Month: February 2017

Brokenness

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I am going through a time of stress at home and at work. The one feeds into the other and I have quite simply reached the limit of my strength.

I remember these cheesecakes which my mother used to make which involved making a biscuit base by putting digestives in a plastic bag, tying up the end and then battering them with a rolling pin. At the moment, I feel like those biscuits after they’ve had a good whack with the rolling pin.

At times of stress, the cracks show. The hairline faults, which I thought I’d patched up long ago, become glaringly obvious. The things I have acquired and achieved in an effort to buffer myself against the difficulties of life melt away. Very little stands between the adult I am now and the lonely, frightened child I once was.

I love and respect my parents, but they were not and never could have been perfect. They brought me into an imperfect world. Rather than setting impossible standards for myself, I have to accept my own brokenness. I am an imperfect mother, partner, friend and work colleague. I try to do my best, but I often stumble and fail.

Weakness

When I first thought about becoming Catholic, I thought that it would make me stronger and more resilient to the challenges of life. I knew enough to realise that if I was serious about being Catholic I had to try, as much as I was able, to hand over my life to God. What I didn’t realise was that this would take me to a place where my own strength and knowledge and ability counts for nothing, and where I have no choice but to acknowledge my own helplessness and dependence on God.

As I try to learn more about my faith, I am reminded over and over that God chose the small, the poor and the weak of this world. He chose people that no-one else would even consider. The shepherd boy David was chosen to fight the warrior giant Goliath and inspire the Israelites to victory over the Philistines. A poor peasant girl gave birth to God’s son. Jesus chose uneducated fishermen to be his first disciples and to found his church.

Recently I was watching Lord of the Rings. It is based on the book by J.R.R. Tolkien who was a Catholic. The first time I watched the film many years ago, I was oblivious to its Christian message. Now it is glaringly obvious. A small Halfling or Hobbit, who struggles to get through the day without a second breakfast, is the only person able to take the ring of power into the heart of Mordor and destroy it. The strong ones and the obvious leaders cannot carry the ring because they would be tempted to use it for themselves.

Hope

I am weak and flawed, but faith gives me hope that God can use my brokenness. A while ago, I was reading Saint Faustina’s diary. She wrote that she asked Jesus why He wanted to use her when she was such a weak, miserable person. He replied that it was precisely because of her weakness that God wanted to use her. I don’t have time to hunt the quote right now, but will have a look for it.

Caryll Hauslander in her book ‘The Reed of God’ says:

It is a great mistake to suppose that those who have inherited the material for their life from suffering generations, and who have poor health and a timid approach or some vice or weakness, have not been designed and planned by God as much as others who seem luckier in the world’s eyes. … He can choose what seems to us the most unlikely material in the world to use for a positive miracle of His love.

Last thoughts

I wrote this post a weak ago, but felt too confused and crushed to post it. Since then, I have been reminded that even in the middle of exhaustion and apparent failure, it’s important to keep a sense of humour.

Secondly, I realise that I waste a lot of energy concentrating on the things which aren’t going well and very little remembering the things which are ticking along nicely without drawing any attention to themselves.

Finally, when I really thought I had no more strength left, I got the chance to rest and refresh myself.

Similarities

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Recently I’ve been reading ‘From MTV to Mecca’ by former MTV presenter Kristiane Backer who converted to Islam in 1995 at the age of 30. She later became a Sufi, part of the mystical branch of Islam.

The book leapt out at me from the library shelves because I thought that it would be interesting to read about the experiences of another convert, even if the religion they converted to isn’t my own. I expected to find parallels in the process of conversion. What I didn’t expect, and what has delighted and challenged me, was to find parallels between the Muslim and the Catholic faith.

Here is a very rough list of the things which struck me as being similar:

  • Muslims, like Catholics, have a tradition of saints and believe that a spiritual blessing can be received through the relics of holy men and women.
  • Both Muslims and Catholics pray for the souls of the dead.
  • Physical posture, such as kneeling, is used in worship.
  • Both faiths have a period of fasting or eating restrictions (Ramadan and Lent).
  • The Muslim and Catholic faith both have traditions of pilgrimage to holy sites
  • The word Islam actually means ‘surrender to the will of God’. Surrendering to God’s will lies at the heart of the Christian faith as we follow the example of the Virgin Mary who gave God her fiat when she said, ‘Let it be done unto me according to Your will.’
  • In Sufi tradition, the heart is seen as a cup through which Divine Love can flow. However, before it can be filled, the cup needs to be emptied of the ego and unhealthy habits and attachments. Sufi’s say ‘Die before you die’ and Jesus said that unless the wheat falls into the ground and dies, it will not produce fruit.
  • The Muslim, like the Christian, tries to turn to God through regular prayer and remembering God in their daily life. They call this practice dhikr.

I have had many ‘Aha’ moments reading Kristiane’s book when I have recognised something which I have experienced or read about or striven towards. These similarities have led me to the conclusion that the One God whom we recognise as Catholics also works through other faiths and religions.

My own faith, often assailed by doubts, has been strengthened

by reading about the pull Kristiane felt towards Islam and the many ways in which she has sought God through the Muslim religion. Sometimes I wonder if I am on the right path, if I am on any path at all, or even if there is a path. However, seeing that paths which are different on the surface lead towards the same spiritual principles of turning to God and seeking to do His will, has helped me in my struggle with doubt.

As I read this book, I think of my elderly Sufi friend who pointed me towards a spiritual path before I became Catholic.

I think also of the many ordinary Muslims whose lives have become complicated by attitudes to the few people who take an extreme interpretation of their religion. If we take a long hard look at Christian history, we will find extremists on both the Catholic and Protestant sides. Kristiane Backer also wrestles with this and concludes that love is at the heart of the Sufi tradition. As she says, there is no such thing as a Sufi terrorist.

Why not differences?

I could quite easily have written a post called differences. Perhaps the most significant difference for Christians is that Muslims honour Jesus as a prophet rather than the Son of God. However, my own background has led me to look for God at work in the lives of others rather than concentrating on what sets us apart.

My faith journey started in a little church where we believed that everyone who held different beliefs to ours, including other Christians, was on the broad road to hell. As a young woman, I rejected church and Christianity, but never quite ditched my belief in God. Despite difficulties with organised religion, I developed an awareness of God’s presence, and felt that I recognised God working in the lives of people from different religions or no religion at all.

When I thought about becoming a Catholic, I didn’t want to close myself off to this awareness of God in the lives of others. If becoming Catholic meant believing that my Protestant family and friends were all going to hell, then I would have to regretfully turn away.

I brought these difficulties to our parish priest. He pointed out that while the Catechism of the Catholic Church says that Baptism is necessary for salvation, it also says, God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism, but he himself is not bound by his sacraments (CCC 1257).

Reading on a little , I found the following:

‘Since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partakers, in a way known to God, of the Paschal mystery.’ Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity. (CCC 1260)

I took this to include people who may have been born and brought up in cultures and communities where the Catholic church or the Gospel was very foreign to them. God calls some people to jump across religious divides, I am one of them, but is everyone called to do this?

Only God can judge the heart of another. When I see love being practised between people, I think that God must be at work and that they are living out the message of the Gospel.