Posted on 08/22/2005 10:20:56 AM PDT by Petrosius
Marc Sayre looks like a typical college student: baggy jeans, unbuttoned plaid shirt over a grungy tee and a knit black cap. He lives off campus with friends who favor Coldplay, cold beer, pool tournaments—and the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus. Their fratlike group, called the Knights of the Holy Queen, consists of nearly 40 male students at Franciscan University. They pray together daily and convene once a week to share the long, ritualistic prayer of the rosary, which is more commonly performed by folks their grandmothers' age. "This is what we long for in our faith," says Sayre, 21, referring to a level of devotion that goes far beyond attending Sunday mass. "There was an emptiness before. Now our lives—my life—are full."
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Such a great story. I think it is here somewhere else on FR, too.
It didn't turn up in a quick search.
The article was about another football player!
Thought you'd want to see this.
I'm seeing more and more young men and teenagers with the Brown Scapular and some of the most beautiful young women with the Sacred Heart.
It's like the Spirit is rushing through our youngsters!
Although most of these students were born Catholic, many speak of "converting" to this deeper immersion as teenagers. They'd grown dispirited with routine Sunday masses and wanted a more personal connection with Christ. ... conversion is a deeply personal choice, not something by which to measure others. "It's an ongoing experience, a handing over of life more and more to the Lord."
As an Evangelical, I think that if these folks want a more personal connection with Christ and are handing over [more of their] life more and more to the Lord, then I would say this seems authentically Christian.
To spend time among them is to explore the boundary where normal college life intersects with ultradevout Catholicism. Many of the students here drink, but they generally don't get trashed. They date, but remain fully clothed and often pray as couples. And as befits their age, sometimes they feel torn between the secular and the spiritual. "Sure, there are some nights I'd rather be watching 'Punk'd' than joining the group in prayer," says Audry Raines, 20, a member of the Little Flowers, a sororitylike worship house. "[But] there is beauty in prayer, in contemplation, in doing small things."
Although most of these students were born Catholic, many speak of "converting" to this deeper immersion as teenagers. They'd grown dispirited with routine Sunday masses and wanted a more personal connection with Christ. Some are unapologetically judgmental of the unconverted. "A lot of these kids have a problem with so-called sociological Catholics," says Boston College theologian Stephen Pope. But Franciscan University's president, Father Terence Henry, says conversion is a deeply personal choice, not something by which to measure others. "It's an ongoing experience, a handing over of life more and more to the Lord."
Even under John Paul II's conservative successor, it is a stretch to say that young Catholics like these—whose numbers nationally are impossible to determine—represent the future of the church. Soon they will graduate into a more secular world, but they promise to stay devoted. "God is just more than somebody you visit on Sunday," says Liz Danik, 21. For those who've chosen this stronger flavor of Catholicism, the nourishment comes daily.
Though lacking in clarity with a few theological "oops", the author still manages to make the point that young catholics are being drawn deeper into their Catholic faith.
Hey ... this is GipperGal's alma mater! Haven't heard from her in days but fully expect that she will be checking in ... soon.
Steubenville, the home of the Catholic Charistmatic movement in the 80's!!
Times they are a changing. I did hear from someone in the know in Steubenville (you know who he is) that the Charistmatics in Steubenville are dwindling why the traditional "Deep Catholics" are on the rise. Who da thunk it?
To Jesus through Mary ping.
Conversion as an ongoing process is indeed authentically Christian. But how comfortable you are, as an Evangleical, with the notion that an initial act of faith needs to be a struggle sustained by unending work?
***Conversion as an ongoing process is indeed authentically Christian***
I've heard it said that conversion is a crisis and a process.
***But how comfortable you are, as an Evangleical, with the notion that an initial act of faith needs to be a struggle sustained by unending work?***
Perhaps I misunderstand you, but I would say that a person who is struggling to secure their justification by unending work is either unconverted or has fallen away from grace...
"I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness." - Gal 5 2-6
Having said that, it is true that a person, once converted, enters into a warfare - a struggle against the world, the devil and their own fallen human nature. This struggle is unavoidable in the life of a believer because the Holy Spirit now resides in them and it is His will to "clean them up" so to speak. This is the struggle of sanctification.
