Am I Already a Pharisee?

From the desk of Fr. Ignatius Waters CP

Sunday 9th October 2016

This was written by Sr. Theresa Aletheia
Noble, FSP. I am sharing it with you because
I think it is so honest, real and wise: “I used
to be a little girl who loved Anne of Green
Gables, violin concertos, and writing stories
about fairies. Then I became an atheist punk
rocker and later a vegan animal-rights
activist. After college I was an inner-city
school teacher, then a humble farm worker. Then, miraculously, a believer in God, a
Catholic, a believer in Jesus, and after that — most shockingly to me, and everyone I knew —
a nun.
Now, when I walk down the street as a religious sister, some people see the institutional
Church, others see someone on the fringe of society, others see an eccentric, and others see
love. I am all of these things in some way.
Sometimes I wonder if I belong where I am, in a habit, in the “in-crowd” of the Church. Will I
become a misguided Pharisee? In what ways am I already a Pharisee? Will I stop wrestling
and start nesting, just looking for comfort, acknowledgment, routine, ease, and pleasure?
Will I, after all that I have given up to live this life, just be a mediocre religious in the end?
I call myself a “former” atheist but that really is not the best label. I still am (and hope to
always be) connected with all of the things I ever have been, in some way. Many people
expect me to speak about my past as if I am terribly contrite and embarrassed. But I am only
ashamed of the ways I did not love God and others. I am not ashamed of the seeking, the
wrestling, and the questioning. I am not ashamed of being eccentric and bold, an odd rebel. I
have not discarded my past, nose wrinkled, as if it were smelly garbage.
I think it is important for us to see our sin as God sees it. He knows precisely which things
that may have led us to sin that will also, with the proper training, lead us to be saints. St.
Paul was an overly zealous Pharisee, a rule-idolater and a violent persecutor. But much of
what made him sin in the name of God was also what lent itself to his future holiness. Each
of us has a unique gift to give others and the Church, and God often draws on the most
unexpected aspects of our personalities and talents to do so.
I found myself praying the oddest prayer the other day. “Dear Lord, I used to wish you
would cure my natural skepticism but now I never want you to take it away. I don’t want
an easy, naive faith. Make my faith daring, bold, and unashamed but never take away my
understanding for those who doubt. I always want to be united with those on the fringes of
the Church, those who find no understanding, those cast out of ‘insider’ circles, the
doubters, the seekers, the eccentrics, and the misfits. From a Church of ‘in-crowds’ and
comfort, deliver me Lord.”