Swing Like a Pendulum
Throughout my life I have swung from one side of the political spectrum to the other, seeking truth and justice. After my conversion I gradually stopped trying to seek truth and justice in the political realm and moved toward seeking truth and love in the spiritual. I remain informed. I vote. But I no longer believe we can fix our nation’s nor our world’s fundamentally spiritual problems by political means. Spiritual problems, like holiness and a lack thereof in our society, are solved by spiritual means.
The spiritual means at my disposal are prayer, the Sacraments, studying Scripture and the teachings of the Church, being faithful to my vocation and being present and faithful to what God is asking me to do right now. The better I attend to these simple, built-in parts of my life, the more I hope to become holy and thereby spread truth and love in the world around me. Pray and do the next right thing. This is the “grand scheme” I try to follow.
After my conversion I went through a long period of simply learning: about the Faith, about the Spiritual Life, about how to live this Catholic Life. This is a lifelong task, but those first, intense years were in some ways a reaction to the way I had been living before. If I used to do it, it was now suspect. In many cases this was well founded, but in some ways, I rejected things that were a part of a well-balanced life.
Time, and God’s ever generous grace has given me perspective, and that pendulum has swung one last time, down to the center. It now hangs in the middle, away from either extreme, letting go of all. The pendulum has surrendered to God’s Will. Time marches on, but the movement is now focused on eternity and the only thing that lasts: love.
The Way
The Christian walk has been compared to a path or a road. This analogy is very helpful to me. I see a long paved, one-way road, with a slight rise in the middle and a ditch on either side. To keep moving forward we employ one foot of LOVE and one foot of TRUTH, step by step. The rise in the middle calls for balance, and the humility to accept occasional stumbling and reorienting to TRUTH and LOVE when we have gone astray.
If we favor LOVE, we will eventually fall into the ditch on that side of the road, violating both TRUTH and LOVE. An example of this is if we reject a moral teaching of the Church so as not to offend a person living contrary to it, to show that we LOVE that person. By rejecting the TRUTH, we end up violating LOVE as well, because we are no longer showing this person the Way to heaven, to eternal union with Jesus. We are placing temporary appeasement above eternal salvation. This serves neither TRUTH nor LOVE. Instead, we are called to LOVE the person in TRUTH, making sure that person knows the TRUTH, AND knows that we LOVE them, unconditionally.
If we favor TRUTH, we will eventually fall into the ditch on the other side of the road, violating both LOVE and TRUTH. An example of this is if we reject a practice in the Church, and demand that all other Catholics do the same, because it contradicts our view of a TRUTH of the Faith. By rejecting and attempting to force our will upon others we fail in LOVE for our brother and sister Catholics and wind up offending TRUTH by not submitting to the rightful authorities of the Church. Like the Pharisees, we place rules, traditions and pieties above souls who are being pushed away by the severity they witness.
Instead, we are called to live true Catholic liberality, which offers a wide variety of practices, charisms, Orders, Rites, traditions, and methods of walking this Way within the boundaries of TRUTH. We find the ways of worship which suit how God created us, and we trust that God will also lead others to the ways that suit how God created them. In LOVE, we praise God for the orderly English Garden and the vast field of wildflowers, both.
This Catholic virtue of liberality allows us the use of the full width of the Way in how we live and express our faith, but calls us to the Center of LOVE and TRUTH. We need only look at the examples of the saints to see that the different gifts of spirituality within the Church are equally valid, and equally needed.
Rather, living the truth in love, we should grow in every way into him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, with the proper functioning of each part, brings about the body’s growth and builds itself up in love. (Ephesians 4:15–16)
Flesh and Bone
Walking this Way, another helpful analogy used throughout the Bible is flesh and bones. A body needs both. Imagining TRUTH as our skeleton (bones) and LOVE as our flesh, it is obvious that both are needed. If a body is all TRUTH with no LOVE who will be attracted to faith, to a bunch of dried-up bones? But if we’re all LOVE with no TRUTH, we literally can’t move and can’t stand for anything.
Let us profess the truth in love and grow to the full maturity of Christ the head. Through him the whole body grows, and with the proper functioning of the members joined firmly together by each supporting ligament, builds itself up in love.
— From Morning Prayer, Christ the King Sunday
If we are each functioning in our own charism, daily becoming who God created us to be, and allowing others to do the same in TRUTH and LOVE, we become a unified Body that is attractive to souls.
I will put sinews on you, make flesh grow over you, cover you with skin, and put breath into you so you may come to life. Then you shall know that I am the Lord. (Ezekiel 37:6)
We are called to walk in both truth and love. Step by step, truth and love, truth and love…otherwise we are in danger of being bones without flesh, head without heart, and thus having theology without relationship, justice without mercy. On the other side we are in danger of being flesh without bones, a literal useless, formless body that doesn’t offer the seeking soul any difference from the world, no way to grow in holiness nor in union with God.
