A Harder Life

I have a friend who's having some significant life problems affecting his reputation more than anything else, but reputation is often the most often identified with our very selves so an assault on it can be life altering.

I think he is a victim of evil and that what is happening to him is a visible sign of how people do evil, with or without intention. With or without intention makes no real difference in terms of the consequence to the person who is the object of the evil, although it might have relevance to the nature of the universe's or God's response toward the evildoer, if you believe in such things. Of course, whether retribution is warranted is an ambiguity. No one knows the heart of someone who causes evil. And each of us can repent of it, if with a sincere and sorrowful heart.

But for the victim, the effects of the wrong cannot be taken back, even if the instrument of that wrong apologizes and is forgiven. The damage is done.

For all this preamble the nature of the evil and its effects is not the subject of this entry. My friend is a convert to Catholicism. For those of us who are cradle Catholics, cradle anything I suppose, the idea of someone coming to the choice, in late adolescence or adulthood to become a member of a particular faith tradition is elusive to us. It is often slower and more torturous a journey than the dramatic and sudden change of Paul on the road to Damascus. It is a planted thought, a long resistance, a reading, a talking to others, a decision that may well be the Hand of God, but less a push than a breath. And so it was for my friend. Slow. Carefully determined. What did he hope for? What did he expect? I wonder whether the convert realizes that choosing Catholicism (or any Christian faith, and I must speak here in a small apologia that I DO believe that in Catholicism subsists the fullness of the faith) he acknowledges and accepts following the Royal Road of the Cross. I would imagine that if the convert does so, he does so better than the cradle Catholic for whom the dogma is taken for granted, if even noticed, but I also imagine that neither really expects that he will be expected to suffer, no, not really. Not me. Someone else. Not me.

Which is what his recent comment to me raised in my thoughts. We accept. But only if it doesn't cost us. The comment was that his life had become harder since he became a Catholic. He did not explain it to me further, and I did not inquire, so as not to intrude unduly. Given a panoply of challenges in his life over the years, I can see how this perception would seem to be true. I am leaning toward agreement. First, you cannot really avoid hardship whether you have a faith or not. The hardships may correlate with the faith, but could it not be said that the hardships would have come whether he converted or not. Perhaps not the same ones, but hardship all the same. Suffering is. (Pardon to my Buddhist friends who would suggest I think in my limited understanding that we can transcend our suffering here, now and that we are the cause of our suffering). Catholicism has nothing to do with the fact of suffering. But it does point to a way of looking at it that tries to join us to God made Man who in a cosmic sense, holds us as we suffer in the same way His Father held him as He did. And that is the second level of hardship. I always find it amusing when someone dismisses religion as a means to avoid suffering, or some palliative or what one famous person, whose name escapes me, said was the "opiate of the people". My friend's comment indicates the complete opposite. To be religious is to face the things that are there, to be endured, axiomatically by virtue of our mortality, and to at best have a certain faith of something beyond or take a chance (e.g. Pascal's Wager) that there is. Some people say that that's cowardice. Or is it really harder, braver not merely to endure the suffering which will happen anyway or to embrace it as a faithful follower of One Who Went Before. It is easy to say, no, I don't believe and leave it at that. But to begin and begin again for faith, to have certainty in the a world that floods us with ambiguity, that is indeed a harder life. The next question becomes, whether it is worth it? I can only answer that for myself. And what help does it offer my friend to tell him, yes, it is harder as a Catholic. I guess I can try to say, something flippant, like, "No pain, no gain", but is that really flippant in this context? I am betting on the gain, as my faith is not certain. At least today. One day at a time. And it is hard indeed. But I guess I see it as being in Good Company and I hope that I do not leave the road. I hope that my friend doesn't either.