October 7th is Respect Life Sunday this year. Every year the clergy are supposed to address life issues from the pulpit. Do they always? No, matter of fact it was the issues NOT being addressed that marked my full return to the church of my baptism. Long story short, I fell away from the Church at the end of High school, many do. I was going to other churches, I frequently was dragged to mass by my boyfriend, who went faithfully (that is why I married him!). In college, being the lazy gen-x college student I was going to the Newman Center at my college, because it was the closest church to my dorm. I got involved with the choir, after all, I was a music major. Respect Life Sunday rolled around, and the Pastor, gets up and informs us all he will not be speaking on respecting life issues, because he does not want to offend anyone, after all we are all different people with different values and opinions. EXCUSE ME? This was the one thing I thought I was certain I agreed with in the Catholic Church, and HE was not going to address it to the group that needed it the most.
My poor boyfriend had to hear me rant for hours, How bad that priest was, how terrible, how the Church is pretty clear on this issue, and on and on (he still married me). Then I got to thinking, If I knew that this priest's actions were wrong, maybe I wasn't as bad of a Catholic as I had thought. If the Church was right about this, maybe I was wrong about other things, not the church.Hmm, I do not like being wrong. It really made me think, for months, but as I said, lazy college student, I did not really do much more about it, besides argue about issues I disagreed with with my boyfriend.
There were a few BIG issues I had, and being an eighteen year old "educated" female, I could not reconcile. Praise be to God, The Catechism was published while I was in college, and my boyfriend bought it for me so I would stop arguing with him (he is still waiting!). I was overwhelmed by the pure logic of the Faith, it simply "made sense". All of my questions were answered, and clearly, I read that puppy from front to back and dog-eared the heck out of it.
In my work I have seen many Pro-life people come into the Catholic Church based on her strong stand on truth. That is why this is such an important Sunday to pray for conversion of hearts, not just of those who are anti-life, but of those who are pro-life, but not part of the Church established by Christ Himself.
2 comments:
That is an awesome story, Deb. You. Rock. :-)
where did you go to college? I was out of the Church for years before being brought back in by Tolkien.
I went to NIU. Now the Newman Center is run by FOCUS and the bishop in Rockford is more assertive of his authority than the previous one, in the 90's(it was a wacky time!)All I hope is that they still have beer nuggets (no actual beer involved) after the 9pm mass. They are a NIU speciality, they got me to Mass a few Sundays!
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