A
Word to
Catholics about Religious Life on
Campus
Okay, you’re in college now. You
no longer have your parents to pick up after you, make sure there’s food in
the refrigerator, check what time you get in at night, coach you on homework, or
hound you about going to church. So what happens? Your room takes on the
appearance of a landfill whatever is left in the fridge has green stuff growing
on it, you oversleep your ‘quarter-to-eight,” discover what an
“incomplete” is, and you only get serious about God around exams. Believe
us, this will grow old. Gradually you will pick and chose among many options,
values, and directions that are open to you. You examine your patterns and
assumptions. New Friends challenge your ways of thinking and doing. You make
mistakes. You grope along. You learn.
One of the areas you will have to make some choices
about is your spiritual life. You will quickly discover that while UW-L is a
public university, there is a whole lot of religious talk going on around here.
Indeed you are likely to have more conversations about faith in the classroom,
the residence hall, and at Whitney in one
semester than you ever did in four years of high school. People will knock on
your door, invite you to bible studies, hand you questionnaires to complete, and
ask you to their church. While you may not welcome all of this attention, ready
or not, here it comes. Perhaps, as a Catholic, you could use a little
orientation to religious life on campus. Here is one attempt.
What’s
the Deal about Religion Here?
When grocery shopping, mother always brought home
vanilla ice cream. How amazed (and a little resentful!) we were to discover
“Baskin Bobbins’ Thirty-nine Flavors.” There were options no one had told
us about! Something akin to that may happen as you discover the world of
religious possibilities on campus beyond what you knew at home. It would be
understandable that you might use this time to do a little church shopping,”
to study how others imagine and relate to God to learn from their experiences,
or to confirm that you are comfortable where you are.
Lots of Catholics we know have had their faith-life enriched by
participating in church experiences beyond their home tradition. Perhaps the
group you hung with in high school wasn’t much into their life with Gad; well
you will find many, many willing seekers an campus, coming from a dizzying
variety of viewpoints …Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, Diamond Way
Buddhism, various flavors of Lutherans, Mormons, practitioners of Wicca, and
self-proclaimed “recovering Christians.” While we’d like to think that
we, here at Newman, offer everything you really need to feed your spiritual
hunger, the smorgasbord of religious expressions you will encounter in
roommates, residence halls, and “non-denominational” faith groups will
tickle your spiritual fancy and ultimately enrich your relationship with God. It
could spur you to investigate why you believe what you do (a very good thing).
If you are intrigued about another’s religious ways, then, don’t be
afraid to sample but don’t be naive either.
In addition, while we hate to be the ones to
break the news to you, not everyone who asks you a question about your faith is really
trying to learn about Catholicism. Sometimes they mean to find out about you
(which means they are attracted to who you are and how you think) … at other
times their questions may be a direct challenge to your background (suggesting
that there is some big secret out there that you’re obviously not in on).
Happily, most folks you meet in a group like Campus Crusaders or a residence hall
bible study will respect your background … but we have met more than a few
Catholics on campus who have felt badgered by some Christians who sought to make
them feel inferior. If someone persists in attempting to tear apart your
religious heritage, politely and firmly tell him or her to STOP
IT! You may be
asked to visit a friend’s church for a Sunday service or a mid-week event. If
you wish, feel free to attend (it’s all part of your education, you see),
but if the invite is even a wee bit pressuring you may need to say, “No
thanks!” If you do go, show respect for their tradition and our own. Partake
in prayer and song as you are comfortable, but be sure your participation does
not say more than you intend to say.
Being left with questions about our Catholic
tradition after having encountered an attractive presentation of another
religion is not surprising. But before you throw your own religious heritage out
the window, make sure you know and have experienced it with more than you can
recall from fifth-grade catechism. Our tradition has huge regard for God’s
gift of the human mind, so if some aspects of “being Catholic” don’t seem
to make sense at first, consider yourself being called to dig a little deeper.
“Let me get back to you on that!” is always a good answer to another’s
question … as long as you ore serious about doing some homework.
A Few Snappy
Answers to the Types of
Questions Catholics Get Asked
Get
ready for the possibility that not everyone you will meet thinks much of your
being Catholic. Often this is not their fault— we haven’t managed to explain
ourselves very well in a language that Protestants can recognize. What follows
are a handful of questions you might face from a non-Catholic friend with one
attempt at an appropriate response. We don’t expect you to memorize all of
this so you can blurt out an answer when you are quizzed. Actually, we offer
them to help you get a glimpse that there is much more to the Catholic way of
following Christ than some might grant.
Q:
Are you born again?
A: Well, it depends what
you mean. In the third chapter of John, Jesus tells a member of the Jewish
council that “you must be born from
above” (the Greek word can also be translated “born again”). Catholics at
whatever age receive a share in the divine aliveness (are “born from above”)
through water and the spirit at their baptism when they are incorporated into
the Body of Christ … its not about what we do, but what God
does. Some Christians associate the phrase “born again” in particular with a
one-time, dramatic or emotional surrender to God (often paired with the phrase
“I’ve accepted Christ as my personal Lord and Savior”). According to such
people, if you haven’t had this experience you aren’t really a
Christian. Well! There are Catholics who, after living as though unaware of God
for a time, have had such a dramatic “turn around,” but most folks
experience growth in their relationship with God as they do with most
relationships ... gradually, with plateaus
and small breakthroughs and ongoing discoveries. So while all Catholics hold
themselves as “born again” at baptism, we expect it will take our whole
lives to unpack the gift we received at baptism. Catholics, then, seek not to be
converted just once, but over and over and more and more deeply.
