Christ in His Fullness: A Protestant Minister Discovers the Fullness of Christ in the Catholic Church by Bruce Sullivan

Author:Bruce Sullivan [Sullivan, Bruce]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Conversion to Catholicism, Apologetics, Protestant ministry
Publisher: CHResources
Published: 2013-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16 Christ in the Fullness of His Family

Little Flower Catholic Church of Hollywood, Florida, was named in honor of St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face. St. Therese was a nineteenth century Carmelite nun from Lisieux, France, and is known affectionately as the "Little Flower of Jesus" because in her childlike spirit she saw herself as a little flower in her beloved Lord's garden. Before passing from this life at the early age of twenty-four, she promised to send a shower of roses from heaven. The steeple of Little Flower Church was visible from my boyhood home. It was the first Catholic church that I ever entered. I attended Boy Scout meetings in her school building; I passed her each day on my way to high school; I can even remember thinking how embarrassing it would be to attend a school with a name like "Little Flower."

In the spring of 2005, God sent to Gloria and me the gift of our fifth child, whom we named Therese Marie Sullivan, in honor of the Little Flower of Jesus by whose intercessory prayers we had received so fragrant a rose.

One aspect of Catholic Christianity that often proves puzzling to Protestants is the way in which Catholics view their relationship with the saints in heaven. Both as a fundamentalist youth and as a Church of Christ preacher, I believed that the "dearly departed" were exactly that -- departed. While we might erect memorials in their honor and think of them on occasion, we could not be said to have any true relationship with them this side of heaven. I had even heard it said that since the saints in heaven were in the presence of Jesus, they no longer had any thoughts for the likes of us still on earth. Nothing could be further from the beliefs of the early Christians and the teaching of the Catholic Church.

In the catacombs of Rome, inscriptions on early Christian tombs call upon saints in heaven to pray for the dearly departed. This is just one example of how the early Christians believed, as the Catholic Church still teaches today, that the saints in heaven and the saints on earth are members of one Body, the Church. Christ does not have two bodies made up of those who are on earth and another of those who have passed from this life to the next. He has only one Body and, together, they form a family. Like all truly functional families, the family of God is composed of members who are mindful of each other.

As a Church of Christ member, I had a rather truncated view of the family of God. For all practical purposes, it was narrowly defined to encompass only those believers who were members of the Stone-Campbell Churches of Christ. At that time, if I had been asked to compose a catalog of the greatest Christian saints throughout the centuries, I would have presented a canon that most Protestants and Catholics would find quite startling.

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