Why I Am a Catholic

For the last couple days of class for the semester (before preparation for finals), I decided to try something new.  It was an idea I had a while ago, but it just seemed to work to implement it this year.  The section is dubbed, "Why I Am a Catholic."  After weeks of (hopefully) learning Apologetics, I wanted to have them consider why they are Catholic.  I challenged them to find something beautiful, compelling, or desirable within the Church, even if they struggle with different facets of the faith.

I listed off for them Peter Kreeft's seven reasons why he is a Catholic.  I read a line from G.K. Chesterton's "Why I Am a Catholic" essay.  Then, because I wanted this to be real for them, I told them my reason for being Catholic.

In all actuality, it cannot be boiled down to one reason that I am Catholic.  Yet, for the sake of simplicity, I picked what was central to my faith and declared that it was the reason why I was Catholic.  What I didn't expect, though, was that I would nearly cry in every Apologetics class as I told my story.

Honestly, I was a little annoyed with myself.  "Really, Trish, get it together!  It isn't as though you have never talked about this before."  I'm still a little confused, but I think the primary reason is that I was opening my heart to them.

I've shared with my students different experiences I've had, places I have traveled to, and stories I have heard.  As a Theology teacher, I am daily speaking of persons and ideas that are very close to my heart.  But to open my heart, to share part of "my story," and to point to something so personal, in a classroom setting, is difficult.

I told them that I am Catholic because of the Eucharist.  Yet I had to give a bit of a back story for why the Eucharist is so pivotal personally, not just theologically.  So I had to go to the beginning of my faith hitting the pavement, nearly the beginning of a heart that aches yet keeps it all tucked away within.

Naturally, it was a story about my sisters.

My two older sisters, specifically.  And my throat became scratchy and I prayed that Jesus would just let me get through these stories without crying.  The feelings I was portraying aren't ones I typically feel now, but ones that were jettisoned across time from nearly 12 years ago.

When I was in 8th grade, my older sister entered a Carmelite cloister.  She was the one who seemed to know me.  As an introverted melancholic, I've always ached to be known.  While she was still my sister, our relationship was dramatically altered.  I could pour out my heart to her in writing, but then I would need to wait months for any sort of response.  I became angry and bitter, yet still had to present a happy exterior, because that was expected of one with a nun for a sister.  When I was a junior in high school, my other older sister joined a different convent about twenty-four hours from home by car.  The feelings of bitterness and anger were once again kindled.

I was teaching myself something that is untrue about God.  Internally, I was learning that God will take from you that which you hold dearest.  Whatever you don't want to do, He will ask it of you.  I was learning the sacrificial part of Catholicism without the love or joy that must accompany it.

As I'm telling my little stories, I am looking into their eyes.  For once, the classroom is mostly silent and their eyes are on me.  I'm wondering, as my insides quake a little and my hands shake, if they can see that I'm opening up part of my heart to them.  I'm hoping that even though their story is different, that they are open to discovering the beauty of Catholicism, too.

So how do my sisters entering the convent make the Eucharist the reason I am Catholic?  When my sister was entering the cloister, she turned around and said, "I'll see you in the Eucharist."  Eighth grade me wasn't impressed.  That's nice....but how about you see me on my birthday and at Christmas?  How about you hold my children and are answering the phone when I want to talk?  Despite the minimal impact it made initially, it eventually became a central point of my personal spirituality.

When we go to Mass and receive the Eucharist, we are receiving the Body of Christ.  The Church is the Body of Christ.  When I receive the Eucharist, I receive the entire universal Church, the Church inside and outside of space and time.  As I missed my sisters, I would receive the Eucharist and know that this union that I tangibly experienced in Holy Communion was the deepest union I would have with them.  It was comforting when I went off to college eighteen hours away and I missed my family.  The Eucharist bound me to all my loved ones.  Moving from college back home and being separated from beautiful friends, I found solace in the ties of the Eucharist, bonds that even death cannot break.

Why I am a Catholic cannot be simplified to only one reason for me.  There are many factors and influences, but the central point is the Eucharist, God Himself.

"The difficulty of explaining “why I am a Catholic” is that there are ten thousand reasons all amounting to one reason: that Catholicism is true."    -G.K. Chesterton 

In His Hands

I pictured placing my little heart in His hands.  And He held it with a tenderness that could only come from Him.

There it was: small and without adornment.

It was devoid of all excuses or justifications.  Yet it was completely known, in a way that the potter knows every intricacy of the work of his hands.  Even with knowing all that was stored away within it, the little heart was completely loved.

That was true rest.

To be loved, but to know that it is without false impressions or because you have successfully hidden your flaws.  As a member of a family, I have experienced this love to a degree.  But to have your heart laid bare with all of the not-quaint details exposed is another matter.

When the world seems to be too much and I have difficulty taking it all in, I find comfort resting in His hands.  There I am known and there I am loved and those facts still astound me.  To be known to the core and loved to the core is what we all desire.  To know that it is without merit and yet entirely good to be received in such a way is another gift.  Nothing I did caused me to be loved like this, but I am.

