If you expect the wrong thing you’ll be disappointed with reality.

I think one of the main problems in Christianity today is that we expect the wrong thing and are ultimately disappointed with what we’ve got.

Here’s a list of things we expect from religion, which religion might give us up to a point, but when these expectations become the only thing we expect from religion we find it all unsatisfying. We get restless and start sniffing around for something else. We feel religion has let us down. We are disappointed and think it didn’t deliver what we thought it should:

1. Fellowship and Friendship – Christianity does offer a community to belong to, and it’s right that we wish to practice our faith within a warm, loving and forgiving community. However, if that’s all we’re looking for, then we might as well join a special interest club of some kind with people who have a lot in common with us.

2. Entertainment – Real Christianity is endlessly interesting, intriguing and anything but dull, but if entertainment or relief from boredom is all we’re looking for, we’ll be disappointed. The movies are better.

3. Activism – Christianity is the one movement that has inspired the most social change throughout history. It has led revolutions, overturned despots and brought peace and justice where there had been no hope. However, if we think that Christianity is all about activism and nothing else, then we’ll be disappointed. If we expect the church to be a means simply to change the world, then we’d be better off joining a political party.

4. Moral Code – Christianity offers the highest and most sublime values system the world has seen, but if all we are looking for is a rule book for life, then we’ll be disappointed. Christianity is more than that, and if all we want is rules, it will annoy us that some of the real saints are those who somehow seem to keep all the rules and yet operate totally outside the box.

5. Coherent Intellectual System If we are looking for an ultimate intellectual system in order to make sense of the world, Catholicism fits the bill. But if that is all we want we will be disappointed, for the faith is more than a philosophy.

6. Aesthetics If we are seeking beauty, Catholicism will fill our souls with the best music, art, literature, architecture and drama the world has yet conceived. But if all we are looking for is beauty we will be disappointed because Catholicism also offers for our consideration all that is kitsch and low class in religion. If we exalt fine taste above all else we will come away crestfallen.

If we are seeking any of these good things it is a good thing, but the good is the enemy of the best.

We must never forget that Christianity is first and foremost about the salvation of souls, and first and foremost about the salvation of my soul. Christianity is about a lost humanity in search of salvation, and a good shepherd God who is out in the wilderness to seek and to save that which was lost.

The whole enterprise of religion is not primarily to promote a cause, to create beauty, order, morality or develop a community of faith. The economy of salvation is first and foremost established to redeem a fallen race, and to rescue souls.

Everything else is subject to that aim, and should serve that goal.

The expectation is this: we are engaged in a spiritual battle. That battle is going on every moment of our lives. There are eternal rewards for every decision. We cannot elect not to be involved in this battle because not to choose is to choose.

As part of our pro life emphasis for October, today at school mass we had the missionary image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The missionary image is a perfect facsimile of the real image in Mexico. After Mass the students filed forward to venerate the image. It was moving to see them reach out and touch the copy of this miraculous icon.

The Protestant in me is always still a bit, well, curious, apprehensive, dubious even, of the veneration of images with kissing, touching, bowing and scraping. I don’t think I’m concerned about people bowing down to images. Our theology is clear that we are not worshiping the image as such, but venerating it because it is a window to the eternal. I think my hesitation is more along the lines of being embarrassed by public shows of affection. I’m embarrassed in much the same way as I am when I attend charismatic worship and everyone is wearing their heart on their sleeve.

I’m quite prepared to blame myself for this. I’m an introverted sort of person. I actually have quite strong emotions, but I’m not good at expressing them. Also, there is still something a little bit Gnostic in my spiritual temperament, which is probably also the residue of my Protestant upbringing. I’m happier with the mental aspect of the faith. I’m good on theory. When my faith gets physical I get uncomfortable.

See, the kissing of an image, the bowing and touching with veneration reminds us that our faith is physical. The incarnation is physical. The virgin birth is physical. The flogging at the pillar is physical. The way of the cross is physical. The crucifixion is physical. The resurrection is physical. That’s why so much of Protestantism wont’ do. Our separated brethren do not deny the physical in their theological views (although the liberal protestants do) but their worship remains distinctly unphysical.

Catholicism, on the other hand reminds us constantly of the embarrassment of the incarnation and the scandal of particularity. It reminds us that sometimes we need to be uncomfortable with our faith, and that it does the soul a world of good to be a bit sheepish in the face of the miraculous, the wonderful and the physical aspect of the faith.

So Catholicism besieges our senses. With stained glass windows, organ music, incense, holy water on my brow and a kneeler to bend my body, and bread and wine to eat and oil to anoint, every sacrament and sacramental of the Church reminds me that God himself took human flesh to enter this world.

So, thinking these thoughts, after celebrating Mass I went first of all to lead my high school flock. I approached the image, went down on both knees, then rose and kissed the feet of the Blessed Virgin.

And then the emotion started, and my eyes started leaking, and God, in his grace broke open this hard old heart just a little.

I have, from time to time, been critical of Evangelical Protestants and Anglicans. I don’t apologize for this. I think it’s okay to criticize as long as you try honestly to see your own faults, and accept the criticism of others with good humor.

