Learning to See
Reality, Presence, and the Depth My Faith Forgot (Part 1)
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In this series we will explore an ancient Christian understanding and way of seeing reality that has largely faded from some expressions of modern faith that many of us are familiar with. It has been a big part of my pilgrimage.
We’ll touch on how losing this way of seeing has thinned our understanding of presence, symbol, the sacraments, sin, healing and transformation, and the afterlife. Each article will flow from what has come before. Hopefully through it we’ll add some further richness to our faith.
What we explore here is not anything new, but something ancient that gifts a different way of seeing.
Dear reader,
Today we begin a series. I want to begin with why I’m writing this. If the why is not important to you and/or you want to shorten this article, just jump straight to the first heading.
I’m diving into this series because I had an epiphany the other day as two very different questions were asked of me on the same day about what I believe in regards to particular things. Those questions followed previous days where other questions on various topics were asked of me. They’re not fires, but the analogy I’ll use is that it felt like I was darting around damping down little fires here and there… or maybe more aptly, playing whack-a-mole. It all relates to my entrance into the Catholic Church.
If I’m honest, it’s energy sapping, but through it I realised that what I needed to do was set a better foundation, because the foundation connects the dots. The moles I have been whacking are dots that connect back to a foundation. Trying to give a decent answer to many of the questions doesn’t work without the foundation, so that’s what we’re going to do across this series - set the foundation. I’m going to try and do it simply, without needlessly long articles.
Something I want to be clear about before I begin; I did not decide to become Catholic and then change a bunch of my views. Rather, what we’re going to explore here is some of the thinking I explored over a number of years as a Protestant. As this developed my thinking on many things, I then came to see Catholicism as the fullest expression and answer to what I was exploring. That THEN led me to exploring a few things within Catholicism that were less pressing but important to making the final decision. The Catholic position on those secondary things won (ie the papacy, views on Mary, transubstantiation, intercession of the saints in heaven etc), but I need to stress that they weren’t the engine of thinking and experience that took me there, though each thing connected back to the engine and was consistent with it. What we’ll explore in this series was the engine/foundation (minus the spiritual and emotional experiences that cemented it).
I have been learning to see differently.
I say this so that I can be clear here that I am not explaining what the Catholic Church teaches. Rather, we’re exploring topics that, from my perspective (it doesn’t have to be your perspective), the Catholic Church THEN offers the fullest expression of.1 That outcome is not a given for everyone who explores what we’re about to dive into. There are many who have have explored the same and remain Protestant with this stuff giving a fuller, richer sense to what they already believe, practice, and express.
Early in this series we are also not looking at what the Bible says. I will not be proof-texting many of these opening thoughts with scripture, because what we’re doing is exploring some underlying ideas that fed the world in which the New Testament writings came about, and through which the early Church shaped its belief over time. This was part of the sea they swam in. It informs their underlying assumptions about the world. It’s particularly important for understanding the definitive statements made about Jesus’ divinity at the Council of Nicea.
This is pertinent because it stands in contrast to the modern lens through which we see and understand life. If we can grasp some ancient ideas and ways of seeing, it throws many things into perspective and it speaks to that ‘re-enchantment’ and meaning so many are hungering for.
Let’s begin.
