"Too Many Rules!"

“The Catholic Church has too many rules!”

Really?

The Church has a billion members, the large majority of whom belong to its Latin rite. The main legislation governing the Latin rite is the Code of Canon Law, which is one volume that runs a little over 500 pages in a standard English edition.

By comparison, the United States has around 300 million citizens. According to CCH Standard Federal Tax Reporter, the current U.S. Federal Tax code is 73,954 pages long.

Most laws the Catholic Church has deal with situations a lay person only rarely encounters. Such situations happen so infrequently that ordinary Catholics are not expected to know the details of the laws dealing with them. They can be briefed if and when the situations arise (e.g., what to do for confirmation, a once-in-a-lifetime experience).

There is a total of 71 rules for major league baseball, not counting definitions, exceptions, and clarifications which are very much a part of the Ruleset.  The Little League Baseball Rulebook has 111 rules. 

There are comparatively few rules an ordinary Catholic is expected to know: the Ten Commandments and the five precepts of the Church (CCC 2041-43). And how to prepare for the sacraments they regularly receive (primarily confession and the Eucharist). This doesn’t include everything a Catholic should know, but it does indicate the relative number of the rules that apply to a lay person’s experience.

Major league baseball games average a little over two hours. Little league games will generally go about an hour and fifteen minutes.  The “game of life” – to which Catholic rules apply averages somewhat longer.

In Christ, Ken.

Compliance? Or Surrender?

From a recent post by Matthew Kelly:

“I've done a lot of work over the past twenty years or so in addiction recovery centers... Very often these people are compliant. They do everything they need to do so that, at the end of the twenty-one days or the fourteen days or the thirty days, the judge will let them out. They're compliant, but they're unlikely to really deal with their addiction. Because in order to really deal with addiction, we have to go way beyond compliance to surrender.  The people who successfully recover from addiction, the people who successfully and sustainably deal with addiction in their lives… surrender.”

Matthew then suggests that, similarly, as Catholics, we can be compliant. Going to church on Sunday, giving generously, helping the poor, helping those in need, but it may be just compliance. Instead, he counsels, God is calling me to surrender; to discern what God is inviting me to do; to say “yes” to his invitation to go deeper in my relationship with him.

In Christ, Ken.