Christ and Self
I saw a list of short testimonies by souls who had converted or reverted to Catholicism. This one stood out to me, by a man named Michael:
I came from Buddhism family. Buddhism is almost entirely individualistic. For example, I’m deaf. In Buddhistic thinking, my deafness’ the result of my punishment from my bad karma. I must have done evil things in my previous life to become deaf in this current life.
But in Catholicism, my deafness’ not the result of the sin (John 9:1-3). God made me deaf so that the works of God’s power might be displayed through me. So I realize that it’s the gift of my cross that Jesus gave me in my birth, and called me to follow Him. So the world knows that I’m His disciple.
Another one is individuality. In Buddhism, I’m Michael here in this life. If I die, I may be reborn as another person with different name, or animal or even bug (imagine being reborn as dung beetle that eats feces). In short, I don’t have individuality and buddha can’t save or help me. He just left his teachings and said, “It’s your problem. But it’s just temporary. Just meditate on my teachings, and it will go away.”
But in Catholicism, God made me who I am. I’m still Michael after death. I’m still Michael when I go to Heaven and unite with God. I’m still Michael after resurrection.
My comment: I have been aware, in a vague way, that Eastern mysticism is collectivistic while Western rationalism is individualistic, and the Christians place a high, indeed an infinitely high, value on the lives of individuals the world finds worthless: widows, orphans, retards, cripples, beggars and outcasts, unborn babies and the brain-dead in sickbeds.
In the cold, acetylene light of Enlightenment secularism, whoever is useless to the Revolution is fed to the guillotine; while in the Libertarian land of Randtopia, those who cannot work nor beg must starve. The Seculars worship Evolution, where the loss of the weak improves the breed and leads from barbarism to utopia, and from apeman to superman. The Randian, falling to the opposite extreme, worships individualism, as if each man created himself by himself and owes no charity to any other, and never to those who cannot repay. Each regards the balanced sanity of Christian life to be an example of their extreme opposite, and the sole common foe on whom they both agree to scorn and oppose.
Secularism is merely the latest in a string of heresies starting with Gnosticism and Arianism, Mohammedanism and Protestantism, which refines and combines all prior heresies into one. Protestants reject the Church, Mohammed rejects Church and the Bible, Arius rejected the divinity of Christ, and Gnosticism rejects the goodness of Creation.
Secularism rejects all sacred things Church and Scripture, Christ and Creator, in the name of Reason, but goes on to rejects Reason in the name of Equality, Tolerance, and the vacuous non-judgementalism if Nihilism.
In Christ alone is man still man, and Michael remains Michael, both here and hereafter.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
