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For a convert, Christmas is necessarily an ecumenical affair. My husband and I illustrated this well this year as we traveled around the country exchanging Christmas greetings with our various relations, among whom there are: lots of Mormons and Pentecostals, an Orthodox, an atheist, lapsed Lutherans and Baptists, and two members of the “I AM” faith, as well as a few odd individuals who would probably check “undecided” if asked on a survey to identify their faith. Among this crew there is also one (somewhat lapsed) Catholic, though unfortunately we didn’t get to see him this year. God bless America.
I have found in recent years (I was going to say ’since becoming a Catholic’, but in fact the trend started quite some time before I was actually baptized) that my appreciation of Easter and Lent has increased immensely, while the joy of Christmas becomes more elusive. On some level this isn’t at all surprising. As a child, Christmas was without question the most joyful day of the year, in no small part because of the presents. (We weren’t very rich, so Christmas and birthdays were generally the only occasions on which we received new toys.) In adulthood, presents tend to become more practical and less exciting, and the magical mystery of Santa Claus obviously dissolves at some point. Easter, by contrast, was a pretty low-key holiday for us Mormons. Neither Lent nor Paschaltide nor Pentecost made any appearance on our calendars, and even Good Friday got barely a mention. We did know the Easter story, of course, but without the drama of the surrounding seasons, it’s hard to make Easter much more than a nice day with a good dinner and an egg hunt in the backyard. The upshot is that there was plenty of room for my appreciation of Easter to grow, while the intense excitement of Christmas could hardly help but diminish.
Even so, the pleasure I once took in Christmas was not entirely materialistic. Besides the presents and candy, there were also the joyful greetings, the decorations, and the happy times at home with family, playing games and baking cookies and gathering around the piano to sing carols about the birth of Christ. (I know it’s a stereotype, but we really did this throughout the Christmas season.) Further, one would hope that the diminishment of childhood enthusiasm for presents might give way to a more mature, sublime contemplation of the beautiful mystery of the Incarnation. Sometimes it does. Other times, though, I feel myself defeated by the whirlwind of confusion and uncertainty that always comes with these ecumenical encounters. During Lent, and at Easter, I am generally able to surround myself with Catholic rites and devotions, so that this time of year is used for intense introspection and, ultimately, spiritual renewal. Christmas, by contrast, is spent with family. I love them all deeply, but it would be hard to imagine a place less conducive to spiritual peace and clarity.
Perhaps a verbal snapshot would help clarify what I mean. It’s Christmas Eve, and I am in the kitchen of my parents’ house in California, preparing our traditional Christmas Eve dessert together with one of my cousins. She is chattering artlessly about her recently completed Mormon mission, explaining to me why immigrants from Muslim countries are more difficult to convert than immigrants from Catholic countries. I don’t say much, until my aunt comes in and mercifully changes the subject. But soon everything is prepared, and we enjoy a delicious meal, after which the family gathers around for our traditional reading of the Christmas story. My brother reads it, but the translation he chooses (his Orthodox Study Bible, in fact) renders the Angel Gabriel’s salutation, “Hail, thou who art highly favored,” and my husband lets out a loud boo to express his disapproval. My family looks over in astonishment, wondering why on Earth anyone would boo the Christmas story. I shush him.
After the reading, we move on to the singing of carols, a custom I still love and cherish from the old days. My family, I should say, is quite musical, and my brothers especially have excellent voices. I get stuck singing soprano most of the time (and I don’t quite have the range for it) but here at least I see a glimpse of the old days with the family together, everyone singing, and everyone appreciating the meaning of the songs. But even here there are small, awkward moments. “It’s after sundown,” I joke, “so I think we can sing about the birth of the infant Jesus. Anything except “Oh Come, Oh Come, Emmanuel!”
“Oh!” says my aunt. “That’s a beautiful carol! Let’s sing that!” Shouldn’t have mentioned it.
After the carols, my mother cuts into the dessert that my cousin and I have made, but my husband and I excuse ourselves to go get ready for Mass. We offer an general invitation to anyone who cares to join us. No takers. So just the two of us go, leaving them with their plates of Yule Log in hand, and come back in the small hours of the morning after everyone is asleep, hungry now but not wanting to wake anyone by going into the kitchen. “Ah well, plenty of good food tomorrow!” I promise myself as I fall asleep. I used to like to read the Christmas story over to myself before sleeping on Christmas Eve, but there’s no place to do it where the light wouldn’t keep someone up. I’m asleep in about two seconds anyway.
