More Christianity

I was an Anglican priest the summer I met St Therese of Lisieux. I was living in England and had three months free between jobs, so I decided to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. I was going to hitch hike and stay in monasteries and religious houses on the way.

The first leg of my journey took me across the English channel to Normandy. As divine providence would have it, I missed the ferry to the more Eastern port of St Malo and headed instead for the French port of Le Havre. Once off the boat, I headed for the Benedictine monastery of Bec Hellouin. Bec is over a thousand years old, and is famous for providing the church in England with a couple of archbishops over the years. After staying with the monks at Bec I headed for the town of Lisieux.

As a convert from Evangelical American religion, I didn’t know much about the little saint of Lisieux. I had learned that Catholics call her the ‘little flower’ and that she died young of a terrible disease. What little I did know I didn’t like. Her syrupy sweet spirituality didn’t seem very manly to me. I wasn’t sure what ‘little flowers’ had to do with anything and thought all the little girl talk about ‘Dear papa in heaven’ and ‘being God’s good little girl’ were a bit much.

When I got to Lisieux things didn’t improve much. I made my way up to the imposing basilica dedicated to the saint on the hill outside the town. It looked big and ugly from the outside, and the road leading up to the basilica was crowded with souvenir shops with rosaries hanging from the awnings, postcards and images of the saint (and every other saint imaginable) pictures of Mary and Jesus with wide eyes, and holy water bottles shaped like Mary with crowns that unscrewed. To a tasteful young Anglican priest it was all pretty tacky, and I thought the French ought to know better.

I enquired at the guest house called The Hermitage next to Therese’s Carmelite convent. A neat little nun showed me up to my room, and after a simple French supper I wandered around the town for a short time. It was a balmy June evening, and the sun was setting as I went back to The Hermitage and settled down for the night. I opened the window and before long I was fast asleep.

At three in the morning I woke up and was immediately aware of something happening. The moon was shining through the window and a light breeze wafted the curtains. I sat up in bed, not alarmed, but alert—more alert and awake than one should be if woken up in the small hours of the morning. There seemed to be a presence in the room, and it felt like a feminine presence—a very benign and loving and powerful feminine presence. I sensed that it was Therese. I sat there for at least thirty minutes in silence experiencing a dynamic inner calm I can only describe as a quiet bliss. Then the experience passed and I went back to sleep—but not before I decided that I would get over my prejudice and have a more serious meeting with the young lady called Therese of Lisieux.

The next day I went to her childhood home and bought an English translation of her Story of a Soul. I discovered that her sentimental spirituality had a purpose. It was a reminder of the gospel lesson that all of us, if we were to enter the kingdom, had to become as little children. I also learned that this little flower was no shrinking violet. She was tough, tougher than I had ever thought it necessary to be in my own feeble attempts at being a Christian. Then I learned that she had a vocation to pray for priests, and I said, “Therese, I know you pray for priests. I am only an Anglican priest, and not a full member of your family, but I hope you will pray for me too as I embark on this pilgrimage.”

The pilgrimage took me through the most historic and wonderful parts of France and Italy, and then through Greece to the Holy Lands. Along the way I stayed in Benedictine monasteries and got into the rhythm of prayer and the life of the monks with whom I stayed.  All summer I also felt the presence and prayers of the little saint of Lisieux.

Since then, my life’s pilgrimage has taken me places I never imagined. Eight years after my encounter in Lisieux I left the Anglican ministry to become a Catholic. Twelve years after that I was ordained as a Catholic priest. I am convinced that the prayer I said all those years ago in Lisieux was answered more amazingly than I ever could have imagined. Who would have guessed that her prayers would not only help me to make my way into the Catholic Church, but that I (a married man with four children) would also be able to be ordained as a Catholic priest.

My interest in Therese led me to write a book called St Benedict and St Therese—the Little Rule and the Little Way.  The book has become a favorite among followers of both St Benedict and St Therese, and now with a pope called Benedict there is an upsurge of interest in both St Benedict and St Therese. This interest continues to grow because both saints have so much to say to ordinary people who are struggling to live lives of holiness and service to God.

I always give people the benefit of the doubt. Some of my friends think it is a vice and some think it is a virtue. I hope I’m not being naive, but I really do try to see the best of every idea and every person.

In this column More Christianity I’ve tried to share my philosophy that “a man is most often right in what he affirms and wrong in what he denies.” In other words, when confronted with a new idea or a new proposal I always want to see the opportunity, not the problem. I want to see how a difficulty can be a stepping stone to a new and creative possibility. I want to see what good ideal motivates a person rather than seeing the negativities. I want to give people the benefit of the doubt and I wish they’d do me the same courtesy too!

