I made it a goal to become familiar with the teachings of the Catholic Church, if for nothing else for the fact that they claim to be the One True Church. It’s a claim that needs investigating. I think the church has a lot of good points (they win on their views of marriage and family planning, IMO), but there are some not-so-good ones (and I’m not referring to priestly misconduct, which isn’t a problem unique to or uniquely rampant in the Catholic Church).

I think it’s edifying to know what other denominations believe, even if you can’t agree with it. And certainly there’s much to learn from the huge corpus of Catholic writing out there. “The Practice of the Presence of God” is one of my favorite books (not only because it’s only 50 pages or so).

And if we’re tempted to think we could never learn from Catholic writing, we should keep in mind that C.S. Lewis was a high-church Anglican, which basically means he was Catholic but without the pope.

I figured my husband would pipe up on this one!
I had a roommate in college (George Fox) that was Catholic, and she drastically changed the very narrow view of Catholics I had held until then. I had been under the impression that Catholics were shallow, thought only of works and meaningless repetition and didn’t have the foggiest idea what a relationship with Christ was. It sounds rather harsh, but that’s pretty much what I thought. I learned not to lump everyone into the same boat after getting to know my friend. There was no doubt she had a real, daily relationship with God, and the church she attended didn’t seem to matter (which was called a charismatic Catholic church, BTW). She actually went on to become a nun…wears a habit and everything.

On the flip side of that, I have some close friends now who were raised in the Catholic church and actually didn’t have the foggiest idea of what a relationship with Christ was. I don’t necessarily blame that on the Catholic church in general, but for whatever reason, it seems many Catholics grew up in families where “being Catholic” was actually more about “doing Catholic,” and the basic important stuff got lost in all the tradition. These close friends of which I speak attend Sunset, and it’s still surprising to me to hear that reading the Bible was not something anyone in their home did, yet they were “religious” Catholics.

I think there are definitely some practices (such as the ones you mentioned) in the Catholic church that would be beneficial to all Christians. It may be unfortunate that those disciplines are considered solely Catholic and therefore unnecessary or without benefit to include in one’s faith walk.

I too have really benefited from some Catholic writers as I’ve learned more about spiritual disciplines that have REALLY been formative for me. Thanks for sharing. I’m jealous you got to hang out with Matt…….

Which of these spiritual disciplines is God using to really form your soul into the image of Christ right now?

For me personally I’ve been practicing silence and solitude daily for 5 to 10 minutes. I just finished a month of that and wrote a paper on it for class. I’ll post a piece of that soon.

Seth and Elaine-

The heasley’s have over-run my blog!!! haha

Really loved what both of you had to say. Thanks.

Catholics are Christians…period. Both my folks grew up Catholic, I went to Catholic school when I was younger and actually still enjoy going to mass on various occasions. Truth is the Catholic church has more emphasis on the community and being the church to people of God’s heart than many of the evangelicals I know. See here’s the thing…Jesus made it clear that HE is the way to the father…Both evangelicals and catholics believe this…so what’s the problem? Theology is just “details.” It will matter much less on the day He returns than whether or not we loved and served him and “the least of these”

@ jan…one of my favorite authors is henri nouwen…a catholic priest

Tyler-
We have something in common–we both ate with Matt Maher. I asked him the same questions and found him to be the real deal. He genuinely loves Jesus and the church. I was blessed to learn from him.

Jim

Richard Foster’s , now classic, Celebration of Discipline is great. Nouwen is another awesome and theologically insightful person in the area of spiritual discipline. I was raised in a conservative Presbyterian tradition BUT with the Jesus movement, yes I am THAT old, there were a lot of charismatic catholics and others who followed Jesus involved.

We always thought the issue about the Pope and communion and that was a matter for someone bigger than us. We were too busy and still are, trying to follow Jesus.

Ash- I’m not disagreeing with you, but to say flat out that Catholics are Christians is something that many would debate you on. Again…I’m not disagreeing though.

Jim- That is awesome. I love Matt’s approach to corporate worship.

Alan- Totally love that book. Read it about a year and a half ago. The best part is that when he wrote that book, he was completely unknown.

@ash – yes I love Henri Nouwen! great stuff – so insightful!