THE INSTITUTIONAL CHURCH: My new Catholic Church is created in my image and likeness. Part II.

Building a Catholic Church for me is no easy feat. I must make sure I have solid ground on which to erect a new temple of the Holy Spirit, one which the Lord has made in His Image and Likeness, not mine. That is a conscious and deliberate choice. Your Catholicism will not be the same as mine.

By now, you can deduce that my institutional Church is the same as the one which I abdicated, with one big difference. I had to take the time to reflect on what it all means and to reaffirm my Faith in the core tenets of what I think it means to be Catholic. As a Lay Cistercian, it is my daily and sometimes hourly focus on how much Christ could love a failure such as me and forgive my inability to have Christ as my center until eight years ago.

The Institutional Church, which is the only Church that exists, is there to keep me focused on Christ, even as my human nature goes yapping into that good night 24/7. The notion of abandonment or anarchy is not the aberration of my nature but the actual default in my spiritual life. All love has morphed into the simplicity of just wanting to be in the presence of Christ on His terms, enjoying what my nature is at that next level of evolution (one only accessed through revolution), the joy of unconditional love that I share with Christ through the energy of the Holy Spirit, and the realization that Truth is and always has been before me but I was just too much of a egoist to die to self and replace it with the person of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The New Jerusalem, the New Wine Skins I must be humble enough to substitute for my notion that observance of the rules alone is what being Catholic means I choose life over and over (conversio morae) with the calmness, simplicity, absolute trust that God has my 6. I don’t do this with my own power because I only have the power of an adopted son (daughter). The Institutional Church may be flawed on the human level but it is not the final result of my evolution. I get the chance, through the interaction with those gathered together in Faith at local, diocesan, and universal levels to refresh my resolve with Eucharist, and the Sacrament of Reconciliation as I continue to grow and become more aware of the Mystery of Faith in which I am a part (capacitas dei).

The notion of an Institutional Church is more in line with a living, Real Presence of Christ in my personal life as I try to translate the love of Christ with the experiences and failures I have experienced in my life. I am the sum of both the good, bad, and just plain dumb choices I have made. What happens with the apostolicity of the Institutional Church is not its rigidity but its flexibility to allow me to eat from “The Abbots Table” of Catholic dishes that make me so unique from your catholicism.

Christ is the new wine that I access consciously each day. The new wine skins are the new Catholic Church which I make based on the Scriptures and Tradition of the Catholic Universal Church. I liken this to a snake shedding its skin every so often to grow. In my case, I must consciously and consistently recreate my new Catholic Church each day (that I can remember it). This is conversio morae each day.

My Catholic Church is the one that I interpret from all that I know and believe to be true. I can’t change the Church Universal. I am not the bishop so I don’t have authority over its governance or clergy, and I am not the leader of my local gathering, called Good Shepherd Parish in Tallahassee, Florida. What I am in charge of and responsible for is constantly making new wineskins into which I pour the daily assimilations of what I learned about three things: what does it mean to be human at that deepest level possible; what it means to love profoundly at the deepest level of my humanity; and, to tie it all together, what is truth not plagued by the movement of consciousness and complexity of evolution.

I offer you sixteen different core beliefs (mine, not yours) that motivate me to look at the bigger picture and not get sidetracked by factions and the politics of Church individuals. That is always a no-win scenario. It is my faith that is important and the Institutional Church, as a mother, feeds me (Eucharist) and holds me when I make boo-boos and end up a complete jerk of what Christ wanted. It affords me the ongoing opportunity to covert my life through penance and reconciliation to at least turn in the direction of Jesus, even if the road is rocky and full of pitfalls.

There are sixteen steps in my daily building of new wineskins. In terms of building a house or temple of the Holy Spirit, I use the analogy of a building.

Unless the Lord builds a house, says Scripture, they toil in vain who build it. Using Jesus as my Architect and the Holy Spirit as my general contractor, here is how I build new wineskins each day.

https://www.usccb.org/sites/default/files/flipbooks/catechism/44/#zoom=z

SIXTEEN BUILDING STEPS FOR MY NEW CATHOLIC FAITH: THE BLUEPRINTS FROM GOD

BUILDING ON ROCK, ONE AGAINST WHICH THE GATES OF HELL CAN NOT PREVAIL.

USING GOD’S BUILDING MATERIALS, PURCHASED WITH THE BLOOD OF CHRIST JUST FOR ME TO FIND OUT THE DEEPEST PART OF MY HUMANITY (ANIMALITY, HUMANITY, SPIRITUALITY)

I want my new wineskins to rest on a solid foundation, the Institutional Church. Unless the Lord builds a house, they toil in vain who built it. Anarchy is worthless if what replaces it is not from God. I get my assistance from the Architect who created all that is, but I have to ask for help. Again, I use the word, ANARCHY, to denote the intensity with which I must abandon all that the world says is good, only to realize that the kingdom of heaven perfects my humanity at the animality and humanity level and allows me to fulfill that which my nature has intended from the beginning.

Faith is to be shared and service is to be the way we know each branch of the Root of Jesse tree has vitality and the energy of God. We have a teacher in the Holy Father who has the responsibility to give us what we need to have in us the mind of Christ Jesus, not what we like. The cross is at the core of this fantastic evolution of our humanity. How we are aware of it depends on various assumptions about what is true or not. If I receive the Eucharist once every ten years, that is my reward on earth and also in heaven. Christ says to take up your cross daily and I only meet him once every ten years, what does that say about my being a Catholic? Does any of this make sense? I received my blueprints by using my human reasoning and by placing myself in the presence of the Christ Principle and, with eyes lowered, just waiting to hear the whispers of God through the wind of the Holy Spirit.