For a little heart doing so much seeking, it is good to simply be found.

Living Authentic Desires

What if I lived how I truly wanted to live rather than how I wanted to live right now?

Maybe there doesn't seem to be a difference in those two versions, but in my life, sadly, there is.  I'm a bit dense.  It takes a while for things to sink into this head of mine.  While I often know what would be best for me, I take the easier path and attempt to satisfy deeper desires with more superficial things.

St. Paul understands this little heart of mine.  Perhaps it is simply a condition of humanity.  "I do not understand my own actions.  For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate."  (Romans 7:15)  Even if what I'm doing isn't sinful, it isn't living up to the calling God has for my life.  I settle for mediocrity when I am called to be extraordinary.

Examples needed?  My life yields plenty of material.

I truly want to go pray.  I've thought about it several times in a given day and I know it would bring peace.  But I'm tired.  So I scroll through Facebook.

I want to go for a run.  But I'm tired.  So I take a nap instead, planning to go for a run the next day.

I want to spend some time reading a book.  But I'm tired.  So I watch a movie instead.

There are a couple trends that should be noted.
1. I'm tired so often.
2. While I know what I should do (and what would actually satisfy the desires of my heart more), I tend to opt for the path that requires far less of me.

Yet when I actually put aside my momentary desires and do what requires a little more effort or discipline, I am always amazed at the internal peace that occurs.

Instead of mindlessly scrolling through the internet, I go to adoration.  I'm far more pleased with myself (because even as I'm wasting time on my computer, there is a nagging feeling that I am not doing what I ought) and I feel a deeper peace because I did what my soul needed, I did what I actually wanted to do.

Sometimes what I want to do, isn't what I actually want to do.  And sometimes what I don't want to do, is actually what I really want to do.

It makes me wonder why following my own heart's desires is so difficult.  Sadly, it is far too easy for the true desires to get overlooked by far more superficial, temporary wants.  On the drive home from the church, I was thinking, "What if I always lived so that I was actually doing what I wanted to do and what was best for me?"  My internal response?  "Huh."  As though following my authentic desires was a novel concept.

Yet this is what the saints did.  They lived!  As saints they fulfilled the deepest, authentic desires of their hearts and did not succumb to the lazy wants that surfaced.

I could be such a better person if I followed my true desires (at times, genuine promptings of the Holy Spirit) instead of what I felt like doing in the moment.  I could be a saint if I did now what I knew I should do, instead of waiting for a later, more convenient time.

The path to sanctity is now.  And it is truly what I want.  So why not start?

“Do now- Do Now- what you’ll wish you had done when your moment comes to die.”   -St. Angela Merici

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A Reflection of Authenticity

A Reflection written in France

Among the swarms of people, residents and visitors, that bustle through Paris, I am merely a face.  Living in a city causes people to think and act in different ways.  Just being with the people, riding in the Metro with them, traversing their streets, I began to feel how closed off they are to the world.  Everyone is wearing a mask--to protect themselves, to not let others see their true selves.

At one point, I was deeply frustrated with it.  I feel like the quest of the last few months has been to learn authenticity.  Who am I really?  Who is God really?  How is our relationship doing?  It has been all about not staying on the surface but delving deeper.  "Become who you are!"  I was in Paris meeting peoples' eyes and smiling, but then I remembered city people don't do that and it could send a message I don't want.

Riding on the Metro I knew I stood out with my large hiking backpack, but I felt like I fit in more when I acted bored, had a blank look on my face, and appeared to care little about the stops.  We encountered young ladies near the Eiffel Tower who wanted signatures to help the deaf and the mute.  I'm not entirely sure how their attempt to target only English-speakers would actually help the deaf and the mute of France, but that was their mission.  The beggars at the churches--are they actually poor or is it all a ruse?

It bothered me to be living in a world of masks when I was striving for authenticity.  I hate trying to evaluate people's motives when my innate desire is to trust.  I want to believe in people.  At one point I looked at the crowd and thought of how each person is a well, their depths cannot be plumbed.  Yet if we cut off the deeper parts of ourselves, if we live as masks instead of just hiding behind them, if we live so long in the superficial and shallow, we will begin to lose our ability to go deep, we will lose our belief that we even have depth.  We will become the masks we wear.

Perhaps this is why the faith appears to be dying.  People are tired of masks of holiness.  They, whether they know it or not, crave authenticity.  And the pagan world presents at least one thing authentically--I want to live without rules or morals but simply in the pursuit of pleasure.

How does one live authenticity in a world of masks?  I don't know exactly but I have some ideas.  Don't feign indifference when you actually care.  Care less about appearance and more about actuality.  Live deeply.  Penetrate the inner depths you have and seek to know others at a deeper level, too.  Refuse to be content with living in the shallow end, but rather put out into the deep!