I write this because I cannot contain my anguish, though I have suffered nothing worthy of anguish. Much of it may be misinterpretation and exaggeration. May God forgive me.
What is truth? – Pontius Pilate
Truth, I am told, is a person. The person of Jesus Christ. Once I came to the conclusion I needed to commit to something in life, so I committed to turn Britain socialist and to always strive after truth. Of the first I lost heart for it and could not go on. Socialism it seemed to me was a lie. Only an ideology. Of the second, I will it still, though often I falter. Truth matters much to me. When, once at the brink of despair, unsure if truth existed at all, I decided I would just “believe” – believe that there is truth, for no other reason than I had committed to it, for no other reason than that I could not abandon such a pursuit anymore than I could abandon the pursuit of breathing. Which is to say it is possible, but both excruciating and harmful. I decided to believe in truth, though I knew it not, and this was for me the beginning of life, before which I had only dreams.
Ringing in my ears the words: “I am the way, the truth, the life”. These words spoke to me, and they told me where I must look. These words spoke to me of the Word, and from then on I knew the direction I willed to go, even if I knew the end not.
I am alone in my search. I do not want to be, I cannot trust myself, but I am alone. No-one I know really seems to believe in truth anymore. I went to the Catholic Church and they said I was being too “intellectual” looking for truth. I find that so hard to understand. The quest for truth is a quest of love, a driving force in the heart that cannot rest, that is full of delight. The mind is but a tool, and not the only one. Man is a whole person and his relation to truth is a relation of person to Person. All his faculties are involved, none can be ignored. Truth is one. He cannot be reduced to mere subjectivism, for He is the ultimate objective; transcendent and incarnational.
I do not feel safe. That is a fact. I do not feel safe. The extent to which relativism, to which subjectivism has saturated the ideology even of Christians, frightens me. I want to let go, to trust what I am told, not to have to test every idea against my flawed interpretations of some thousand year old standard. I want to trust the Catholic Church, yet I feel as though the Catholic Church itself says that it makes no difference whether one is a Christian or anything else, it makes no difference if one is part of the Church or not, it makes no difference if one receives Christ in the Eucharist or is part of His body, that none of these are of real aid to ones salvation, at best they are icing on a cake that all people eat in due time, now or after death. And aside from this there is nothing, there is nothing to fear, no real war in the heart, no need to struggle with sin, at most one only has to struggle with psychology. The devil and demons are mere metaphors at best, and at worst they are just primitive attempts to explain phenomenon we now know to be entirely natural. Sometimes it seems to my relief this is not the case, that things are not as bad as all that, that people still recognise these vital truths, but if it was true, if people believed it was true, and not just some kind of “paradigm” as good as any other, they would not be so indifferent to truth. If they really believed there was such thing as truth and falsehood they would care when people move from one to the other: and selfish as the thought may be, they would understand why the “Great” Schism is painful for me, they would understand why I am frightened for my life, in the sense that God is life and the source of all life, when I feel myself torn between the apostolic Churches, unsure in which truth fully resides.
It is true that mere words cannot reach the heart of God, that His essence is ever a mystery, but surely one has to confront the fact that God became man! The Incarnation confirms the objective physical reality of God. He is not merely some abstract concept, nor some sentimental feeling in the heart. He is a real person, who really walked among us, who was washed in the Jordan by John the Baptist, who was born of a Virgin called Mary, the daughter of Anna and Joachim, who preached to the people, who was tempted by the devil, who was circumcised to fulfil the law given to the Israelites, and lived and worked in a real place among real people just like you and me, He really died and really, bodily was raised! And every hour of every day, He returns in the flesh upon the altars of the Christians. This God-man came to earth for a reason, He united Himself to man that man might be united to God! God is life! Without God we have no life. Christ said that “no-one gets to the Father but through me”. Alright, maybe some of those in other religions are saved through Christ unknowingly and unwillingly. Yet He also said “unless you eat of my flesh and drink of my blood you have not life in you”. Did he mean nothing by that? Do we, who do not eat of his flesh or drink of his blood have life in us? When He said “the path is narrow” was all He meant by that, so long as you are a not a Hitler or a Stalin you’ll be saved?
I am ignorant, I am weak, I am weighed down by my many sins, but I dare say this because I must. I cannot sit back and listen to truth being mocked. I cannot pretend that it does not offend me. If I am mistaken, if I am misreading everything, please, I beg you from the depths of my heart correct me! Show me my error and I will withdraw it all. I am tired of struggling on my own. I am tired of relying upon my own fallible opinions! I want to learn how to think as a Christian, how to think with the Church, the Church founded by Christ and passed down through the Apostles. I don’t want to be alone in the dark.
If truth is not in the Church, where is it? Where can I find it. When I first thought I had to become Catholic over and over in my head I focused on those words of St. Peter “Lord, where shall we go? You have the words of eternal life”. Do those words not mean something? Are they not one of the most tremendous statements ever made? How can I ignore them? Where can I go? Where is my safe harbour?
There is a risk I fear modern Christianity can fall into. After I was a communist, I briefly reacted against it and swung to the far right. During this time I came across an idea called “spiritual socialism”. Apparently Christianity is spiritually socialist because, these people say, it is for everyone, the ignorant and the learned alike, the rich and the poor, for every class and caste, for every kind of personality, every level of development, since all are wounded by sin, Christ who came to heal sinners came for all. Of course then I saw this as a negative, now I see it as a positive. I think modern indifferentist Christianity is at a severe risk of succumbing to the opposite of this. Spiritual elitism, something which many religions, Hinduism and Buddhism for instance, suffer from, because they say “all religions are true, but ours is the truest, others have their truth and that is fine, and there is no need or reason to enlighten them to the full truth because their little truth is enough for them, if they were ready for great truths they’d have come to us, because they do not, they are not”. This is actually a very good marketing technique, not only do you look tolerant, but on top of that you attract the kind of people who want to think they are spiritually advanced. The truth is though, this attitude is sheer elitism, exclusionary, it encourages arrogance and wills to deny the good to others who are not “enlightened enough” for it. Christianity is refreshing precisely because it is Universal, Christ is for all, He calls forth all people to himself, the last first, and the first last.
I want to be safe. I am tired of individualism, I am tired of wandering alone. I want to be a Christian, to live a Christian life. Together in the Body of Christ with the saints from all the ages. How is such a wonderful thing possible? Can it be possible for me? Hope is the mother of my tears, and she is a pain I refuse to abandon.
