COMMENTARY: In Lent and Holy Week, we are reminded that arguments alone cannot overcome misunderstanding — only the light of holiness can dispel the shadows.
“We would like you to give a talk on defending the faith with a tie-in to Lent.”
I already have a talk on defending the faith. It’s something like a mini course in apologetics. I explain some of the soft skills of interacting with people like staying calm and asking clarifying questions, and I also address some of the kinds of questions that people ask: theological, historical and philosophical. But this was a new challenge, to somehow frame this talk in the context of Lent for a mini retreat for men.
“I look forward to seeing how the talk turns out.”
“Me too,” I replied.
For a long time, I sat with this question about what Lent could have to do with defending the faith. Some of the points I already had in my talk address the fact that most people have a bias against Catholicism based on information or misinformation they have received about the Church.
Church scandals, stories about the history of the Church, encounters with bad Catholics, stories about the Church’s interaction with science, sound bites and headlines that cast Catholics and Church teaching in a bad light, and a host of logical fallacies, like chronological snobbery, have built up in most people an automatic negative reaction to Catholicism.
Some of these things may in fact be accurate, but most people have probably gotten only “straw men,” which are not the full story and do not accurately represent the Church, Church teaching, or the Church’s role in events. After all, Venerable Fulton Sheen has said that there are not 100 people in America who hate Catholicism, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive Catholicism to be.
The one thing that is not merely a piece of information is the encounter that people have had with Catholics, who are judgmental and unloving. All of this adds up to shadows in people’s minds that they probably cannot clearly articulate, but have just resulted in a negative reaction. Defending the faith puts us in the position of Socrates, who said at his trial that he had to box with shadows. Boxing with shadows is not easy. In fact, it is impossible. You cannot box with a shadow, but you can dispel the shadow by shining a light on it.
That light must be the light of love and mercy, in other words, the light of holiness; not holiness as self-righteous, holier-than-thou superciliousness (which is not really holiness, anyway), but the true joyful and humble holiness that comes from an encounter and the unwavering love for Christ.
There is nothing more appealing than true holiness. It is irresistible because it is an encounter with authentic human beauty. It involves the whole person, not just the intellect and not just the emotions. And we cannot deny the radiance of a human being, fully alive, which is one way of describing a saint: someone who has reached full human potential.
This brings us to Lent and Holy Week. I have heard various accounts of the purpose and the origin of Lent. If nothing else, it is a time for us to seriously examine our lives and rid ourselves of anything that is not centered around Jesus.
So, the practices of Lent are aimed at uniting us more closely with Jesus Christ, and it is that light of Jesus shining through us that is the best defense of the faith, the best way to dispel the shadows.
Another thing that Lent does for us is that it puts things in perspective and rightly orders our pursuits. In pursuing holiness and defending the faith, we have to put first things first and second things second. The first and most important thing, our number one priority, is Jesus. At least second to that is defending the faith.
If we put defending the faith first, not only will we be a bad defender of the faith, but we will miss out on the most important thing: a more intimate relationship with Jesus. But if we place Christ at the center of our lives and pursue him wholeheartedly, then we will naturally become better witnesses to the faith.
After all, in the end, there is only one defense attorney, one Advocate; we are just witnesses.
