"One of the Effects of Modern Liberal Protestantism Has Been Gradually to Turn Religion into Poetry and Therapy, to Make Truth Vaguer and Vaguer and More and More Relative..."

In my previous post, I relished reading Tod Worner's ode to Flannery O'Connor and promised I'd go back and read his piece one more time.  So I did and this, from Ms. O'Connor, leapt out at me:

“I certainly don’t think that the death required that ‘ye be born again,’ is the death of reason. If what the Church teaches is not true, then the security and emotional release and sense of purpose it gives you are of no value and you are right to reject it. One of the effects of modern liberal Protestantism has been gradually to turn religion into poetry and therapy, to make truth vaguer and vaguer and more and more relative, to banish intellectual distinctions, to depend on feeling instead of thought, and gradually to come to believe that God has no power, that he cannot communicate with us, cannot reveal himself to us, indeed has not done so, and that religion is our own sweet invention. This seems to be about where you find yourself right now."

Of course, I am a Catholic and I believe the opposite of all this. I believe what the Church teaches – that God has given us reason to use and that it can lead us toward a knowledge of him, through analogy; that he has revealed himself in history and continues to do so through the Church, and that he is present (not just symbolically) in the Eucharist on our altars. To believe all this I don’t take any leap into the absurd. I find it reasonable to believe, even though these beliefs are beyond reason…

Satisfy your demand for reason always, but remember that charity is beyond reason and, and that God can be known through charity.”

Fascinating to me.

God reveals Himself chiefly to the Catholic by way of the Eucharist and through our charitable acts.  Think on that a second.  

Want to know God?  Receive Him in the Eucharist... give Him away by being charitable.

Amen.