A Preparation to Love

“In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son {to be} the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”
1 John 4:10-11 (NASB)



My experiences with Catholic community’s cool acceptance – and perhaps tolerant reception – were not the embrace of welcome I had known in Protestant congregations. I wondered how I could love this Catholic community. For that matter, how would I love anyone? I knew as a Christian I did not need to be valued in order to love others. But I wanted to be valued. I was not a Saint John.

I realized, though, that to function within the cultural and spiritual community of the Catholic Church, I needed to actively do what love does – be kind, patient, endure . . . all the verbs St. Paul spoke of in 1 Corinthians 13. Lacking Christ’s love, I did my best to fit in. So, in order to be inoffensive, I crossed myself and genuflected when I entered or left the pew. I knelt or stood with the rest of the congregation and recited the creed and other responses.

Although I recognized anew the glorious work of my Savior on the cross, I nevertheless needed the gift of God’s love, and the mystery of love’s healing work, to see past the actions of others and my perceptions of them.

God’s Spirit urged me to embrace the Protestant/Catholic divisive encounters I experienced. I was beginning to understand that my Father in heaven was using those difficulties to change my heart. And the transformation of my heart – to which the Holy Spirit continued to call me – would be accomplished through love.

During January 2006, the Holy Spirit continued to point out that Christians should love without qualification. As I knelt in the quiet of our church, the crucifix above the altar exemplified a clear image of how down-to-earth Jesus expressed love, and that expression began to seep into my life. It began to probe my motives and actions, while at the same time the balm of Christ’s peace comforted me as I attended services with Rich.

To revive and school my spirit, the Lord repeatedly took me back to 1 Corinthians 13, and He seemed to underscore each word or phrase.


1 Corinthians 13 (from the New American Standard Bible):

“If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. “

“And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

“Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. “
“When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

I slowly began to agree with Christ’s Spirit. My prayers grew more fervent. I wanted to love the way I knew Christians should love, but realized I could never love on my own. I needed Jesus to love through me.

One morning a flood of realization burst into my yearning heart. I expected an answer because, as “a child of the King,” I knew He loved me and wanted to help me. However, in order to answer me, my Father first had to prepare me. Jesus had cautioned against filling old wine skins with new wine, lest the old skins break and the wine spill out. And so Christ set about to make my wine skin new.

I think I must be very slow-witted. How had I not seen my self-centered agendas? Reading the Bible that morning, I was dumbfounded to see my motives from Christ’s point of view. My true self-centered format lay open before me. What I previously dismissed as my personality traits or inborn attitudes stood out plainly as selfishness. I tried to excuse my faults by rationalizing away the conviction of my sin. I thought, “Surely I could never be as loving as the Scriptures commanded. I had tried too many times and failed miserably. There is no way anyone could live like 1 Corinthians 13 describes.”

The graciousness of our God supplied me with the help I had asked for. Again, I discovered that Christ’s help came with my obedience. If I was to receive Christ’s gift of love, I had to put aside my rationalizations and own up to my sin. When I did, the Holy Spirit began to point out my faults – not just on that morning, but all that day, and into the months ahead. I was convicted of my sins each time they occurred. And I quickly got the message: now was the time to pay attention to my sin.

I soon recognized the juxtaposition between the Scripture’s definition of love in
1 Corinthians 13, and my actions and thoughts. Each time I snapped at Rich, the Scripture dropped into my mind: “Love is kind.” When I grumbled under my breath after Rich did something that really annoyed me, the Holy Spirit whispered, “Love is patient.” At each turn God exposed my petty motivations in the light of His word.

When I asked the Father to help me love like Jesus loves, I had not expected He would give me a heightened awareness of my wrong doing. But in order for Jesus to love through me, I should have expected He would first teach me humility. The more I discovered how sinful the rags were that covered my selfishness, the smaller my self conceit grew.

I can only hope it continues to diminish.

Rediscovering the Price

“What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus;
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”

Refrain

“Oh! precious is the flow
That makes me white as snow;
No other fount I know,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”

When did I forget this wonderful truth? What happened between September 1974 – when I first learned this song – and the year 2005? Somehow my knowledge of the saving blood of Jesus had become a vague memory. Was it because churches we attended had replaced their hymnals with modern choruses and anthems of praise? Or was it my familiarity with the facts of Christ’s death that made this gift of grace simply historical information. Whatever the reason, that “precious flow” lost its riveting appeal.

