I just wanted to say thank you for submitting this wonderful and heart-moving essay which, because of its length, we decided to publish in three parts. I’m a bit sorry that no one has commented on it thus far, but I am not surprised.

Frankly, I think that some of our readers did not quite know how to process it. I suspect that it made some of our evangelical Protestant readers uneasy because of its unabashedly Roman Catholic perspective. Terms like “Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament” sound very strange to those who have been steeped in Protestant traditions. To some, it may even sound like idol worship. As one who was raised in the Catholic church, I would assure them it is not idolatry. It is worship of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and contemplation on the mystery of his divine presence through the sacrament of Communion (which others call the Lord’s Supper).

The Roman Catholic church has certain teachings on the meaning of this sacrament that differs from views in Orthodox and various Protestant traditions. These views have caused so much argument and schism over the centuries. Which is ironic because Communion (which is rooted in “community”) is supposed to unite us, not divide us.

Other readers may have been taken aback by the strongly experiential, even mystical, aspects of your faith that you described so well. In certain Protestant traditions, believers are taught to be skeptical and extremely wary of such things, prefering instead to express their faith purely in terms of logic, propositional truths and theological principles. But a healthy Christian faith needs to have both. I have no doubt that you experienced the presence of God in ways that many of us never have, because we were simply afraid to allow the Holy Spirit to visit us in this manner; we preferred to shoo him away because he makes us uncomfortable; we didn’t want to get carried away and fall prey to emotionalism — which is a a real danger, of course, but not as dangerous as some woul have us believe.

I truly hope that no one will react to what I am writing now by trying to argue for or against this or that theological position. I hope that no one will try to say that “Catholics are not Christians” because that simply isn’t true. There are godly true believers in all kinds of churches all over the place, even aberrant ones. Belonging to a particular church or denomination does not make you a child of God, nor does it exclude you from God’s kingdom either. If you want to argue along those lines, fine, but please do it somewhere else with someone else; I am simply not interested. As a leader in an evangelical Protestant church, I have no problem worshiping in a Catholic church. I do not need to agree with every point of a church’s theology in order to worship side by side with brothers and sisters in Christ. Heck, I do not even agree with some of the theology and attitudes floating around in my own church.

I hope that Seed will grow to be a place where Christians from all traditions can recognize the presence of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit in one another. And a place where non-Christians will be welcomed as well, and not feel that they are being put down in any way because they think differently and do not yet have the gift of faith (and yes, it is a gift).

Anyway, Natalie, I just wanted to say thanks, and I look forward to reading more of these truly creative contributions from you in the future.