10.25.07
GOOD BYE CATHOLIC BOX - HELLO TRUE SPIRITUALITY
By Judith Beckman - author of “What Price Priesthood?”
Don’t get me wrong! I’m very thankful that God chose me to be born to a Catholic father who adhered to strict Catholic doctrine and made sure that all his children were baptized and raised in the Catholic church. It was not an issue of whether or not we would go to church, just like it was not an issue of whether or not we would eat three meals a day. Going to church was an essential part of living. Thanks to my father’s religious values I started learning about God as soon as I was capable of learning anything at all. I have always loved God. I always knew how to pray. There was not a day when spiritual concepts were foreign to me.
I always took religion very seriously. During young preschool years I suddenly became aware that death will eventually happen for all of us. This disturbed me as I looked into the sky, trying to contemplate the end of life on earth to go on to a different place called heaven. I knew I should want to go to heaven, but I just could not imagine the end of life as I know it now in the earth dimension. Even though I was distraught at understanding we all have to die, I’m grateful that religion taught me the hope of a wonderful place beyond this world even though the situation was outside my capability to imagine. With this knowledge I never felt my life had no direction. I knew I was destined for either heaven, hell, or purgatory, and I wanted to go to heaven with no layover in purgatory.
Catholic parents and education in a Catholic school taught me right and wrong. Fear of hell fire kept me on the straight and narrow (”stage two” concerns) and was very significant in my moral development. When I was seven years old, which the Catholic church taught was the age of reason, I prepared for sacraments of Penance and Holy Communion. I memorized catechism as required. I spewed out basic Catholic doctrine when called upon, not fully cognizant of what I was saying but aware that I was studying fundamental principles for eternal life. I understood the essence of confession was to have my sins removed before receiving God into my being by taking His Body and Blood in the Eucharist. I was aware of God’s presence in my individual life and open to His communication with me.
When I was probably nine years old, I had a dream which frightened me. There was a lot of noise and commotion in the house surrounding activities of members of my large family–six children, my mother and father. Through the din of confusion I heard someone knocking at the front door. I was trying to let the others know that there was someone at the door, but they would not turn attention away from whatever preoccupied them. Finally, in exasperation I went to the door, flung it open, and was shocked to find Jesus quietly standing there. I immediately awoke! I remembered learning at school that the scene of Jesus standing at a door knocking could indicate a call to the religious life. I worried that the dream meant that I was being called to become a nun, but I felt no attraction at all to that vocation. However, I had anxiety about what God wanted me to do with my life, understanding at a young age that God’s plan had great importance. Life is not just all about me.
I received the sacrament of confirmation around the age of ten. I knew this was an auspicious occasion, considering the sacrament had to be administered by the bishop to receive its special graces. I was eager to receive my newly chosen middle name of Rose and wondered how the Holy Spirit would be imparted to me in a new way. After the ceremony in the intensity of the moment as I processed from the church I saw a flash of a dove flying from my shoulder. I was amazed at this evidence that indeed He was with us.
I took seriously all that I learned about God in the classes and atmosphere of the Catholic school. Then something happened that shook my faith in the church. When I was in seventh grade the second Vatican Council opened, and ecumenical renewal began. Suddenly we could do things that had been forbidden with dire consequences of hellfire in the past. We no longer had to wear hats to church. We could eat meat on Friday. We were not required to do a three-hour fast before receiving Communion. (stage two trait - concerned with the “forms” of the religion) I felt betrayed that some things the Catholic church had taught as truth were no longer true. How could truth change? (beginning of Stage Three questioning) I reasoned that truth does not change, and the Catholic church must have been wrong about some things in the past. I could not reconcile that an infallible Pope could change truth. I loved God as much as ever, but I began questioning church teachings.
Questioning continued during teen years. I looked at lives of Catholics I knew and felt there was much hypocrisy. My own Catholic home was very religious but also very unloving. It didn’t line up with what I thought true Christian charity should be. I felt my parents were incompatible but felt trapped in an unhappy marriage because the Catholic church forbade divorce. I felt church rules were too strict, confining, and meaningless, imposing unnecessary misery on people. (beginning to see that church rules are not the same as spiritual belief - beginning of stage four) I began my quest for spiritual truth based on the Bible, philosophy, and theology. I wanted to know God’s priorities and become a better Christian. I felt I needed a new religion, but I did not want to trade one denominational box for another. My focus was on how to continue my love relationship with God with regular worship that helped me experience Him more fully without being bound up by man-made rules.
