a great beginning resource to anyone who is coming into the faith or just wants to learn a little more without such a serious approach, and it can be used as a gateway or introduction to the full Catechism.

I wrote this review of YOUCAT for the free Catholic book review program, created by Aquinas and More Catholic Goods.
Tiber River is the first Catholic book review site, started in 2000 to help you make informed decisions about Catholic book purchases.
I receive the books that I review for free as compensation for writing reviews for Tiber River.