My name is Magdalen Colleen Mary Wright and I am a Roman Catholic.
Don't let it scare you away. I knew more than one person would think it. So, before the questions pop up, I will lay this before you now. It is always important to know who it is that pledges to assist you on your faith journey. And yes, I am a Christian like the rest of you. I cannot tell you how many times I have been told that I am not a Christian because I am a Catholic. I will tell you all here and now: I am a Christian and I am a Catholic. The two are not inseparable no matter what people tell you. Want me to prove it? I will bring it up in a later discussion.
And this is my story.
I was born a Roman Catholic to good and faithful, practicing - Catholics - a mother and a father - who brought me up in this faith. I was baptized as an infant at the Catholic Church. I went to mass ever Sunday, I learned the bible stories, the basic teachings of the Catholic Church, how to pray, that God loves me! I learned what any Christian - and Catholic - would learn about the love of God and the stories of the Bible. But it was only the surface... as we all should know. The journey of faith is one that we carry to our death's. We can not know everything there is to know about God. How can we, then, stop?
I received my first Holy Communion (The Holy Eucharist - the remembrance of the Last Supper where Jesus gave to his disciples a command to "do this in memory of me", the transubstantiation where the bread and the wine become the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ Jesus) in second grade along with my first Reconciliation (Confession - the Sacrament where the priests acts in the place of Christ where the power to forgive comes not from himself but from Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit). As the years passed, I went into eighth grade year and was given the choice to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation (the sacrament where the participant receives the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit and thus becomes and adult in the Church).That I did and earned the name Mary: I chose the Bless Virgin Mary as my patron saint.
But, I was just a cradle Catholic. I believed because my parents believed and I was afraid to say "no" to God. If I did, wouldn't I go to Hell? However, I also had my own awakening and met the Holy Spirit face to face.
I used to believe in the teachings of the Catholic Church because they said it was true. They said it's true! Why would it be wrong? However, I began to question: not to doubt but to understand. The Spirit slapped me in the face. I even remember that exact moment so many years ago when I suddenly stopped. Nothing had happened. Nothing had happened that day or before in my life to trigger it or even what it truly meant to 'stop'. Yet I heard God calling me... not in words to my mind or ears but to the very essence of my heart and soul. Nothing I could truly feel physically or emotionally. Yet I stood by the window with the sun on my face and it felt warm. I felt the carpet under my feet, the clothes on my skin, and my heart was beating. I was breathing. I turned my head and looked out the window. You cannot even begin to describe that feeling... to have your heart so filled with an emotion you have never felt in your life. To have it so it feels like it is going to burst. I knew exactly what it was too. That moment on I would look at the crucifix and see a man, not a wooden or metal figure from the far past (almost 2000 years!). I saw a man covered in blood, so frail you could see his bones. I saw a man with a crown of thorns on his head that bled so deeply you could see the deep droplets that ran down his face. I saw a mutilated body with abrasions from whipping and a cruel gash in his side. I saw God in the fullness of His love. And what had I done up to then to show Him that I loved him? All I did was say I believed and went to church every Sunday. All I did was pray and ask him to help me. Make my life better, to make me a better person. But what did He do? I looked at that crucifix and saw that what I had was absolutely nothing. How could I tell Him I love Him than do nothing about Him? How could I pray for him to help me when I did nothing for the people He loved - all those who suffered. From that moment on, I turned around and saw the sun was actually warm... and it felt wonderful against my skin if I tilted my head back and smiled.
But it also burns. The moment you turn away from what the devil wants, he will work to turn you back. The moment I saw God, I saw what true evil was. I learned what it meant to be truly afraid.
At first, it was small things; things that at first you would see as normal. Then it gets worse. I lost all my friends... all real ones (and never really got any back even to this day). I lost my ability to speak... though words could still come from my mouth. In my mind I understood completely then when I tried to speak, show what I knew, it instantly died on my tongue. I no longer understood. All I saw was darkness in the world... all that was evil! I saw lies and deceit. I saw those who professed to be faithful Christians who did nothing but spit in God's face, drive the thorns in his head deeper. I felt overwhelmed because I could do nothing. I saw a world so deeply ingrained in darkness that light could not possibly shine through. I began to wonder where God was in all of this. Why He would let all this darkness in the world when there was supposed to be the Holy Spirit! Why didn't God do anything? Why didn't He stop those who loved Him from suffering and dying? Why didn't He show those who couldn't see the Truth? Why didn't He stop those being slaughtered from dying? Why was there so much corruption? I did not feel him anymore. I felt as I did before and felt so much emptier, pointless.
