My Thomas Year: Post-Attraction Catholicism

About a month ago, I joked to a friend, “It’s the five hundredth anniversary of the Reformation – and sometimes I think I’ll be surprised if I finish the year a Catholic myself!”

2017 has been my Thomas year.

At the end of last year, I felt unaccountably drawn to the figure of (“doubting”) St Thomas the Apostle, and adopted him as my patron saint for 2017. It would be my fourth year since finishing high school and beginning the journey of following Jesus radically. Thomas seemed to resonate with the idea of the “fourth year”, but I had no idea how much I'd need to cling to his story over these last twelve months. 

Thomas journeyed intimately with Jesus for three years – at the end of which he still doubted. His faith was shaken in that “fourth” year, in those weeks following Calvary. He lost heart and began to doubt even the testimony of his brothers. Despite hearing the promises and claiming to believe Jesus’ words about new life, his faith collapsed.

But he stayed.

2017 was, in many ways, a year of choosing – over and over again – to stay.

I began the year at a Catholic summer school, surrounded by wonderful people and steeped in wonderful truths – and yet my personal prayer time every day was a series of internal battles with Reformation theology, frustration at uncharities within the wider Church, and deep discontent with every sign of insularity and narrow-mindedness I saw amongst my fellow Christians.

Back in Brisbane, I flung myself into a variety of ministries – working as a parish youth minister, helping with our university chaplaincy mission, volunteering as a high school youth group leader, attempting to be a beacon of peace and joy in the lives of my friends. But ministry tasted staler this year – the fruits weren’t quick to grow, I felt uncertain of my missionary identity, and too often the tasks I was doing seemed divorced from the person of Jesus.

More than ever before, I encountered a lot within the Church that broke my heart: another news report of clergy sexual abuse; passive-aggressive comments from morning tea ladies about other people in their community; the unwillingness of many Christians to listen to other people in the same-sex marriage debate; tired and disillusioned preachers and lay ministers; deep sadness about ‘society going downhill’ and church amalgamations; nasty glances and Pharisaical remarks.

And, for the first time in my adult life, I found myself attracted to things other than Christianity – to a free-spirited life of wanderlust and soaring intellectual pursuits and heart-wrenchingly good music and the passionate worship of nature’s beauty; to a life outside of “sit, stand, kneel” and prescriptive dogma and sacrificing your own dreams on the altar of God’s bigger plans.

I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced so much turmoil in my Catholic identity as I felt throughout this year. I wanted to have all the answers for other disillusioned souls who came to me seeking sanctuary and wisdom – or even the ones who just came with a bone to pick about the Church’s teaching on suchandsuch – but I was so often caught up in my own disillusionment that I couldn’t figure out how to proclaim the Good News.

The Church ceased to be attractive to me. Maybe a little bit, by extension, Jesus ceased to be attractive to me.

He had no dignity or beauty to make us take notice of Him. There was nothing attractive about Him, nothing that would draw us to Him. We despised Him and rejected Him…

(Isaiah 53:2-3)

I don’t know how on earth God managed to keep me praying for an hour every single day. But I know that without that space of intimacy and contemplation I probably wouldn’t have finished the year a Catholic.

In daily life, Jesus didn’t seem worth noticing. But in prayer, I noticed the truth about His love:

He took every suffering and punishment that should have been mine. I – and those whom I care for – have been healed and made whole by the blows He received. His death was the final sacrifice to bring forgiveness into this world.  (Isaiah 53)

When I look again at the Cross – when I look at His love poured out in silence – I can’t tell Him that I don’t give a damn.

I can’t pretend that love is simply attraction, and that when I cease to be attracted to the Church I can’t love it any more. I can’t pretend that my heart is satisfied with a life founded upon anything but His love.

When I look at the Cross, I meet the Love who asks me to stop thinking of ways to improve the liturgy – and let the liturgy improve me. He asks me to stop grieving the lack of humble servants in our world – and humbly serve. He asks me to stop trying to be the world’s saviour – and let Him be my Saviour.

I think that Thomas – who stayed with his brothers for so long despite his doubts – met that same Love when Jesus came back for him.

"Touch my pierced hands – touch my side – see that the wounds are real, and that you didn’t grieve for nothing, and that your disillusionment was a natural human response to all the crap that was going wrong – but remember the hope of Resurrection."

St Thomas and I sure went on a journey together in 2017. But I know how much I've been enriched through that journey, and the many little resurrections Jesus effected in my heart. 

I think it’s okay to have a Thomas year – because at the end of it, Jesus will show up.

And that’s the thing about choosing, over and over again, to stay a disciple and a Christian even when you doubt and are disillusioned: there is always Resurrection. There is always new life in Christ. The hope sown within you is not in vain, but in the real anticipation of the coming of a Saviour.

This Advent – whether you’ve just had a Thomas year, or whether you’re about to head into one, or whether you’re just a blimmin’ faithful perfect little St John who never runs away from the cross – be real with the Lord.

Advent is about expectancy: expecting His first coming and His second. When we say “Come, Lord Jesus” or sing the ancient strains of “O Come, Emmanuel”, we encounter His desire to meet us in our reality and become incarnate in our lives.

Tell Him your doubts. Tell Him your fears. Tell Him the mundane details of your physical and mental illnesses, and your sadness about the breakup, and your frustration with the lady in the second-row pew who went on a rant about gay people last Thursday, and your stupid little dreams of becoming C.S. Lewis one day.

Tell Him how much you want to want Him.

And expect that He will show up.

He always does.

AMDG