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<\/a><\/div>\nHow many high school seniors do you know who have a blog? To narrow that list down a bit, how many of them have one dedicated to blogging about the Catholic faith? Well allow me to introduce you to a young man who does just that.<\/i><\/p>\n
He\u2019s young, smart, edgy, and reverently irreverent. In other words, he\u2019s the kind of Catholic I hope my kids meet up with and hang out with.\u00a0 If photographs of nuns smoking cigarettes offend you (some people do smoke, you know, and some of these people become nuns and priests too) don\u2019t bother e-mailing me. Just remember this about my friend Marc: He is young, and though inexperienced in many ways, he is inflamed with a love for Christ and His Church, and his writing shows this clearly. <\/p>\n Thirty years ago, when I was Marc\u2019s age, I was just as fired up about being a Marine. I think we share a personality trait, or two. We go all the way, or not at all. There is no \u201chalf way.\u201d Why is Marc Catholic? Because, as \u201cthe Kid\u201d writes below, it\u2019s easy.<\/p>\n Guest post by Marc Barnes,<\/i><\/p>\n I suppose that whenever any honest Catholic is asked this question \u2013 be it by the must-save-you-from-hell-for-which-you-are-destined-by-your-goddess-worship Baptist or the mind-boggled agnostic who cannot begin to comprehend our happy willingness to make a few babies -G.K. Chesterton\u2019s answer seems the most appropriate response; that \u201cthe difficulty of explaining \u2018why I am a Catholic\u2019 is that there are ten thousand reasons all amounting to one reason: that Catholicism is true.\u201d <\/p>\n I want to laugh and yell to the inquisitors that the real question, and indeed the only question worth asking, is why on earth are you not Catholic? An aversion to joy? Or perhaps just an aversion to fish on Fridays? A fear of true community? Or perhaps a deep and abiding fear of nuns? (I have a secret belief that those who do not like Catholicism simply have no sense of humor. However, that\u2019s another story.) <\/p>\n But if I had to undertake the monstrous task of sorting through the various delights and pleasures of Catholicism \u2013 which I do, in case you were wondering \u2013 to search for one most meaningful to me \u2013 to decide between incense, the Communion of Saints, old ladies praying rosaries, our Mother Mary, and all the rest \u2013 there is one guilty happiness, one indulgent secret of Catholicism that makes it the Right Religion For Me. Catholicism is easy.<\/p>\n Having made that reckless statement, I would kindly ask those who fast every other day of their novena-filled lives while practicing self-flagellation to put down their pitchforks, stop google mapping my house, have some bread and water, and follow me for a few more paragraphs. <\/p>\n Catholicism is the only religion that is equally accessible to both saints and sinners, and is just as true and available to the murderer in the last pew as it is to the priest facing him. Though I dislike explaining positives through negatives, the same simply cannot be said for popular versions of Evangelical Christianity, for example, where spiritual experience requires emotional or transcendent experience to validate it.<\/p>\n I have many Protestant friends who I\u2019ve honestly questioned, \u201chow do you know you are forgiven for your sins?\u201d The answers are many and varied, but all incredibly deep: \u201cI let God into my heart and He speaks his word of forgiveness there, telling me I\u2019m forgiven\u201d or \u201cI admit my sins and I feel God\u2019s forgiveness wash over me.\u201d There is nothing at all wrong with these holy answers except this: they are too holy. <\/p>\n But answers like these make forgiveness only accessible to saints, to people with hearts finely-tuned to the whispers of the Holy Spirit, to those who hear God in their ears telling them they are forgiven, and thus they make it unavailable to the hungover truck driver or that murderer in the back pew, God bless him. Better is the follower of religion that when asked, \u201care you forgiven?\u2019 can answer \u201cyes, I went to Reconciliation on Tuesday before the 9 a.m Mass,\u201d for that is an answer that even the worst of us can give. <\/p>\n It gets even holier when I\u2019ve asked them if they have God in their lives. \u201cYes, he speaks to me through His word, and is constantly inside of me.\u201d or \u201cYes, ever since I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior he has been holding my hand.\u201d What beautiful answers! Indeed, the holiest saints in heaven are nodding their heads in sage agreement. <\/p>\n But what sadness and tragedy! The hungover trucker is shaking his head and saying \u201cwhat the hell are you talking about?\u201d Answers such as these are brilliant gems of trust, but the truth of the matter is \u2013 when it comes to feeling God\u2019s presence \u2013 we aren\u2019t all diamonds in the rough. Most of us appear to be just \u201cthe rough,\u201d in fact.<\/p>\n The hand-holding Jesus does not always remain foremost in the mind of those rocked by sorrow or sin, and thus the responses made by our Protestant brothers and sisters are reserved for the peaceful, contemplative saints among us, and not the beserker in the back pew, may he live forever. Better is the religion that when asked, \u201cIs God inside you?\u201d can answer, \u201cYes, and I ate Him this morning at the 9 o\u2019clock Mass too.\u201d for that is an answer that the most distracted and unsaintly of practicing Catholics can give.<\/p>\n This trend continues throughout every aspect of the faith. \u201cHow do you know you\u2019ve received the Holy Spirit?\u201d, \u201cHow do you know you are saved?\u201d, \u201cHow do you know God loves you?\u201d No matter the question, Catholicism\u2019s answer is always universal, practical and equally applicable to every one of it\u2019s members, while other believers answers are emotional, personal, and apply to seemingly only the holiest of saints among them, whom they consider themselves to be. The irony that Catholics should happily admit is that the problem with every other form of Christianity is not that they have dumbed down religion (though they often do in many aspects), but that they have made it extremely complicated and \u2013 dare I say, dare I? Oh, alright then \u2013 elitist. <\/p>\n If, as Chesterton says, \u201creligion is the thing that makes the ordinary man feel extraordinary; [and] it is an equally important truth that religion is the thing that makes the extraordinary man feel ordinary,\u201d then it is certainly a point for Catholics that we follow this maxim, and certainly a point against our holy brothers and sisters for whom a man must feel extraordinary to even begin to take part in the faith. <\/p>\n That\u2019s why Catholics are so happy and ridiculous. Because Christ made this whole religion thing easy. He established an infallible Church so that we would not have to seek personal revelation for our every decision, he established the power to forgive sins here on earth so we would not just have emotional consolation after every lustful thought. He established the Eucharist so He would be with us always, not only in Spirit, but physically there for the least of us to cradle in our unworthy hands.<\/p>\n I am Catholic because Catholicism is easy. But the really beautiful thing in this whole matter is this. Just because Catholicism works for the sinner does not mean it is banal, bland, or boring for the saint. The Eucharist, when viewed with proper consideration and taken with proper praise has us weeping, fainting, and caught up in the most intimate, sensual glories of heaven. It is our very life-breath, the greatest most addicting drug ever given to man, that can elevate us beyond the reach of earthly delight. <\/p>\n And all of us, every last one of us, has a duty to become a saint, has a duty to try for this holiness, and for the holiness that Christians of other faith traditions claim as their staple diet. But the reason I am Catholic and the reason I would die for my Church, is that my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ is available to us whether or not we can reach this holiness. He has made it easy, so that the brigand in the back pew might slowly and surely become the saint in\u00a0the front.<\/p>\n
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Full Disclosure: I\u2019ve never met Marc personally. But he caught my eye first with a post he wrote on Catholics in the military<\/a>, and another that he posted<\/a> which linked to my post on Vlad the Impaler<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/a><\/div>\n