Team Priests.
As someone who returned to the Catholic Church after almost
two decades of being away, I understand that conversion happens in stages. In the initial stages I just wanted to
discover that Catholics were normal, meaning that faith didn’t create a cult
mentality. That I could still be me in
the world and believe in God. During
that time more than anything I looked for social things to do and friendships
to develop. These encounters gave me
confidence to surrender more to God and things that were a spiritual challenge
slowly began to make sense and a love of these holy practices started to
develop. Children are not the only ones
that find attending Mass difficult, new believers do too. I still remember how difficult establishing my Sunday Eucharist routine was and how it took a couple years to make Mass
attendance a priority. Thus, every
Sunday when my nephew gets upset and whines about going to Mass I get it.
Recently, he told me that he’s not sure if he believes in
God. He’s quite an inquisitive, bright
child and he has a lot of questions about how God and science add up. I’ve done my best to answer his questions
because I know all those scientific theories propelled me away from my faith
and finding intelligent answers to my questions was what eventually restored
it. Thus, I ordered a couple videos from
Father Spitzer for the two of us to watch together on origins and God. I also spoke with the woman in charge of
child faith development at my church and she’s giving me some age appropriate
books for him to read. Additionally, I
spoke with Father and he told us that when we are done watching the videos my
nephew can come and talk to him with whatever questions he might still have. In addition, to lifting him in prayer I also
have been taking him to fun social parish events that show him that church not only includes attendance at Sunday Mass.
Final score Seminarians 65 Priests 60.
I recall how important (initially) it was for me to be
around others in social settings that did normal things, but still were on fire
for God. So, I have been a little more
proactive in bringing him to social events.
Though his parents aren’t fully practicing they allow me to share my
faith with him and that’s a blessing.
Last week, we went to the parish bonfire and he immediately hit it off
with a boy near his age who is home schooled and also the son of one of the parish’s
leading catechists. They bonded over
RoBlocks and now both virtually play on the computer. I also took him to a basketball game where
our priests faced the seminarians in a great match. This made him see that even priests are
regular people who love and serve the Lord, but enjoy a little fun. Am very blessed to have a diocese that has
many social events that help not only my nephew, but all those beginning their
faith journey see that (we) Catholics are normal people. I wanted to share this story because if you
have a loved one or a friend who you want to lead to God it’s important to
introduce them to the community. God
gave us community knowing how much we need one another to thrive… Thus, I ask you to please keep my nephew in your
prayers so that God reveals Himself to him and that the truth sets my “love bug”
free.
He predicts that Team Priests are going down.
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