My Love Letter to God: We are Truth-Seekers: Part 2

My Love Letter to God: We are Truth Seekers

Part 2

On Rocky Ground

One day, I decided to step out of my comfort zone and drive down to the church. I was too scared to go inside thinking I would be judged for whatever reason because I was this young guy going to the daily mass, so I just listened at the door. I heard them praying the rosary. I thought no, I must have the wrong time and used it as an excuse to leave. A few days later, I said to myself, No, I want to do this and went back. I stood there and again was too scared to enter. I began to walk away. As I was walking away, I heard laughter. It wasn’t mean spirited but it was gentle and kind. For whatever reason, it gave me the courage to walk inside and I did without ever looking back. 

It was during this time that I began going to mass not only on the weekend but daily searching desperately for purpose and meaning. I felt such an urge to go, an urge that came only from God. Every homily began speaking to me and would stay with me throughout the day. They always seemed to apply to my life. I always took something away from the mass. 

There was one very special homily, in particular, that I’ll never forget. Before then, I saw Jesus only as a once great man capable of doing amazing deeds, someone to look up to and imitate but I never truly felt I had given Him myself which is what He truly wanted. In the homily, Father described a relationship with God as a romantic relationship. It shocked me hearing that. I never had a romantic relationship at that point in my life. I couldn’t imagine having a true romantic type of relationship with God. I didn’t understand what that would be like, but I took his words seriously and at that moment I began falling in love with God. God’s love was always freely given to me, but up to that point I never freely received it. He became an ever present friend and my loving bridegroom. 

I went back to mass to learn more about Him and more about what He wanted from me. I wanted to live my life by what I learned about God and my Church. I was learning that the greatest journeys in life were the ones walked with Christ. 

And not just Christ but the other members of His body aside from Mary and the Saints of course who were still there with me. I got to know some of the people at the daily mass. I was afraid to approach them, but they all seemed so kind and would often smile and wave at me. I’m sure it wasn’t often they saw an 18 year old walking in the Daily Mass. Many of them approached me, but I was often too scared to say much back. Over time I became somewhat envious of Our Lord. He had His apostles, though I couldn’t be too envious, one betrayed Him, but since coming close to Christ, I had this desire for fellowship with my fellow Christians. In that regard, going to the daily mass and interacting with those lovely men and women was just a taste of what was to come. 

Besides the fellowship, there were a few things that struck my heart in a deep way. First, everyone who attended the daily mass were always there 7:00 in morning and went with such reverence and dedication to Christ. One lady in particular I noticed, had difficulty walking, but each and every day she knelt down to the floor and genuflected before Jesus in the Eucharist enthroned in the golden tabernacle. After I noticed this for the first time, not a day passed when I didn’t do the same. The last thing I noticed were the couples. There were three in particular I saw everyday going to mass together, holding hands and distributing communion to each. They were beautiful examples of marriages grounded in Faith. And this was my first inclination from God that I was called to be a husband. 

With regard to the Eucharist, I began to see it as the center of my life. I began to look at that moment of consecration much differently then when I was a kid thinking, boy the apostles must have thought that was so gross. When the priest raised the bread and the chalice of wine that would become His Body and Blood, instead of seeing the priest I saw an image of Jesus and envisioned myself at the Last Supper where Jesus did this for the very first time. 

Consuming the Eucharist was my uniting to Christ in the most intimate of ways. A priest once called it an emotional intercourse, similar to the way a husband and wife give themselves to each other in the marital act. It was the ultimate receiving of God and giving of myself. I presented myself at the altar, my entire self all the good and bad and then prepared to receive Jesus entirely, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity and through receiving Jesus I was being transformed. You are what you eat as they say.

John 6:53-57

Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.

God was calling me out into the world. God met me where I was but he refused to keep me there. God was helping me grow into a man. I knew I had to attend college. I was blessed to be given an opportunity to go where others did not but fear, as always, was the thing holding me back. I prayed and prayed and felt this call to go to college. I told God, “Ok I’ll go, but I’m not going without You. When I walk through those doors, you're walking with me." I literally walked through the doors of the college with my hand out beside me. I must have looked crazy to my classmates, but I knew why I was doing it. 