Q:
Why do so many Catholic beliefs and practices have little basis in the
Bible?
A:
Catholics use a seventy-three-book canon that we inherited From our first
Christian ancestors, not the shorter Reformation list with links to the Jewish
canon. So some elements of Catholic belief and practice that are absent from the
shorter Protestant Bible will in fact be discovered in the longer Catholic one.
But beyond that, your question seems to assume that “the Bible alone” is
enough. That way of viewing faith puzzles Catholics because we can’t find that
principle anywhere in the Bible. The Bible does not proclaim itself to be an
ultimate authority. Catholics hold that Scripture, the written word of God, is
the first Christians’ graced reflection on their Lord’s saving work and
teaching. While the Bible is the written revelation of God, Jesus
promised to send the Spirit (something more than a book) to lead the Church to
all truth (John 16:12). That process of remembering, viewing, and interpreting
the Word of God, Catholics call Sacred Tradition (see how Paul speaks of it at 1
Cor 11:2; 2 Thes 2:15; and 2 Tm 2:2). It’s not “the Bible alone” then, but
the Bible and Sacred Tradition.
Q:
Why aren’t Catholics sure they are going to heaven?
A:
Catholics are a little taken aback by the confidence with which some
Christians talk of having a reservation in heaven. As we read it, the Bible
speaks about “being saved” in three tenses— as something past (2 Tim 1:9),
as something happening now (1 Cor. l :18), and as something yet to happen (Rom
5:10). Those folks who are so sure of their spot seem to put a lot of weight on
the past tense references, but give less emphasis (or seem to miss altogether)
the present and future dimensions. Catholics try to be true to all three. For
the past sense of the word, our access to God’s life already won by Christ’s
saving death and resurrection, we reserve the term redemption. Christ has
redeemed us and the power of God has been made available; now it is for us to
cooperate with that grace. Only then do Catholics feel one avoids presumption in
saying we are “saved.” Catholics have a healthy regard for the grip that the
effects of sin still have on us after baptism, The Catholic response, then, to
“Have you been saved?’ is “No, but I have been redeemed, and like St. Paul
(in Philippians 2:12)I am still working out my salvation.”
Q:
Why do Catholics believe they need to “earn” heaven through their
prayer, religious works, and good deeds?
A:
Reacting to real abuses in practice and piety in their day, many of the
sixteenth century reformers emphasized that salvation is not attained by
personal performance but by “faith alone.” That slogan was opposed to “the
other side,” which presumably promoted that God’s approval could be earned
through good works (which they termed “works righteousness”). With all other
Christians, Catholics put their ultimate trust in God’s promise and the saving
work of Jesus. We cannot buy our way into God’s affections, prove our worth,
or save ourselves. But if all is by God’s favor, Jesus still reminds us that
assertions of faith aren’t enough (“Not everyone who cries, ‘Lord,
Lord,’ will enter the kingdom … but only the one who does the will of my
Father”—Mt 7:21). We need to cooperate with God’s grace in us. The
Christian’s share in the work of charity and justice confirms God’s life in
him or her. As James 2:18 puts it, “…I, by my works, will show you my
faith.” For Catholicism, true to the Scriptures, it’s not “faith alone” or
“works righteousness” that wins the day, but as St. Paul put it “faith
working though love” (Gal 5:6).
Q:
How come Catholics never talk about having a relationship with Christ?
A: Oh,
but we do. Before we could win a race, earn a dollar, or get an “A,” God
chose us as a daughter or son in baptism. That begins the relationship that
prayer, study, and right living strengthens, and which the sacraments enrich and
celebrate. At every Eucharist we receive our Savior into our very selves under
the appearances of bread and wine—Christ becomes part of us. Now that’s a
personal relationship!
Q:
Why do Catholics worship Mary? Where do they get off adding extra books
to the Bible? Why do they pray to saints? Why, according to Catholicism, can’t
I pray to God to forgive my sins in the secret of my room? And on … and … on
and on.
A:
Well, in short, the answers are: we don’t “worship” Mary; though, with the
angel Gabriel and holy Elizabeth in Luke’s gospel we do honor her… we
didn’t “add” these books, someone else removed them … we don’t
pray “to” these Christian heroes, but through them ...
and while you can and should pray in private for forgiveness, sacramental
reconciliation is fuller, richer and, at times, essential because sin, by its
very nature is not private (nor is God’s grace). There is much to say
about all of these. Perhaps what you need is not more snappy answers, but an
opportunity to understand your Catholic faith better There are a couple of books
we might recommend to you, but maybe you would profit more from a hard look at
your faith through adult eyes. Every fall we offer just that in a major study we
call “Catholicism 101: God For Grown-ups.” Or you might give your faith a
tune-up by dropping in on one of our “Q & A” sessions. Come and ask;
there’s more to our faith than a warm feeling.
Cartoon ©
1987, Universal Press Syndicate
Text © 2000, by Mark Pierce and Roncalli Newman Parish