Then, soon after, I was diagnosed with severe anxiety, mild depression, and Hashimoto's disease: an autoimmune disease of the thyroid. I had never felt so... empty. I had never felt so lost in my life that God was not there. How could I feel that God was a part of my life when I could not feel Him? I would look at the Eucharist and not see the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ. I would sit in mass and feel nothing for the songs sung with praise, the powerful words of the priests preaching to us about the love of God. I doubted my faith. I did not doubt His presence... but I doubted His authenticity. His Love.
This journey of mine now is one I still walk on. This... struggle to escape from the terror the devil lays upon me, the doubt, temptation, even physical pain. But, I do know what started me back. And that was my mother.
If anyone wants to see the perfect example of God's love in action, it is through this woman. She gave me more than I could even hope for. She told me the reason. She gave me a single reason... She was the one who allowed me once more to open my mind to God's grace. She and my father and the priests of my parish. I pray to God in thanksgiving for giving them to me.
She told me about something called the "Dark Night of the Soul" (talked about by Saint John of the Cross), a time in your life when it feels like He has left you and your faith is empty. She told me that was when you were closest to God. She told me when you feel the most down in your life, when you are persecuted and no one believes what you say, that is when you are headed in the right direction. Why would the devil try and stop those that are going the way he wants them to? However, it is through struggle that I grew stronger. When before I felt nothing, I see now that who I am is now stronger. When you suffer it is so difficult to see what good it is doing you. It is so much easier to forget. Yet now I understand myself better, I know what I believe and why... but I'm still learning. And I kept my faith through it all. Though I did not see the use, I clung desperately to the only thing I could and it never moved like everything else that is so fickle in this world. Whenever I would be so terrified I could not breathe (literally), I would pray desperately to God, such a simple prayer that was always the same and so very simple: "Oh, God, Help me, Help me..." I would grasp my cold, sweating hands and continue on, fighting the dizziness. He does not stop it... that made me angry at first. However, then I learned he wasn't... he was helping me through it, allowing me to rely on him. How much better is that! It's terrifying, yes, but how amazing it feels afterwards... When I prayed I didn't think anyone heard me but I got so much consolation even if I did not see it then. As I was once told: "We ask God for help because we believed in His Strength. When we ask God for help and He doesn't give it, it is because He believes in ours."
I before saw religion as a set of rules. The same as the rules of the government so we can coexist without corruption or fear. But, through my suffering I saw so much clearer that I am human and fallible. If I am not perfect and do not know everything, how can I pick and chose to say where God is right and where He is wrong? Not "rules" or "laws" whatever you want to call them but... signposts to the glory of God, a lifeline when you fall or have lost your way. I do not need a Church to be right when I am right but a Church to be right when I am wrong.
Though we do not see the reason for suffering, God Himself suffered, right? Why should we not suffer? For whatever reason it is needed. I used to want God to take away my suffering. When I prayed to him and nothing happened, I got angry! I learned another lesson... God can say "no". He listens, but he doesn't always give us it! I feel disappointment all the time. It is short lived. Why would I want something small and fickle that the world would give me when, instead, I can suffer for as short as another is happy and live happy forever... even on this earth, while others are not? Should we give up fleeting pleasure for a greater one? Perhaps the answer then is 'no' so it can be 'yes' later. A small hole in the sand cannot hold the vast ocean same as a child cannot comprehend the vast mysteries of the universe. What God has planned is revealed to us yet we cannot comprehend. Such is faith, the blind hope in a God who reaches down to us.
Now, I want to share that with you. I want to show you what I have learned and show God that I don't just believe in Him... but that I will live in and for Him. I am no perfect Christian, on that rollercoaster ride of faith. The ups and downs of life that pulls on belief and forces you to question it. And yet, questions are not wrong... they should be a stabilizing core: a path to growth. There is never enough and life should always be a journey of faith. For what is not known, it should be understood. Sometimes the simplest questions are the most difficult. Why should I believe in God? Why do I? Can I actually prove he exists? And you do not need to be able to answer them to be a good Christian. Perhaps they are questions we should all ask ourselves. Perhaps you will end up telling yourself no, I cannot prove God exists. Maybe that is all that must be said. Looking up at the heavens or within to our own hearts, knowing we do not understand but trusting that when we close our eyes, there is one who is always reaching out, aching for us, loving us, holding us. Or even the simplest question of all: Why? I never believed the passionate lover of Christ who sings hymns of praise as he does the will of God is better than the one who looks in the mirror and wonders, holds their hands as a child begging to be held... waiting without knowing what they are waiting for. We will all stumble and fall and for those who believe, isn't it our job then to reach out to those questioning hands and be the hands and feet of our Lord? To heal what is broken even if we are powerless. He told us to go to the end's of the Earth and profess the Good News, baptizing in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. I want to do that...
... and do it with you.