Catholicism: A Faith for Doubters

I became a mom just under seven years ago.

I remember the first time I looked into my daughter's eyes. I had never seen anything or anyone so pure and innocent. I reveled in it. I got lost in it. In the back of my mind, I tried to savor every ounce of her because I believed at the time that with each passing day and each passing year that innocence and that holiness would fade, muddied by this broken world she was born into.

I look back on her over the past seven years, however, and a different story has unfolded. I have found that as she has aged and as her intellect and heart have grown, she has become more engrossed in her faith. She goes to her Catholic school each day, and each day she comes home in love with a new aspect of her faith.

She comes home talking about the rosary and the saints and the sacraments and the commandments. I see her at church with her head bowed in deep prayer. I hear her singing the hymns with all abandon.

And I stand in awe of this little girl and her very large, very pure faith.

And then I look at myself.

I've been a wanderer for a few years. I've tried to find my place, find my home in the faith I was born into. But sometimes it seems so hard.

Sometimes I find myself reciting creeds that I doubt. I find myself receiving sacraments that I hope in and yet don't always completely trust. I find myself praying to saints whose intercession I am not confident in. And I find myself trying to trust God in this uncertain world as I desperately struggle for any piece of control I can get.

I struggle.

Because of this, I have sometimes felt out of place in church. Do I belong there? Everyone else seems so much more certain, more sure, more faithful.

Don't I have a responsibility to God to get my faith right before I enter His home? Doesn't it make me a hypocrite to profess a faith that I sometimes doubt? Don't I need to perfect my faith before I can spread it and live it and breathe it?

The answer I have realized is no.

To believe that we need to have perfect faith before we come to God is to believe that faith is something that originates in us. It's to say we don't need God for help with faith because it's something we need to find on our own. And if we avoid prayer and the sacraments until our faith is perfected, we are denying ourselves the strongest allies we have on our journey.

A runner wouldn't avoid running until he can win a marathon. A student doesn't avoid studying until she knows it all. So why should a Christian avoid prayer and the sacraments until she has perfected a faith that can take a lifetime and Heavenly intervention to achieve?

Now when I sit in the pew and I feel like an imposter and I feel like I don't belong there, I try to remind myself that I am here not because I am perfect, not because my faith is perfect, but because I need the power of the Holy Spirit to help me perfect that faith and grow in love for Christ.

We are human. We can't find pure faith on our own. As adults, it can feel almost impossible to imitate the faith of a child.

But it's not possible with God. Nothing is.

We just have to put aside the pride that tells us we can do it on our own, and we have to drop to our knees and pray to God to fill us with His spirit that will lead us closer to Him,

Catholicism isn't for perfect people with perfect faith. It's for the ones who struggle and who doubt and who fail. It's for those of us who need God to help us grow closer to Him.

A child's faith has the purity of a child. I believe that's because children haven't yet fallen into the traps set by our broken world and our broken spirits. A child's soul is set to find the Lord. But as we age and mature, our faith comes up against formidable opponents. But if we cling to that faith, if we set our hearts towards trusting it even when we doubt, if we hold onto the truth despite the pulls of this world, I believe we can someday make our way back to that purity of faith we had as a child.

At least that's my prayer. I sometimes doubt it, but I refuse to lose trust.