Now, hopefully, the above scene serves to illustrate that Christmas with my family is not unpleasant in any sense. It is not vulgarly secular, nor fraught with fights and hurt feelings, nor lonely, nor any of the other things people so often complain about at Christmas. Whatever else can be said of us, we are a religious family, and also in our own way a close and loving family, but we are burdened by the necessity of having an ecumenical Christmas, which is not the sort that any of us would prefer. At a time when we’d most like to be frank and open, we must instead give one another space, choosing subjects a little carefully, trying always to walk a line between causing scandal and causing offense. Even during the singing (which is the part of our family Christmas that I enjoy most) there is still in one corner of my mind a bit of melancholy. I used to think of the caroling as an expression, not only of praise for the Christ child, but also as an expression of family love and harmony. Now, though, that feeling is a bit illusory. You can’t have that same degree of unity in a pluralist household like ours, and I think all of us realize this.
Discussions of ecumenism and the ethics of evangelization generally focus on situations in which the parties involved are strangers or at least casual acquaintances. Thus, we worry about ecumenical efforts because they threaten to instill indifferentism and confusion about the nature of the Church’s authority. That is certainly a legitimate concern, though I won’t say much about it here since the argument is likely familiar to most of our readers. On the other side, though, some worry that an excess of evangelical zeal might breed enmity, and dehumanize the very people whom the missionary vows to help.
This latter concern is expressed particularly well, I think, by a speech given by Danny DeVito near the end of the movie The Big Kahuna. DeVito plays Phil, a salesman of industrial lubricants attempting to land a big deal for his company together with friend and colleague Larry (Kevin Spacey) and junior salesman Bob (Peter Facinelli) who also happens to be a dedicated Evangelical. Chance dictates that Bob is the one who ends up getting some personal time with the critical target of their efforts… but instead of selling lubricants, he uses the time to give the man a message about accepting Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. When the other two discover what he has done, Larry hits the roof and storms out of the room. Phil, by contrast, sits Bob down for a little talk about life. Along the way he gives a nice summary of the liabilities of promoting your own views in conversation with others.
“You preaching Jesus,” Phil explains, “is no different than Larry, or anybody else, preaching lubricants. It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling Jesus, or Buddha or civil rights or how to make money on real estate with no money down. That doesn’t makes you a human being. That makes you a marketing rep. If you want to talk to someone honestly, as a human being, ask him about his kids, find out what his dreams are. Just to find out. For no other reason. Because as soon as you lay your hands on a conversation, to steer it, it’s not a conversation, it’s a pitch. And you’re not a human being. You’re a sales rep.”
Okay. Obviously there are some problems with this view. In the first place, not all “sales reps” are created equal; it presumably does make a difference whether you’re promoting something that’s bad for your client (e.g. a pyramid scheme) or something good (e.g. salvation.) If the “salesman’s” motives are sufficiently generous, the lines between Phil’s two categories might start to get rather blurred — when I shout to someone to get out of a building before it burns to the ground, am I acting as a person or a sales rep? In bringing others into the faith, we Catholics are not trying to assimilate them, Borglike, into Pope Benedict’s Massive Hive of Drones. We want them to come as themselves, with their own unique personalities and gifts. In fact, we promise to make them more like themselves, by helping to return them to their true and uncorrupted natures. It’s possible to appreciate a person’s good qualities while still recognizing that they would benefit from the Sacraments and the teachings of the Church. There is no incompatibility between loving people and trying to covert them.
Still, Phil has his finger on something, and I think it’s this: there’s no tension between love and evangelization, but there is a tension between intimacy and evangelization. Personal intimacy between people is really only possible when everyone feels accepted. When people are working to change one another, there is necessarily some distance. Even if there aren’t any hard or resentful feelings (and there often are), personal closeness requires a high level of mutual understanding that is destroyed by zealous efforts at evangelization. This is never more evident than in families, where the desire for closeness is particularly strong. In fact, it’s within families that questions about ecumenism become most relevant, because our families are the ones we most of all want to save… and also the ones we most want keep near us.
