Faith story part 1

This past week my Parrish had a mission with Father Dwight Longenecker.  To say it was enlightening would be an inadequate description.  If you have the opportunity to hear him speak, I cannot recommend enough that you take full advantage of it.

His topic was how to evangelize by sharing your faith journey.  It has had me thinking over the past three days and I want to start to put mine down.  I hope if anyone reads this it will be enlightening and beneficial.  I don't know how many posts it will take, but I will spread it out, as this will be the first time I have ever really done this . . . really the sort of thing I intended to do years ago when I started this blog.  Thank you Father Longenecker.

I guess I must start with my childhood.  My first memory involving church is my parents driving us 40 minutes each way to Mass because we lived in a small town that did not have a church.  I remember going to church in a building at the local Jaycees swimming pool before the local church building was put together (it was made of metal and tin, so I can't really say it was "built").  I remember serving at Mass, I remember youth group and CCD --I think those are called PRE now -- classes.  I  remember standing in the back of church prior to Mass with my best friend trying to get his grandfather to say inappropriate things too loudly, something that was entirely too easy to do! :)

Those were all pleasant memories, but not of much use when talking about knowing and understanding my Christian faith.  As a college kid I remember going to the campus catholic church and absolutely no one bothered to introduce themselves or welcome me.  I remember all the people acting very click-ish, a severe blow for someone like me whose comfort zone is being alone.  I remember having a personal crisis and finding the priest at the campus church neither comforting nor helpful.  I will admit to being very naive and immature about most things at that age, which played a large part in making what shouldn't have been such a big deal into a personal crisis.  However, not all about my father journey at college was lost.  I met and befriended a Benedictine Sister from Holy Angels Convent named Sister Lenor Dust.  She was the principal at the Catholic school in town and knew my mother.  She was wonderful.

A year after graduating from college I moved to Denver, where I lived for approximately a year.  I didn't go to church much then, although I still considered myself Catholic.  I just never found a place I was comfortable.

(to be continued . . .)



"If you want to be happy, really really happy, use your talents to serve others." - Eduardo Verastegui