Standing by Him

Throughout my whole life, I had never thought about leaving the Catholic faith since I felt a connection to Christ that made me not want to outright leave him. But, like every human in this world, I had my own sins and faults that made me turn my back from Jesus time and again. Around middle school, I had developed an idea that I should try to avoid making a fool of myself and being thought badly by others; instances where I saw others make these mistakes and my own mistakes probably led to this attitude.

I didn’t want to seem bad or unusual to others, especially in high school when I was done with CCD and no longer seemed to talk to any of my other friends and students about my faith openly. I had felt that in my home area of Sterling, Virginia, there was an idea to not talk about your religious beliefs to others. This mostly stemmed from the fact that no one had a desire to talk about it during high school. At the time, I would hear someone who I found out was Catholic turn away from the faith outright, or become indifferent to Catholicism. 

While I believed what the Church had taught and wanted to love Christ and God, this attitude of keeping my faith to myself allowed me to lie to myself that my sins were fine in the times we live in and that I did not need to improve myself as long as I was happy. The only problem being that the sins I committed did not make me happy, and I had kept myself away from confession out of fear of being judged and looked down upon.

When I first came to UVA by the grace and love of God, I felt the desire to go to the Catholic Hoos Bible study for the first time in my life. It did take me three weeks to decide this, and I was extremely nervous about how the other people there would think of me for not showing up earlier, but all I could think about there was how unusual they were. The people at the bible study were talking about the Catholic faith that I shared with them, and they were filled with joy to reflect on the passages we read to understand what God was telling us through the Bible. 

Soon after the first Bible study, I came back each and every week that I could, even when I felt sick and even when I was fifty minutes late for the Bible study about the new covenant (btw JESUS is the new covenant!). I went to the Tuesday Supper, the Thursday night fireside mass along with the rosary before the mass. I even started to go to confession regularly in the second semester after years of convincing myself not to go. I would even start talking to my other non-Catholic friends openly about my faith and the love for God that I had.

I still sin and try to improve myself for the faults I have to better be perfect like our heavenly Father and better follow Christ. I’ve realized that to love others that aren’t close to you or don’t love you back means that you will be unusual. If I truly believe that Christ died for our sins and that He established the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, then shouldn’t I joyfully proclaim the gospel to others not only through my words but also with the way I act?

I wish I had learned this sooner in life, but now I know more and can follow Christ knowing these truths. I may be rejected by others for what I believe as Jesus told us, but I know that being Catholic and following Christ brings me more joy than any other thing in this world. Being Catholic means that we will be unusual to others because we do not live of the world as Jesus does not live of the world. Jesus has shown us that we are meant for eternal life with him in heaven, and so if that means that to spread the joyous news makes me unusual, then I am now happy to be unusual, so that I may try to be perfect like our heavenly Father and truly love others.

I’m thankful to the friends who have shown me how to better follow Christ from my Bible study. If there is something that you feel a calling to such as joining a Bible study or doing service for God’s sake, answer His call and follow Christ.