The Motivation for Exploration

*This post is one in a series chronicling my ecumenical visits to various area protestant churches.

As promised, I will post on my latest ecumenical experience.

But, before getting into the specifics of the congregation that I visited, here's a further note on my motivations in doing this at all.  I visit these churches as I would visit another country.  The goal in visiting other countries: I have no intent to make them my home, but there is great value in seeing how things are done there, and even more value in getting to know the people there.  I enjoy seeing cool stuff,

I've seen some very cool stuff.

but meeting people is much more edifying than just sightseeing.  It fulfills one's humanity far more to get to know a person and share yourself with him or her, than to look at buildings and natural wonders.  The human person is the image of God--what is the Eiffel Tower or Niagara Falls compared to that?

The Pyramids sure were big,
but weren't nearly as cool the Egyptians.
(Meet Saied, an Egyptian seminarian
who's coming to study in Rome next year.
I'm glad he'll make it while I'm still there!)

But furthermore, I've discovered a result in myself when I've gone to other countries.  I have not only come to appreciate and even love aspects of the culture, not to mention the actual persons who live there, but I have perhaps more importantly been spurred on to a greater love for my home and for my own people.

Just so, in visiting protestant churches I hope (i.e. the goal) to put a human face on them in my own mind, to come to know not just protestant-ism, but protestants.  I fully expect to [and have already found that I] like certain aspects of their worship, and their own nuances of understanding.  There will also be things that I don't like, and that I cannot accept.  I know that going into it, and largely know what those things will be in advance.  The surprise--no, the adventure--lies in meeting the people, in seeing God and the world through their eyes, in worshipping God with them, and in trying out the different things they do.  (All of that of course without dabbling in practices or prayers that go against my own faith--for example, I won't be getting baptized for a second time or receive communion or in any way deny the Truth that I strive to live every day.)

The Adventure!  Gift that keeps on giving.

And then, the further miracle occurs, analogous to the result.  I can't help but look back to my own Faith, and by that I mean look back to not only Catholicism, but Catholics.  I get up the next morning and open my breviary to pray the prayer of the Church, and I am so relieved to have it.  I go to Mass and realize so much more profoundly the Gift that it is.  And finally, I look around those who share my Faith, with whom I am in Communion.  To live and strive with others is exactly how God planned the Church to work.  Through being with those outside of full communion, I come to see what a Gift it is to be incorporated into a Body.  We as Catholics believe in God, worship God, and even love God as a community, as the Body with Christ as our Head.  He Himself is our teacher in loving God, for He, the Son, loves the Father intensely.  And the Spirit sanctifies us, enabling us to be adopted children of God, and groans and sighs on our behalf.  The members of this mystical Body are truly united, and we're not just talking about the 1 billion+ "living" Catholics, but all those who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith.  As a Catholic, I worship God with the person in the pew next to me, but beyond that with a holy soul in Purgatory, and even with Mary the Mother of God.  I am so blessed to be a part of that.

A photograph:

...unrelated but for the fact that it is from my time in Egypt.