It’s always somewhat painful to disagree with the people you love about important questions. It’s often unpleasant to emphasize this, which is why I’ve found that it’s often easier for me to talk to my husband’s family about religion… and for him to talk to mine. His mother sometimes asks me questions about our work and our faith that she wouldn’t be likely to pose to him. He, for his part, can talk to my relatives about religion with a calmness that I can’t always manage. It’s less upsetting to disagree with your son-in-law or your mother-in-law than with your mother or your son.
Discussion of religion is somewhat ubiquitous in my family, but I often find it difficult to be as patient with them as I would be with a student, a casual friend, or a stranger on a plane. With the stranger or casual acquaintance, I am satisfied if I can bring to light just one or two points that they may not have appreciated before. With family, a sense of almost desperate urgency begins to creep over me, so that I do feel a bit like the person trying to get others out of the burning building. Having lived with these people so much longer, I have a much deeper understanding of their views and their characters, and of where exactly it is that we disagree. It sometimes seems as though perfect understanding could be reached in a moment, if only I could find the right words! But of course, I never do. It’s like being in a fairy tale in which the object of my desire is inside a fragile-looking glass box, or at the bottom of a shallow pool lying just at my feet. I have only to say the magic word and all will be well… but somehow the word is never found.
Which would you rather be: the sales rep or the intimate friend? Love can be compatible with either, I think, but the choice is a difficult one when the love is intense.
Converts aren’t the only people who wrestle with such questions, of course. No family in history (with perhaps one exception) has agreed about everything that matters in life, so there will always be questions about when to advise and when to tolerate. The problems are particularly acute, though, in families with significant religious differences… and the convert must always be conscious that, in most people’s eyes, he is the one most responsible, as the one who altered the harmonious status quo.
Perhaps the most inspiring thing to remember on such Christmases is that the Jews, too, had their many woes and divisions… and the Messiah came at a time when nobody was looking for Him, and in a place nobody would have thought to look. If we can celebrate such a joyous event on the darkest day of the year, we should also trust that God can heal our families of the pain of ecumenism. May Jesus, Mary and Joseph watch over all your families, in Christmastide and throughout the year!
St. Louis-Marie de Montfort,
Pope St. Pius X,
St. Joseph,
St. Ambrose of Milan,
St. Thomas Aquinas,
St. Francis (and St. Clare),
St. Catherine of Siena,
St. Alphonsus Ligouri,
St. John Chrysostom,
Clara — There’s an interesting (but badly done) article on Mormons in NYC in the Observer this week: http://www.observer.com/2008/mormons-manhattan?page=0,0
Very good Clara. Thank you for taking the edge off that bit about being a sales rep. Obviously there is a lot of prejudice against sales people but generally they are a very friendly and personable lot because they’re talking to people all the time and they know how tough life can be and what problems people face; they deal with it all the time. The best sales reps are also the most human, the ones who not only know your name but also your kids, where you went to school, and what your dreams are. “Just to find out. For no other reason.” Other than promoting the wrong religion no one can fault the dedicated evangelical for his “zeal.” What could be more human than to be interested in someone’s soul and salvation? But it’s part of being PC to treat everyone’s false beliefs as sacred and to have no negative opinions about them. I think a lot of it is in the approach and in being sincere, but no one is going to last in sales who is obnoxious or doesn’t sincerely believe that his product is worth promoting.
In dealing with family members, I don’t see how you can remain intimate while having differences in fundamentals such as religious beliefs. And since to me it seems impossible, there has to come a time or times when everyone is willing to hash it out—obviously not on Christmas Eve but perhaps on all others. When my clan gets together for a funeral, wedding, picnic or any type of reunion there is always plenty of discussion about religion—usually centered around liberal views and beliefs verses traditional. It gets hot and heavy but is very stimulating and there’s always satisfaction attached to standing up for truth. And no matter what the truth has a grace attached to it. When people hear it, they get an Actual Grace to accept it.