Division
The enemy of our unity has one tool which he uses continuously and with a ridiculous amount of success: division. When we fall into our opposing ditches we see fellow Catholics, our brothers and sisters, as our enemies. Entrenched in our ideologies, we yell at each other: you do not LOVE, you don’t follow TRUTH! Truth and love both lie in the middle of the road, abandoned. And our real enemy laughs.
By giving each other the grace to be who God called us to be, while we focus on our duty of the moment and on walking the balanced, humble step-by-step of truth, love, truth, love, we silence the enemy’s laughter, become a welcoming Body of Christ for searching souls, and console our Lord’s heart.
We need ALL the parts of the Body of Christ. LOVE requires TRUTH and TRUTH requires LOVE. We have heard the term “tough love” which describes the actions love requires of us when the eternal good of a soul conflicts with what that soul wants right now. Perhaps we should have a term “patient truth.” Patient truth would describe the prayerful waiting which love requires of us as we accompany a soul across the time that soul needs to accept God’s truth. Truth without love yields nothing. Love without truth yields nothing. Both are needed.
In the middle of this Way of life we travel together as Christians, we are stronger and less vulnerable to the divisive attacks of the enemy. Each of us is given the opportunity to grow in holiness through the Sacraments, prayer, study and living the duties of our life as well as we are able. By using these means and keeping ourselves centered on Jesus, in the center of His Way, we become part of the solution to the problems in the Church and thus in the world. St. John Damascene touched on this, our call, in his Statement of Faith:
You (Lord) sent me forth into the light by adopting me as your son and you enrolled me among the children of your holy and spotless Church.
Purify my mind and heart. Like a shining lamp, lead me along the straight path. When I open my mouth, tell me what I should say.
Lead me to pastures, Lord, and graze there with me. Do not let my heart lean either to the right or to the left, but let your good Spirit guide me along the straight path. Whatever I do, let it be in accordance with your will, now until the end.
And you, O Church, are a most excellent assembly, the noble summit of perfect purity, whose assistance comes from God. You in whom God lives, receive from us an exposition of the faith that is free from error, to strengthen the Church, just as our Fathers handed it down to us.
— From The Statement of Faith by St. John Damascene
When we choose to live a life in balance with both truth and love, we better serve the Church we love, each other and our Lord.
Lord, please help us to walk in a balanced manner, in the middle of Your Way of Truth and Love, giving each other room to be and become whom you created us to be. May we not fail in either Truth nor Love, but live and serve both, for love of You, our Savior and our eternal Brother.
5 thoughts on “Catholic Balance: Life in the Middle of the Road”
Dom C: Opinions of how to live a life of turning to God and away from sin are not uniform within the Church. Religious orders differ in their spiritual practices and exercises. I do not believe that they are all equally effective. There is no need to send me a copy of the Catholic Catechism. It is on the internet for free along with Scripture and 2000 years of Catholic teaching.
We shouldn’t make the mistake of being immoderately moderate. Sometimes the muddle in the middle is the right course, and sometimes we should be stubborn extremists. Balance and moderation are good things generally, but they are not some universal principle that must always be followed. I think that one of the things that has eviscerated the church in our day is the refusal to take firm and uncompromising stands when that is what is necessary. Too much of the “Here comes everybody” mentality.
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Christ tells us in Matthew 7:14 that “cramped is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leads unto life, and few there be that find it.” This doesn’t sound like the different gifts of spirituality within the Church are equally valid, and equally needed. I see major differences between Biblical spirituality and the different types of spirituality that developed later in the Church. The New Testament Christians did not tend towards monastic living. The later spiritualities seem more complex with the caveat that spiritual progress is gradual. Scripture tells us that exaltation is in due time when we cast all of our care on God (cf. 1Peter 5:7). It leaves the timing undefined.
Peter, you refer to Mt 7:14 when you refer to “different gifts and spirituality within the Church” but surely you’re aware that Mt 7:13-14 refers to Jesus’ exhortation to all to observe His commandments, live a life turning to God and away from sin. It has nothing to do with different religious orders and their charisms, or with different rites within the Catholic Church. (cf. CCC 1033 – 1037 and related notes)
You say that you see “major differences between Biblical spirituality and different types of spirituality that developed later in the Church,” – what do you mean by this–are you referring to the 30,000-40,000 protestant sects that have developed since the early 16th century? Within the one Catholic Church, there are different expressions of its spirituality, but the same beliefs underpin them all.
If you let the editors know your mailing address, I’d pay to have them send you a Catechism of the Catholic Church, so you can see the full truth that we believe in.