Love Follows Knowledge

We thought it might be nice to set aside one day each week to share some facts, teachings, and Traditions of the Catholic Church. This week we've been focusing on the theme of love. It has been suggested that love follows knowledge, to know something is to love it. Our human hearts often seek vision or understanding.

So no matter your background or current situation, we invite you to join with us as we learn a bit more about Catholicism. What a better place to start than Why go to church?

Fr. Ronald Rolheiser, priest and author poses this question in his book The Holy Longing,

So what can be a vision, a reason for going to church and committing ourselves in an irrevocable covenant to a group of very flawed men and women and agreeing to journey with them for the rest of our lives? What are the reasons that one should go to church?

The Church teaches us that we as Catholics should attend Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation. (We'll talk more about those in coming weeks.) But it's not just about the obligation. Rolheiser outlines the following nine reasons why we should go:

1. Because it is not good to be alone.

Church by definition is walking to God within community. To attempt to make spirituality a private affair is to reject part of our very nature and walk inside of loneliness.

2. To take my rightful place humbly within the family of humanity.

The church--infinitely more inclusive than blood family and infinitely less abstract than humanity-- offers us a place to die to elitism.

3. Because God calls me there.

Spirituality is not a private search for what is highest in oneself but a communal search for the face of God.

4. To dispel my fantasies about myself.

Not being involved with church because of the church's faults is a great rationalization. What is too painful to deal with is not the church's imperfections but my own fantasies about my own goodness, which in the grind of real community, will become painfully obvious.

5. Because ten thousand saints have told me so.

The saints of old and the saints of the present day are fairly unanimous regarding the importance of church. It is hard to imagine Mother Teresa or Francis of Assisi apart from their connection to church.

6. To help others carry their pathologies and to have them help me carry mine.

We go to church so that others may help us carry what is unhealthy inside ourselves and so that we can help them to do the same. We should not be surprised to find every kind of sickness within our churches. This should not deter us away, but beckon us there.

7. To dream with others.

Alone I am pretty powerless, able to make a splash, but not a big difference. Together with others who share my dreams about justice and peace, I can change the world.

8. To practice for heaven.

Going to church is one of the best cardiovascular spiritual exercises available.

9. For the pure joy of it . . . because it is heaven!

After all, it is the place where we share the Eucharist!

Excerpts quoted and paraphrased from The Holy Longing by Ronald Rolheiser ©1999

Join us Thursdays for a little Catholic question and answer session.

We're also open to answering your questions. Our resident theological consultant, Fr. Joachim Tyrtania, has been an ordained priest for 28 years.

Feel free to email any questions to blog@boundgracepress.com and he'll be happy to find you an answer.

See you tomorrow at Happy Hour!