Clear Answers

Why do so many Catholics seem to gravitate toward and feel so comfortable with a Church that has clear and certain answers?  What is this love of unchanging sameness and certainty?  I think that old people like it because they fear death and young people like it because they fear life.  Death is about the unknown, the unexperienced, and it can seem scary.  Having clear answers and certainty about the other side of death, the God who awaits us, gives the elderly some solace.  To enter into the silence and solitude of the unknown in contemplation is not much solace for these people.

The young fear life, full of relationships, love that can be crushed, jobs that can be lost.  Life for these people is so full of uncertainty.  Answers give them certainty and set boundaries about who is right and wrong.  The young want a secure place in an insecure world.  Somehow, catechism truth will let them sleep better at night.  But truth is not a thing.  It is a relationship.  Did not Pilate ask Jesus, "What is Truth?"  The answer was Silence.  You want truth?  Enter into silence and solitude before you pick up that theology book.