Suppose I were in the Insurance Business. (“I don’t sell insurance; I just make it available.”) One day my sister tells me, “You know I don’t believe in insurance but the other day, I took Junior to the Emergency room with a gash on his head and blood all over the place. The first thing they asked for was my insurance card. After telling them I didn’t have one, they asked me to fill out half a dozen forms for Free Care. Why didn’t you ever warn me about this; you’re in the Insurance Business.” Whereupon I say, “You’re my sister; I could never criticize your beliefs or, worse yet, play the sales rep and sell you of all things, Insurance. It would have ruined our bond.”
I know a priest who was once stationed at a rectory with four other priests. The pastor had a rule in place to preserve the bond of charity: “At the dinner table there is to be no discussion about politics or religion.” That’s a true ecumenical approach to the problem of not being able to discuss differences of opinion.
A few weeks ago, I got a call in the evening from a stranger and I cut him short, “Wait a minute. Is this a sales call?” “Well, not really,” he responded. I said, “That’s too bad because I would listen if you had something that might improve the quality of living. But I don’t have time just to shoot the breeze.” “Actually,” he said, “I’m selling Fire Alarms.” “Sorry,” I said, “I have so much insurance on this place, it’s worth more to me burned to the ground.”
So I believe, if you’re going to sell, SELL. And if you’re going to evangelize be up front and do it so that when those you love appear before God they wont be able to say, “My Catholic friends and relatives never told me or were afraid to discuss what I had to believe.”
I would be interested to see one of these family arguments, Discipule. Do they end in one side convincing the other, or in laughter, or in tears and accusations and whispered apologies, or does everyone eventually just get exhausted with arguing and quit?
But in any case, my question (sales rep or trusted friend?) was largely rhetorical, because I don’t think you can just choose. You are quite right that, on the one hand, we might express our love most fully by helping bring people to the Church, where they will have access to the teachings of the Magisterium and to the Sacraments. It would be terrible to think that you might be responsible for their never realizing what they were missing… possibly even for their failing to grasp something that might have made the difference to their salvation. Trust me, I understand this worry. It haunts me, in fact.
But playing sales rep all the time with intimates would eventually destroy those relationships. The continual, overt efforts to change the other person would eliminate the spirit of sympathy, and of mutual understanding, that is needed in some measure if intimate relationships are to be sustained. Now, on the one hand, that might just be the risk you have to take — I’d be willing to endure being separated from family and friends if I knew that would make the difference between their salvation and damnation. But of course, those relationships are very valuable in their own right, and furthermore, you probably won’t succeed in converting the people you love if you alienate them all with continual zealous “pitches”. More probably, they will be resentful and become even more hardened against the faith.
So tact and judgment are needed, and you must weigh your words carefully, and consider when to speak and when to be silent. With some people argument may be possible, and even mutually enjoyable. As I’ve said, there are many members of my family who quite enjoy arguing about religion, and they won’t hold a grudge against me for representing my actual beliefs when we do get into debates. Other people, though, may resent any direct efforts to persuade them, and with these it might be best just to see what can be accomplished through example and prayer. For converts like my husband and myself, it’s probably healthy sometimes to remember that we are ourselves quite new to the faith, and we can’t expect our families to adjust immediately to something that’s actually quite an adjustment for us too. Those who are intimate enough to remain in close touch over the course of years will have the opportunity to see how Catholicism influences our whole adult lives, and those (God willing) of our children, and for some people that might make more of an impact than the direct, verbal approach.
I don’t know your exact history, Discipule, but I do think things might be different in many ways for the relatively recent convert. This, in fact, is one of the most painful elements of conversion — you realize that many of your most cherished relationships have been built on a sympathy that now no longer exists. The intimacy doesn’t immediately die upon the occasion of baptism, but many of its sources are extinguished, and that eventually takes its toll. I should mention here that nearly everyone experiences something like this at some time or other. Adults, for example, will sometimes meet up with friends from their childhood or youth, only to discover that they no longer have anything in common, and this is always a bit melancholy. In conversion, though, there are a lot more changes in a much shorter period of time, so it’s a little harder to handle.
