Matthew Levering,
Why I Am Roman Catholic
Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic,
2017
166 pp
ISBN 978-1-5140-0314-5
The chapters of this relatively short but intense book are as follows: Why I Am Christian, Why I Am Catholic, What I Have Found Especially Beneficial about Being Catholic, What I Have Found Difficult about Being Catholic, Catholics and Ecumenism, and Catholic Theological Exegesis.
Matthew Levering, distinguished theologian, husband, and father, takes a personal approach to these questions, bringing us through his journey to and within Catholicism.
Levering explains that he once tried to write a novel only to discover that he did not think in those terms, that dialogue and story were not his strong suit. So while he is a convert from Quakerism, in this work—more than a conversion narrative—he is offering an “unfinished meditation” on his Catholic life. He draws on the work of the saints and theologians down the ages, that “cloud of witnesses” who have shed much light on his theology and his journey of faith, from St. Ignatius of Antioch through the great medieval mystics to St. Teresa of Calcutta.
Why I Am Christian
He became a Christian for four reasons: the mystery of death and dying, the power of Christ’s Cross, the infinite mystery of God, and the harmony of the two Testaments of Scripture. His fairly constant illness and handicap as a child made him more sensitive to these realities, which the Quaker tradition in which he grew up did not seem to account for very well. Awareness of dying (and living) showed that we are totally dependent on God, who can strengthen us in the face of the fear of death. Christians who could believe, hope, and love in the face of death were convincing for him.
The Cross stimulated a hunger in Levering; he saw it as St. Catherine of Siena did, as a bridge over which we can cross. Even in this life we can see it as a hope in temptation and weakness: even if we are deficient, we can throw ourselves on the mercy of the Cross. Awe before God is his third reason: as a recent convert he felt the extraordinary power of God and his humility in reaching out to him. Finally, after a vain attempt to get his head around the Gospel of Matthew, he turned to the Old Testament and read the whole Bible. Once he understood the connections between Old and New Testament, the people of Israel and the life of Jesus, everything fell into place.
Why I Am Catholic
Why Catholic? He never had any doubts on that score: when becoming Christian, he had read the writings of St. John Paul II, Joseph Ratzinger, and Hans Urs von Balthasar, among others. He and his wife had committed to living in accord with Catholic sexual morality. But it was also the Petrine office, the Virgin Mary, and the Eucharist that convinced him. Without the Pope, how could Christians know what Christ has taught, live in accord with his will, and preserve the Church’s unity in line with Christ’s wishes and command?
He also became a Catholic because of Mary: he could not accept that she was a mere passive instrument in the Redemption. Being mother, she was the truest temple of God. He was quite taken by the Church’s gradual unpacking of this special status, linked to that of her Son, the perpetual source of her greatness.
The Eucharist: even before he became a Catholic, he experienced the Eucharist as a thing of beauty. Priests and bishops made sense to him above all when they celebrated Mass. The Church’s witness to marriage, too, made him ask: are people happier in our divorce culture? He highlights the nature of self-gift in marriage, knowing too that one will be accepted and not be tossed aside when a burden.
What I Have Found Especially Beneficial about Being Catholic
The benefits of being Catholic: humility, providence, and marriage. Humility is different from humiliation. Confession is humility in action, he points out with Mother Teresa. It is a way to receive your true self (Thomas Merton). He muses on the power of God’s providence in his own and others’ lives. Finally, he reflects on the graces of his own marriage and how every marriage, with its fidelity, love, and fruitfulness, reflects and prepares the eternal marriage feast.
What I Have Found Difficult about Being Catholic
But being Catholic is not an idyll: there have always been difficulties, right from the earliest days, as a cursory reading of St. Paul’s letters shows. In particular, Levering refers to the post–Vatican II years, when the so-called “spirit” of the Council distracted so many from the documents it actually produced. He also points to worldliness as a temptation that affects us all; in his own case, wanting to be a high-flying intellectual rather than a “serviceable theologian” (he is a bit more than that!).
As Henri Nouwen expresses it, the temptation of living for something other than God is always around. Scandals in the Church also come to the fore, including pro-abortion Catholic politicians. Ultimately, these tragedies spur us to seek and discover our vocation to love, as St. Thérèse did, containing all the vocations.
Catholics and Ecumenism
What does ecumenism mean and what does it not mean? The idea of setting up a federation of churches will not work, as the Church of Christ already subsists in the Catholic Church. Neither is the Church to be seen as an aspiration for some time in the future. Neither polemics nor selling out, but a respectful exchange of gifts, friendship, and growth in unity are the true fruits of ecumenism, based on attentive scholarship and deep desire, and prayer for unity to the Lord who spoke of one flock, one shepherd.
Catholic Theological Exegesis
This final chapter might sound a bit abstract, but parts of it are the most moving sections in the book. It is based on a close reading of Genesis 1:1–3:
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
Here Levering finds the basis of our divine filiation, which allows us to relate to God as his adopted sons and daughters in the incarnate Son. This is our identity; this is what Christ reveals that God has willed from all eternity. Genesis 1:1 describes the Father, 1:2 the Spirit, and 1:3 the Son, the Word, united with the Father and the Spirit as creation is spoken into being. Here he finds the loving and provident God of Scripture, the God who redeems his creation through the same Word through whom he created it, restoring his image and likeness by his own Image, born in our flesh.
In this work Matthew Levering conveys the riches of the faith in theological as well as personal terms. Each chapter invites the reader to draw closer to Christ and to follow in the footsteps of the saints. It is a treasury of the wisdom of centuries, a practical application of the “communion of saints.”