THEORETICAL CATHOLICISM: Maybe we are not looking in the right place with the correct assumptions.

A theoretical Catholic is in an existential struggle between what the world says is true and what absolute truth is, as it is on earth as it is in Heaven. Part of where I find myself as I challenge the assumptions that I have always held about Jesus, the Catholic Church, what I see is the tension between the monarchical expression of my Faith down through the centuries, and how I grow deeper in complexity and consciousness by making new wine for the new wine Christ gives me each day as a result of my just being in the presence of the Real Presence.

How can I avoid the subtle mindtrap of denying what the Holy Spirit is saying through the teachings of the Holy Father, and of causing factioning over trivial matters and the factions it creates in the Mystery of Faith? What is going on in today’s Catholic Church, permeated by original sin, and populated by those who challenge the shoes of the Fisherman, forgetting that the Holy Spirit selected this and every Holy Father, and it is a sin against the Holy Spirit, not the Church, that is in play here. Don’t mess with the Holy Spirit. Human, remember that you are dust and into dust you shall return. No individual Catholic has either the authority or the energy from God to tear the fabric of Faith apart (factioning as in Galatians 5). Only the Holy Father is blessed not in his own name but in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit to carry the cross of Christ on behalf of the whole Catholic Universal Church, not some well-meaning Cardinal(s) or individual Catholics. Causing factions over peripheral issues while not heeding the Holy Father’s cautions to remain steadfast in the Faith that is our inheritance from Jesus Himself is doomed to failure. Either I believe the Holy Spirit chose this Holy Father as the visible head of the Catholic Church, or I don’t. So, how can I challenge the teachings of the Catholic Church? I don’t. I try to dig deeper into the mystery of my humanity by using the Mystery of Faith to discover what reality looks like and how it all fits together. It is the way I try to integrate what Christ said about becoming His follower with the corpus of what is true from God, as expressed through the Catholic Church and voiced by the Vicar of Christ in each age. A theoretical Catholic does not seek to tear down or deny, but rather to affirm the deeper meaning of what it means to be human, as helped in real time by the Real Presence of Christ as the Catholic Church. Don’t mess with the Holy Spirit.

There is a healthy tension built into my Lectio Divina reflections on all of life. I describe it as the tension between what is, from God’s viewpoint, and what I think reality is, based on my lifetime experiences, to discern the Divine Equation. I notice that I assimilate life experiences, both good and harmful, into my evolution toward the highest level of my humanity. I put these in the crucible of a system of thinking (unique to me, but based on my observations of what works and what is so much dross), a system I discovered over a lifetime of testing and rejecting (sounds scientific), though only conceptual. I am the only one in all of creation, past, present, or future, that can look at reality and postulate and theorize what life means. What is true for me may not be true for you, yet, for all of us, there is only one reality that exists.

I apply the notions of 1. The Divine Equation — six questions that I believe each person must answer to move to that higher level of humanity, one not dependent upon nor having the energy to raise my nature to that deepest level of reality, one that completes and resolves the dissonance of human limitations of reason and free choice. These are how I see any question. a. What is the Purpose of Life? b. What is MY purpose of life within that first purpose of life? c. What does reality look like? d. How does it all fit together? e. How can I love fiercely? f. I know I am going to die, now what? The problem, as you can no doubt tell, is twofold: Where do I for it to find answers with the energy and absolute truth to answer these questions correctly, without me being both the one who asks the questions and the one who has the correct answers? Next, who is the one who determines what is right or wrong (good or evil) for me, but also is consistent with the answers of all humans who ask these questions? Is it my will, or some other person’s will, that I accept as the boundaries of my way of looking at reality?

Each person must answer these six questions to be aware of the movement of complexity and consciousness of the river of reality moving from Alpha to Omega (Teilhard de Chardin). Even though each person is free to choose their own answers, as in any test of truth, the truth is determined by the one who created it. In the case of humans, I assume that a great unknowable energy (Being itself not a being), Pure Energy at 100% of its divine nature, not only created something from nothing (think No Thing) but nourishes and sustains what was created by giving to humans, wounded by the limitations of evolving from animality and without a book or instructions to know how to be human. This Divine Equation does not define who God is, the one with no definition, but who I am as a human being. God sets boundaries for humanity to steer it toward its destiny, one that is impossible to attain through strictly human intelligence and free choices. God’s boundaries, although foreign to human conceptions and to the evolution of matter and mind, have the power to lift each individual to experience the highest level of humanity, i.e., spirituality that goes beyond the dissonance and corruption of free choice and absolute truth (reason). God gives us Divine Energy, the power to reach down with an outstretched hand and pull up each individual to the next level of evolution, as an adopted son or daughter of the Father and heir to the kingdom of Heaven, now and after we die.

Prayer is the most fundamental of all spiritual covenants, because God tells us, Jesus shows us, and the Holy Spirit is physically, mentally, and spiritually present to enable us to move to that level of existence where there is no matter, no energy other than the Divine Milieu. Male or female, rich or poor, powerful or powerless, those with robust health and those who have been told they are going to die, all reach their ultimate purpose for life the same way, using the only way that can give them Divine Energy without frying their neurons, through, with, and in Jesus Christ, The Christ Principle.

We are so caught up in Church politics and an obsession with proving God exists, using limited human tools and theories of being, that we lose sight of the bigger picture. People who tear the Church apart need to remember that it is not the Pope who is the problem, but that you are battling the Holy Spirit who selected the Holy Father. You do believe that, don’t you? A holistic approach to spirituality seeks to be in the presence of Christ, as each of us can, using the Eucharist as the Real Presence and Confession as a means to reconvert our behavior to the one Way, Truth, and Life. Every movement by nature, by living things, by animals, by humans needs constant daily struggle to use an energy not from human perfection but from Divine Knowledge, Love, and Truth, to fill up our tank so we can run. Where we run is up to us.

THE NEED FOR BOUNDARIES TO BECOME FULLY HUMAN

My premise here is that humanity needed a God to save them from the dissonance of being hostage to the capacities of their human nature, complete with reason without the correct assumptions, and free will to choose good or evil without knowing which is best, but merely depending on human feelings and what is easy rather than what is right.

• Boundaries from God are the Genesis Principle — knowledge of what it takes to reach the deepest level of our humanity. 
• Boundaries from God, as explained by Jesus Christ, are meant to include all humanity (catholic) rather than an isolated group of tribes; these are the Christ Principle.
• Boundaries that are from God, explained by Jesus Christ, but actualized in each age through the Catholic Church, whose advocate is the Holy Spirit, are the Principle of Truth. (not a protection from individuals in making bad choices, but the sustainability of always allowing grace to trump sin.)

Because I tend to get carried away when I try to write down all the ideas the Holy Spirit presents within my limited life experiences, I will divide these blogs into sections, each dealing with a different Principle (that which flows from anything in any way).

As a way of anchoring myself to a semblance of reality, I use The Divine Equation steps (those I must solve to become my deeper self), the Teilhard de Chardin map of movement from complexity to consciousness, and the notion of Pauline dual citizenship (the world, birth to death) and (the kingdom of Heaven on earth while I live and after that with Christ).

THE GENESIS PRINCIPLE — The next blog of the same name will take up how God, the one who has no boundaries, set physical and mental boundaries for all that is, and why.

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