This morning on Fox and Friends, and many times in the past, Ainsley Earhard witnessed to Jesus Christ, her personal Lord and Savior. Today's inspiration came from her hawking a book that describes her life with its joys and sorrows and how her Lord, Jesus, her personal Savior got her through.
She often witnesses to Jesus as her personal Lord.
On either side of her are two Roman Catholics, Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmead who simply don't know how to witness to Jesus like their partner Ainsley. I suspect, too, they might think that she is a holy roller, not having grown up in the south, like me, where what Ainsley does is what Southern Baptists do and do well. She's not a holler roller. She is an evangelist.
I learned something from the lovely Ainsley this morning about her trials and tribulations and how her personal Lord and Savior, her Friend, Jesus Christ, got her through it all.
She had a miscarriage and a failed marriage, but is happily married now and with a wonderful little daughter.
But the killjoy in me, a Catholic priest, and I suspect in many traditional Catholics who are conservative, thought to myself, is she an adulterer? Did she have an invalid first marriage and if so who decided that? If her second marriage isn't valid, is she living as a sister with her husband who should be treated as a brother until her first husband dies or turns Catholic and gets an annulment?
Thus, I wonder like Pope Francis, if our rules and regulations, our being doctors of the law, stands in the way of evangelization and the wonderful personal relationship so many have with their personal Lord and Savior Jesus.
Ainsley is happy in her second marriage and she thinks it is blessed by God. I know a lot of Roman Catholics in the same situation, who think their second marriage, without the benefit of a Catholic legal procedure, an annulment, think their marriage is blessed by God and they love the Lord, their "adulterous partner" and the children they have together out of what is considered a sacramental marriage.
Do we Catholic doctors of the law with our rigid rules and regulations take the joy out of witnessing to Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior as cheerfully and joyfully as Ainsley does?
Just wondering.
5 comments:
Well, we need a bit more info, don't we?
What does Ms. Earhard understand to be the meaning of the "personal relationship" she says she has with Jesus?
Is it of the kind that means she and Jesus get along just fine and He approves of her actions, both virtuous and sinful? In that same vein, does this "relationship" give her a unique insight into the meaning of the Sacred Scriptures - that personal interpretation thing so many of our separated brothers and sisters believe?
Is it of the kind that wants to believe that the most important thing is that she has accepted Jesus when, in fact, what is most important is that Jesus has accepted her, sinner though she is? If "accepting Jesus" is the one thing required for salvation, then doesn't that mean that salvation depends on a human action - the "accepting" of Jesus as Lord?
Her cheery joyfulness may come from a very false understanding of what it means to believe in Jesus, so don't let that be the gauge of one's ability of "evangelize."
Holy Church, with her rules and regulations is our sure guide to the blessed life. Once anyone sees that, by the grace of God, he wants to enter in. I cannot think of a better way to evangelize than to preach her teachings boldly and to display her liturgy in all its beauty.
I can think of a better way: Live them.
Well, I have a respect for the Protestants in second marriages, that I do not for Catholics in the same situation (without an annulment). Even the liberal Protestants tend to view adultery as unjust and wrong. However, Catholics who claim to believe in the absolute indissolubility of marriage and yet make provision for living in adultery, are distorted in their principles. Wrong as Southern Baptists may be on the doctrine of indissolubility, they still know that if something is perceived as adultery that you better cease and repent or risk going to hell. Cardinal Cupich and those like him who posit that God may allow you in good conscience to live in sin ("not the ideal") lack the moral principles of all other Christians who still believe that if something is sin, you should stop and repent, not reward it with sacramental participation and general approbation. Even the most fundamentalist store-front Protestant preacher will respond to that by saying: "that's nasty."
If you grew up in the South, then you are probably all too well acquainted with Southern Baptists witnessing and witnessing and witnessing. I'm not feeling offended, or oppressed, just tired. If I wanted to know whether a complete stranger attends a great church with a great preacher who's really in the spirit, then I would ask, thank you very much. Those folks would be a lot more persuasive if Southern conservatives actually lived out Christian values instead of just talking about them. Historically, Catholics have tried to set a living example, which I think is the stronger approach.
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