One Body, Many Parts

A reader writes:

I am a regular reader of your blog. I have a question. I go to a non-catholic bible study every week because of work schedules not allowing me to go to Catholic ones. Once, there was an argument about evangelization. Is the only purpose of every Christian (as in a Catholic or protestant) to evangelize to everyone by sharing the faith and asking people to pray a prayer to accept Christ as their savior? When I said that God may use us to evangelize by helping people ( like, mother Theresa, for instance) instead of directly proclaiming the gospel in street corners, my friend, a recently converted non-catholic, said that it is sad that we settle down for something less like that than proclaiming the gospel like St. Paul and St. Peter did back in the old days. I was quite offended because not a lot of Catholics go out on missions like the non-catholics or sit and talk to people and share the faith. I did not think that serving the poor and needy was something less than evangelizing. What do you think about this? Also, I am thinking about talking to my friend to ask him why he left catholicism. Once, he said that Catholicism is not wrong but most Catholics are doing wrong things. I wonder if that is a valid reason for him to renounce Catholicism.

Here’s what St. Paul says:

[T]he body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? 18 But as it is, God arranged the organs in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single organ, where would the body be? (1 Corinthians 12:14-19)

Your friend imagines that his charism should belong to everybody. He wants the whole body to be a mouth. That’s not biblical. The point about the early Church is that not everybody were Peter and Paul (thank God!)

As to leaving the Church because Catholics are sinners: my reply is, “Have you ever heard the expression, ‘Out of the frying pan, into the fire?” He will not escape original sin by applying to another group of fallen homo sapiens for membership. All he will do is deny himself access to the power of the Holy Spirit present in the sacraments. That’s sort of like cutting off your fingers to lose weight.