I am Catholic because my parents are Catholic (and their parents were Catholic, and so on). They had me baptized as a baby, and created a loving, faith-filled home. We regularly attended Mass as a family and received the sacraments. We had family rituals, traditions, pastimes, and shared meals — sacramentality in the domestic church at its finest.
I remain Catholic principally because I continue to meet and love incredible people, first and foremost my wife, who live the faith with an ardent zeal. I cannot make this earthly pilgrimage on my own. Further, to be surrounded by Christian witnesses is to experience a foretaste of the heavenly banquet, and I could not willfully give up such an opportunity. Indeed, my wife and I continue the tradition of shared meals that I loved as a child, and we find tremendous grace in breaking bread with friends and strangers in our home just as the two disciples did with Christ in Emmaus after his resurrection.
Other reasons for remaining Catholic abound, including the reality of the communion of saints. I have a deep bond with a man named Charles de Foucauld who died over 100 years ago in a land I have never visited. I belong to a Church that believes this man, known as St. Charles of Jesus, continues to intercede for me and so many others.
That teaching and the closeness I feel to people all over the world who go to the same Mass as I do here in Minnesota speaks to the universality of the Catholic Church, another crucial reason for remaining in the faith. As mentioned above, I could not make this earthly pilgrimage alone. What a blessing to be Catholic and to walk side-by-side with my wife, my extended family, and the 1 billion brothers and sisters in Christ who share my faith in the Eucharistic Jesus.
Peterson, 32, and his wife, Katie, are members of St. Helena in Minneapolis. Peterson is founder and president of St. Paul-based nonprofit Modern Catholic Pilgrim, which aims to deepen faith and build community across the United States through walked pilgrimage in the Catholic tradition. He has also helped to coordinate the four National Eucharistic Pilgrimage routes crossing the United States to converge in Indianapolis, where the National Eucharistic Congress will convene in July. Peterson enjoys reading modernist fiction, playing chess and walking the neighborhood with his son.
