About 2 years ago, my family
started going to a new church where I really didn’t feel at home. My
parents suggested that since I was an adult, I look around for another
church to attend without them (they never dreamed that church would be
Catholic!). I prayed, “Lord, please lead me to the church where You want
me to be.” To my amazement, even though I had never even considered
Catholicism, I felt that God was telling me to go to the Catholic church
in my neighborhood. To make a long story short, I started attending
Sunday mass, read a lot about Catholic teachings, and eventually started
talking to the priest who encouraged me to start RCIA this past fall.
The problem is, since I started
RCIA, so many things in my faith life have gone crazy. I’ve never
experienced so much temptation to sin before in my life. For the first
time in my life, I doubt the existence of God, and of Heaven, and doubt
God’s love for me! I’ve believed firmly in these things since I was old
enough to be taught about them. I don’t know what to do! I’m wondering
if it could be that the devil is trying to dissuade me from this
conversion. I’m experiencing a lot of doubts, some days, as I mentioned,
I even doubt the existence of God, which really upsets me. So I guess
the main worry I have is that I know that receiving the Eucharist is a
big deal. I really don’t want to receive it unworthily and offend God.
I’m worried that because of my doubts and lack of faith, I’m not in a
position to receive Holy Communion, even though I really thought I felt
God was calling me to the Catholic Church. Do you think I should not be
confirmed until I feel a stronger faith? I take the reception of the
Sacraments really seriously and I don’t want to offend God through a
lack of faith.
Dear Reader,I have a few thoughts for you.
The first is this: the more God draws you into himself, or the more ‘holy’ you become by His grace, the increasingly difficult life is going to become. This is just a reality. Believe me, I’m seven years in and I’m a 27 year old, single, American guy. And we see this from the saints all the time: I’m thinking in particular about St .John of the Cross, who was a Spanish mystic who wrote a famous piece called “The Dark Night of the Soul,” and I’m thinking about Blessed Mother Theresa. I’m not sure how much you’ve come in contact with either of these saints, but they both talk about how for the majority of their lifetimes, they had significant gaps, or darkness, about whether or not God actually loved them, let alone if he existed at all. If you haven’t, do a little research on Mother Theresa and her ‘dark night.’ Basically Jesus appeared to her one time in her youth and after that, Mother Theresa struggled for the rest of her life dealing with the fact that she seemed alone in feeling like maybe God didn’t exist or didn’t love her.
And yet the key to both of these saints was the fact of their wisdom in fidelity; they knew deep down in the heart, even though they didn’t feel it or want it or always like it, that God existed. For them, the fact of God’s love for them was just that: a fact. It had no feelings. It wasn’t warm and fuzzy. It wasn’t always an a joyful thing. Inside and intellectually, though, they knew it. And that’s what drove them to remain a faithful disciples.
Secondly: God’s existence.
We believe in God because 2,000 years ago, a man named Jesus claimed to be God’s son. The reason to believe him is that in order to back up the statement that He was the Son of God, he performed miracles. And when that freaked people out too much, they killed him. And in order to prove to them, again, that he was legit, he frickin came back to life.
Dead people do not come back to life. Especially maimed and tortured dead people. I’ve worked at a funeral home, and I’ve never seen that happen.
The last part of this story is this, though. Somebody might accuse us of not having credible sources to believe that Jesus came back from the dead. After all, we know it all from a book, right?
No. We know it through the witness of the martyrs. I’m talking about the apostles themselves, and all the people who claimed to have seen Jesus come back to life. Those people – every single one of them – went to their death because they insisted that they had seen Jesus after he came back to life.
Most Catholics don’t know any of this. But look at any disciple, like St. Bartholomew for example. The guys was skinned alive. SKINNED ALIVE. Could you imagine? You would think that if he had any iota of doubt that he hadn’t seen what he had seen, he would have said, “Wait wait wait! You’re right…maybe I was imagining things!” But he didn’t. And neither did any of the disciples.
So if you get a warm heart, or feel-goodies at church, or whatever, that’s all fine and dandy. But for me, the foundations and reasons for believing for me has consistently been the witness of the first martyrs. I believe them. I believe that what they witnessed was true, because of the fact that they all, every single one of them, went to their death proclaiming it. They weren’t in it for fame. They weren’t in it for money. They weren’t in it for anything other than for the glory of Jesus Christ. Fame, money, and anything else would be useless reasons to die right? Because they’d be dead and gone if Jesus didn’t actually come back.
Worthiness Listen, nobody is ‘worthy’ to receive the Eucharist. And again, I can’t overemphasize how much “feelings” don’t matter in the real life of faith. Yes, they’re great, and coming from a non-Catholic background they can be very important to the life of faith. And feelings hold a great part in the life of many Catholics still, and no they’re not a bad thing. But don’t judge the state of your faith or worthiness based on how you’re feeling.
So should you wait for confirmation until you have stronger faith? No. Remember: you receive more faith, hope and love from the sacraments. These are not things you can ‘build up’ and grow like a plant on your own. They are gifts from God, and the primary way God gives gifts is through Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit, especially in the sacraments. The sacraments are free gifts to you, and Jesus is dying to give them to you. Is there a time and a place when you should not receive the Eucharist? Yes, when you have freely and knowingly committed a grave sin. But struggling to understand or struggling to create ‘feelings’ of belief is not sinful.
If you’re really struggling with faith, read more of the scriptures. Just talk to Jesus. Tell him. Ask him for more. You can’t go wrong doing that.
Ryan, http://www.entrecatholic.com/