Why I am (still) Catholic!

Growing up, Church meant ‘a place where we went to socialize a lot and pray a little on Sunday mornings’. Nothing else. And oh, of course, on certain occasions, we dressed up more: for example: for baptisms, first holy communions, weddings and other special occasions.

 

I had no great love for the Church because I had no relationship with Jesus. I thought God, His Son and His Spirit were somewhere far away, even less accessible than the parish priests, Bishops and Pope were. I couldn’t see any connection between what we did on Sunday mornings and my everyday life. To the extent that I understood who God was, I wanted to be in His good books but I didn’t think He was actually concerned about my life. I can count on one hand the actual heartfelt prayers I cried out to God with until I was 22.

 

Then a colleague invited me to a small group prayer meeting in another senior colleague’s home and I went, well warned that they were ‘protestants’, because I trusted the colleague. And I really didn’t think anyone could convince me of anything I didn’t want to believe. I remember telling my colleagues in the rickshaw on our way there that if anyone said there was only one way to God i.e. Jesus, I would walk out of the meeting. They didn’t say anything back.

 

To my surprise, these ‘Protestant’ people were not protesting anything, they had no issues with me being Catholic, had no issues with Catholics at all and were in fact warm, friendly, genuinely concerned about me and most importantly very non-aggressive about the faith they professed. It was here, in their midst, that I entered into a personal relationship with God, who I encountered in His Holy Spirit very tangibly. Once I had experienced for real the Holy Spirit who had lived in me from the time I was baptized as a baby, there was no looking back. I knew God was really alive and He really loved me. I was keenly interested in everything He had to say to me in His Word and I committed my life to Him. Everything in my life turned upside down, or actually, right side up and God gave me a new life in Him.

 

I saw no contradiction between what my Protestant friends were saying and what I had heard all my life in the Catholic Church. The big difference was: they seemed to believe and practice what they were saying.

More than a decade later, I learnt that the Catholic Church had studied why Latin American Catholics had left the Church to join Evangelical Protestant Groups and the interviewers found 4 major reasons:

 (a)        Those leaving had never experienced a personal relationship with Jesus within the Catholic Church but had experienced it in other churches

(b)       Those leaving had never experienced authentic Christian fellowship in the Catholic Church but had experienced this in the other churches

(c)        Those leaving the Church had experienced biblical and doctrinal formation as transformational not cold and theoretical.

(d)       Those leaving the Church had experienced a missionary commitment that fueled their faith even more.

 This Aparecida document of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church says, “In our pastoral experience, often sincere people who leave our church do not do so because of what ‘non-Catholic’ groups believe, but fundamentally for what they live; not for doctrinal but for vivential reasons; not for strictly dogmatic, but for pastoral reasons; not due to theological problems but to methodological problems of our Church (no. 225)

Coming back to my story, I still went for mass every Sunday as usual, only now, I had changed, my understanding of God had changed, my relationship with Him was blooming and my eyes were opened more and more to the truth that was being proclaimed from the pulpit in the Catholic Church.

The big shift actually happened when we moved houses and therefore, our parish changed. In my new parish, I knew no one and could seek out friendships and alliances anew for the first time in a Catholic church. It’s here that I discovered that there are a lot of self-denying, cross-carrying Catholics who follow Jesus wholeheartedly! I was astounded! I had found the same kind of ‘protestant’ faith expressions inside the Catholic church.

Apparently, it was the same Holy Spirit who had been working in both these sets of people! What a wonder!

Moreover, I found a personal relationship with Jesus in the Eucharist, Adoration and in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. I found the fellowship of other disciples in the Catholic Church, I found biblical and doctrinal formation that was transformational not cold and theoretical and for me, most importantly, I found fellow missionaries who were Catholic. 

 

 

Everything that was so attractive outside the Catholic Church, had always existed within the Catholic Church, just not in the parish I grew up in! ☹

However, the upside of being Catholic is that literally every Catholic resource in the entire world is yours for the asking! I had so much to learn from and admire about in Catholic lay missionaries like Frank and Genie Summers, Catholic Biblical theologians like Scott Hann and his wife Kimberly Hann, Catholic Formation resources like Ascension Press and FORMED.

And thanks be to God and all that He has provided through so many people, my children have a vastly different upbringing in the Catholic Church than what I had.

Are there still times, that I’m frustrated with my Catholic Church and want to leave? Yes! Every time I read about another scandal, I bow my head and weep. Every time I see resistance to the Holy Spirit, I step back and pray harder. But then there are frustrating days and months when I want to resign from my marriage and parenthood too! However, I don’t act on those frustrated feelings, even when they last for years, because I understand that:

(a)        God is my boss and I will do only what He tells me to do

(b)       He loves me more than the Catholic church does and He loves the Catholic church more than I do.

(c)        The God who chose a very sinful fisherman to build His Church on can handle all the shortcomings of His Church and help me play my role in His Church.

In short, I am still Catholic because that’s exactly what Jesus wants me to be.