Catholicism
What is Catholicism?
The word Catholic means universal but in truer sense it means wholeness. When we talk about the Catholic Church, we're talking about a Church that is helping people to become whole, to feel a sense of who they are, their sacredness. It's a church that all embracing, it's a church that is local and at the same time universal of many languages, many cultures, many countries and many peoples. But, Catholicism is about a faith of wholeness, talking about being able to embrace and to hold everything and everyone. And then what you have is then have people that split off from that and go in different directions and different waves of looking at the idea of God or of Saints or whatever it is. The word Catholic is where trying to be whole and I think every Church; every Christian person can use the word catholic. We ourselves are Roman Catholic and Catholicism in a sense has been associated by the Roman Catholic Church but to distinguish ourselves from the Anglican Church or the Methodist, we call ourselves the Roman Catholic because the Anglican is Catholic and we also about wholeness. How imperfect or perfect we might say it is.
What is Communion?
Communion, in terms of the mass, is when it's the body of Christ, the bread and the wine, with the words and the actions of the priest changed, as we believe, into the body and blood of Christ. Communion is what people come to participate in, to be nourished and nurtured by the body of Christ. There's also the communion of the faithful, which means a community. That's what we're talking about. As a person, I am in communion with God through the reception of Holy Communion, I'm in communion with Christ, I'm part of the community with Christ, but also by receiving communion, by receiving the body of Christ, I am also part of this community that is worshiping here. A better word is probably eucharist. If you want another word for communion it's eucharist, which is the body and blood of Christ, and is another word we use for the mass. Communion is about a community coming together to allow it's life to be nourished and nurtured by God, and for us it's in the person of Jesus Christ who continues to bring us closer to the Father.
What is confession?
Confession, by the very word, is about an acknowledgment that you want to disclose something about your life. You want to confess. It's about something you believe. In the Catholic church, confession is today more familiarly known as the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and that word in itself captures what it's about. It's about allowing ourselves to be reconciled to God. If we feel that we have done harm or hurt, if we have committed a sin, it's about having done wrong to one's neighbor or hurt someone, or feel that we have done something that is against God's commandment, then we can go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation to a priest and there we would confess our sins and be truly sorry for them. By being sorry for them and by confessing them, not a list of "I've done this, I've done that, I've done that", like a shopping list, but more a sense of "This is what I've done, I've hurt people or what I struggle with, or where I am finding difficulty in terms of the commandments of God", The priest will help you as you confess those sins, and he's helping you to understand God's love for you. Ultimately, confession is about being reconciled to God. It's like being given a big hug by God and saying "I love you", and being able to go back and to live with that sense of being loved again, and everything that was, and whatever has been not great in one's life has been forgiven. It is a real powerful sacrament when we really belive that God is hugging us.
What is the significance of mass?
Mass is the time when the community come together and recall the sacrifice made by Christ the saviour for the people of the world. It is a worship where you thank God and request him to strengthen your life by saying prayers.
What advice would you give to someone who is thinking of converting to Catholicism?
I would invite them to really come and to talk about what's important in their life, how they are living their life now and what it is that is drawing them to convert. Normally what you find with people who are thinking of converting is one is that they found a community that is welcoming them. But every community can be welcoming community. It's about trying to build a relationship particularly to Christ, to the faith. So it's about helping them to understand what the Catholic faith is about. What we normally do is we would invite them to come for a session. In the church we have what we call the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults. It's adults who are thinking of converting. They would come to a couple of sessions where we would talk what our faith is about, and very much about the person of Christ. Not about dogmas or this is right and this is wrong. It's about Christ, and it's about allowing the person to get “a feel” for this Jesus Christ. Then, it's in that relationship to Christ that they begin the journey of saying "okay, how do you live this particular relationship to Christ?" We have a community that come together, pray together, that celebrate the mass, and that listen to scripture. We have a particular understanding who Mary is for us, who are the saints, all these people who can help us to come closer to Christ and eventually to come into that deep knowledge of the love of God for us.
What is the significance of baptism?
Baptism really is what initiates us into the very Christian life. Through baptism I become a Christian person and I am initiated into the life of god. I become a child god. if you think about it, I have heard of baptism being described as when a baby is born and that it is wonderful, the baptism is when you pick up the baby and hold him close to yourself. That hug of god is what baptism is, and it's for life. God is telling you you're my precious one, that you're loved, and he loves us. We have come to know that life in Christ, and he gives us his spirit to understand more about his life, so baptisms is the initiation of Christian life, into a relationship with God.
What are the main things that people misunderstand about Catholicism?
One of the major things is the place of Mary in the church for us. I would say our understanding of Mary, and the communion of the saints. A lot of people who are not Roman Catholics would say, "Oh, you worship Mary, you worship statues when God has said you shall have no idols before you", and "why are you worshipping Mary when Mary is a human person?" She is a human person, we don't worship Mary. In actual fact, she's a model of what good discipleship is about. The saints who go before us, especially saints that are recognized in the church, we pray to them. We ask them to assist us but it's not in the sense of the worship that we offer to God. It's like people who model for us what being a good Christian is. Christ is there and we have a direct relationship with God, with Christ, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and we're in that relationship even now. Then there are saints like Saint Eugene de Mazenod, who is our founder of the Missionary Oblates, who helps me to see how to live my life well and how to live my priesthood well. There have been priests and they are people who have gone before us, they are in the communion of the saints and they can pray for us. I would ask them, "Will you keep me in your thoughts because I'm going to do something quite special this week?" I am asking the saints to pray for me, or to pray for a family who are going through bereavement, but God knows it also, God is there. It's just when there's one voice, it's stronger when you have a hundred voices. That's the way it works. That's a common misunderstanding.
