First Day of Christmas Post: ONE Ambitious Idea
Second Day of Christmas Post: Sea TURTLE Vacation
I love God. I love Christ. I love my faith. I love being Catholic. This is a truth about me that I have not always been comfortable sharing.
I grew up Catholic in a protestant heavy area. Many times I was condemned to hell by peers simply because I was Catholic. I will never forget the day someone told me I wasn't Christian because I was Catholic. It sucked. The worst part was that I did not understand my own faith enough to speak up and explain why the misconceptions these people had about me were wrong.
For many years I struggled with various aspects of my faith. Sometimes it dealt with my feelings of unworthiness. Sometimes it was a joke someone told involving my faith that left me feeling awkward. Sometimes it was a person spewing incorrect and poorly informed "facts" about my faith at me and not being able to address them. I did not want my children feeling stuck the same way. I promised myself to be better for them.
Over the past few years I tried learning my faith better. Of course this proved difficult because I'm human. Then during Advent 2018, I received a cool gift from my Faith Formation co-teacher: Every Sacred Sunday Mass Journal. It is a book with all the weekly Mass readings. There is room for notes, reflection, and goal setting in terms of my faith. I accepted the gifted and worried if I'd keep up with it every week.
See, I'm really crap with daily devotional stuff, but it turned out I did just fine with once a week. I ABSOLUTELY LOVED USING MY EVERY SACRED SUNDAY BOOK. Every Sunday I took notes on the Homily, thought of things to be thankful for, jotted down things to pray for, and set a faith goal for the week. It drew me closer to my faith. It gave me a little more confidence in understanding the Scripture each week. I wanted to do more, so I started listening to daily Scripture readings with Gus Lloyd on the Catholic Channel on Sirius XM (he also shares on FB). THEN I wanted to learn more. I turned to books, podcasts, and Twitter (obviously). It turns out there are a lot of Catholics out there just like me. We love our faith but struggle. I was not alone!
In particular Girl, Arise! by Claire Swinarski left me in tears. Swinarski is known as the Catholic Feminist which caught my attention. Her book spoke to me on so many levels. I still struggle with some of the topics she addresses, but I am okay with that. The Catholic Hipster Handbook by Tommy Tighe introduced me to Catholic Twitter which introduced me to more Catholics I now follow. Two podcasts I added to my library: The Catholic Feminist (as mentioned above) and Jesuitical.
Things you need to know about me and my deepening understanding of my Catholic Faith:
- I will not judge or condemn others who are different from me (I know how that feels, and it's the pits.) Keeping an open mind is something I take very seriously. I want people to be comfortable being their authentic selves around me.
- I will always struggle with aspects of my faith, so please don't assume I blindly follow and believe everything ever dictated by Catholicism. Simply ask me how I feel about it.
- I will be offended by an inappropriate joke and/or snide remark about my faith. This does not mean I don't have a sense of humor. I am allowed not to find it amusing.
- I will make mistakes. I am human. My poor choices or screw ups don't negate the goodness of my faith.
- I will do my best to inform others about my faith. The best way to shut down ignorance is to provide knowledge.
It all boils down to this: God is love (1 John 4: 8), and the two greatest commandments are loving God with all my heart and soul and my neighbor as myself (Matthew 22: 37-39). As long as love inspires the decisions and actions I take, I am doing the right thing.
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