Catching Up

In the past couple months I have written a few articles:

Krakow in the Capital: World Youth Day Comes to DC. At the end of July I attended a big WYD event here in DC, at Catholic U. That article doesn't do it justice, for what a wonderfully moving event it was, and how connected I felt to all the other pilgrims, across the world. 

Lessons From Prison Ministry. In August I stepped back from this ministry, as well as an active role in the Legion of Mary, but before I left the ministry behind, I wanted to record some observations on what made the experience so moving. I still pray for those inmates, and I hope they pray for me, too.

Five Ways to Live Like St. Luke. This was published on St. Luke's feast day, and I read his biography, Dear and Glorious Physician, earlier this year. I also got help from my Dominican friends in brainstorming ways we can emulate the "beloved Physician." But most exciting, it was picked up and shared by Angelus News and received over 200 shares on Facebook - good stuff!

My next article will be about - the crooked path to sainthood? How to make the most out of Advent? A profile on a very special nun I know? We shall see!

Other things going on: in the past week we've had the feast of St. Jude (hopeless causes - as if we don't need all the help we can get with our own personal hopeless causes); All Saints Day and (today) All Souls Day. It really is the case that "special" days happen all the time, if we look for them. I pray you are remembering your loved ones and all the saints known and unknown as we look toward the Christmas season.

Why I Remain Catholic

My first article for the Catholic Stand, "Why I Remain Catholic," can be read here. I have also reproduced it in its entirety, below. Enjoy!

Why I Remain Catholic

In June of 2014, I stood before Bishop Paul Loverde as he raised his thumb, covered in oil, to my forehead. “Flora,” he said, dabbing a glistening cross onto my skin. “Be sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit.

When I slid back into the pew, I leaned forward on the kneeler, heart filled with a strange new feeling. I watched the other confirmands make their trip to the Bishop to receive the seal, tears building in my eyes. Suddenly, the world looked different.  I knew I was different.

Searching for Answers

What leads one back to the Church? I could give you a nice, long story of my own heartbreak, with all its particulars and timelines, but let’s face it – even when the details of one’s story differ from those of another, the same issues are at the center. I knew something was missing in my life. I understood I didn’t have all the answers. I had become disillusioned with the shallow answers the world gave me. And, to quote the great Bishop Fulton Sheen, “Sometimes the only way the good Lord can get into some hearts is to break them.”

Though technically a cradle Catholic, my family stopped attending Mass soon after my First Holy Communion, and even before that, we were solely Sunday churchgoers. I had no real understanding of the Mass, the sacraments, or even who and what Jesus is. So yes, if I filled out a census form, I would have put “Catholic,” but it was really only in name.

Then over the course of the summer and spring of 2013, I went from being someone who never went to Mass, to sitting tentatively at the back of St. Patrick’s Church in Washington, DC for daily Mass, drawn there by what I now know to be the Holy Spirit, as I sought answers. Soon after, I decided it was time to learn to pray the rosary, so I downloaded an app and prayed on the train to and from class and work. That led to praying the Memorare and St. Francis’s morning pray and other things that opened my heart. I didn’t plan it; it just happened. There I’d sit, praying, “Oh most gracious Virgin Mary, never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection…” while the world carried on and I kept digging deeper.

Then I graduated from grad school, moved, and found myself within walking distance of a church. On the day I visited the apartment before signing the lease, I looked out the window and saw the cross at the top of a spire gleaming out from the trees. “Well,” I thought, “I’d better start going to church on Sundays, too." So I did, but still sitting quietly at the back of the church, often staying in the pew after most everyone had left, with my head in my hands, crying and hoping that just by showing up I was getting closer to something real. By this point, I had also ended a significant romantic relationship. The thought that broke its way through my grief was, “All right, God, I was wrong but I’m here now, so you have to show me the way.” It was begging, but it was true faith.

Confirmed As a Catholic

I didn’t take the decision to go through Confirmation lightly, as it is a sacrament after all and one with real weight and obligation in the Church, which I understood. I was initially motivated to attend RCIA by a fear of being a half-Catholic or even an imposter. I sat through several weeks of class and it was at this time I began to feel the real change inside me that culminated with the actual sacrament. All that time spent in prayer, examining my habits and thoughts, receding just slightly from the world, had its effect.

I found myself there that June afternoon in front of the Bishop, filled with light and tears – happy this time – thanking God for giving me the chance to start new and find out who I really am. What descended on me in that sacrament was a peace and real love I had never experienced before, as well as clarity and, more importantly, an understanding that my life had never truly been mine, anyway. It has always been God’s, and He had always been waiting for me. It was the feeling of my soul coming home.

Coming Home

The question is, “Why do you remain Catholic?” The answer is, “Because I can see no other way.” I understand now what the “fullness of the Church” means; the history, tradition, and sacraments that no other form of Christianity offers. It’s a technical understanding, but also a spiritual understanding that without these critical pieces of our faith, something major is lacking. Once you see the truth, how do you go back? And why would you even want to?