I can remember sermons exhorting us to “come to Jesus,” who died for our sins. Our pastors preached that only Jesus, the spotless lamb, could atone for the rebellion of Man against a loving and righteous Creator; that Jesus Christ, alone was pure, righteous and without sin, that He alone could become for sinners the perfect blood sacrifice for the atonement God required.

When I heard this preached, I pondered that loving work of grace, that undeserved forgiveness purchased on a splintery wooden cross for the sake of all mankind. Simply knowing this seemed enough for me. I was satisfied that I had chosen to accept Jesus’ gift of salvation.

However, Rich became aware of his lack of focus on the Lord’s passion in early 2000. He placed a crucifix in his office and told me he needed to be reminded of the costly debt God paid for our rebellion. But I missed the point, and mumbled an agreement about remembering the cross. I must have been sleeping.

Five years later on Easter Sunday 2005 my eyes opened again and I was dismayed. As we entered the Catholic Church we were to call home, there in full sight and centrally located was – to my eyes – a shocking wooden effigy of Jesus in agony on the killing field of my sin. It was repulsive and brutal, with its stark nails, drooping head, and spear-wound in the side. I hated looking at it. I would not look at it.

Yet I deeply yearned to know Christ better.

That yearning grew because as I knew in my heart the Holy Spirit was calling me to want to know Jesus Christ better. But to know Him you have to look at Him. To see Jesus the Messiah with the eyes of faith means to see Him on the cross.

God’s love for His creation is not a sweet chocolate-pudding type of love. It is love that is bold and sharp. It is not only joyful but also excruciatingly costly.

In my sleepy state of spiritual numbness, living for Christ meant I wanted Christ’s love to be comfortable. His life renewed in me should be like a happy warm summer afternoon. I wanted to follow Him without recognition of how much Christ set aside for my salvation. I wanted to minimize His very human pain and the blood dripping from His wounds. I wanted to muse on Calvary and consider the cross simply a treasured symbol of faith.

However, the more I encountered Jesus’ body dying and garlanded with our hideous sins, I glimpsed the mercy and love of the Father.

After weeks of avoiding the Crucifix, I looked. And my look became a gaze, and then a longing to know Jesus better. I learned that my will, my anger, and my plans were like dung. In the presence of such a gift, how could I dare be anything but contrite? The Father used the battered body of His dear Son to remind me of true love. The Holy Spirit gently took my heart in His loving hands and whispered, “Look and see how to love.”

Christ Makes All Things New

“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature, the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. “ 2 Corinthians 5: 17 (NASB)

I admit I do not fully understand this statement from Holy Scripture. However, when the Lord revealed to me that He was indeed physically present at Mass, that understanding so unsettled me that all my preconceived notions about God dissolved. Intellectually, I knew acquaintance with the Creator of the Universe exposes us to powerful effects. What I did not expect to discover was His loving kindness in such glorious generosity.

Never had I encountered such love.

I am not sure if my outward appearance or demeanor changed. But I was so internally energized by what I knew to be true I could no longer live as I had in the past. Much like my first encounter with Jesus many years earlier when I accepted His redemptive work for me on the cross, and I acknowledged Him as lord of my life – all my previous understanding of God passed away.

I’d thought I knew Jesus. I’d thought I knew my place in Him. But I’d thought wrong. What I wanted became as dross – not all at once, but with each day I changed more and more until I discovered my interests had changed. Christ was supreme and what He wanted was now what I wanted, and I wanted nothing else besides Him.

For years I had pursued the art world as a means of self gratification. I used my artistic skill to promote the personal goals of my vision, my insights, and my personal longing for recognition. But Christ’s love changed me in such a way that I only wanted to draw or paint about Jesus.

Previously, I failed to execute art work about Jesus because I could not communicate myself visually about this subject. Now I could not staunch the flow of ideas that expressed themselves in images about Messiah’s sacrificial love. I went from drawing pretty trees and misty landscapes to the bloody sacrificial wounds on his hands, feet, and side.

I have posted two art works below. The first one, completed in 2003, is an example of images I explored for many years. The second, completed in June 2006, demonstrates the new images that were an outflow of His Grace.




Forest Fantasy





Sacred Heart




The Holy Spirit has given me images that come as fresh innovations, and helped me create something I’d not, to this point in my life, been able to express – that being His wonderful love for humanity.

He is Lord of All

C.S. Lewis writes in his book, Surprised by Joy, how, as a boy, he discovered joy one morning while walking in the countryside. That moment of beauty and insight so indelibly pressed itself into his heart and psyche that Lewis longed to recapture it ever-after. He later recognized the moment for what it truly was – an encounter with the eternal presence of God.

