The following is a transcript of a Raised Catholic podcast episode.

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Today is episode 171: Faith is Not a Room

Hi friends, happy Easter season to you and yours! I hope it was a really nice Easter for you. This year was the first one I can remember, in well over twenty years, I think, that I did not sing at any Triduum masses. That’s a big deal for a music minister like me. Instead, for Holy Thursday and Good Friday, I went to a local Catholic college for their beautiful services and then on Saturday, we went into the city to the most welcoming and joyful church I know for their blockbuster Easter vigil – three and a half hours of stunning readings, music, light coming out of the darkness, the hope of lots of adult baptisms and confirmations, really the whole thing was absolutely beautiful. My goal was to walk through Holy Week with Jesus, not working or performing but letting the Story and the beauty of what our church can be make its way into my spirit. When it comes to the practice of my faith, I was in need of a little bit of resurrection and I have been on the Christian path long enough to know that when you want to rise, you had better be prepared for some things to die.

For Lent, I had gathered a group of women together weekly for a Lenten book study from author Kate Bowler. Kate is an honest, authentic, curious, nonjudgmental, and thoughtful voice that I really respect and trust, and each of the women who said yes to this journey we undertook this Lent are also all of those things. I had asked God to point me to the right people to invite to this group and boy, did God come through. Because they each came from different parts of my life, most of them did not know each other at first but we got deep fast, and it was clear that the Holy Spirit was involved in our gathering. This caring and connected Lenten experience became the scaffolding for my Holy Week, and I am so very grateful for that. 

When I left St. Cecilia’s on Holy Saturday at 11:30pm, full of sacraments and ritual and joy, I had few answers. I’m still looking for resurrection in a few parts of my life where I feel sure they will come, eventually. I’m reminded that Easter is not a day, but a season and I trust Jesus to make all things new in His ways, which are not always my ways.

But one thing I know for sure: faith is not a room.

I was twenty-six or twenty-seven years old I think when I first wrote those words in a journal, that faith is not a room. I was undergoing a spiritual transformation at that time, intentionally digging into the faith I was taught to be sure that it was something I really believed, something I wanted to pass on to my son whom we’d waited for through a couple of years of infertility. What I found on that journey was that faith was so much bigger than what I had taken in as a child. God was so much bigger. I would have described my life at that time as a house filled with rooms – new motherhood room, marriage room, work room, friend room, hobbies and interests room, and my faith was a room, too, one I visited mostly at church on Sundays. It was a room I liked to visit, but one I was just as happy to leave behind as well.

In that season of study in my twenties, I found I was no longer content to relegate ‘faith’ to ‘the thing I did on Sundays’ or ‘the place I sing and see my friends’ or ‘the way to check the box and go to heaven one day’ or ‘the practices with which I was raised,’ things that had become like breath to me. Because if the Christian story is true – if God became a human who was born to a young woman in a poor and humble corner of the world and then He grew up to teach and heal and hang out with other humans. If this Jesus was killed because the religious leaders were threatened by the upside-down Kingdom He preached, and all of His friends lost their hope when He died, but then He shocked everyone by rising from the dead three days later, and together they started this Church of ours that has spread from that little corner of the world to everywhere across the globe over the many centuries – if all of that is true, then faith in that Jesus is not a room, but it is a window or the lens through which I see absolutely everything else.

And if my life is a house, and faith is a window, then it is the window through which I see the neighborhood and the world outside but also, it’s the lens through which I see my interior life and my own growth, too. This Lent and Holy Week, I found even more metaphors for what my faith is inside the house. Faith is a fireplace, giving warmth and comfort when the winds blow cold and sharp outside. Faith is also a bookshelf full of wisdom that I can access whenever I want or need. If my life is a house, then faith is also a refrigerator full to the brim with the wholesome food that I need to grow and thrive, and it is the table to which I invite others to share what I have. Faith is the map upon which the journey of my life is charted, and it is the skylight through which I gain perspective and much needed light. And if my life is a house, then faith is most certainly my foundation. It is the thing upon which everything else rests. And my foundation, specifically speaking, is not a church or people or practices, but that foundation is Jesus Himself. Faith is not a room and Church is not a foundation, but faith should have a foundation – and mine is Jesus.

