A Catholic, I am NOT:
An isolated, autonomous individual, as libertarians and liberals would have it.
Part of a greater collectivity: a survival-of-the-fittest-species, as evolutionists would have it; a nationality, as fascists would have it; the oppressed/oppressing class, as Marxists would have it; an intersectional victim or the white-privileged-heteronormative-cisgendered-male-oppressor, as identity politics would have it.
An irrational, futile Will to Power, as postmodern Nietzscheans would have it.
A combustion of superego-id-ego, as Freudians would have it.
I am:
An entirely distinctively person...a freedom, an embodied-immoral-soul, a heart-intelligence-will-in-flesh, an "angimal"... in communion with Christ and his body, the Church, historical-institutional-mystical.
As a Catholic, I live within the Church as a pilgrim on this earth, already initiated into heaven by anticipation, moving deeper into that Kingdom, ever in combat with world-flesh-devil.
To live in the Church is to swim in the current of God's infinite Mercy. Alive on the earth and in history the Church is formed within by the Holy Spirit but also by specific, concrete, historical events, movements, dramas, institutions.
My own personal life has been blessed to be participant in many of the crucial events in the life of the Church. My particular journey is unusually reflective of that of the Church of our time. I am almost a Catholic Forest Gump. (I spoke with John F. Kennedy, Mother Theresa, Avery Cardinal Dulles S.J., Joe (mystic/theologian) Whelan S.J., Dorothy Day, David L. Schindler and his colleagues at the John Paul Institute. I listened in person to John Paul, Benedict, Fulton Sheen, Bernard Lonergan, Kiko Arguello, Ralph Martin, Cardinal Suenens, Ivan Illich.)
CHILDHOOD 1947-60. Age 0-13 (St. John's Parish Grammar School)
The Great Post-War American Catholic revival; the final, thriving chapter of Tridentine Catholicism in urban, working class, ethnic parochialism;
National euphoria of ecumenical unity across ethnicities and religions after the victory in WWII and within the Cold War, including civil rights and thriving labor movement.
ADOLESCENCE 1960-70. Age 13-23 (Seton Hall Prep, Maryknoll College Seminary)
Vatican II renewal of the Church by return to the sources, engagement with culture, and grounding in the person/event of Jesus Christ. An ecumenism which opened Catholicism to see (by the Thomistic principle of analogy) the Good, given by God, beyond Church boundaries: other Churches, Judaism, world religions, natural rights and freedoms, the broader culture. Biblical, ecumenical, liturgical, social justice movements.
Emergent leftist critique of the Global-American Order in dimensions of inequality, consumerism, technocracy, materialism, cultural imperialism.
EARLY ADULTHOOD 1971-1979 Age 24-32 (Marriage, children, study theology at Woodstock Jesuit and Union Theological in NYC, teach ESL NYC, teach high school religion, pastoral work in Jersey City housing projects)
Cursillo Movement: Evangelical/communal Catholic movement in which I experienced a clear, personal encounter with the divine-human person of Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior.
Charismatic Renewal: The Pentecostal experience, within the Church, of the direct, intimate workings of the Holy Spirit. This included engagement with Evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity.
Culture war erupts with legalized abortion and dominance of Cultural Liberalism; emergence of pro-life movement; embrace of Countercultural-Cultural Conservatism; renunciation of the Democratic Party; and a blended political conservatism/liberalism within the Republican Party.
Enrichment by spiritualities of the Marriage Encounter, Divine Mercy and Marian apparitions of Medjugorie. Discovery of mystical dimension of Catholicism through theologian Joe Whelan S.J., of the balanced theology of Avery Cardinal Dulles, and the profound-encyclopedic-inspiring vision of Balthasar and his school.
MIDDLE ADULTHOOD 1980-2000 Age 43-53 (Raising seven children; supervisor in UPS; part-time graduate stud at Rutger's MBA, Seton Hall Master, Teacher's College/Union Theological Religion and Education)
Papacy of John Paul and Benedict: The conjugal mysticism which sees in the spousal mystery the key to Christ's embrace of the Church; Theology of the Body; a hermeneutic of continuity of the Council and the previous Church. Theological journal Communio out of the John Paul Institute for the Family in Washington DC.
MATURE ADULTHOOD 2001-2025 Age 54-78 (Early retirement UPS; Return to teaching of high school religion; Magnificat Home is started; move from Jersey City to Bradley Beach; participate in jail, hospital, CCD work.)
Continued study of the theology of John Paul, Benedict, Balthasar and the Communio school.
Participation, for a period, in the Neocatechumenal Way which opened new windows into Christ and his radicality in a strikingly counterculture mode.
Participation in 12-step groups (including AA, Alanon, Emotions Anonymous, Sexaholics Anonymous, Suicide Survivors Support Group, Recovery meetings of Dr. Lowe) which provided a path to freedom from compulsions by acknowledgment of powerlessness, surrender to God, fraternal accountability and support.
With family/friends, open Magnificat Home, residence for low income women, as inspired by Mother Theresa, L'Arche, Dorothy Day, Catherine Doherty and others.
Friendship (especially through our daughter) with Communion and Liberation and (through our son) with Neocatechumenal Way.
Nourished spiritually/intellectually by faithful reading of Communio and First Things.
Participation in OLME (Our Lady's Missionaries of the Eucharist) which offered a clear but flexible lay "rule of life" centered in daily Eucharist, rosary, prayer of the Church, simplicity of life.
I rejoice to recall the workings of the Holy Spirit in our Church and our time. I give thanks that I have been blessed to be part of them, in my own small way. I pray and hope that my children and theirs may be similarly privileged.
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