And in short, I was afraid. — T.S. Eliot
“Don’t God and Church mean anything to you anymore?,” my parents asked me one day. “Yes,” I said. But deep down I knew I was lying. I didn’t care if I made it to Mass every weekend or not. If my parents made the effort to go, I would go. And if they didn’t, it was fine with me. The days we went, I would mentally check out. Partially this was because I couldn’t understand what the priests were saying through their thick Indian and Vietnamese accents. And partially because I didn’t care to pay attention to what was going on.
Lately, I’ve kept up the image of being the good Catholic girl well enough. I share quotations from saints and popes on my Twitter and Facebook feeds. I send out prayer requests for people in my life who need them. And I still enjoy reading books and articles by Catholic and Christian authors. But I’m not the devout Catholic I used to be at all. I’m a mess. Truth be told, my prayer life is non-existent, aside from the occasional prayer I offer up before I eat dinner, or the special intentions I pray for people I know who need them. But I haven’t had a real conversation with God for years. I don’t like to go to Mass as much as I used to. And, for awhile, I’ve been stuck in sin and selfishness in so many different ways that it would be impossible for me to cover it all here. Even my attempts to do good deeds seem to have a selfish motivation behind them!
This wasn’t me when I was in high school. I was a proud student of a Catholic school. I was going to daily Mass on a regular basis. I was a Eucharistic minister at all-school Masses. I was reading Scripture regularly and was fascinated by stories about the saints. I enjoyed going to religion classes and learning more about my faith. I talked about Catholicism to anyone who would listen. I even spent some time thinking about becoming a nun.
But once I left the safety of a mostly Catholic environment, things changed. I was immersed in worldviews that were different from my own, and I didn’t know how to maintain a Catholic identity in the midst of it all. I met people who were respectful towards me, but otherwise dismissive towards Catholicism. I met a few atheists who treated me like scum just because I was Catholic. And I didn’t know how to react. I got intimidated instead. And those encounters have left their mark on me.
Aside from human nature, I’m pretty sure there’s one other thing overall that’s drawing me towards sin. To sum it up, many of my sins are rooted in a deep-seated fear I have about dedicating my whole life and whole self to following Jesus. First and foremost, it can be scary to openly live as a Christian in this day and age. In the world’s eyes, there is nothing innocent about Christianity as it is lived out in its entirety. If by “innocent,” you mean “harmless,” Catholicism doesn’t offer that to the world at all. Catholicism speaks truth to power. It bulldozes down the forces of moral relativism and political correctness. It shatters niceness as the ultimate standard of goodness and replaces it with sainthood. It demands that its followers stand out from everyone else in the world, even if that means said followers are ostracized or put to death.
The consequences of that are playing out around the world today. Catholic institutions in America are forced to provide their employees with artificial birth control, sterilizations, and abortifacients or else close their doors. People in the Middle East are fleeing their homes to avoid death, or risking life and limb just to go to church or make the choice to convert to Christianity. Devout Christians are called “Jesus freaks” by their peers and are told they believe in fairy tales.
But beyond that, even if it was socially acceptable to be a Catholic, Jesus still asks a lot of His followers. “Whoever calls himself one of mine must deny himself, pick up his cross, and follow me,” He says. “Be ye perfect, just as your Heavenly Father is perfect.” And I wonder what it will cost me if I let Jesus guide me towards sainthood and perfection. What will I have to sacrifice in order to make that happen? Although I hate this trap of sin I’ve fallen into, a part of me wants to paraphrase what Saint Augustine once said: “Lord, make me holy. But not yet.” Because, even if you regret it afterwards, sin feels nice when you participate in it. And after awhile, you wallow in it. That’s what happens when you get stuck in a comfort zone. It goes from being a nice hammock to a cocoon that threatens to choke the life out of you. And I want to break out of it so badly. But I don’t know how to.
I suppose that’s what drew me to attend SEEK 2015, aside from the chance to learn from and meet Chris Stefanick, Matt Fradd, Jason Evert, Sarah Swafford, Leah Darrow, and Helen Alvare, among others. I was searching for some kind of catalyst or spark that would send me over the edge and into God’s loving arms. And I’m still looking. My days of having an active prayer life and friendship with God seem to be distant memories, and I don’t even know how to begin to make that kind of life a reality again.
And yet, something deep within my bones wants there to be something that exists beyond this life. Something inside me aches to be thrust out of this mundane existence of food and drink and sleep and work and catch a glimpse of “the love that moves the sun and other stars,” as the poet Dante described our Lord. Babies become adults in the blink of an eye. Empires rise and fall. Loved ones die, sometimes unexpectedly. Wars and rumors of wars dominate the airwaves. Marriages begin and disintegrate, either by divorce or through death. Friends grow apart. Favorite books and songs and games satisfy for a few moments, and then grow old after hours of continued use and enjoyment. Even those moments of love and laughter shared between family and friends don’t last forever. There has to be some sort of ultimate reality we must all face; something that reduces all these earthly pleasures and pains to dust. And I know that the answer can only be found through Jesus. C.S. Lewis once said that Jesus is different from any other teacher, philosopher, or religious figure that the world has ever known because He claimed to be God incarnate. And when someone is walking around making a claim like that, you only have the options of dismissing him as a lunatic or worshipping him as your Lord. And I never felt like Jesus was a lunatic. But I hesitate to hand myself over to Him. My own stubborn pride and folly won’t let me do it.
Not long after Thomas Merton had converted to Catholicism, he was at a point where he was comfortable self-identifying as Catholic but hadn’t let the faith transform his life. His friend Robert Lax was discussing this with him, and asked him what he was hoping to accomplish by becoming Catholic. After all, it would be a waste of a conversion if the experience didn’t change his life significantly. Merton said he wanted to be a good Catholic. Lax wasn’t satisfied with that answer. He said to Merton, “What you should say is that you want to be a saint.” Merton said, ‘”I can’t be a saint.” And my mind darkened with a confusion of realities and unrealities: the knowledge of my own sins, and the false humility which makes men say that they cannot do the things that they must do, cannot reach the level that they must reach: the cowardice that says: “I am satisfied to save my soul, to keep out of mortal sin,” but which means, by those words: “I do not want to give up my sins and my attachments.”‘
When I first read that passage in The Seven Storey Mountain, it felt like Thomas Merton was speaking directly to me from his grave. His words still haunt me to this day. Because I know I’m the only obstacle standing between me and sainthood. But I don’t know how to get out of my own way. I know my sins, my insecurities and my attachments are minuscule and paltry when they’re matched up against eternity. But when you’ve been pinned under the weight of your own sin for a long time like I have, it seems impossible to take that burden off your chest and breathe freely again. And I’d like to let go of it once and for all.
So please pray for me. I need it.
Briana's Thoughts....Religion, Politics, Current Events 