Coming Home to the Catholic Faith

I was sitting around talking to some friends the other evening. Our conversation revolved around typical thirty-something mom things -- children, husbands, books, school. Then somehow we landed on the topic of faith, Catholicism specifically.

I had briefly explained my journey to these ladies before, but again I mentioned how I was raised and educated Catholic, how I held on to my Catholic faith through college. But then somehow I got off track due to inattention and doubts on my part, on top of bad advice from people who sounded like they knew better but really probably didn't.

For awhile there, it was hard for me to even go into a Catholic church. I would feel ashamed and out of place and not wanted. I felt I wasn't good enough. I wasn't worthy. (Typing it out now, it sounds strange. After all, where are the unworthy more welcome than in a church?)

Anyway, I had been out to sea for a few years and slowly I found my way back... via guidance from a devout Baptist.

I was intrigued by the Protestant message. The ease of it. The appeal of it. The comfort of it. I started listening to Protestant radio stations and reading books by popular Protestants.

And yet, I never attended a Protestant service. In fact, I never attended any religious service until I was ready to go back to my Catholic Church.

It took several more years of starts and stops, of searching, of faking it until I made it, until I finally started to feel at home in the faith I was born into. And slowly, I started to get more and more involved. The questions I started forming during my search through Protestantism started to get answered by Catholicism. I found what I deemed missing in those perspectives in the perspectives and lives of those living the Catholic faith. In essence, I found what I was looking for.

And then the other night, as I was having this conversation with friends, one woman mentioned how she thought that once that Catholic seed is planted, it never goes away. It remains there, always calling us back.

And I've been thinking about that for a few days now. That seed.

When today it hit me -- that seed is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit I received in the sacraments -- through Baptism, and Confirmation. It was the grace that I received weekly at Holy Communion and that I encountered in the confessional.

And that realization struck me hard. That's God, I thought. And it's the God I received personally as well as through the sacraments of the Catholic Church.

I don't think it was until that moment that I realized that my journey home was finally being realized. That realization, to me, was more than prayer. It was more than participation in the sacraments. It was more than giving alms and helping the needy and seeking the Lord.

It was much more.

It was a faith in the sacraments the Lord has given to all of us. It was a faith in Him and His Church and all the gifts He gives us daily to lead us more faithfully towards Himself.

My journey is not complete None of us will complete our journey this side of eternity. But finally, I believe that I am on my way.