It’s more than that: the Church is my home. Saints are not just faces in stained glass windows; they are my friends and confidantes, guides on my own path to holiness, as called to holiness, we all are. The Blessed Mother is not just a nice figure, but truly my mother, who walked this earth and felt grief and joy and who continues to intercede on behalf of all her children. Calling on the Holy Spirit is not a hollow gesture, it is an actual moment of connection between God and ourselves, where the divine touches the temporal. My guardian angel is a real being, standing by with sword drawn in protection. As for Jesus, well, He is the one who sees, understands and loves my heart. He is eternal love, the kind that even still I try, with my human mind, to understand, though I am not sure I will ever get there. I am so grateful that He will be there as I try, “until the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20)

What Is Real and Lasting

Catholicism has been my path to finding my real self. When we are, as Matthew Kelly says, “the best version of ourselves,” that means that we are living as closely as we can to who God intends us to be. The Church exists to facilitate this, to bring us closer to the holiness that God plans for us. It is so much easier to be base, self-indulgent, never seeking truth and accepting of what the world offers but I have come to believe that all people, deep down, really are seeking Truth. We find fulfillment in a variety of things – sex, relationships, possessions, alcohol, work, power – but they are all substitutes for the real thing, which is a relationship with God. Everyone wants what is real and lasting. This is what makes us human. In the Church, I have found for myself what is real and lasting, beyond the noise of the everyday world, and it is beautiful beyond belief. That is why I stay.

Soon after Confirmation my sister, who was my sponsor, said, “Never underestimate how happy God wants you to be.” What a beautiful thought. God, who knows my heart and soul so intimately, and who created me in joy in His own image, is essentially waiting for me to get out of my own way so that He can show me what wonderful things he has planned for me. For many years I resisted the faith of my childhood, only to find myself embracing it in adulthood with a love and abandon I could have never planned. In the Catholic faith, there are answers, new beginnings, and – most importantly – an endless source of mercy for all us humans seeking the Truth. When I kneeled at the Cathedral that Pentecost Sunday, the strange new feeling I had was of utter peace and love washing over me. It was the Holy Spirit descending and saying, “You were lost – and now you are found!”

It is good to be home.

The Plan

Last Sunday the new priest at the Mass I attended introduced himself to the flock. He had an interesting background, very secular, and came to the priesthood later in life after a career in the energy industry. And as he jokingly lamented with a sigh, he even used to own a house and a BMW.

His point was that you never know what God's plan is for you. He did not, for the longest time, feel a calling to the priesthood or any inclination toward that life but, ultimately, it is what God wanted for him - and it is a much better path. He closed by emphasizing that God has a plan for each one of us, whether we can see and understand it now or not.

This got me thinking. I love that concept - well, let's not call it a concept, but a reality - that God "has a plan" and at the same time feel conflicted by it. I walked away wondering, what if I don't like God's plan for me? Evidently that is something I am afraid of, but it hadn't surfaced until hearing this talk.

I mentally stopped myself in my tracks and reminded myself that a.) God created me and knows me better than I know myself, and b.) what He desires of His children is total happiness and joy. Additionally, I am of the belief that the things we do not like which God lays in our path - delays, trials, sadness, what-have-you - while inconvenient, are an opportunity to draw closer to him. Of course, it is up to us to look at it that way; one could also be enduring something difficult and simply end up bitter and jaded (and I know those people - and I'm sure you do, too). We have a choice in how we approach hardship. It has taken me a while to fully understand that, because one can "accept" hardship and still have a bad attitude. To fully accept, I realized, means carrying on in the face of difficulty - despite difficulty - with hope in your heart and trust in God that He will work it out in His time. Not just say you trust - but actually really and truly, honest to goodness, accept what is given you and believe there is a plan. And persist, all the same.

If it is true that God knows me, loves me and wants what's best for me, then His plan for me should not hurt, right? I mean in an abstract sense. Meaning, he wouldn't want me to become a nun if that weren't what I wanted and felt called to be and do. I don't need to go turn myself in to the nearest convent and see if it sticks to make Him happy, all the while wishing I had never set foot in the place. That doesn't make any sense. 

If that is true, then perhaps it is also true that pain can actually come from denying God's plan. It is not that I actively want to shy away from what God wants for me, but what if I am afraid? Or too distracted to notice the path? 

So from all of this I thought, it is time to really look at what I believe. If I am afraid of God's path for me because it is unknown or I suspect it does not align with my own interests, then that has implications for what I believe of God's love. It means, ultimately, that I doubt God's love - that I see him as some grand puppet master creating plans for the sake of his own amusement, like a bully frying ants with a magnifying glass because he can.

This goes contrary to everything that God is and all that He created us to be. It is impossible that surrendering to the path that God creates for you could create unhappiness, if it is truly your path. I think, for example, about all the joyful nuns and priests I know who have no doubt of their purpose, and live it with grace and love. Further, it also means that, at times when one's life plan is murky or not immediately understandable, it is simply time to let go that sense of control, relax, and trust. It does not mean kind of trusting until the plan you have engineered comes to fruition, it means gratefully accepting your current lot in life and asking God, "How can you use me here, where I am?"

I have a lot to learn about letting go control, but thinking about all of this has helped. It is a much more joyful, simple thing to accept than to fight. I do not mean in the sense of relinquishing ambition or a sense of personal responsibility, but of being more realistic about what you actually are personally responsible for. The last week has been rather more peaceful, as a result. Faith, then, is loving God despite not understanding what comes next - perhaps because you don't know what comes next - because what is certain is that God loves us. Faith means simply knowing God loves us, through everything, until the end of time. There are some things I may never have the answer for. But I will always know God's love for me.