However, I also want to record the good stuff I received from Evangelicals and Anglicans. As a Catholic I regard my faith not as a negation of my Evangelical upbringing and my fifteen years within Anglicanism, but as a fulfillment of all that has gone before. I honestly and sincerely hope that I have not abandoned anything that was good, true, beautiful and loving within both of those great traditions. I try hard with Evangelicals and Anglicans to affirm what they affirm, while declining to deny what they deny.

From my Evangelical background I gained an enormous and wonderful inheritance. I learned more about the Bible than most Catholics can imagine, and I learned about the Bible within a tradition that still venerated the King James Version. I memorized the Word of God through one of the most beautiful forms of the word of men. I had before me the examples of godly men and women who were church workers, missionaries, Sunday School teachers and godly preachers. Most of all, I received a world view in which the supernatural was real. God really did become a man and died and rose again for our salvation. The next world was more real than this one, and all that really mattered in this life was how well you prepared for the next.

From the Anglicans I received an appreciation for the historic church. They taught me that the love of literature, art, architecture, music and drama was not only all right, but crucial to a full understanding of the faith. From the Anglicans I learned a whole new vocabulary of prayer and worship. I came to know and understand liturgical prayer, and was introduced to monasticism, meditation and the power of the Holy Spirit within the renewal movement. The Anglicans taught me how to be a liberal in the right sense. That is to say, they taught me respect for those with whom I disagreed. They taught me to listen to others, to see the other person’s point of view and how to pray for my enemies as a way to learning how to love them. Most of all, the dear, big, old beautiful Anglican Church planted in my heart a longing for the Church that is even bigger, older and more beautiful because it is more True.

So, while I sometimes criticize the Evangelicals and Anglicans, I also thank them for all they gave me on my journey.

The Benedictine monk vows stability, and this means he will stay in one place. He’s not on the move like a friar or a missionary. He can’t be whisked here and there like a diocesan priest. He stays put. That’s why a Benedictine, when asked will not just say, “I’m a Benedictine monk.” but “I’m a monk of Douai” or Downside or St Vincent’s or Solesmes or Quarr or whatever his monastic house happens to be. That’s where he has vowed stability. That’s where God has planted him. That’s where he will either bloom or wither and die.

We lay people don’t take vows of stability as such, but we take other vows that have the demand for stability written into them, and the monk’s vow of stability reminds us that stability is required in our lives too if we are to make any kind of spiritual progress. If we’re married we’ve got a vow of stability. We don’t have to stay in the same three bedroomed rancher in the suburbs for life, but we do have to remain committed to that same wife or husband, those in laws, the same gang of children, nieces and nephews and parents. Families demand stability. Stability is written into our baptism too. As Catholic Christians we’re committed to the Church built on the Rock. We’re not allowed to go scooting around church shopping. We should be committed to our parish too, for better or for worse.

Benedict writes about a certain sort of monk called a ‘gyrovague’. The words sounds like a cross between a gyroscope and a vagrant, and that about sums it up. A ‘gyrovague’ is a restless monk who goes from one monastery to another always looking for what pleases him. Benedict says the gyrovague’s god is his stomach. He’s an immature, restless pleasure seeking sort of person. Benedict condemns him. How often are we just the same church-wise? We run to this parish because the preacher is better or they have a better youth minister or we like the music better or they do the liturgy the way we like it. Church shoppers are like channel hoppers: never satisfied and always bored and always complaining.

Abba Stabilitas says, “Stay put. Don’t be running all over the place looking for happiness. You’re looking for the wrong thing anyway. Look for God. Look for him just where you are at this time, in this place, with these people, and with yourself. If you can’t find him here, you won’t find him anywhere, and if you think you have found him elsewhere, you haven’t. It’s an illusion. It’s a god of your own making, and do you know what a god of your own making is? An idol.

Summer vacation has arrived and I’ve got loads to do. After tidying up from the loose ends at school, I’m heading for El Salvador on Saturday for a week. I’m leading a school mission trip to help at the CIDECO community. CIDECO is a village built with help from the papal foundation. The poorest of the poor are given a place to live, a school, a clinic, a church and a community that helps them break the cycle of poverty. We hope to build permanent relationship between CIDECO and St Joseph’s Catholic School.

I’ve got a long list of article that have been commissioned for This Rock, National Catholic Register, Crisis Magazine, St Austin Review and Touchstone. Joseph Pearce also wants me to write an essay on Jane Austen and the Clergy. I also need to finish The Gargoyle Code so it can be released for Lent next year. I hope to work on my conversion story too. The working title is There and Back Again.…I thought of competing with Scott Hahn’s punny title Rome Sweet Home by calling my conversion story Done Roamin’, but I think I had better leave the puns to Scott. He’s sort of cornered the market on that one.

Add to that are the usual summer activities for the family. No family vacation as such, but summer camp, music lessons, the pool, a visit to the beach and maybe a theme park. I admit to a weakness for theme parks. I love the carnival atmosphere. It’s like my love of the circus. There’s something about cotton candy, junk food and shameless entertainment that appeals to me. There’s a child like abandon that I enjoy. There is a more subtle and shameful appreciation to these things too. I like the fact that my enthusing about them annoys my more tasteful friends. There’s something shocking about the circus for middle class ladies (and I am referring to middle class ladies of all ages and both genders…)

I almost forgot: I’m going to be a camp chaplain for a week as well. Camp Kahdalea in North Carolina is run by a splendid Catholic family called the Trufaunts. Should be fun…”Almighty God, bless this kayak, and all who sail in her…”