Why I Still Love Her

Sometimes I wake up in the morning, roll over, look at her face and think 'What on earth have I given my life to? Is this really the one I chose?'

So I look more closely, hoping that my fears about her are wrong - maybe she's not as flawed as I think! But examination reveals as much brokenness as that first glimpse suggested.

Is she fraught with grief, scandal, exhaustion, and uncertainty in the face of her own irrelevance? Yes.

Are many of her priests tired, disillusioned, lacking missionary zeal because they cannot possibly hope to atone for all that their brothers in Christ have perpetrated against innocents? Yes.

Are many of her members hateful in their speech and attitudes, uncharitable towards one another and the outsider? Yes.

Is she divided against herself politically - between those who fight for some lives and those who fight for others, torn apart because some seem to care for life in the womb but not life on a refugee boat; for lives on the street committing suicide because they feel like a burden on society, but not lives who opt for euthanasia because they feel like a burden on their relatives? Yes.

Is she often behind the trend, outdated in her ways of doing things, technologically incompetent, lacking in strategies to engage, revitalise, and entertain? Yes.

Has she become stagnant in clinging to institutional frameworks that have long since ceased to empower her in her mission? Yes.

Does she bear the scars of excesses through the ages, paying the price for greedily taking more than was her due? Yes.

Has she been an agent of historical oppression and perpetuated systems of domination and exploitation across the world? Yes.

Are the words spoken by those who believe in her often poisoned by hypocrisy, self-righteousness, insularity, prejudice, intolerance, and self-doubt? Yes.

So why on earth would I still love her?

What would make me stop loving her?

I was asked that question at a party on Friday night - "What would it take to make you change religions? Can you think of reasons why you'd stop being Catholic?"

Immediately I thought of thirty.

I thought of my fury at those who use religion as justification for unkindness towards LGBTQ people. I thought of my grief for the environment and my disappointment in many Church-goers' apathetic attitudes towards the global climate crisis. I thought of the in-and-out approach to Sunday mass that so many Catholics take, with absolutely no desire to nurture community or invest their deep selves in spiritual dialogue. I thought of the victims of sexual abuse by clergy. I thought of the bitter exchanges I've seen between believers who refused to budge on minor issues because being right was more important than being loving.

I thought of everything that runs through my head on those mornings when I wake to the cold, grey light of a Church who doesn't look like the one I chose.

Because of this, many of the disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, "Do you also wish to go away?" Simon Peter answered him, "Lord to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God." 

John 6:66-67

Because of her flaws, Christians walk away from the Church every day. Unbelievers run away from mere mention of her. She is ugly in the eyes of many, a broken old woman whose beauty - if she ever had any - is buried in the centuries. There is nothing attractive about her, nothing that would draw us to her: we despise her and reject her. (Isaiah 53:3, anyone?)

And so on Friday night, Jesus - in the form of a reasonably inebriated, secular uni student - asked me again, "Do you also wish to go away?"

My heart cried, "Yes, yes, yes, I want to run and hide and never ever have to say I'm Catholic ever again."

But something further in - a deeper magic from before the dawn of time - prayed, "Lord, to whom can I go? You are my life. You are the Love that transforms all things, even and especially the ugliest, the most broken, the sick and the sinner. Even and especially your grieving, exhausted, hypocritical, self-righteous, scarred, scared Church. Even and especially grieving, exhausted, hypocritical, self-righteous, scarred, scared me."

You still love me, Lord. 

The thing that Jesus brought into perfect clarity for me in that moment is that I am the Church. Even more to the point, that which I see in the Church is what I myself am. 

I am fraught by grief, scandal, exhaustion and uncertainty. I am tired, disillusioned and lacking in missionary zeal. I am hateful and uncharitable. I am divided against myself politically because I want to cherish all life. I'm behind trend, outdated, incompetent, lacking strategy. I become stagnant because I cling to frameworks rather than the mission that inspired them in the first place. I bear the scars of my own excesses (stretch marks on my thighs from one too many Easter eggs!) for greedily taking more than was my due. I remain an agent of oppression and exploitation by my very position of privilege in the world economy. My words are so often words of hypocrisy, self-righteousness, insularity, prejudice, intolerance, and self-doubt.

I am the Church - the imperfect, fatally flawed, bruised and broken Body of Christ. I am His unfaithful Bride whom he again and again has to chase into the wilderness to teach her how to love again.

If there is anything I have learned in my life as Christ's disciple, it's that His love for me is irrational, extravagant and unconditional. He doesn't leave me when I am less than the woman I used to be, less than the woman He created me to be. He keeps loving me when I am in every way unloveable.

He chooses me in my ugly.

And so I choose her in her ugly.

I still love Her because I myself am loved irrationally, extravagantly, and unconditionally. 

The Lord said to me again, "Go, love a woman who has a lover and is an adulteress, just as the Lord loves the people of Israel, though they turn to other gods."

Hosea 3:1

When He calls me to go and love her as she is, He is only asking of me what He himself does in loving me. He offers a redeeming love, a love that transforms by its own self-gift. He calls me to offer a redeeming love, a love that transforms by its own self-gift. 

And does that hurt? Yes. I'll bet the nails in His hands hurt too. 

Is it socially humiliating? Yes. I'll bet that being spat upon and crowned with thorns didn't exactly feel like a popularity victory for Him either. 

Do I have to die to myself in order to keep loving her? Yes. In the same way as He loved me and gave Himself for me.

To be a disciple of Christ is to follow His pattern of continual descent. 

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus:

who though He was in the form of God

did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,

but emptied himself...

and became obedient to the point of death.

Philippians 2:6-8

Catholicism is not a religion of upward social mobility. It is a choice to journey with Christ from glory into the depths of hell, that all things might be raised to glory. It is a choice to let Him into the ugliest of ourselves and the ugliest of our faith community in order to release it from captivity to darkness and empower it to become the image of Love again. 

And that means nothing will ever be picture-perfect. Authentic spirituality isn't going to look pretty on Instagram. More often than not, it will be waking up to see yourself and your Church and your world, and wonder what the hell you've signed up to. It will be the exhaustingly life-giving process of every single day realising just how much you have to say, "Lord, I need you. Lord, we need you."

I have no interest in selling a prosperity Gospel. To belong to Christ is to pick up our cross and follow Him. And sometimes our cross is our faith community itself and the ways it still needs to be transformed by Love.

But to be Catholic is not simply to belong to a church. Katholikos in Greek means 'universal'. To be Catholic is to open your heart to look at the universe through the lens of redemption: a cruciform pattern of suffering, death, resurrection and glory. To be Catholic is to choose hope in the face of insurmountable ugliness, knowing that Love will make a way.

I love the Church with my whole heart, because she is the One who gives me the gift of this lens. She points me to Christ, who points me back to the Church and the world and says, "Love."

I still love her - my Church, my mother - because she is His bride. And every day, He is making her beautiful and making her new.

He took me up to a high mountain and showed me Jerusalem, the holy city, coming down from God out of heaven. It had all the radiant glory of God and glittered like a precious jewel.

Revelation 21:10-11

AMDG