Thank you for this. Feel much the same at times. I've been in the Church. Then rejected it. And am back again. It's a complex orthodoxy. I still rely on the "gates of Hell" thing.
Glad you started your bleating / blogging! It seems such a strange little niche, talking about this confession of near a billion Catholics, this church that dominated, verily: constituted, "our" civilization for most of two millennia. But if one cares, that is "so fringe, meh".
"They put god in my mouth" - funny, I would not have come up with this one. And few long-time ( Catholics (since 1/7/787) I know, would. But, yep, it's one of the unique selling points. - Right now, I feel on the verge/edge? of returning to church. Seems "my" Catholic church won't let me, so I might end up in another chain. Lutheran. Worse work-dress, I agree. But Realpräsenz, they can do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_presence_of_Christ_in_the_Eucharist
btw (for other readers): In Aramaic (similar: Russian) there is/was no verb "to be". Jesus could not have said: Hoc EST corpus meus. But sth. like: Here, my body. Or: Voila, my body. - Not that it matters too much. (Oh, and "body" is not necessarily "body". At least not in Greek. )
I'm quite certain I did not come up with "put God in my mouth". I'm pretty certain that I cribbed it from Evelyn Waugh, though I do wish I had a better memory for where the phrases that stick in my head come from. As to Aramaic and Greek, I leave that to others. But that is something I intend to talk about later.
Oh, I am not about the phrase, just the argument. Tradition. History. Community (I quote a nun : "I became Catholic in order to become a Benedictine-nun"). Art/Liturgy. Eternal life (not that I hear that often; my very catholic mum insists - at 83 - she does not care the least about that). But the eucharist? well, even Anglicans seem not so far from Catholics, really. - It could be Waugh, sure. And he - and you - could have used it as pars-pro-toto: Put God in my life. - Still, I feel there are (even more) franchises with such an offer. And your blog is not "Why I am still a Christian". - It never fails to amaze me seeing "Anglo-Saxons" turn Catholic, of all things. Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh and Muriel Spark. John Gray, Lionel Johnson and Ernest Dowson. Oscar Wilde on his deathbed. His lover 11 years later.
For me it is the physicality of the thing. Put God in my life is an abstraction. Put God in my mouth is physical. This is something I will be talking about a lot in this newsletter: what George Weigel in Letters to a Young Catholic called the grittiness of Catholicism. (Ha! I remembered a reference.) But yes, the eucharist. That is the center.
I'm not competent to map every fissure of our fractured communion, so I am sure I will at times ascribe something to Catholicism that is in fact shared by other denominations. As I have noted, I am not a scholar of these things, and nothing I say here should be treated as reliable teaching.
BTW - I so enjoy your essays . . .
Thank you for this. Feel much the same at times. I've been in the Church. Then rejected it. And am back again. It's a complex orthodoxy. I still rely on the "gates of Hell" thing.
Glad you started your bleating / blogging! It seems such a strange little niche, talking about this confession of near a billion Catholics, this church that dominated, verily: constituted, "our" civilization for most of two millennia. But if one cares, that is "so fringe, meh".
"They put god in my mouth" - funny, I would not have come up with this one. And few long-time ( Catholics (since 1/7/787) I know, would. But, yep, it's one of the unique selling points. - Right now, I feel on the verge/edge? of returning to church. Seems "my" Catholic church won't let me, so I might end up in another chain. Lutheran. Worse work-dress, I agree. But Realpräsenz, they can do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_presence_of_Christ_in_the_Eucharist
btw (for other readers): In Aramaic (similar: Russian) there is/was no verb "to be". Jesus could not have said: Hoc EST corpus meus. But sth. like: Here, my body. Or: Voila, my body. - Not that it matters too much. (Oh, and "body" is not necessarily "body". At least not in Greek. )
I'm quite certain I did not come up with "put God in my mouth". I'm pretty certain that I cribbed it from Evelyn Waugh, though I do wish I had a better memory for where the phrases that stick in my head come from. As to Aramaic and Greek, I leave that to others. But that is something I intend to talk about later.
Oh, I am not about the phrase, just the argument. Tradition. History. Community (I quote a nun : "I became Catholic in order to become a Benedictine-nun"). Art/Liturgy. Eternal life (not that I hear that often; my very catholic mum insists - at 83 - she does not care the least about that). But the eucharist? well, even Anglicans seem not so far from Catholics, really. - It could be Waugh, sure. And he - and you - could have used it as pars-pro-toto: Put God in my life. - Still, I feel there are (even more) franchises with such an offer. And your blog is not "Why I am still a Christian". - It never fails to amaze me seeing "Anglo-Saxons" turn Catholic, of all things. Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh and Muriel Spark. John Gray, Lionel Johnson and Ernest Dowson. Oscar Wilde on his deathbed. His lover 11 years later.
For me it is the physicality of the thing. Put God in my life is an abstraction. Put God in my mouth is physical. This is something I will be talking about a lot in this newsletter: what George Weigel in Letters to a Young Catholic called the grittiness of Catholicism. (Ha! I remembered a reference.) But yes, the eucharist. That is the center.
I'm not competent to map every fissure of our fractured communion, so I am sure I will at times ascribe something to Catholicism that is in fact shared by other denominations. As I have noted, I am not a scholar of these things, and nothing I say here should be treated as reliable teaching.
I am with you - on physicality and anyway: Catholics shall be catholic! Looking forward to more posts. No need to put your light under a bushel!