It was in college I got my first job and met my first girlfriend. It was also my testing period in more ways than one. I’m going to glance over a few details, but I was starting to lose my way due to stress and temptation. Many of my flaws like caring too much about what other people think, self loathing, and indecisiveness were hurting not only me but others as well. Giving yourself truly to Christ isn't the end but only the beginning, I learned. There were countless moments when I grew so afraid and full of doubt. I prayed, mostly during mass and in prayer, I spoke more than listened. 

I wanted to believe that God still loved me and would forgive me for being flawed, that He had a plan for me, but the voices in my head always told me the opposite. They said I wasn’t enough and that I would never be able to help anyone, though that was always my most pressing desire. You see, my Faith was certainly growing stronger and somewhat deeper but I was mostly seeking after that great feeling of love more than a true relationship with Jesus, something I didn’t understand at the time. I went to St. Paul’s and it felt so good, it was the only place that made me feel that way, but as life continued, I didn’t always experience those good feelings, I didn’t look back to Christ sitting there on the stone watching me, and I again started to turn away from God and His Church. 

I broke up with my girlfriend and became very depressed. There was a lot of hurt in my heart and the world began to feel like this huge weight on my shoulders that I just couldn’t remove no matter how hard I tried. I was refusing to give it to God. I wanted to do it by myself. 

In my desire for independence I rented an apartment and began to live on my own which only worsened my depression and anxiety leaving me feeling more alone than ever. However, though we may not always reach out to God, He is ever reaching out to us. The pastor of my church gave me a phone call telling me about an ACTS Retreat and little else, just saying that He thought it would be good for me. Of course, my first thought was, what the heck is an ACTS Retreat, we taking some axes into the woods to chop down some trees? 

Of course, that is not what the retreat was. It was an ACTS Retreat, (A, C, T, S), the Retreat that set so much of my life in motion. It was at this retreat where God watered and again nurtured those seeds from my childhood, so that I could begin to see Him as Father and the Source of all Truth. It was also at this retreat that I made my first real friends. One in particular who introduced me to Bishop Robert Barron and His Catholicism series, the Knights of Columbus, and Catholic Underground which I will describe in more detail later. 

After attending ACTS, a few men from the parish decided to start a small men’s group for us to bond and grow closer to God and each other. I finally had that fellowship I so deeply desired. We prayed together and gathered for fellowship often. One day, I remembered someone joking that there were 12 of us like the apostles and someone responded, "Huh, I wonder who’s Judas." I remember laughing of course, but also having this thought that, wow, God provided. I learned so much from those men deepening my desire to be a father and husband. God worked through them to help me grow and to push past my fears.

Aside from joining the men’s group, I also became an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion, AKA a distributor of communion. It felt daunting in a way but so exciting, to be able to give Jesus in the flesh to my fellow Catholic Christians. I’ll never forget my first couple of weeks. When you’re in the pews, you don’t often see the reactions of those receiving Jesus in the Eucharist, but as an EMOHC, you are front and center to witness the love they have for Christ. When you distribute the Eucharist, you are told to take Him and make Him eye level to the person receiving Him. You then say, “The Body of Christ” and the person receives. The looks people give to the Eucharist is breathtakingly beautiful. I’ve seen it in our priests over the years. It’s a look of pure adoration and reverence. I hope that's how I look when I receive Him.  

I was feeling more alive but I still felt so uncertain about where my life was headed at this point. Despite amazing guides that God put in my life, I had so much anxiety to overcome that it was clouding my ability to see and to listen to Him through them. My Seed of Faith was still planted on rocky ground.

Was God calling me to be a priest or a husband and father? Either vocation would be wonderful and life giving as long as it was where God wanted me to be. I felt God calling me in one direction and then I met Brandy who confirmed what I was feeling forever changing my life and leading me into the final part of my story so far.