Justification is not a struggle. It is a gift, freely given by grace and received using the instrument of simple, childlike faith. Justification make us instantly acceptable in God's sight - because God sees us, as it were, covered in the blood of Christ. This requires no work by us, just a simple acceptance of the death of Christ on our behalf.
(If I may be permitted to use a personal experience.) Before I was converted I knew that Christ was calling me to follow him. I struggled against this for a long time because I did not want anyone to interfere with my life. I wanted to be the master of my own ship.
But God allowed circumstances to come into my life which wrecked my "ship" and brought me to my knees. From this vantage point I was able to truly see myself, my stupidity and sinfulness. But despite all that, despite all my sin and my long rebellion against him, I realized that Christ still loved me and wanted me to follow him. He could heal my wreck of a life if I would give it to him. But there was now to be one difference - now he was to be in charge.
I accepted his offer and gave myself to him. In the days following I literally felt like I had been snatched from one universe and placed in another. I felt as if I was totally clean and that a great burden had been taken off my shoulders. I felt the the love of God shining on me like continuous sunshine. Suddenly, things that used to never bother my conscience would deeply grieve me Things that I previously thought were good I knew to be bad. Whenever I had prayed before in my life it had been dead and a drudgery. Now when I prayed I felt like I was talking to a dearest friend. I used to be apathetic to reading the Bible - now when I read it, it seemed electrified. My one goal and my one pleasure became getting to know Christ better and doing those things which pleased him.
I caught a lot of grief. A lot of people I knew began to mock me and many of my former friends dropped me. But to be honest, I was so thrilled with my new relationship with Christ that I hardly noticed.
From that initial point on, this new power that entered my life (which I recognize from the Bible to be the Holy Spirit) has stayed with me, kept me and guided me for many years. It almost seems like his power is a great magnet that continually "draws" me to God - in spite of my own many failures and weaknesses. I do not struggle to hold on to God, HE is holding me. But my job is to yield to His power, His influence, His will - especially when it goes against that which I would prefer.
So it doesn't seem to be so much an "unending work" as an "unending relationship" which is sustained by Him. His, "yoke is easy" and his "burden is light". They only time it gets hard is when I make it hard for myself by failing to choose what I know He wants me to choose.
(I would love to hear your thoughts and please forgive me for being so long-winded.)
Thank you for the detailed response.
The verse from Galatians refers to freedom from the Law of Moses and the works that law calls for. It cannot be used to promote the doctrine of salvation by faith alone.
But the about that argument is a bit specious. No knowledgeable Catholic would deny that grace is the foundation of all good works. No Protestant would recommend doing bad works. And your subsequent post illustrates that, since I find nothing to disagree with it, outside of terminological quarrel or two.
To wit: "Conversion" indeed is commonly understood as a decision for Christ, and when Catholics speak of ongoing conversion, they do not use the word in that sense. Rather, they refer to the same "struggle against the world, the devil and their own fallen human nature" that you describe. Good works is a part of that struggle. Salvation is a gift available to all believers; through works they cooperate with grace and many are justified by Christ in the end of their lives. I think that a lot of arguing about this is arguing about words, not substance, as Protestants are forever sensitive to the heresy of Pelagius, -- which, of course, is a heresy.
Now I have a few comments.
The act of conversion can be sudden, dramatic, and abrupt or it can be slow in coming and gradual. The Gospel gives examples of both. St. Paul was knocked off his horse and rendered blind. Peter professed faith, denied Christ, professed it again, and in the person of the Popes has continued in this uneven step to this day. Apostle Thomas doubted, and Christ spoke of his faith in relative terms. Others asked Christ to increase their faith. This points to conversion as properly a process, not necessarily a singular experience. In the lives of many saints, conversion is not recorded and we can assume it was not remarkable, -- just plain life in the Church since childhood. The outpouring of grace occured in their case as they received martyrdom. So it would be incorrect to presume that the dramatic conversion that the evangelical churches like to emphasize is a necessary element of justification. It is just a remark, there is no evidence of such opinion in your post.