In my case, I held my cards pretty close to the vest during the period just before my conversion (my best friend from college — a serious cradle Catholic who’s kept in close touch ever since — was absolutely floored when I casually mentioned that I was getting baptized the following month) so afterwards there were a lot of things to explain. People who find out that I’m a convert very commonly ask me, “So how did your family and friends take it?” and it’s often quite hard to explain what that was really like. On one level it caused almost no reaction at all. Hardly anybody will just blurt out, “Well, I’m not very interested in knowing you anymore, now that you’re Catholic.” For some people, the news doesn’t seem to make any impact; others find it interesting but not really good or bad; others are saddened but not on that score prepared to cut all ties with you. In fact, though, the really hard moment is not the one when you announce that you’re converting. It’s the one when an old friend starts on a subject that was once (quite recently, even) a happy point of agreement between you, and you have to explain, “well, I don’t really think that anymore.” Or the one when a relative, genuinely looking to be friendly and conciliatory, appeals to your agreement in some indifferentist sentiment, and you have to say, “Ummm… not… exactly.” It’s the pregnant pause and the “do I still know you?” look that are so deadly. And you eventually have to accept the fact that many of your old friendships may just not survive, while other relationships might be substantially altered.
Anyway, I say all this just by way of observing that things are probably rather different when you’ve been Catholic for twenty years, or thirty years, or your whole life. Standing up for the faith may still be difficult at times, but at any rate people who know you well are probably used to it. With converts, they’re not, so the desire to speak the truth is often tempered by a desire not to make the people who love you feel alienated or betrayed.
Truly, there are no easy answers to these questions. This is why I suggest that perhaps it would be right to see ‘ecumenism’ not as an exciting project, nor as a dirty modernist heresy, but rather as an unavoidable burden that many of us must carry if our families are not united in the faith.
In the extended family discussions, I mentioned, I will admit that there is usually never a quick crossing of the lines but often times there are decisive victories on historical facts which tend to bring others over to your side. There’s usually no hard feelings if you stick to the issues. Perhaps it is a peculiar Irish trait to actually enjoy a lively debate be it on religion, politics, sports, or whose home town is the best. If it starts getting too heated there’s always someone to inject some extra humor to relieve the tension.
I fully agree with you that you can’t be a sales rep all the time—even among those that agree with you. Some people are so intense in what they do or believe that they can turn their own friends away; they appear to have a one track mind and can fail to appreciate the many good things around them.
Essentially, I would say that people have to know where you stand and if they then want to speak against what you believe in normal conversation, then they should be willing at least to hear your defense. Other than that, tact and good judgment are essential as well as good example, as you mentioned. You have to be looking for the right time to speak up. I appreciate your insights as a convert and can see the difficulties you experience.
My only hang-up at this point is that word “Ecumenism.” I don’t think it is the best term to describe your circumstances. When Our Lord mixed with those other than his own—let’s say the common people verses the apostles and disciples—I wouldn’t call that ecumenical. If, however, He decided to go and have a friendly chat with the Scribes and Pharisees and pretended that it didn’t matter that they hated Him and His doctrine, I would call that Ecumenism.
“Essentially, I would say that people have to know where you stand and if they then want to speak against what you believe in normal conversation, then they should be willing at least to hear your defense.”
Yes, that is certainly right. It’s not necessary to start arguments at every possible opportunity, but it is necessary to represent the Church’s teachings faithfully when relevant subjects come up. It would be wrong (scandalous, actually) to create, or knowingly allow, misconceptions concerning matters of the faith. I also agree that close friends and family should, if at all possible, be acquainted with the fundamentals of what you believe as a Catholic.
“My only hang-up at this point is that word “Ecumenism.” I don’t think it is the best term to describe your circumstances. When Our Lord mixed with those other than his own—let’s say the common people verses the apostles and disciples—I wouldn’t call that ecumenical. If, however, He decided to go and have a friendly chat with the Scribes and Pharisees and pretended that it didn’t matter that they hated Him and His doctrine, I would call that Ecumenism.”
Ah, but you see, we have another word for that already: indifferentism. It’s quite true that people often use the word ‘ecumenism’ when they really mean ‘indifferentism’, and it may also be true that one often serves as a stepping stone to the other. Nonetheless, they are not precisely the same thing. ‘Ecumenism’ has to do with engaging people of other faiths in conversations or cooperative endeavors, and it can be a good thing or at any rate a necessary one. ‘Indifferentism’ is the theory that no faith is essentially better or more right than another.