In a similar fashion, a moment (several moments, really) of joy pressed itself into my heart as the wondrous presence of Christ became exquisitely real to me at Mass.

It’s not that I hadn’t experienced from time to time the joy Lewis talks about. I’d known wonderful times of “refreshing” (a Pentecostal term for the work of the presence of the Holy Spirit) during Protestant church services, or at prayer. I’d experienced flashes of insight into the Holy Spirit’s presence when a passage of Scripture seemed to jump off the page and grab my attention. However, none of my earlier experiences with God can compare with the brief flashes of insight He gave me during the fall of 2005 and winter of 2006.

Until that time I had unknowingly dragged behind me a long and ponderous chain of doubts and half-truths as I attended Mass. Like Charles Dickens’ Marley of the Christmas Carole, I forged my chain with prejudicial ideas that rejected Catholic traditions and beliefs about the Mass as silliness, at best, and absolute superstition at its worse. My preconceived religious fervor determined for me what God could and could not do, and what He would and would not do. Like Marley, those chains held me prisoner in the twilight, unable to experience the day.

The Holy Spirit began to release me from those chains first with insight about the Eucharist. When He revealed His truth, I suddenly understood that Jesus is indeed physically present at the Mass. So complete was the impact on me that all my former chains of ignorance about the Mass dropped to the floor with a clanging thud.

In subsequent bursts of comprehension, the shackles of my Protestant points of view were shattered as I discovered anew our Father truly is and was and will be – all at the same time. Our mighty Lord really is the Lord of eternity; He is not bound by time or space. He is present at the Mass from the breaking of the Matzo and sharing of the Cup, to His crucifixion upon Golgotha, and His resurrection on the first Easter morning.

When those truths settled over me, I wept because it was too beautiful and too wonderful to know, and I realized how profound and magnificent is the gift of the Mass.

As I continued to attend Mass, talk with Rich, and listen to Catholic radio, the Holy Spirit confirmed over and over the insights He had shown me. And with each confirmation, I was amazed that what the Holy Spirit taught me is exactly what the Catholic Church teaches.

No longer believing the Mass superstitious or an absurdity, I am certain the Mass is a moment in time when the past and the present come together. Oh! How like our loving Lord – our Emmanuel – to be physically present to meet with me and with anyone else who seeks Him.

United by the Divide

Rich’s reception into Roman Catholic faith in 2005 led to a bewildering set of events that left us both at odds. Rich attempted with loving care to mitigate the unexpected consequences his conversion brought into our home. Meanwhile, a great emptiness had entered my life. How could I support my husband and still serve Jesus, while I felt so estranged from Rich and from the Lord?

Although I began to experience a renewed joy after the Lord offered me Spiritual Communion, the heartache of those past months weighed heavily on Rich. He suffered in silence with each obstacle I encountered. His were the hands that held me close when I wondered how I could fit in. In the privacy of our home, his were the words of anger and desperation in response to those who continued to hurt me. His were the promises to protect me from as much anguish as he could.

And his was the heart that broke and bled one morning at Mass.

October had turned into November and I continued to grow closer to Jesus. Each Mass took on new vitality because of the gracious inclusion Jesus offered me. I found myself carried away by His love and would often feel like standing in awe of Christ as I perceived Him through the Holy Spirit.

One Sunday I whispered to Rich that I would not go forward for a blessing. I wanted to stand at my pew instead, and praise and pray. (From the first time I attended Mass with Rich, I had struggled with the point in the Mass when I processed forward for a blessing. I often felt silly or angered to receive a blessing instead of Communion. For Catholics, it was a time of celebration (Eucharist); for me, it seemed demeaning or pointless – depending on my attitude at the time. I struggled with this issue until 2006, when Jesus helped me see the blessing in a different light).

Knowing my struggle with the blessing, Rich nodded and moved into the aisle. As he stepped into line, he looked back at me and suddenly felt as if he had lost something very precious. He said later, ”I felt with each foot-fall forward that I had turned my back on you, our marriage, and our life together. It was as if I was being ripped from our marriage bond.”

When he returned to our pew, he stood very close. After Mass, he looked squarely into my eyes and declared he would never do that again. When he explained what he had felt as he walked forward, I immediately understood. I remembered having a similar response the night he professed himself a Catholic at the Easter Vigil. I assured him from then on I would go forward and ask for a blessing, no matter how I felt about it.