I’ve found this to be pretty effective in dealing with people. I don’t always succeed of course. Too often I fall back into a petty mindset. I blame people. I accuse them of bad motivations and gossip about them. That’s a waste of time. Instead I should see the best in them and try to bring out the best in them because that brings out the best in me too.

With this in mind I wonder if you are a conservative or a liberal? I confess that my own instincts and basic mindset are conservative. Therefore I often see the ‘liberals’ as the bad guys. I accept that liberals also see me and my friends as the bad guys. When you step out of this attitude, however, and give the other side the benefit of the doubt you will actually be free of your negativities and learn something.

The root idea of liberalism is actually good. The true liberal is open minded, accepting and tolerant. He wants justice and peace for all people. He wants to fight against cruelty, injustice and poverty. He wants to get rid of bigotry and bias and prejudice of all kinds. To be liberal is to have an open mind and an open heart to all. He has a pastoral heart and is concerned about people. He is often creative and up to date in his vision. He see what can be done in the future and is optimistic and wants to move forward. In that respect, I want to be a liberal, and all Christians should seek to be liberal in this way as well.

The root idea of conservatism, on the other hand, is to conserve what is good from the past. The conservative wants to retain the beauty, the wisdom, the learning and the truth that we have inherited from our ancestors. The conservative is cautious about new things because he would rather fix the old than get something new. The conservative treasures the good things of the past because he knows they are tried and true. They have stood the test of time and are therefore precious. The liberal seems up to date. The conservative seems out of date. The conservative often tends to be nostalgic about the past and pessimistic about the future. He values dogma and doctrine and ‘the right way to do things’, and feels the way to serve people is by calling them to the high values, beliefs and principles that have stood the test of time.

It should be obvious therefore, that ‘liberals’ and ‘conservatives’ both want what is beautiful, good and true. We should appreciate one another more.

It’s not because we are too liberal or too conservative, but because we aren’t liberal and conservative enough!  What I mean is that, too often, conservatives are not truly conservative in a positive and creative way and liberals are not liberal in a creative and positive way.

We’re too narrow in our thinking. We need More Christianity not Mere Christianity!

Conservatives become narrow and negative when they focus on retaining the past simply for its own sake. They become legalistic when they focus on retaining the order and structure of the past rather than re-activating the spirit of the tradition. They become negative and narrow by withdrawing into their own little enclaves and becoming suspicious and paranoid about everyone outside. Conservatives are narrow and negative when their love of the past makes them embalm the past rather than bring it to life in a new way. If conservatives were really conservative they would conserve all the beauty and truth and goodness of the wisdom of the past and live it in a simple and honest way today.

Liberals become narrow and negative in the same way. They hunker down into wounded little self righteous groups who blame everyone else for not dancing to their tune. They resort to name calling and petty attacks on ‘the vast right wing conspiracy’ they imagine is against them. Their instinct for liberty and tolerance turns into moral license and laziness all in the name of ‘being nice.’ Instead of being truly open minded, tolerant and accepting of others they gather in their campaign mode and declare war on all who they perceive to be their enemies. Although they are against bigotry and intolerance they become just as bigoted and intolerant of their perceived enemies as the conservatives they accuse of bigotry and intolerance!

A plague on both their houses!

The ‘More Christianity’ position is always ‘both and’ instead of ‘either or’. The true Christian who is fully Catholic in mentality will be both conservative and liberal at the same time. He will seek to conserve with creativity and a dynamic faith all that is good and beautiful and true from 2,000 years of the Holy Spirit’s work in the world. He will also be looking to the future with optimism and hope–reaching out to all with Christ’s words of forgiveness, peace and justice.

Standing on the faith conserved from the past, he will also be tolerant and positive about the future. As a conservative he will work to maintain the ‘faith once delivered to the saints’ but he will also work to apply it to the needs of modern man today. To be truly Catholic is to be ‘universal’. This means we have an expansive vision of our mission in the world and we seek to fulfill it with joy, in the power and the glory of the Holy Spirit.

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Fr Dwight Longenecker is parish priest of Our Lady of the Rosary in Greenville, South Carolina. Connect with his blog, purchase his books and read his archived articles at www.dwightlongenecker.com

When we go to confession we are getting an excellent dose of inner therapy. Confession works, and forgiveness really does make us better. There are three problem areas of our lives which we can bring into confession. We are usually conditioned to ask forgiveness only for the things we have done. But we can also ask forgiveness for the things we have left undone and the things that have been done to us.

The children are fighting. I decide to wade into the fray and break things up. As soon as I ask what is going on each child points to the other and they say in unison, ‘He started it!’ It’s part of our wounded human nature to blame somebody else for our problems. The Garden of Eden story makes the point all too painfully: As soon as God finds Adam and Eve and questions them Adam says, ‘The woman told me to eat.’ Then when God looks to Eve she immediately blames the serpent.

