Catholic

People have asked me a few times in the past few years, "Why would you call yourself 'catholic'? Don't catholics believe in salvation by works, and worship Mary and the saints? You don't believe in all that, do you?"

Of course not. What I do believe is that, in the early Church, you were either catholic or a heretic. Catholic then meant believing in Christ for salvation, saved by his grace, and in the teachings of the apostles (what they wrote in our Bibles). It also meant keeping the traditions that the apostles taught (also recorded in Scripture)--of a weekly Eucharist, fellowshipping, praying prayers and breaking bread from house to house (which included the agape meal and a liturgical Eucharist). By that definition, I am catholic.

I have a friend who is an orthodox, evangelical believer, who would not call himself catholic. We have talked often about the word "catholic." I have maintained in our discussions that "catholic" also means "interdenominational". Now, follow me here. According to our definition above, all baptized, orthodox (doctrinally) believers in every branch of the Church are catholic, whether they would call themselves that or not. So by that, we can see that catholic and interdenominational are synonymous.

The word "catholic" was defined by Vincent of Lerins as what has always been believed, by all, everywhere. The apostolic teaching. The basic beliefs of our faith that we all believe.

I am a part of that family of the catholic Church that we call "Anglican" or "Anglo-catholic"--that branch of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church that developed in the British Isles. (Most of our churches in the U.S. came out of that part of the Church--and retain part of it in their life today, in varying degrees.)

I don't normally walk around and tell everyone that I am catholic--they would naturally understand me as saying that I am Roman Ratholic, which I am not. I usually answer that I am a Christian--and hope and pray that they see it in my life. And I hope and pray the same for you.

What's important, I think, is not that we label ourselves--or hopefully not have an inordinate amount of pride in our denomination (or lack of one)--but that we believe in Jesus, and live our lives for Him, believing in what is recorded in Scripture. We should not allow our differences in what we believe--whether we can lose our salvation, in gifts of the Spirit, eschatology, structure of the Church, and etc.--to keep us from sharing the life that is in Jesus, fellowshipping, worshipping, and serving Him together.


Blessings,
Br. Francis