The author of the “Lord of the Rings” series, JRR Tolkien, converted to Catholicism through an interesting route. He was born with virtually no faith at all, but his father died when he was quite young – age 4. His mother Mabel, torn with grief, sought a way to deal with her sadness – so she turned to faith, but her nominal Protestant background provided little consolation. So Tolkien’s mother started to search for another faith, one that was more substantial and offered greater truth. When JRR was eight, his mother converted to Catholicism – and brought her two young sons with her!
But the story doesn’t end there. Sadly, the family was immediately rejected because of this conversion – they thought Mabel and the boys had gone off the deep end! Within a year, the stress of having their entire family turn their backs on them proved too much, and Tolkien’s mother died tragically, leaving her two boys in the care of an old aunt who paid them no attention. Left to themselves, the Tolkien boys found themselves spending more and more time at their local Catholic church – they would serve Mass for the priest, clean up around the church, and even eat breakfast with the priests before heading off to school. Later on in life, Tolkien said that he first learned charity and forgiveness from the pastor of that Catholic Church. He remained convicted of the truth of the Catholic faith and was willing to hold to it, despite personal cost.
Truth is something worth seeking. It’s something worth fighting for, even worth dying for. But our world is one that is full of opinions – just look at the vast number of blogs and comment boxes on websites, all full of opinions…and very little truth. Is it possible to find truth in the modern world? In particular, is it possible to find truth about God, about humanity, about our eternal destiny?
Yes, it is. In John’s Gospel, Jesus says that He is the Truth – He’s not an opinion, not one man among many, but THE Truth. He proved that His words are truth when He rose from the dead. So if Jesus is the Truth – if He reveals the Truth about God, about who we are as His beloved sons and daughters – then we must follow Him.
And if Jesus, Truth Himself, starts a religion, we can be assured that it is the true one. Jesus set up the Catholic religion upon the faith of Simon Peter, the first Pope, and He promised His Apostles that “the gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church” – in other words, that His Church would never stray from teaching the truth about God and our relationship to Him.
I am Catholic because I believe that the Catholic Church is the one true Church founded by Jesus Christ. But I almost wandered away in my teen years. Growing up, I went to a Catholic church that was pretty cold and unfriendly. The people were grumpy, the priests were boring, the music was lame…so when I reached my late teens, I started to go to a Methodist church a few times, and I went with my friend to his Lutheran church. I was amazed at how warm and welcoming these other churches were! I immediately felt at home there…except, they didn’t have the Eucharist, and they didn’t have the fullness of truth. So, I returned to the Catholic Church, knowing that truth is more important that warm feelings or good preaching.
You see, we believe, as Catholics, that the Catholic Church has the fullness of truth. Other faiths have partial truth – for example, our Protestant brothers and sisters share with us truths such as baptism and a love for the Scriptures. Even other non-Christian religions like Muslims and Hindus have part of the truth – they all encourage people to be kind and compassionate, for example. But the Catholic Church has the fullness of truth – everything that we need to know about God and how to best love Him, we can find in the Catholic Church. It’s a bold claim, I know…but who would want to belong to a religion that didn’t claim to be the true religion?
It’s kind of like this: you could probably build a house with just a hammer, a saw, and a few nails, right? It may not look pretty, but you could do it if you had to. But it would be a lot easier if you also had a tape measure, and a level, and a screwdriver, right? Of course! We would want every tool we need to build the best house possible.
In the same way, can those of other faiths get to Heaven with the partial truth in their religion? Yes, but it is harder. As Catholics, we have so many tools for holiness: the Rosary, devotions, Eucharistic Adoration, the teachings of the Holy Father, the examples of the Saints, the two-thousand-year-old Tradition, and so much more. Why settle for less when we can have every tool in the toolbox?
Jesus only wants one religion – He says so in today’s Gospel, as He prays “that all may be one.” There are currently over 33,000 different branches of Christianity, from Methodists and Episcopalians to Evangelicals and Non-Denominationals. That was clearly not Jesus’ will! He wanted all to be one, united in the one Church He founded – the Catholic Church.
When we read this weekend’s Gospel (John 17), we are basically eavesdropping in on Jesus’ final prayer before He is crucified. He prays to the Father for us – for the Church – and He prays that we may be consecrated in the truth – in other words, He is consecrating the Apostles to bring His Truth to the world. Our Catholic faith is built upon those Apostles who handed on that Truth down through the centuries. The teachings of the Catholic church are the same, unchanging teachings that were handed on to the Apostles from Jesus.
So, for this reason, we should be proud to be Catholic. In today’s world where many people believe that there are “many equal paths to God” or that they can be “spiritual but not religious,” we respectfully disagree with those assertions. While we respect the partial truths that are in all other religions, we are confident that we have the fullness of truth in the Catholic Church, the religion that Jesus founded. And this Truth, more than any external reason like good music or a beautiful church building, is why we are Catholic!