THE BLUEPRINTS OF CHRIST THAT I DISCOVERED OVER A LIFETIME OF TRIAL AND ERROR (84 YEARS TO DATE)

1. WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE? I have come to believe that Jesus is Lord and the Principle against which all reality, visible and invisible must be measured. (John 20:30-31) This notion of “come to believe” suggests that “conversio morae” is tied up inexorably with making all things new (capacitas dei). I make all things new each day when I consciously create new wineskins for the new wine I receive in Cistercian practices and with its charisms. The purpose of life is Deuteronomy 6:5 and Matthew 22:36. This is the rock upon which my daily renewal sits, the Institutional Church being its visible representation to help me “to know, love, and serve God in this world and be happy with God in the next.” (Baltimore Catechism Question 6) The Church can never be my center, which is Christ.
2. WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF MY LIFE? Based on the above, I have selected “Have in you the mind of Christ Jesus,” (Philippians 2:5) as the very capstone or center of reality that I observe around me. You have heard it said, “You are what you eat.” I submit that I am what is at my center. Once I place it as my center (whatever it is), I spend the rest of my life trying to keep it from falling down. I do that with the help of the Institutional Church, my only option.
3. WHAT DOES REALITY LOOK LIKE? I have selected the map of Teilhard de Chardin (unattributed) to help me focus on life as being a movement in complexity and consciousness toward its intended purpose. Based on fifty years of trying to capture the ocean in my tiny mug given to me at birth, I have only succeeded by realizing that God is God and I am me, and that my center is not The Church, nor Mary, nor any of the Saints, but Christ crucified. I can only say Jesus is Lord because of the Holy Spirit. There are three key principles to this reality that I have teased out of the Teilhard map below.
   • THE GENESIS PRINCIPLE OF LIFE — This is the energy that creates all that is through the natural laws (those we know about and those still to be discovered) It is THE LIFE as default from then until the end of time. This energy is like a Nordic electric train that provides energy from the beginning to the end of the journey of our humanity. I just take advantage of the institutional church (the train) and get a reserved seat on it to fulfill my destiny. I access this energy of life though, with an in Christ at the Eucharist and Sacrament of Penance, all the essence of what the Institutional Church is intended to be. I am present to Christ through my personal free choice to ratify the gift of adoption as a son (daughter) of the Father, the source of Life.
   • THE CHRIST PRINCIPLE OF LIFE– I must choose good if it is to be in my life. My choices are always conditioned on what I have placed at my center. If I choose orgiastic sex (Erich Fromm’s list of those three things that are unauthentic love, the other two being drugs and alcohol), then what proceeds from my behavior is what is in my heart. “From the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks.” No one can stop me from choosing evil. What I must consistently and unerringly do each day is to reconvert myself with Christ as my Principle against which I measure what is good or bad. New wine must be held in new skins.
   • THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH PRINCIPLE– If I want to answer the primitive quest within my heart for truth, it must come from a more reliable source than humans. Original Sin taints what is true to suggest alternative forms of reality that seem to fulfill my humanity, but which, in essence, without the power to raise my humanity to that next level that nature intended.

4. HOW DOES IT ALL FIT TOGETHER? It has taken me a lifetime of rooting around dead pathways to get to how I think it all fits systematically in place, like completing a puzzle and putting in the last pieces. Only I have not fit in the last pieces in a completed mosaic. I only get enough for my reason to say, “Be it done unto me according to your Word.” I say, “I believe, help my unbelief.” (St. Thomas Aquinas) I see trends and signposts along the way but am awaiting seeing what my nature has awaiting me after I die (life has changed, not ended). I am still bringing in mosaic pieces to examine them to see if they fit my blueprint.

5. HOW CAN I LOVE FIERCELY? We are made in the image and likeness of God. Looking at the constant hunger of my heart for what it means to be human at that next level of my consciousness, plus what it means to love authentically at that next level of maturity, that produces truth as revealed by the Holy Spirit and the ongoing magisterium of the Church Universal, I realize that what God is (from my limited capability to know, love and serve), must be the solution for what is lacking in my humanity, and in particular my own lack of resonance with my humanity. St. Augustine describes this constant yearning as “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.” Realizing that only God’s love can overshadow me, as it did Mary, Mother of God, I strive on all occasions to consciously place myself in the presence of God and wait (the art of contemplative practice).

6. YOU KNOW YOU ARE GOING TO DIE: NOW WHAT? This is the part of my life where I get to put together all of my experiences (some not so nice) and form a menu or house to contain the place where Christ and I plus the Holy Spirit can meet. I call it the inner room of my inner self. It is the place where I sit down in the presence of Christ and wait (for my unruly human nature to listen to the whispers of Christ). It is the realization that, if I don’t fulfill that longing in the deepest part of me (knowledge, love, and truth), then I am a failure and continue in the dissonance of my humanity to move to that next level of my evolution, one that requires me to choose to do so. This is My Lay Cistercian way where I use Cistercian practices and charisms to move deeper into my humanity, learning more and more that there is no end to the heights, the depths of love, and so to find resonance to the dissonance of my deepest longing for what it means to be me, What I do is now traditional with a plan which I devised and must keep fresh each day to pour the new wine Christ gives me with the Holy Spirit into the new wineskins (My rebuilt Catholic Church) of reality. I see this as daily conversio morae (a mindset of abandonment of me to become Christ and me) and always moving forward (capacitas dei) in consciousness and complexity (Teihard map).

nota bene: To keep these blogs short, this first one (above) is the blueprint, the next one is the tools or Lay Cistercian practices that Christ the Carpenter gave me to use, and the third set is the outcomes or results of building my house with Christ’s blueprints and using the tools needed for me to realize the fullness of my humanity at its deepest and fulfilled nature.

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