"Marvel not that I say unto thee, ye must be born again" marvel rather that people will someday quote these words of mine and have no idea of what I am talking about.No, that was not the actual quote on the marquee in front of the Baptist Church I drove by; the latter part is just what went through my mind when I read the quote in the first part. Having been, myself, a Baptist for a number of years, I feel that I can comment on Baptist theology and compare it with Catholic theology. This is not for the purpose of attacking the Baptists, but rather for making a larger illustration.
Baptists (as well as just about every other Protestant denomination except very traditional Anglicans) hold to a different understanding of Jesus' term "born again". They believe that it is a spiritual event that has largely no association with any outward event that we experience. This event, according to their teachings, is what makes a person a Christian, and determines his eternal status (thus explaining why they so often ask "are you born again?").
This understanding is not what the early Church taught about Jesus words in this regard. They associated it, rather, with baptism (as the Apostle Paul did in Titus 3:5). This is the main focus of the Catholic teaching, but it also touches on the renewal of one's personal relationship with God -- as in "I feel like I have a completely new relationship with God, as though I have been born all over again". In that way, the Church also teaches that one can be "born again" multiple times as after baptism a person may have many experiences of "renewal" in the faith.
This post is not, however, intended to distinguish these two ideas. The real point is my original reference: "marvel rather that people will someday quote these words of mine and have no idea of what I am talking about." In other words, people often take the words of God and twist them (often so slightly it is almost imperceptible) to fit with what they want. When I say "people", however, I am not just speaking about our Protestant brethren. I am also speaking about us Catholics. I have seen Catholics take the words of the Saints, the words of the Catechism, and the words of Scripture and use them for their own ends. We all are tempted to do this, but as Catholics we should recognize that this is not living faithfully to the Magisterium.
When God reveals something to us, He also reveals, through the authoritative teachings of the Church, what the proper interpretation of those things is. Otherwise, we would all be forced, like orphans, to figure the whole thing out on our own (which Jesus promised not to have us do -- cf. John 14:18). Humbling ourselves and forcing ourselves to accept the truths of God, without twisting them, is hard to do; especially when we live in a world that seems to enjoy twisting everything to its own ends.
When we (even quietly) reject the teachings of God by turning the interpretation of something to our own desires, we are essentially "marvelling" at the words of God, and coming up with something that we do not have to marvel at (because it fits with our personal preferences). Yet as I said at the beginning, we should marvel that people use Jesus' words wrongly; that they would reinterpret them to suit their own sinful inclinations. We all know how difficult it is when we hear or read a passage of the Catechism or of Scripture and feel that it is directly attacking our behavior; and many, when doing so, will salve their conscience by telling themselves "that does not apply to me" or "that is not what it means". This should not be our behavior.
Let us seek, rather, to find God's truth and accept it as He has revealed it, without any taint of our own personal ideas. Let us ask the Lord to give us "ears to hear" and "eyes to see" what He is telling us, and to push away any and all selfish pride that would filter out what we do not want to hear and see. Whether it is a disagreement with a Church dogma, or a rejection of one of the precepts of the Church, we should never fall into the temptation to see only what we want or hear only what we like. For Jesus said very clearly that, the truth would set us free, not that our own personal interpretation of the truth would set us free.