Catholics, of course, admire dedicated life in submission to the Holy Spirit, that you have been blessed with, and recognize that the burden is light for a believer. However, -- as lives of saints demonstrate -- the burden is still, as the word implies, work -- either work of charity, or work of building up the Church, or work of suffering and sacrifice, and usually all three. There is no point in avoiding the word "work" when it is something clearly asked of us by Christ Himself.
Working on it....
Yes, the verses most commonly used to justify salvation through faith alone, come from St. Paul's passages that deal with the dismissal of the Mosaic works of law, rather than works as a general concept. Consider that most of the Gospel and the Epistles deals with proper Christian behaior, which is domain of WORKS.
James 2It is possible to create a kind of code language in which you declare that first, there is salvation, and then there are fruits of the salvation, and the fruits of the salvation are good works. We certainly can agree that, speculatively speaking, God, Who is outside of time, knows His elect and so His grace enables all good works, and frustrates the bad works that do not come from the operation of the free will. But this is an innatural reading of the entire Gospel, because the Gospel is written not from the eternal view of God but from the practical view of man. In that view, works are not predicated on the elect status, which is unknowable, but on the operation of the free will toward sainthood.20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?
21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works, offering up Isaac his son upon the altar?
22 Seest thou that faith did cooperate with his works and by works faith was made perfect?
23 And the scripture was fulfilled, saying: Abraham believed God, and it was reputed to him to justice, and he was called the friend of God.
24 Do you see that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only?
25 And in like manner also Rahab the harlot, was not she justified by works, receiving the messengers and sending them out another way?
26 For even as the body without the spirit is dead: so also faith without works is dead.
Man can reject the grace or he can cooperate with it. When he does, there is the fruit, and Christ promised to view it favorably. When he does not, there is sin, and then the judgement of Christ will weigh the sin against the faith. Despite the natural interest, even in the Gospel, to describe the dramatic and the unusual, there are clear passages that point to the gradual character of Christian faith: St. Peter walks on water the distance proportionate to his faith, the Apostles attempt and fail to heal the sick; St. Thomas and, repeatedly, St.Peter have lapses of faith; St. Paul dwells on the imperfections of his faith.
I put together a collection of verses, primarily from the Epistles, that point to this gradual buildup of faith, possible through grace, which is accomplished through works. But before I make the quotes, let me mention that th eissue is a bit like discovering a name of a continent on a map, which is spaced across the names of many geographical features and is diffucult to find only because the mental focus is on smaller print. If one is to summarize the pragmatic content of the Gospel in one word, that would be Christ's moral teaching, which is all about what to do and what not to do -- about works
Eph 2And then, of course, direct and clear references to the necessity of good works:8 For by grace you are saved through faith: and that not of yourselves, for it is the gift of God.
9 Not of works, that no man may glory.
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus in good works, which God hath prepared that we should walk in them.
Eph 4
12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the word of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
13 Until we all meet into the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ:
I Cor 4
11 Even unto this hour we both hunger and thirst and are naked and are buffeted and have no fixed abode.
12 And we labour, working with our own hands. We are reviled: and we bless. We are persecuted: and we suffer it.
13 We are blasphemed: and we entreat. We are made as the refuse of this world, the offscouring of all, even until now.
I Cor 15
58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast and unmoveable: always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labour is not in vain in the Lord
II Cor 4
9 We suffer persecution: but are not forsaken. We are cast down: but we perish not.
10 Always bearing about in our body the mortification of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our bodies.
Mt. 16
27 For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels: and then will he render to every man according to his works.
Phil 2
12 Wherefore, my dearly beloved, (as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only but much more now in my absence) with fear and trembling work out your salvation.
13 For it is God who worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish, according to his good will.
St. Francis had a friend, who was overcome with worry. His worry was, -- Am I saved? St. Francis, upon learning of his friend's anguish, said: -- You are saved. Now, go do something about it.
Amen
Now it's my turn to say I'm pulling something together.
May take a day or two.
(PS - Greatly enjoying this line of discussion)
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