The Start of Something Good

I'm about to embark on a journey down the road most traveled yet perhaps not the most maintained of  paths--following the footsteps of the Lord. I've been a Catholic my whole nineteen years of life,  but as with anything, there is always room for improvement. I want to understand. I do not want to just "go through the motions" so to speak, of being a Christian and being a Catholic. Don't get me wrong, I'm strong in my faith: I've taught Sunday school in high school for two consecutive years, and I go to church every Sunday, holy days, and on occasion attend Daily Mass. My freshman year of college, I prayed the Divine Mercy every Tuesday on a campus hill outside my dorm with my friends at 10 at night. However, there is still so much I have yet to learn. I feel that if I am going to be particular and say I want to marry someone who is also a Catholic, I need to have a greater understanding of what exactly it is I practice.

 The goal of this blog is to improve my relationship with the Lord and make it my longest and most meaningful of all relationships. I hope that through this I can gain a greater understanding and appreciation of God's love and of Catholicism. I want to have a sort of "epiphany" of my faith and if I'm lucky, maybe understand what my calling here on earth is in both a personal and professional-career sense. I'm young. I'm blessed. This is the time of my life.

Today (technically yesterday, but I'm a night owl, what can I say?) was the Most Holy Trinity. In a nutshell, the priest spoke about how it is complicated to define God since he is a loving father, a faithful son, and a life-giving spirit. He basically said, get to know the Lord and that will do, but know him for who He is. Ultimately He is everything. The priest then went onto say that as humans, we tend to mask who we really are when we interact with others by being superficial. The standard "I'm fine, how are you?" conversation in passing and the Facebook hype is a reflection of how we tend to live our lives--"on the go".  We simply cannot have this relationship with the Father, who knows more about us than we'd like to admit. 

To be honest, I'm not the best at communicating with God. I myself am a self proclaimed "on the go" person. Rarely do I have time to sit and reflect on my religion since I am typically so wrapped up in memorizing reactions for organic chemistry, making flashcards for genetics, preparing for my organization's next meeting, or hanging out with friends. By the end of the day (which really is around 2 or 3 AM on a normal day), I am exhausted; and the next day begins at 8 AM. Rinse and Repeat.  In prayer, I would like to start saying more to the Lord than "Please make all my worries go away" or "Please fix whatever it is that needs fixing (like my GPA etc.)" as I start to dose off before I can finish the sign of the cross. I would like to have more frequent and meaningful prayers. I would like to keep God in my mind all the time and not utilize his love as if he is a genie in a bottle, only beckoning him as needed. If I'm going to be following the Lord's footsteps, I need to do so in a more sincere fashion. It's so cliche to say that actions speak louder than words, but truly they do. Prayer is such a vital way of connecting with the Lord and is best way to get to know Him. With prayer I can be rest assured that the rest of the puzzle pieces of my life should fall into place and everything will work out, at His will, in time.  

So I leave you with a passage from today's mass, one that should be familiar to many. 

"God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life. For God sent his Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but so that through him the world might be saved. No one who believes in him will be condemned but whoever refuses to believe in him is condemned already, because he has refused to believe in the name of God's only Son" John 3:16-18

God sacrificed his only Son for our sake. Jesus shed blood and died on the cross so that we could be saved. The holy spirit dwells in our hearts every day, like a light, guiding us towards what is right and good and protecting us from evil. This is the Holy Trinity and with faith, even as small as a mustard seed, we have a chance of eternal life and peace. 

This is the season of Pentecost. It is time for me to wake up and revitalize my faith and not let my praying knees get lazy. It is time for me to know the Lord. 

  

Love,  

Nicole