I had an incredible night last night as it relates to growing in my understanding and ability to defend and explain the Catholic faith. First, I almost completed Upon This Rock by Stephen K. Ray. I have entered this period of my life of exploring the Catholic faith I was raised in using my attorney hat. I have never given up the belief that there is but one God with three Persons and everything else in the creeds, but I have kept in mind the question, why should I believe Rome over any other professor of faith?
I am still in the embryonic stages of my studies, but I am finding it hard to dispute C.K. Chesterton's statement, ". . . is that there are ten thousand reasons (why I am Catholic) all amounting to one reason: that Catholicism is true." Upon This Rock exemplifies that testimonial. It is multifaceted and detailed, to say the least. About a third of the way through it I had to stop reading all of the footnotes and just read the text because I was getting so bogged down by the litany of supporting materials that I lost sigh of the author's work.
I have also read the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. My approach to reading the Bible has been that I must first read what Jesus said and taught before I can read what his followers said and taught. The first time through I have simply read the words without reading the footnotes or breaking it down -- further studies I intend to do at a later time. Through those readings, the other readings I have done, prayer, contemplation, meditation and Grace I have come to grasp a fairly elemental understanding of the faith, or so I thought.
My wife and have spent the last week doing some things to help out friends in need. I am exceptionally proud of my wife because of how I have seen her grow in her Love for others (even if she doesn't recognize it as such). That continued last night when a friend of hers sent her a message on Facebook about her husband leaving her -- her husband is one of sadly growing number of persons who call themselves Catholic but don't attend Mass and don't follow the teachings of the Church . . . a number which I could have been counted among no less than 18 months ago. My wife got on the phone with her and somehow the conversation got to religion. (I say somehow, but any conversation with my "agnostic" wife that is longer than 20-minutes always seems to go there.)
Being that the entire conversation was on speaker phone, my wife dragged me into it when it got to religion. My wife and her friend both had lots of questions about Christianity and Catholicism and I was able to answer almost every one of them in a clear concise manner. I am excited about continued growth in knowledge and understanding of MY Catholic faith.
"If you want to be happy, really really happy, use your talents to serve others." - Eduardo Verastegui
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