Pain pulled me away from my
cradle Catholic faith, after years of praying for my dad to stop drinking and
year after year seeing no improvement – thinking my prayers went unheard I
began to pull away from all things God related.
Hope can be so painful. After
years of formal education and being presented only the secular side of the
creation argument I pulled away further. Mind you - though only scientific theories - in my mind they had been
presented as truths. When my mother
mentioned God I scoffed and adopted a sardonic attitude. It hurt to reject God – but at the time it
hurt more to be a teenager in a chaotic home.
Though I had been born into a Catholic family and by the age of seven I
was a fully initiated Catholic- I don’t think I knew God until my adult
conversion. He had always been somewhat
of a fairytale- beautiful, but lacking truth.
At times I made Him into a magician working His sorcery from somewhere
faraway at other times He was a villain who enjoyed inflicting pain; but, the
most common character was that of the ultimate punisher for all sins
committed. In fact, the first time I
went into a confessional I thought that I would get a severe scolding from the
priest for my sinful past.
After two years of protestant
churches I arrived at Saint Barbara Parish and went inside the confessional
thinking that the priest would kick me out for no longer belonging to the
Catholic Church - that is after the priest yelled at me for my sins and asked
me to recite a few Hail Marys. The whole
notion of confession by a priest seemed archaic and uncomfortable, but the
expected rebuke from the priest was what I deserved. As I knelt behind the screen window and
repeated the words I had heard in many movies, “Forgive me father for I have
sinned…” I began to mention my sins along with a bit of my spiritual
background. After I finished listing my
transgressions the kind priest engaged me in conversation and cleared a lot of
my misconceptions. I waited for him to
yell at me, but he never did nor did he ask me to recite prayers. Instead he was extremely kind and when I
didn’t know how to close the confession (with the Act of Contrition) he passed
a copy of the prayer and we prayed it together.
I remember before I left I asked him if it was ok for me to come back to
the Catholic Church for mass and to remain a bit in the parish to pray, and he
laughed and said it was my home. Since,
I have returned to him many times for confession and now he pulls me inside the
small confessional so that he can see me face-to-face. We talk freely about my shortcomings and my
sins- yet, he always makes me feel hopeful and never like the sinner that I am. The penance he gives me is always more than
reciting prayers- he points out areas that he wants me to work on (until we
meet again) - always inviting me to become more like Christ.
There’s
all kinds of misinterpretations about God and the Catholic faith. As someone who confessed directly to God and
now goes through an intermediary - I really enjoy and find more depth in having
a priest hear my confession. He helps
and guides me in the name of God. For
many years I lived with erroneous beliefs about God and the Catholic faith, but
in the years since my initial conversion God has removed the scales from my
eyes, much like He did with Paul. “My
argument against God was that the universe seemed cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and
unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a
straight line. What was I comparing this
universe with when I called it unjust?”
While our society promotes and values education – in matters of faith
ignorance is regularly accepted. I had a
really intelligent friend once tell me that he had been into the depths of
outer space and not once had he seen a sign of God or of heaven. He laughed thinking he had stumped me, but as
God explains in many of His parables some will never see nor hear because they
choose not to. It’s like the dwarfs in The
Last Battle choosing to live in darkness even though Aslan is beside them
offering his light. One must never travel far to find God He is in us and all around us (smile).
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