This mid-January episode of the Journey Home on EWTN with a former C&MA Christian appealed to me because I’ve had a couple of brushes with them¹.

I expected some explanation of C&MA theology, at least relative to Catholic theology. But, no.

For all my interaction with them, I can’t say that I have a good grasp of their distinctives. I think that, primarily, they are just straight fundamentalists: inerrancy of Scripture, virgin birth, substitutionary atonement, etc., with a heart for missions.

I transcribed some lines from the podcast that I think are pivotal realizations about the practice of the Catholic faith for a non-denominational Christian.

The first quotation and some of his later comments really upset me, actually:

It was really an eye-opener to me, to see, first of all, a very normal person who was Catholic, a very intelligent person, a very articulate person, a person with a deep faith … who was Catholic.

Suddenly I began to notice that all those things that I had wanted – the sense of sacred space, the sense of sacred time, um, uh, silent, contemplative prayer – all these things that I had wished Christianity had, I found out Christianity did have. It’s just that my particular brand in which I had been educated and raised didn’t have it. And that was a real, opening moment for me.

Growing up in an evangelical background, there are no liturgical seasons. There is no lectionary. There is Christmas Day, there’s Easter Day and any other time in there it’s whatever the pastor wants to preach on.

And then he asked me, "Well, why don’t you come with me to Ash Wednesday Mass at the cathedral?" And I had this sudden, interior revulsion at the thought. … I swallowed that revulsion and went there.

I don’t know if, growing up, anyone had actually said it quite so baldly, but the impression I got growing up was that there was about 300 years of Christianity and then along came Constantine and then there were 1200 years of nothing and then suddenly there’s Martin Luther. There’s this huge gap where there’s no church, for all intents and purposes. And I had this sense, walking in there, that there was no gap. And this was exactly what I wanted.

I had been introduced to St. Francis of Assisi earlier in the year and he was a very impressive figure to a nineteen year old boy and I thought, you know, St. Francis is part of this. It’s all one piece.

But Deacon Nathan made some very troubling comments as well.

"If I really was being called to be a Catholic, if this really was the church that Jesus Christ founded, I was going to be a Catholic’s Catholic." The convert's zeal. St. Paul, MN is the new Steubenville.

And, this may sound funny, because some consider EWTN the bulwark of authentic Catholicism, but I wish they would curb the Catholic-bashing:

"And I’d go to the local Catholic parish with those God-awful camp fire songs and, you know, these insipid, jelly donut sermons that didn’t tell you anything, you know they were just pure sugar and I thought, Oh I hope that I can find the Catholic Church in Anglicanism."

The joke’s on him.

What he says about Episcopalian preaching … well, I can’t repeat it here. You’ll have to listen for yourself. I’ll just mention that he own wife is Episcopalian … so he hasn’t unlearned his religious bigotry one iota. He refers to the Protestant Reformation as "the great shipwreck of Christendom in the 16th century. It starts with Luther and continues with Calvin and Zwingli and so forth." His contemptuous spirit remains; he’s simply substituted the rest of Christendom for Catholicism.

Sts. John the Baptist and Mary Magdalene, ora pro nobis.

One of Marcus’s comments is significant:

"I remember the first time, though that I was in, I was sitting in Mass and the priest finished the homily. Went and genuflected before the altar and then went and sat down and sat silent for about thirty seconds. And to me it seemed like eternity because in Presbyterian worship, there’s never a silent moment. We’re usually going, we’re moving here, we’re doing this, we’re saying that, but this uncomfortableness with this silence.

And even Vatican II calls us, the importance of silence in worship, that’s an important part of settling down and experiencing the reality of God. And so much of worship is so different, but like you said, it makes sense."

So, it's a good program, if you can look past the religious bigotry and arrogance.

¹ A separate post.