To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here
Each day this Lent we’re looking at major “turning points” in Christian history – moments or seasons in which the story of God’s people took an important and often unexpected turn.
What do Richard Nixon, Winston Churchill, Napoleon Bonaparte, John Travolta, and Tom Brady have in common?
They all had great comebacks.
After losing the presidential election in 1960 and the California governor’s race two years later, the former vice-president sullenly told reporters, “You don’t have Nixon to kick around anymore.” But within the next decade he somehow won two terms in the White House.
In 1915, Churchill – publicly humiliated for his role in a failed World War I initiative – declared “I’m finished.” Who would ever suspect that in the year 2000 he would be voted Britain’s most important figure of the past 100 years?
Napoleon, exiled from France, came back to fight again (only to be exiled again). Travolta, having fallen from Hollywood’s summit after “Saturday Night Fever,” came roaring back years later in movies like “Pulp Fiction.” Brady, trailing 28-3 with only a few minutes left in the third quarter of Super Bowl LI, somehow led the New England Patriots to victory over the Atlanta Falcons.
Those are landmark comebacks in the worlds of politics, entertainment, and sports.
By 1530, the Catholic Church clearly needed a comeback of its own.
Spiritually hungry people had embraced Protestantism. Entire European nations had drifted toward the nascent Lutheran and Reformed movements. And no one doubted that the spiritual leadership in Rome was seriously compromised by immorality and sloth.
What would happen next? The Church was at a crossroads. Should Catholics major on pushing back against Protestant initiatives, or seek the renewal of their own house?
Rome chiefly chose the latter path. The result was significant transformation that would help carry Catholicism through the next 400 years.
As it turned out, a cannonball probably did more than anything else to light the flame of renewal.
In 1521, a young Spanish soldier named Ignatius of Loyola was badly wounded in battle. During his year-long recovery, his heart was powerfully stirred by devotional literature. Described by historian Kenneth Curtis as “a curious mixture of soldier, mystic, and monk,” Ignatius (shown above) resolved to help bring revival to the Church he loved.
His signature work was The Spiritual Exercises, a book widely read to this day and regarded as one of history’s most practical guides to discipleship.
In 1539, along with six companions, he journeyed to the Vatican and sought Pope Paul III’s approval to establish a new religious order. The pope was intrigued. His resulting mandate, called Regimini militantis ecclesiae (“On the government of the church militant”), proved to be a major turning point.
That’s because Loyola’s new order turned out to be the Jesuits or “Society of Jesus.”
During the decades that followed, the Jesuits became a spiritual force far beyond Pope Paul’s wildest dreams. Loyola and his comrades promoted absolute loyalty to Rome. They won back myriad Protestants. Jesuit educators established a constellation of new universities, while missionaries like Francis Xavier took Catholicism to unreached lands like India, China, and Southeast Asia.
In 1541, Protestant and Catholic leaders held a kind of summit meeting at Regensburg, Germany. After all the turmoil and craziness, would it still be possible to work things out and live together as one church?
It was an honorable effort. Those gathered acknowledged acres of common ground. But when it came to the meaning of the Lord’s Supper and whether the pope had final spiritual authority on earth, the delegates walked away without an agreement.
Here we should pause and note that there are two different pathways available to followers of Jesus who feel called to change the status quo.
Reformers can look outward and start something new. That was the path ultimately pursued by Luther, Calvin, and most other Protestants. Or reformers can look inward and restore the church that already exists. That was the strategy of the Jesuits and other Catholic renewal groups.
Pope Leo decided to call together what became known as the Council of Trent – an assembly of prelates and theologians who gathered three times between 1545 and 1563. The sessions were not well attended, and no pope ever made an appearance. But the results proved to be far-ranging and historically significant.
Trent was Rome’s chance to put its house in order theologically.
The delegates identified the pope as the ultimate interpreter of Christian doctrine. The seven sacraments, as understood by Catholics, were absolutely necessary for salvation. The mass may be conducted only in Latin – a perspective that did not change until 1963. Those declarations essentially made reconciliation with Protestants impossible.
By 1600, Middle America, South America, and most of southern and central Europe were firmly in Catholic hands. Lutherans had captured northern Germany and Scandinavia, while Calvinists and Anglicans had won over England, Scotland, Switzerland, and North America.
What’s the one thing we can say about the Catholic Comeback? It definitely worked.
What’s the one thing that the Catholic Church needs right now? Another comeback.
The worldwide priestly pedophilia scandal has rocked the Roman Church. Rank-and-file worshippers have been shocked by both the extent and the cover-up of these sins. Observers agree that additional apologies and public relations initiatives will not be enough to restore the priceless trust that has been squandered over the past 40 years. Guided by repentance and resolve, the Church will need to effect a fundamental transformation of ecclesiastical culture.
Can that happen? Of course it can. God is in the comeback business.
And how about you? Is it time for a personal comeback?
Life is not easy. It’s tempting to want to give up.
Doing what is good and right and redemptive is not always exhilarating. It’s just as likely to be exhausting. And the work becomes even harder if we begin to doubt that it’s making any difference, either now or in the long run.
But the grandest thing in the universe – people choosing to live as if God’s reign matters more than anything else – almost always starts with little steps, little decisions, and little acts of kindness which others may not even notice. In Galatians 6:9, the apostle Paul reminds us, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”
Even the seemingly most important movements in Christian history sometimes hit the wall. Sometimes they have to begin again.
But it’s not how you start.
It’s how you finish.
And since God has made it clear his work on earth isn’t done, that means he’s not done with us, either.