Hello, everyone. This thread actually made me decide to register for the forum after lurking for the last few hours. Not very long, I know, but I just had to discuss this since this topic applies to me perfectly.
I’m a “cradle Catholic”, spent k-12 in a Catholic school. I never really understood the actual Catholic faith, mainly just what was “shoved down our throats”, so to speak. During college I really fell away from the Church, I still believed in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and considered myself Catholic…but, I was living in a constant state of sin. One night stands, drinking, swearing, my relationship with my parents deteriorated, etc.
Much of that behavior stopped when I met my current girlfriend during my Sophomore year, and we’ve been together ever since (over 3 years now). As many young couples do we engaged in sex, and I didn’t even consider that this was a sin.
I graduated from college this past spring and began Law School, moved in with the girlfriend, and just carried on as usual.
Then, sometime in November, I can’t even explain it something just clicked. I began reading about the Church, I started reading the CCC and looking through the Code of Canon Law. I don’t know what happened but I can’t seem to think of anything else except reading more about my newly re-discovered faith.
My girlfriend is “cafeteria Catholic” you could say, and I’ve had a talk with her, and we’ve agreed that no more sex until marriage. I’ve started going to mass again, both the new English mass and the Tridentine mass (I love the Tridentine mass since I’ve taken Latin from 6th grade through senior year of college). I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do as a faithful Catholic. I guess my best bet is to keep reading the Code of Canon Law and talk to my priest.
I, like many others my age (22), feel a connection to the more “traditional” aspects of the Church. I know I don’t really have much of an ability to make that claim since I’ve only rediscovered my faith in the last few months, but, and I really can’t explain it, I just feel absolutely consumed.
I don’t want to say this because it may come off like the hypocritical evangelicals I know (“I’VE BEEN FILLED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT!!!” etc) but I don’t know what caused this change. My girlfriend says that it’s as if I experienced some type of divine intervention. Maybe she’s right. The Lord works in mysterious ways, I guess.
In order to gain a better intellectual understanding of the theological position of the Church, since I know I already have faith, I’ve begun reading Introduction to Christianity by Pope Benedict XVI – This is one of the best books I’ve read, I just can’t put it down. Which explains why I’m up at 3 in the morning, knowing I have to wake up in a few hours. After reading the Pope’s work on Saint Paul and his Jesus of Nazareth books…I might go so far as to say Benedict is the best Catholic theologian of his generation (however, I’m making that claim with a very limited experience in Catholic theology over the last 60-70 years).
Actually I can point to what caused this “rebirth”, now that I think about it. A friend of mine, an atheist, who knew that I was basically a “cafeteria Catholic” sent me a youtube link of a lecture by Bart Erhman, back in early October. Erhman claimed that there were hundreds of thousand of errors in the Bible, and that faith in such a document was stupid. I couldn’t believe it. I looked into it, and while there are error the majority of them are clerical, and we know with 99% certainty that the text of the New Testament hasn’t changed in 2,000 years.
From there I began to look into a number of topics that bothered me about the Church – Saint Paul, papal infallibility, perpetual virginity of Mary, the Assumption, just to name a few – and the more I read, the more I began to UNDERSTAND and my faith turned from this little spark to what I can only describe as a roaring fire. It’s amazing.
Anyway, I’ll stop writing since this is getting long, and sorry for the rambling…it is 3am after all.
