I wrote this on a whim. So here it goes!

Non-love of Catholicism is usually ignorance of it. This is no new insight. But it is not, properly speaking, ignorance of Catholicism as an institution, with all of its rich history and teachings. For I am ignorant of many of these things, but I am not ignorant of Catholicism, nor is my love for it any reed blowing in the wind. The knowledge of Catholicism that I speak of is not the knowledge of an objective and empirical reality; empiricism utterly fails to grasp Catholicism. This explains in part why non-love of Catholicism is so widespread, among Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

I know Catholicism, but I know it as a she. She is my mother. She carresses me in times of trouble, admonishes my faults, lays open before me the path I must walk. The Church is the bride of my Savior, who gives me hope and reason to be, who saves my life, and who gives the Church everything she has.

When I say I know Catholicism, I say it as one for whom her didactic prose glows with beauty and harmony, each word a hint, a shadow, a footprint of the wisdom of God. And together, Christ and his beloved bride, with the gratuitous but endless embrace of the Spirit, carve from the invisible boundaries of truth a sculpture of truth. It is a sculpture made in every way for people, and its supportive arms reach out to people most in need and in their weakest faculties and members.

Perhaps many people see the sculpture, and be very impressed indeed with its beauty. But they cannot wholly see its sculptors. Maybe they see a woman carving it, her slovenly arms struggling now and again, or else moving as though not by her own mind, and they suppose her unsound. So they turn away from the sculpture to walk about aimlessly. But what they do not see in this strange woman are the invisible hands and their glorified wounds that rest on her wrists. And so she continues carving, and sweating; but what many do not see is that the sweat and the blood are not entirely her own. And Mary there beside her wipes her brow, gives her water to drink, and tells her, "Trust my Son; he knows what you will carve."

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), March 10, 2004

Answers

beautiful post, reminds me of what the great artist, michaelangelo, once said:

"I saw the angel inside the marble, and carved until i had set him free"

-- paul h (dontSendMeMail@notAnAddress.com), March 10, 2004.

anon.com,

Never denied it.

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), March 10, 2004.

anon,

You should write a book ... it will benefit more Catholics.

God bless.

-- (Pro-Mary@catholic.forum), March 10, 2004.