There is great beauty in Catholicism because all its teachings fit together to create a vision of perfection to which every person can aspire. Unfortunately, many miss this beauty because all they see are a set of rigid rules and activities laid down by those who threaten them with fire and brimstone if they don’t comply. This is a misunderstanding of Catholicism and of God because as Jesus said, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17).
What Catholicism teaches is the way to find personal fulfillment, which when achieved, brings joy. Many people, today and in the past, seek fulfillment in amassing power, wealth, or fame but time, logic, and experience tell us that finite things can never bring lasting satisfaction. Indeed, love is the only thing that is eternal—it’s the currency of heaven, where love reigns supreme. As Saint John noted, “God is love,” and love is the driving force in Catholicism (1 John 4:17). Every teaching in Catholicism is in essence meant to show God’s love for us or to teach us how to return His love by loving those around us. It does so by teaching the truth.
The truth, that which is real, is true for everyone and every situation. It is not developed but discovered because the truth has always existed. Humans innately desire the truth because knowing the truth is like having a guidebook to the universe. Knowing how things really are, how they work, and how they affect other things allows us to act effectively.
All learning is a search for the truth. The most basic type of learning measures and observes the world around us through one or more of the five senses. Reason allows us to mentally extrapolate new ideas from the learnings previously proven by others. This is the basis for human innovation. Most learning is done by experts and communicated to others who do not have the time, resources, or intellect to learn everything through their own observations. This puts a premium on discerning the credibility of the experts to determine the credibility of what they teach. This is where the Catholic Church shines most brilliantly.
The beauty of the Catholic Church is that it provides an expansive theology that covers the big existential questions about God and man in a way that is self-consistent and full of hope.
The Church teaches that God’s love for us began with the Big Bang, the universal creation event that is described in Genesis 1 as: “Let there be light.” God made humanity in His image, giving us the ability to reason, the desire to seek the truth and the ability to act on it freely (CCC 307). This has important ramifications; it allows man the ability to understand that God exists, using science to calculate that God created the world 4.8 billion years ago, and also that He balances several universal constants in a precise way that sustains life and could not happen by chance. Not being unavoidably present allows humans to love God freely, and the added gift of conscience allows us to instinctively understand the moral law, which guides us on how to love each other.
Some people bemoan that they have “Catholic guilt,” causing them anxiety about their eternal salvation when they sin. This is an artifact of human anthropology more than Catholicism because Catholics and non-Catholics alike are subject to guilty feelings when they sin. True, everyone must form their consciences, and the Church provides tools (Scripture, Catechism, etc.) to do so, but that does not mean people do not innately understand good from evil.
For instance, anyone should feel guilty if they harm an innocent person, and the Church says that the verdict of a guilty conscience remains a pledge of hope and mercy (CCC 1781). This is because God perfectly balances mercy and justice, and a guilty conscience calls us to action. In His mercy, God will pardon any sin which we sacramentally acknowledge and pledge to improve and, in His justice, will hold those responsible for unrepentant sin. This provides not only the opportunity to grow in holiness, which is facilitated by forgiveness, but the motivation to repent and become better versions of ourselves.
This leads us to the great truth that God values our eternal communion with Him above all else, as shown in Jesus’ great Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32). All His actions promote this, as the Church and the constant witness of the saints attest (CCC 313). The world is evolving to perfection, and God facilitates that evolution by providing ramifications to our actions, suffering when we are exposed to evil, and joy when we do good.
As the saintly Pope John Paul II notes in Salvifici Doloris, suffering is the feeling we get when we encounter evil, which he defines as the lack of an expected good. This evil detection is a great gift that alerts us to eternal danger and teaches us to love ourselves, God, each other—and ultimately to love redemptively, being willing to suffer and even die for the benefit of another person, as Jesus modelled on the Cross. In this, our loving God uses temporal suffering to facilitate growing in holiness that leads to eternal life.
The Gospel propagated by the Church is that God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). What some see as a set of overly stringent rules are actually the directions to loving others, and with it a path to eternal life and human fulfillment. This is accomplished when we look for the good of each other rather than focusing only on what we want. The beauty of the Church is that the truth it teaches is borne out in small ways in everyday life. For instance, new parents willingly give up sleep for the good of their infant children and thus raise good families; similarly, good coaches and leaders know that team success is contingent on everyone on their teams pursuing a common goal and sacrificing to meet that goal.
In the same vein, Saint Paul describes the Church as the Body of Christ, working together to fulfill Jesus’ mission, everyone contributing what he can (1 Corinthians 12:12-31). There are many ways to do this, from teaching the faith and administering the sacraments to caring for those who are ill or hungry. This vision of self-giving, focused on spreading the good news of God’s love for us and what we can do for each other, is the essence of Catholicism and a significant part of its immeasurable beauty.
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
