Response to your Sola Scriptura Apologia

An old  friend asked me to justify myself in light of my faith.  I don't know that I satisfied the request, but I don't think the request itself was all that fair.  Anyway, I did write something which I thought I'd share up here, just to see how it looks framed, from a distance.  

Well, I’m sure I’ll be a disappointment to you, as I am not inclined to pamphleteering, nor am I wanting to exchange blows over the source and path to divine love.  So what I have written here is my personal approach to God.  It’s based on how I live my life.  I am a confirmed Roman Catholic, and I participate in the mass, and often write the prayers of the faithful.  I am also a practicing Quaker, as I have found that most of the precepts of Quakerism are consistent with my Catholic experience.  The Catholic Church being catholic gives a lot of room for varieties of religious expression, and in Philadelphia the Qua-tholic approach is more common than elsewhere. 

 So we read the Bible to help us to embody the incarnation of Christ in our being, just as we receive the Eucharist and share in the sacraments which are powerful and effective bearers of Grace.  We are the recipient of this Grace, and we are all given an equal capacity to receive and reflect that Grace.  We may not all reflect or transmit it with equal clarity, and sadly, some of us can’t seem to reflect it at all due to the horrors of past experience or abject depravity.  Nevertheless, planted within us all is the seed of the light which can spark and kindle and grow. 

And I don’t believe that God’s work was finished in the moment some 2000 years ago when Jesus left this life.  God is still at work among us, freed and available to all in the form we call the Holy Spirit.  That work is reflected in the great tradition of church teaching and develops into a consistent pattern that is integrated and cogent.  But beyond scripture and tradition there is also the teaching of the conscience.  I accept as a semantic question whether the conscience and the inner light are one.  I don’t claim to have an answer to that, and I don’t think Robert Barclay or William Penn succeeded in their effort to answer that question either.  But as it is an open question, it gives one an opening for pondering the presence of God in the present moment. 

There are so many ways to open to God’s Grace.  By reading the scriptures; pondering the example of love, sweetness and generosity which we found in Jesus, in the Blessed Mother, in the lives of the many named Saints and the lives of the many Saints we know and have living among us; and by opening our lives and the lives of others to the power of God’s grace through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, and by opening ourselves to each other and to the healing of God’s grace, we are witness to God moving among us. 

And in the interplay of our lives in the world and the working of Grace among us, there is new understanding.  New images are developed which help us to know and understand more about God’s love for us.  I love the experience of knowing more about God by opening my inner imagination to the ways I feel the Spirit moving in my life.  It’s a rich tapestry that renews itself as needed.  And more than just informing my own inner life, this approach helps me work better in the world.  – I believe that my life journey is a better example of God’s love because of this process of imaging and understanding how I am loved. 

I should say that I am keenly aware that there is a real danger in exposing oneself so openly to the workings of the world and nature.  It takes careful attention and discernment not to be swallowed up by the wilder aspect of natural faith.  But then again, it is more likely in our society that people will be so numbed by their worship of the false gods of wealth, prestige or control that few are at risk of falling prey to the perils of natural religion.  – There have been occasions when the power of all that is feels like it might overwhelm me, and at those times I have consulted with elders in my faith community, priests in the church and a spiritual director. 

So that’s it, at least in part.  It’s not very rigorous I suppose, but mine is a personal and intimate experience of Christ, and I am deeply grateful for it. I know it’s not for most, but that’s nothing new.  I don’t know why I’ve gone the way that I’ve gone, but I have no evidence that I am on the wrong path, and so I’ll continue to carry on in this way.  

Later I’m sure I’ll kick myself for the things I’ve left out, but so be it.