Like many Catholics, I grew up in a practicing Catholic family. My family and I would go to Mass every Sunday, pray together at home and talk about our faith regularly. I’ve always loved learning about our faith, learning about Jesus, but I never really focused on getting to know Jesus for who he is.
My story begins like many Catholics — I was baptized as an infant and grew up in the Church. I am blessed to be part of a loving family with parents who lived lives in the Holy Spirit and taught me how to have a relationship with Jesus.
I became Catholic because I am a seeker of truth. God planted wonderful people along my journey in my darkest hour to show me the path of light, leading me toward him.
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.
They say that home is where the heart is. If that's true, then my current home is the Catholic Church with Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, with the aim of my ultimate home being heaven. The short answer in response to the question of "Why am I Catholic?" can be summed up in three words: faith, hope and love. Let me elaborate.
“Take courage.”
God planted this gentle command within my soul while I was attending a silent retreat with the same name in 2018 led by Jesuit Father James Kubicki. At the retreat, I learned that the root of the word courage is “cor,” meaning heart. To truly take courage, one must take heart, and, as Father Kubicki said, “(What) better heart to take than the heart of Jesus?”
Thinking back on Evelyn Waugh’s famous Book Three title in “Brideshead Revisited,” I am Catholic because like “a twitch upon the thread,” God gently calls me and protects me when I need it most.
The Catholic faith, deeply intertwined with my Latino background and influenced by the experiences of my immigrant parents, has provided me with a sense of purpose, community and spiritual fulfillment that has enriched every aspect of my life.
After looking at Jesus face to face in adoration today and thinking about why I am Catholic, I thought to myself, how could I not be? I grew up in the Catholic Church, but during my freshman year of college, some questions started to arise in my mind. People approached me with questions about Jesus and the Catholic Church, and I didn’t know the answers.
I was baptized in the Lutheran faith. I grew up going to church every Sunday (or most Sundays). I attended Sunday school, and I was part of the church choir. I was confirmed in the Lutheran faith, I had God in my life, and my parents (especially my mom) were great at getting my family involved in our faith.
