You don’t get it? Well, get it.
No,seriously…one suggestion for you is to find a Catholic author that you favor and who “speaks” to you. Get some books from this author and immerse yourself in the reading.
I’m Catholic but I’ve been reading Jewish commentaries for two years, now. The commentaries from the Jewish Publication Society are kind of expensive, but you can really get immersed in a 500+ page commentary on Genesis for example.
Or, you might look at Dr. Scott Hahn or Mike Aquilina or Mark Shea. Dr. Tim Gray is a favorite scripture scholar of mine. I especially liked his fast-moving commentary on Exodus that ran on EWTN a couple years ago.
We are immersed in an anti-Catholic and anti-Religion culture. All the advertising is set up to lure us away and to even change our values and thinking.
I was watching an NFL game this past Sunday, and there was an ad for the upcoming playoffs. There was a video of a roomful of screaming men and women, acting out about what they were watching on a wide-screen TV (a football game). The announcer’s voice said, This is what it’s all about. Well, quite frankly, no it’s not. But, it’s what they WANT you to think.
Then there was an ad for a well-known pizza chain showing a man and a boy eating pizza which was a specialty product with cheese baked in the crust. The man is saying, this is the best day of my life, as he took a bite of the pizza. Well, who knows if that was that man’s best day of his life, but I can’t believe it had anything to do with a pizza.
I’m not into music and I will turn the TV off to turn my attention to a good book – usually a scripture commentary or the Bible itself or a book on spirituality.
Pope Benedict XVI wrote a book called Jesus of Nazareth. It’s a pretty good book, very impressive, but the ideas are not always elementay concepts, such as when he’s talking about how some people incorrectly interpret the Bible.
I understand he has written to more books on this subject, which makes them a short series of top quality books.
If reading doesn’t put you to sleep, there’s a lot of good stuff out there to read and keep your mind busy.
The Mass is a very beautiful, ancient liturgy of the Church. All of its parts are very meaningful, even when you experience them over and over.
It may be good to stay away from controversy, as you might find even here in this website.
Depending on your situation, you might try volunteering for some activity at your parish, such as the worship committee, if you like meetings and working, for example.
I started a thread in the spirituality forum a couple days ago about a Jewish book called Twerski on Spirituality. There’s a lot of good advice for any Jew or Christian about persistence in pursuing one’s own spirituality, which is defined simply as our relationship to God. Twerski emphasizes that spirituality is a matter of TODAY, not tomorrow, not next Sunday or next year. That’s tremendously practical advice to focus on today, because that is all we have is today.
You are responsible for using your God-given faculty of wisdom to develop your relationship with God. Part of Twerski’s advice is to develop your self-esteem and realize your dignity and purpose in life using your free will and the abilities that God has given to you.
You don’t necessarily have to go anyplace, buy anything, etc. unless it supports this goal of your life to develop your spirituality. Jews are fundamentally committed to life-long study of the Torah (God’s instruction – first five books of the Bible, plus all their hundreds of years of commentary on the Bible) – anything else in their life is supposed to be secondary.
He tells the story of a Jewish couple who owned a grocery story. They only worked so long until they earn enough money to support themselves for a day, and then they close, to study the Torah.
He’s not only a rabbi, himself, but he is practicing psychiatrist. He notes that a lot of people react to religion from a compliance standpoint, which is dry and artificial. The real mindset to develop is that you enjoy studying God’s word and doing His commands.
When you start out playing basketball, you might be clumsey and unskillful. But, in time, you hone your skills and it becomes enjoyable. That may be your next goal, to develop yourself so that your faith is enjoyable. You become skilled in it. And, you have the humble satisfaction of pleasing God and improving your relationship with Him.
