BIOGRAPHY SERIES: "The Appalling Strangeness of the Mercy of God"

This is a snippet of correspondence I sent to my sister in reply to her reaction to the biography on Ruth Pakaluk. A very brief bio of Ruth's story: Ruth and her boyfriend Michael started to explore Christianity as undergrads at Harvard. They married, became Christian, converted to Catholicism, and raised a family. At a very young age, and with four children already, Ruth got breast cancer. During remission she had another baby, and when pregnant with her sixth child, she chose to forego chemotherapy/radiation so as not to hurt the child she was carrying. As a mother of six, and a remarkable pro-life activist reknowned in Massachussetts, and as a leader in a conservative Catholic community, she passed away at 41 years old. This is a beautiful tragic, triumphant story told by her husband, Michael, and primarily through her faithful correspondence to old friends.

I sent the book to Noel and to my mom. Noel sent me a long response, and I am including most of my response to her letter here. Sorry it may not be completely comprehensible in this format, but it may give you a good look into the important debates and themes of faith in our day. 

I love this book and it is an incredible inspiration to me, but at the same time, no one I know in this living world is like her....just as saintly, perhaps, but different still.  I feel a little intimidated and apprehensive, all the while admiring her. I think that God gives us the grace to do what He calls us to do, and Ruth had a special grace because of her calling to be a helpmate for an ambitious man and a beautiful brood of babies. Without diminishing any of her value, any woman God called to that life could have the supernatural, spirit-led pluck and gumption that Ruth had, if she was obedient and submitted to His will as she was. One thing I would find really interesting and helpful would be to know a little more of the struggles she faced besides the cancer and losing a child. Her life through her letters was so "together" except for the times she mentioned that marriage was difficult. I would love to have had a little more insight and instruction into how to sustain and overcome difficulties and petty obstacles of every day life in marriage and as a mother to all the children. I am sure she wasn't always perfectly together, and had the same struggles all women face. It would be helpful to read of someone's experiences going through that.

You mention the lifelessness and the pragmatism and the “religion” she had. But don’t forget what first drew her into the faith…being moved by the love and care that the pilgrims had for one another, and the self sacrifice reflected in their care—regardless of what was scientifically true—from that point, they had two types of Christian community…the super liberal universalist or Unitarian church, and the Catholic Church. Between the two of those, you and I would both sway Catholic any day. Especially in our day in age. The alternative was completely postmodern, wishy washy, unorthodox. I can take some deliberation and interpretation and license with doctrine, but not much. I am, at the end of the day, pretty solid in my orthodox beliefs. They are ingrained in me, and my spirit inwardly discerns what is and is not “right belief”—within reason. In many ways, what you see as “religious” is really good boundaries and a good framework for knowing Orthodoxy (right belief) but of course leaving room for God to be creative and explode the boxes you put him in. This tension is always a good one to be mindful of, I think. But without good boundaries and out-of-bounds markers that come from “religion”, “spirituality” can come to mean whatever one thinks it means based on logic, feeling, experience, etc. This is why Tradition and organized religion and a counsel of witnesses are important. Our faith is not just about our relationship with Jesus; it’s about Who God is and has been forever. 

You are right that her faith governed her decisions, and swamped her personal feelings. She was absolutely convinced of the Truth, it’s rather remarkable. And I guess when one has that amount of faith, doubts and personal struggles become less dominant as one accepts the authority of scripture and doctrine and can more easily rest in that. You say that she tried to live within the mold morally and personally…and that it’s droll and lifeless. But in reality, she just trusted God and her Theology more than she heeded her own inner turmoil. She believed what she knew about God. Again. She believed what she knew about God. And that is why it is not academic but true spiritual relationship and right religion. Emotions are good, but should be in line with and testify to the truth of the Doctrine. One should not have to deny or ignore emotion, but to submit emotion to God’s authority and have the feelings transformed by the renewing of the mind. Easier said than done (for example, individuals with same sex attraction) but plenty will still tell you that everyone has to submit their feelings and preferences to God’s authority at one time or another.

I agree that guidelines for character, behavior, thought, actions, etc, must come from Christ, but he is and was always the same, and humans are humans are humans. What was faithful practice hundreds of years ago is still beneficial for us today, which is why the Apostle’s Creed held by most evangelical denominations as well as the Catholic Church talk about the “communion of saints” and the fellowship of believers from ancient times through today. Yes, God moves and is alive in us today, but chances are He is not instructing us to do things that he didn’t inspire our predecessors to do, or stop us from doing things our forefathers did from the era of the Ascension on. It is a very self-centered faith that merely looks at what God is telling us to do today by asking, “What does this Scripture say about me?” Rather than “What is this saying about God and his kingdom’s reign?”

You say, “If God is in us, then we are not solely dependent on the authority of the church to determine God’s will, word, purpose, etc.” Right. Exactly so on an individual level, although wise counsel and discernment can only help. But in terms of setting the bounds of orthodoxy, authoritative church counsels have been used by God to determine exactly how to interpret and determine certain formative doctrines of Christianity, such as the Trinity and certain documents such as the recent “agreement” on the terms of Justification signed by the Evangelical Lutherans and Catholics to mend the major schism of the reformation. These are necessary parts of our faith history, and without the solid rock of these beliefs, individual spirit led truth would only carry us so far in understanding God. Enough for salvation? Probably. But there is so much abundant life and freedom beyond salvation for the faithful Christian.

Will I become Catholic? If I marry a Catholic man, then yes. If I don’t, then probably not, although who knows. If I moved to a different city and wasn’t involved in a protestant church and knew that I could find good spiritual and intellectual community in the Catholic Church then maybe. But I will not regularly pray to Mary and the Saints (although I really did like Ruth’s talk on Mary at the end of the book.) Or talk about the Pope and church hierarchy and read all their writings to the exclusion of my own preferred humble spiritual sustenance of scriptures and practical inspired strange biographies like Stanley Jones.

You say that your church would not exist if it was legalistic or had liturgically defined morals. Maybe. But the moment you stop taking stands on right or wrong, you become part of the reason people like me actually consider Catholicism. Because it’s arguably the single Christian movement who has always held right views on many of these social issues. Catholic Charities are on the front lines of poverty and aid relief in every part of the globe. And the Church has always been and always will be pro-life in every sense of the word, and has an unparalleled stance on divorce, unseen by other modern Christian churches. Being accomodationist is, I think, one of the scariest realities of the protestant church today, especially the now largely impotent and irrelevant mainline protestant denominations ."