In my opinion, one of the questions that plagues our society the most today in regards to the Church is that of rules. What do they do? Why do we have them? As a former lapsed Catholic, I know this question very well - seeing the Church as putting forth a set of "guidelines" that I can't ever possibly follow, or somehow think I can subvert those rules by "holiness," etc. Yet, people do not stop to consider the implications of dangerous assumptions such as these, and instead make them without another thought. That's a big no-no. God's love is so all-encompassing that sometimes we find ourselves unable to even conceive of it. Yet, Mary's Immaculate Conception did just that - conceived, in quite a literal sense, the love of God.
On the other end of the spectrum, we have people in the Church who take pride in following all the rules and regulations to the letter, and condemning those who do not. They attend daily Mass every day, donate to charitable organizations, and are in a prayer group. Yet, they find it appalling that people don't make the same effort that they do. They are the Pharisees, the laborers in the vineyard who had been working since the beginning of the day and are given the same wage as those who come along later, the Prodigal Son's older BROTHER.
I have found myself somewhere in-between these two groups of people, both as the Catholic unable to conceive of Christ's love and mercy and the indignant Catholic acting as a Pharisee, condemning and judging others. Where is the in-between? Where is Jesus in all of this?
When we think to the rules of the Church, people often laugh incredulously when they are told that they are "freeing." "How can rules that are so 'restrictive' be so freeing?," one might ask. "How can I be expected to attend daily Mass when I have a family to feed and work to do? How can I not work on a Sunday if the only time I can get a job so that I can put food on the table for my family is on a Sunday? What about my situation, God? Why would you give me this cross if the Church already created a rule against what I am doing now?"
The answer is simple, and we can find it in Scripture: Christ came not to enforce the laws already in place but to establish a new law of love. This does NOT invalidate the rules of the Church, but rather increases their importance, and here's why.
We are fickle human beings. We say one thing, and do another. We are flakes. We cancel appointments, we always acquit ourselves of sins committed. By creating a set of rules and opportunities for grace, the Church provides us with the framework upon which to build our trust in God. We don't NEED to attend Daily Mass EVERY DAY, but it provides us with graces in the Eucharist that we would not be able to get anywhere else!
Is it possible to get to Heaven without being Catholic and having the graces of the Church? Yes. Is it likely? No.
The rules of the Church give us incentive to maintain a schedule so that we are free to LOVE GOD, and this is the ultimate aim of our lives: TO LOVE GOD and LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR. When we are obedient and follow the framework set out by the Church, we are free within that framework to LOVE GOD and ONE ANOTHER fully and wholly. We don't have to worry about designing our own "plan to achieve holiness," so to speak - the legwork has already been done! All we need to do is focus on loving Christ, the true work of our salvation. All the other setup and preparation has been taken care of.
One who sets off to find his own path to salvation is like a child who takes up a toy hammer and a crayon drawing he made of a house in order to build a dwelling-place. They could have the faith and spirit of good land, a good location to build, but they quite probably won't get anywhere. Maybe they'll build a cardboard box, or a lopsided, doghouse-sized wooden structure, or make a tent by throwing a sheet over a piece of rope strung up between trees. But it will never be a strong house. It will be good land used as a child's play area, and when the rain, snow, and wind come, that child will be left out in the cold with a faulty structure, the self-consolation of his "good intention" on his mind, and a wet crayon drawing in his hand.
As for those who follow all the rules without question, we often get so caught up in maintaining the framework that we forget the reason why we build the house. It is like a building manager who builds a house exactly according to the blueprints, but discovers that he has built his house in the middle of a desert, where it will soon be covered in sand. Nobody will ever inhabit that house because it cannot support life, and the manager himself will soon be faced with the temptation to despair in knowing that his life's work, this beautiful house made exactly to proportion, is worth nothing because it cannot stand, even when made correctly, according to perfect plans, because of the impossible climate.
So, what is the solution? To be the rock upon which the Church is built. To be the good land and use the perfect blueprints given to us by Christ to build His Church, His Dwelling-Place, a place for Him and His People. We have to acknowledge that sometimes, we do not have the nail we need, or the hammer, or we can't find our worktools. We move on, knowing that we will, with God's grace, find the tools tomorrow and continue working. We sometimes get scared that this building is so incomplete, that we'll NEVER finish it on time, and that when we die it will still be incomplete - God reassures us that He'll never leave our worksite, and we take heart and continue working. We sometimes think to ourself, I should cut this corner and make this part of the house out of a cheaper material. Think of Noah - that DOES NOT fly when rough weather comes and that part of the house is broken off, but God assures us that He'll help us rebuild that corner stronger than it was before.
We have an awesome, loving, and caring work manager on-site who promises to never leave us, even when we fail, even when we think we know better, even when our project is imperfect. He is the Master Builder who trusts us with the blueprints to build a house, and allows us to fail in making it, then comes in and fixes up all that we did wrong. What a God who loves us, that He allows us to make mistakes and build this house "on our own," like a child whose parent lets them get dressed "all by themselves." Then, when we finally have the humility to ask for help, God steps in and fixes everything. Sometimes, we say, "HEY! I wanted a BAY window there, not a BATHROOM!," and then we find out later how useful it is to have a bathroom in the house. Sometimes we think we didn't have to wait so long to let that faulty part of the house be blown away and then rebuilt, but we discover that had that part of the house not blown away in a storm, we would not have been able to build a larger addition in its place. Sometimes, we find we don't have hammers, and are so insistent on keeping with the exact letter of the blueprints and sticking to using the tools that we know that we stop building entirely, and God gently takes the paper out of our hands and whispers, "trust me, I know what I'm doing" to us. And, after a bit of whimpering, we pick up the electric screwdriver (side note: I'm scared to death of shooting myself with a nailgun or sawing off my finger with an electric saw, so this analogy especially applies to my fear of powertools) and God teaches us how to be safe with those tools. He guides our hands so that, although we don't know how to use the tools, somehow He teaches us how. And He keeps us unharmed and safe.
In the end, we have a house built according to blueprints that we have stumbled many times in making; that we have abandoned the blueprints sometimes and adhered too strictly to them other times. But every time, God smiles upon us, His little children, knowing that this house is something that we played a part in creating, something that God let us build out of His Goodness and Mercy. And we have confidence not in our own building abilities but in those of God, by whose Goodness the house stands at all. By whose Goodness the tools exist. By whose Goodness we are forgiven and loved, and made for eternal joy with Him forever in Heaven.
In Christ through Mary,
Christina :)
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