Blaming others for our problems is a natural response, but it is also an immature response. Our natural responses are usually childish. We have to learn mature behaviour. However, the immature response of blaming others doesn’t always look childish. Sophisticated adults use all sorts of tricks to shift the blame. When a business fails managers blame employees, employees blame managers and everybody blames the executives.

Even when politicians and religious leaders fall they blame conspiracy theories or political enemies. Some forms of counselling encourage us to blame our parents for the state we’re in. Social theories blame our social environment or our financial background. Other forms of self-analysis teach us to blame our education or our lack of education, our religion or our lack of religion. Almost anything can be used as a root reason for our problems.

Many of our problems do have roots in all these areas, but healing doesn’t come through attaching blame elsewhere. True healing comes through owning the problem. Secular self-help programmes are good at helping people own their problems and decide to do something about it, but one of their failings is that they give the impression that we can do something about our failures and problems on our own. If only we have a little bit more will power and positive thinking we can overcome anything. Sadly most of us can’t. We need outside input.

The mature person realises his problems are his own, and that there are only two people who can really do anything about it. The first person is myself and the second person is Jesus Christ. As a result, the best therapy and the best problem solving technique is to learn how to say ‘sorry’ at a very profound level.

When we go to confession we are getting an excellent dose of inner therapy. Confession works, and forgiveness really does make us better. There are three problem areas of our lives which we can bring into confession. We are usually conditioned to ask forgiveness only for the things we have done. But we can also ask forgiveness for the things we have left undone and the things that have been done to us.

When we bring the things we have done into confession we are taking a huge first step away from the immature behaviour of blaming others. In confession we cannot blame anyone else. We own our faults and bring them to God. It may be true that we commit sins with mixed motives or because of circumstances beyond our control. All of our actions and decisions grow from the complex condition of our heart. God knows and understands all that. Instead of analysing all those other factors He wants us to simply come into his presence with the thing that’s gone wrong and leave the rest to him.

If we hand it over in confession often the other things get themselves sorted out. Confession is like the kind of weed killer which you spray on the leaves of the weed. In time it penetrates into the pores of the leaf, moves down the stem and kills the very root. So when we bring outward sins and problems to confession the grace of absolution moves deeply into our lives, killing off those very roots of sin which some forms of therapy continually analyze and mull over.

Sometimes I forget to bring to confession the things I’ve left undone, but in fact that area of my life is where there is perhaps the greatest sin. The things we have left undone are symbols of all that we could be in God’s final plan. If we can only get a glimpse of the glory for which we were created, then we would also get a glimpse of how far short of that glory we fall. We were created to be the infinite sons and daughters of the King of Glory, brothers and sisters with the saints and co-heirs with Christ himself. God intends for us to be perfectly whole one day-shining with the radiance of Christ. As we go to confession we should always remember that great potential God has given each one of us. Then we will see that our lack of love and our lukewarm devotion to God is the greatest problem in our lives.

When I was a minister I remember a man named Steve coming to see me, ‘You are always telling us to forgive others.’ He said, ‘But what if you can’t forgive someone?’

‘Who can’t you forgive?’ I asked.

‘My friend Richard was my business partner. He was my best friend. Last year I found out he was not only cheating me out of my half of the business, but he was having an affair with my wife. I hate him and I can’t stop hating him.’

As Steve was talking a verse from the Scripture popped into my mind. ‘Who can forgive sins, but God alone?’ Suddenly I realised that it is impossible for us to forgive someone in our own power.

Therefore when we come to confession we should also bring the things that have been done to us. We don’t bring them blaming the other person, but asking God for the strength to forgive them. In the Lord’s Prayer we say, ‘Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.’ But maybe we should also understand that phrase from the Lord’s prayer as meaning ‘forgive us our sins at the same time as we forgive those who sin against us.’ With this in mind we will bring to the confessional the things that have been done to us-whether ages ago by our parents or teachers, or earlier in the day by our boss, our spouse or our family members. Then as we ask confess our sins we can also confess our inability to forgive, and ask God to let His forgiveness flow through us to those who have injured us.

In this way saying ‘sorry’ through the sacrament of reconciliation has a powerful healing effect in our lives. Instead of blaming parents or teachers or circumstances or social factors we own our problems and bring them into God’s presence asking for his help. When we do this the healing is powerful and real. It reaches right back to the roots of our sin. It strengthens us to take up the things we should be doing, and it touches those who have sinned against us.  I remember an old priest saying to me, ‘Confession is a simple, humble and beautiful sacrament. It is far more efficient than psychotherapy. Its quicker and its more painless.’ And then with a twinkle in his eye he added, ‘.and its cheaper too!’

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Fr Dwight Longenecker is a married Roman Catholic Priest who was ordained under the pastoral provision for married former Anglican priests. Go to his website and connect to his popular blog, Standing on My Head.