Whitewashed Tombs and Clanging Cymbols

 

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness." - Matthew 23:27 

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing."-  1 Corinthians 13:1-2

When I was in college, I got involved with a group that was pretty obsessed with doing things "right" when it came to the faith. The campus "ministry and evangelization" group there, FIDE, prided themselves on getting orthodox Catholic speakers to come to campus (Peter Kreeft, Scott Hahn and Dale Alquhist all gave talks while I was there), and on teaching their members the "right" prayers and on giving weekly classes on the Catechism of the Catholic Church. They were led by a lay minister, who I'll call "Dick", and a chaplain who was a monk from the Abbey on campus, who was named Fr. Nick. 

People who worked for FIDE were expected to attend at least two of the many weekly classes: the Catechism study classes, the C.S. Lewis book club, the Theology of the Body study group, the pro-life club, or the Bible Study. They were also expected to attend mass at least twice weekly, on Wenesday and Sunday evenings, everyone had to attend Eucharistic Adoration once a week, and they were expected to attend Stations of the Cross Friday nights during Lent. There was also the occasional novena and signup slots for once a year 40 hours of perpetual Eucharistic Adoration. 

This was all on top of trying to keep up with the homework for our classes, and for some of us, on top of going off campus to staff retreats for high schoolers every weekend and meeting weekly to plan and prepare for those.

From the outside the group seemed to be a "good Catholic" group. The group was going to mass frequently together, and there seemed to be an emphasis on arming participants with a deep understanding of the faith. Many of the members were engaged in work that really seemed to be aimed at evangelizing and bringing people into the faith. 

Then along came Jay. 

Jay was an enthusastic evangelical Baptist who was heavily involved with the Fellowship of Christian Atheletes (he was even a regular speaker for some of their conferences). When he came to college, he noticed that the athletes on campus weren't going to Church and weren't being reached. He responded by forming a prayer group in the common area on campus and inviting passing students to join. They would read the Bible and talk about Jesus, and before long, there was a pretty substantial group meeting every week. 

The chaplain and the lay minister of our group didn't like this at all. Going through our little office, I saw Jay come in for closed door meeting with him once or twice, and I overheard snippits of conversation of how they didn't think a Catholic college was an appropriate place for Protestant theology to be shared and discussed. 

I shared their viewpoint that sharing Protestant theology was maybe innapropriate, but I was actually really fascinated and excited by what he was doing. I really believed the point of the group I was in was to evangelize the students on campus and try to bring them closer to God. I couldn't understand why we seemed completely unable to reach outside of our little group and bring new people in, and here was someone who was doing it completely on his own. He was reaching people I never thought we'd be able to. 

The chaplain invited the group to one of our masses. He proceded to call them out and humiliate them from the pulpit, using the day's readings as justification for a "homily" demanding that Jay stop preaching on campus, never mentioning him or his group directly, while staring him straight in the face. 

I thought it was deeply misfortunate that those just happened to be the readings that day (yes, I was that clueless). I had hoped that maybe we could work together with Jay, and when I saw him at that mass, I hoped that was the start of it. 

After what happened, I felt like we were letting a very real, important opportunity slip through our fingers. I asked him to meet with me one on one. I pointed out that he needed to plan long term for the people he ministered to for after he graduated. I was hopeful that we could use that as a springing off point for working together with him, and maybe bringing some of the people he had managed to reach into the ministry activities we were doing.

 "You're reaching people we're not." I told him. "That's fantastic." 

The meeting seemed to end well, and I was hopeful that maybe we could, in fact work together. This guy really was talented, and what he was doing seemed to be a genuinely effective and wonderful thing. 

Dick was LIVID when he found out what I'd done. He called me into his office and proceeded to rip into me. "Do you know how long it took me to get this guy to stop?! And now you've got him going again!!" 

"Do I still have my job with the group?" I managed to stammer out the question. I worked for the group for work study (as well as being part of the retreat team), and my entire social circle was in that group. Getting kicked out meant being excluded from the only group I had any friends in. 

"I don't know. We'll see." Was his answer. He wouldn't talk to me for a couple weeks, and he'd glare at me whenever I walked into the office. 

Fr. Nick was a little more diplomatic in his approach. 

"The group is for the good homeschooled kids." He said. "This is a safe space for them. The athletes have the rest of campus." 

At that moment, I began to understand that the group really didn't have the interests of all the souls on campus at heart. Its primary goal and reason for existing was to be a club for the "right" people. The limited scope and ability of that group, its complete inability to reach people outside of our very select group, was a feature intended by its founders-- not a bug. 

Groups like that one is where the Faith is forcefully suffocated to death and dies. Most of the students who were in that group are no longer practicing Catholics, and I've heard from more than one person that they were completely alienated and driven from their faith, or very nearly, by the way that group treated 'outsiders'.

 Put bluntly, we were a bunch of self-righteous snobs who actively dismissed and alienated people who didn't fit our mold. Despite the fact that all our boxes were checked, we were driving away those who needed to encounter the love of Christ, and we were killing our souls. 

Getting all the exterior things "right" does not mean you're on the right path. Because of my experiences, when a group seems to exist primarily around external realities rather than actively seeking to build relationships, I refuse to open myself up to them or associate too closely with them. I've seen first hand the damage that can do. 

Though I know many truly charitable and holy people involved in the traditional Latin mass, Catholic academic/collegiate and Charismatic movement communities in the Church, I have also seen the type of nasty superiority that accompanies losing focus on the meaning of the faith, what it actually ought to mean about our relationship with our neighbor, coming from those same communities.  They neglect the core of their faith for the sake of getting the externals and finer points "just so".

 This is sort of like putting the perfect application of lipstick on a pig and entering it into the Miss America pagent. It doesn't really matter how well you get the details right if the core of the thing isn't what it should be. 

There's been a new resurgence of controversy and infighting on Catholic social media lately between different factions in the Church. This group over here thinks that Bishop Barron is apparently the antichrist because he said something that might be a too liberal understanding of Church teaching, while over in the other corner you have Dr. So-and-so saying that if you don't go to the Traditional Latin Mass, you aren't  actually even Catholic, and in that corner over there, you have people losing their ever-loving minds over Fr. James Martin (one way or the other; apparently you either fan girl over the guy or absolutely hate his guts with every fiber of your being). 

I can't help but think a lot of this seems driven by the same factors that drove that group at my college. A focus on finer points and externals over actual relationship with God and neighbor. 

I'm not saying that the truth of Church teaching doesn't matter. It does.  The truth is worth pursuing and giving your life for. We shouldn't water down or ignore parts of what the Church teaches.

What I am saying is that being exteriorly compliant with the teachings of the Church while refusing to acknowledge, respect or work with people who may not agree with all of those teachings and seeking to actively alienate them is wrong. It's possible to disagree with someone, and to maintain that disagreement, while still celebrating and cooperating and learning from each other in the areas where you do have things in common. At the very least, they are your brothers and sisters in that we were all made by the same God who loves us, and they ought to be treated with respect. 

"One of the scribes, when he came forwad and heard them disputing...asked him, "Which is the first of all the commandments?"
Jesus replied, "The first is this: 'hear, O Israel!...You shall love the Lord your God with all your heat, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' 

There is no other commandment greater than these." 

-- Mark 12:28-31