My quest led me to the Episcopal church which provided weekly sacraments of the Eucharist which I could not give up. I felt the Episcopal church was very similar to the Catholic church but different in ways that were important. At that time they had flexibility but insisted on basic Christian doctrine. They were not threatened by my questions or skepticism. They allowed me full participation in the church without requiring me to officially become Episcopalian. I sought a practical Truth centered spirituality for use in everyday life, not just an hour on Sunday.
I was in college and was working part-time at the university Protestant and Catholic chaplaincy when I stopped going to the Catholic church and began regular attendance at the downtown Episcopal church. I didn’t tell my father, but he eventually found out. He was so angry that he cut me out of the will. When my Catholic priest employer found out, he wanted to fire me, but the Protestant chaplain talked him out of it. I paid a price to exercise my right to freedom of religion, but I had to throw off the box of denominationalism in order to have true spiritual freedom of authentic Christian living.
I’m very grateful for my father’s family religion of Catholicism which required generational indoctrination. It gave me a strong, solid foundation to uphold individual choices in the journey of life. It made me a moral, upright person with important values.
I can’t imagine getting through life without God. Serious problems of life threatening abuse was to come my way, and the only thing that could carry me was my faith. I experienced God in miraculous ways. He rescued me and gave me strength to go on amidst overwhelming problems. Not only for me but for all of us there are many, many situations which only God can help. Everything man made is inadequate to the task.
I really believe that if my parents did not give me a foundation of faith from which to know God, search, and call upon Him that I would not have survived. Life is too hard–I would have given up. Although as a child I became uncomfortable in the Catholic box, it was a springboard to spiritual freedom which would give innumerable blessings and security which the world cannot give. It makes ordinary life amidst intense trials and tribulations unfathomably rich.
NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Judy Beckman is a free lance writer who specializes in people’s day-to-day spiritual journeys. She is the author of WHAT PRICE PRIESTHOOD, true story of unbelievable tumult within the church for her late husband, Episcopal priest Father Joe Beckman. When the church fails, God prevails! This book can be obtained through Amazon.com or through the publisher at phone 1-888-795-4274×479 or the website www.xlibris.com/WhatPricePriesthood.html
Comment from MPJ: Please also read this author’s book: “What Price Priesthood?” It is a moving story of a man so dedicated to his ministry that he could suffer all possible horrors due to the human weaknesses of those running his church without losing sight of his higher mission. The story holds great human interest value as well as serving as an inspiration to develop an individual spirituality, not subject to the limitations of church structure. In this story posted on this site, my comments appear in bold - trying to show the dawning of the different stages (as I see them!) in this writer.
jeromekiel said,
October 28, 2007 at 3:05 am
I read with interest about the changes in your life, showing the feeling of being judged because you chose to visit another building, to follow another set of doctrines, to have another habit to your parents. There is a level of hypocrisy in some people who apparently are obedient to the wishes of their church and its rituals and expectations, but don’t live a quiet, spiritual, loving life. I am reminded of the saying, ‘the frog thought the well a fine stretch of water, until he saw the sea.’ Perhaps your need for comfort, and that of your parents, had imprisoned you all in something which ‘felt’ safe, but was based on reading and re-reading a set of books written in another time, for another time. Perhaps the search for truth and that which we are taught by well-meaning parents and a system of a self-appointed heirarchy of religious people has to be questioned; sometimes thinking out of the box isn’t so scary. There may well be other forms of religion or beliefs which are equally, if not more, comfortable and comforting. We follow, until we find we have the strength to lead. Trust yourself most of all. Your journey may well have many more twists and turns. One day, you may realise that you are ‘god,’ you are the centre of your own life, that being told what to believe is uncomfortable, an instinct to trust.
‘Yesterday, we knew very little, today, we know it all. Tomorrow, we may realise we knew nothing of any consequence.”