My husband loves me. Any rudeness or unkindness directed by others toward me reverberates in him. When well-meaning Catholic acquaintances happily counseled him that I’d “come around soon” and become Catholic – all while I was standing there as if I was a naughty child needing to be corrected, Rich cringed. When in some social settings others ignored me altogether, Rich hurt even more.

Repeatedly, Rich vowed to leave the Catholic Church. His frustration with the rudeness he’d seen displayed toward me had grown intolerable. He decided we would attend a Protestant church, and he would meet his Catholic obligations as best he could. I knew he was serious. My emotional pain increased as I watched him straining to help me heal and bring me comfort.

By this time, though, I had become convinced it was God who had opened Rich’s understanding of Catholicism, and it was God who called him to the Roman Catholic Church – and I told him so. We talked many times about the pointlessness of leaving the Catholic Church. Leaving was not the answer. Surely, our Father does not make mistakes. And I reminded him that God had called me to be there at his side.

We were united. We would follow Jesus. And we would follow Him together.

A Note of Clarification

In past months, I have received many concerned comments, emails, and verbal observations related to the difficulties for me as Rich and I fleshed out our life since his conversion to Roman Catholicism. I thank you all for your kind encouragements and genuine concern. So far, this blog has chronicled the first few months of 2005. I experienced many intense moments of distress during that time as I faced discouragement and difficulties. However, in Christ, I have discovered there is strength, a sure haven and “the balm of Gilead” that heals all wounds. Thankfully the difficulties of those days are not presently occurring.

Interchurch Challenges

I am not sure when I discovered that I was surrounded by unequaled scriptural beauty in the Mass. Although I had experienced the spoken Word in Protestant churches, I never hungered to hear it. Nor had I hungered to meet Jesus with the intensity that seemed to impel me to seek Him each week at Mass and each day in daily Bible study and prayer.

Hearing the Word of God at Mass was like hearing the voice of an old friend in a foreign land. How good that voice sounded: non-judgmental, comforting, stating the same truths I had learned to trust all my life. “Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world . . .” This text and others woven throughout the Mass made sense of what seemed a senseless predicament for me as a Protestant worshiping in a Roman Catholic Church. Scripture reverberated in my ears and allowed me moments of forgetfulness from the strain of being set apart.

In years past when I attended Protestant churches and socialized with Protestant friends, I did not think it odd to include in my sphere of friendships Catholic friends. Yet I recall only once meeting a Catholic couple at a Protestant church. They were investigating the possibility of attending our church service. I remember being a bit surprised, and after giving them a handshake and welcome, I asked them why they felt a need to leave their own church. They explained they were an interchurch couple (husband and wife from different Christian traditions – one often Roman Catholic) looking for a church that supported them both. Their desperate search for social acceptance was something I did not comprehend at the time. Nor did they express the division festering at the core of their marriage. It would take my own experience of remaining by my Catholic husband’s side at Mass each week to realize how deep and wide the gulf is that pervades our separated fellowship.

In the fall of 2005, as I began to accept my new relationship to the body of Christ, I naturally desired to find some way to serve. A growing appreciation of Christ’s plan for us motivated me to look for ways to be useful. Scouring the church bulletin, I looked for something a non-Catholic might be able to do.

Initially, I signed up with a prayer chain and faithfully prayed for the needs presented to me. This lasted until the leadership decided to revise the call list and hold a meeting to greet their members and get to know them. By that time, though, I had learned to avoid such encounters because I had unhappily found that once Catholics knew I was a Protestant, the welcoming smile become a mask of politeness. A wall of silence often followed with some bland comment on the weather, and then they discovered they needed to talk with someone across the room

So in spite of the wonderful welcome I received from our priest and the director of education, as well as the opportunity to work alongside Rich as he taught Faith Formation classes (Sunday school), I continued to experience being the outsider in a world of insiders.

But I was persistent. I tried a Bible study at our parish, but discovered that many of those attending the study were agonizing over their children who had left the Catholic Church to attend Protestant churches. I believed that my presence in the group would likely have been hurtful for them, so I did not return. I concluded my ability to serve Christ’s body here seemed useless. I responded by isolating myself further, interacting as little as possible.

Eventually, I discovered I could do something without group interaction. I made it my mission to bring food for our parish’s food bank, and gifts for various other charities the church supported. Most of all, I prayed for our pastors everyday.

That daily prayer became the foundation of a commitment that would grow ever larger, and marked the development of my life in Christ.