I bet you remember that scripture from Matthew, chapter 7. Jesus says,

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

Jesus gives this warning after delivering several specific directions, these are the things He is referring to when He says ‘and everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man’, well, this is what He is referring to: to not judge others, to persist in prayer to a God who hears, to do unto others as you would have them do unto you, to enter by the ‘narrow gate’, to beware of false prophets and be sure to recognize people, especially leaders by their fruit, and to not be like those who mouth and parrot their beliefs calling, “Lord, Lord,” but to put our beliefs into practice. We are to know Him and to be known by Him. That’s the foundation that Jesus is talking about, and the chapter concludes with the crowds being astonished at his teaching, ^“for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.”

In this time of struggle in the American Catholic Church, my house sometimes feels kind of lonely, I’ll admit. I miss the days before clericalism and politicization took such strong root in the Church in this modern era, when pastoral concerns and loving our neighbor and community and preaching Jesus’ upside-down Kingdom were something you’d just expect to find in most churches. But as I emerge into this Easter season, my eyes squinting toward the sun, I long to see the growth that only God can bring from seeds long planted. I hold my Easter hope in my shaking hands and give control over to Jesus who knows better than me the best way forward toward resurrection. He’s the One who’s done it, after all, and I am not. And as I look around my house at everything that He has provided for me – light and water and sustenance and wisdom and hope that I could not have prepared on my own, I stand on the good foundation of Jesus and what He has done. Though I see chaos in so many places, I center myself into this good house that God has given me, and I can say as Joshua did: As for me and my house (this one I’m living in, I mean), we will serve the Lord. Amen, God, let it be.

Thanks so much for being with me today, friend. If you need me, you can find me on Instagram @kerrycampbellwrites, at Substack at kerrycampbellwrites.substack.com, or on my website at kerrycampbell.org. Thanks so much for rating, reviewing, subscribing and most importantly, sharing this podcast with a friend.  That makes a real difference in growing our community, so thanks. If you would like to support this podcast financially, there are a couple of ways for you to do that in the show notes, along with some resources related to today’s episode, so do check all of that out, but before we go, let’s pray together.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen.

God, we have so little control over the world as it spins, but in this Easter season, help us to shore up the house of this one life we’re given. Help us to see where you’re working in resurrection and help us to trust that you are at work making all things new. Let that be our foundation today. For us and our dear ones too we pray in the name of Jesus and wrapped in the mantle of Our Mother, Mary, amen. 

Thanks for listening today, friends. Happy Easter season, and I’ll see you next time.

Show Notes

Happy Easter! This week we’re using the metaphor of our life as a house, and where faith fits into that house will inform how we live out our Easter lives. 

If you’d like to connect with me, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠find me on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠at my website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠on Substack⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. If you’d like to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠help support this podcast financially⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, there’s a way to do just that ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠on my page at buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! Thanks for sharing, subscribing, rating, and reviewing, as this helps our community to grow.

Thanks as always to my friend, Peter Vaughan-Vail, for providing the beautiful harp music you hear in this and every episode.

Here are some resources to help you dig into this week’s topic on your own:

1. Journal questions: If life is a house, where would I find faith there? Is it a room, a piece of furniture, something else? Where do I want to find faith in the house of my life?

2. Song: ⁠Build This House With Me⁠, by Mark Isham (journal with this one)

3. Song: ⁠In This Place⁠, by Trevor Thompson

4. Lyric video: ⁠Abide with Me⁠, by Audrey Assad

5. Song: ⁠Make a Home in Me⁠, by Ben Walther

6. Author/Podcaster: ⁠Kate Bowler⁠ – books, podcast, free discussion guides and much more

7. Scripture: ⁠Matthew Chapter 7⁠

8. Church – (lively in person and online communities) ⁠St. Cecilia, Boston⁠

9. Article: ⁠Update on Notre Dame Cathedral reopening⁠ from The Art Newspaper