I consider myself a “Catholic Inheritor” rather than “Cradle Catholic”. Of course this inheritance was a
gift to me from my loving parents. Both were good Catholics and both came from strong Catholic
backgrounds. They taught their children through words and deeds what it is to be Catholic. These were
vital to my inheritance and would be extremely important for me. As with many people who inherit
something; first, my parents passed away before I could appreciate it and secondly, there is always a risk
that the inheritance may be squandered.
My parents made sure I received the Sacraments of Baptism, First Reconciliation, First Holy
Communion and Confirmation. I was generally excited about receiving each Sacrament and remember
especially how good it felt when I was conferred into the Church. Not a “whew, I’m done” feeling but
something deeper and much more personal than that. Pretty deep for a kid of fourteen or fifteen but I
remember how good I felt.
It is acknowledged by many in the Church that during the 1970’s and 1980’s catechesis in the American
Catholic church was poor. It is evident by the many who have left the church or who continue to stay
lukewarm for Her. I was part of that era. Let me explain.
During the time the Confirmation classes were finishing up, my class was told that we no longer
needed to go to CCD. In actuality, there was nowhere else “to go” after becoming conferred. So it was
assumed by the class that we were “graduating” from Catholicism and we knew about as much as we
needed to for spiritual survival in this harsh world of growing secularism, consumerism and relativism.
Thinking back, If I wanted to increase my education in Catholicism I felt I was kind of left on my own. I
do not remember anyone offering resources. At the time there was no internet, computers or other
technology to grow my faith, just the old dingy books laying around at church or the local library. Both of
which required a ride to get to and from.
Even if I dared to borrow a book from church, there always seemed to be an old blue haired lady
hovering in the library insisting that if I did not return anything borrowed within a week, I was a thief
and going straight to hell. If that were the case I thought, then I would see her there. I figured that just
her hair alone was sin enough to punch a ticket to the depths of eternal darkness let alone the idle
threats. So, between threatening old ladies and the inability to get to the library, continuing my Catholic
education began to wane.
By my late teens and early adulthood I was still going to Mass on Sundays but I was going because I did
not want to hear my parents yap at me. Honor your mother and father I said to myself. The weekly
homily seemed like an extension of my parent’s lectures. Singing at Mass? Forget it! I was way too cool
for that.
The church culture was not a good petri dish for religious growth. For instance, the Holy Eucharist was
called the “host” because well, that was what everyone called Him. He was just a tasteless tiny piece of
a blessed wafer. Not much more than that. My church did not offer the Blood of Christ or as it was called
“the wine”. Very few understood the magnitude of what we were doing each Sunday, including myself.
The men of the parish seemed to complain that all the homilies given were about giving money for this
or that. Though I rarely paid attention to the homilies, I am certain they did not hear what I heard.
Obviously, the priest was lecturing us kids because our parents petitioned him to do so and I rarely
heard any homily about money.
Many of the men stood in the back of the church hiding behind the confessional booths smoking and
talking with one another during mass. I was rarely back there, only to pass through to go to the
bathroom. I believe their discussions were about the other ethnic churches in town and how long their
masses were comparatively to ours. They seemed quite happy that Mass lasted only thirty five minutes
tops while the other churches “dragged it out for an hour”.
The ushers had soviet police-like responsibilities such as whacking a kid in the back of the head or
shoulder if they were jagging around. There was also the infamous pointing of the finger too. I
remember thinking to myself “Relax Comrade, I am already in the gulag.” Boy am I glad they were not
armed. Remember, the Cold War was still going on at this time so the reference was quite appropriate.
The weekly bulletin was kind of cruel too simply because everyone one who gave a gift was listed and
the monetary gift amount given was printed beside them for everyone to see. It was embarrassing for
those that could not give much. I think the idea was to shame people into giving more in their envelopes
each week.
I found it quite difficult for me to even consider volunteering for an event the church offered. I did not
want to be a part of “that crowd” that the church was relying on. Let’s face it, no one really knew me
there anyhow so why bother.
This was the “dark” side of the parish culture. Much of it on my part may be a huge misperception but
that is what going to Mass meant for me. I seemed to not mind all of this too much probably because I
did not know any better or simply did not care. I did pray at mass. I never prayed aloud but I kept along
with everything in the “book”.
As a young man, when I went to Saturday night Mass, I could nearly guarantee I would see half the
parishioners later on at night at one of the many local bars. As I grew older, my perception changed
slightly in that I perceived Mass as a place for old people trying to make amends for their youth before
they died and for the young who were working on their own Sacraments. Nothing during Mass engaged
young adults. Jesus asked for only an hour anyhow, so acting holy for one hour a week was acceptable
to me. Not that I was bad, I just was not good.
The inheritance was waning for sure.
Quickly, that whole idea of “confession” was out the window. I was not about to grovel in front of a
mere mortal man and tell him all my sins. Even if I did, he was only getting my venial stuff because any
mortal sin meant excommunication. How could I explain that one off to my parents? I was certain the
priest would give them a call and fill them in about my misdeeds. They’d have a great chuckle and
conspire for some really huge and involved penance like eight thousand “Our Fathers”, five hundred
“Hail Mary’s” and three years of church volunteerism back in the kitchen. But honestly, the underlying
fear of confession for me was that the priest would recognize me or my voice, whack me up side of my
sinful head, judge me every time he saw me and mentally condemn me to hell. Oh I knew so much
about Sacrament of Reconciliation back then and so much more about priests.
The Catholic inheritance I received was becoming squandered. But through all of this I prayed. Not
daily but I did pray. I noticed that some of my prayers seemed to make a difference. They did to me at
least. That stuck with me so I continued to do so.
I went through the motions at Mass and holy days but made darn sure I was a good Catholic by
watching the “Ten Commandments” or “Jesus of Nazareth” during Easter. Eventually Mass was missed
for weeks on end. At some point I drifted away from the church spiritually, then physically.
I soon forgot more than I knew about Catholicism. I was still Catholic but lukewarm or disengaged. I still
considered myself a good Catholic. You know the type, the one that was polite and quiet during Mass
that one hour a week. The type who gave a firm handshake with eye contact during the sign of peace,
and the type who let a car out in front of me in the parking lot as we left. That was considered a good
Catholic at least in my parish. Nowadays I would have been considered a “Sunday Catholic”. By the way,
those that stayed for the entire closing hymn were considered really good Catholics.
But I was fooling myself. I was clueless to Catholicism. I was an adult and embarrassed to ask
questions. I feared that if I did ask, people might look at me as if I invented income tax. Or give me a
look as if I should already know this stuff. I soon had doubts about what I believed and this
disenchanted me even more. I considered myself a good person but definitely not a good Catholic.
I continued to walk disengaged about my faith through my twenties and most of my thirties, even
when life began to change for me. I was engaged to my best friend who is Catholic also. At the time,
beach and outdoor weddings were in vogue. We wanted a Catholic church wedding not one of those
fancy-shmancy “pagan” weddings. We first looked into the parish I grew up in but it just did not seem
right on many levels so we decided that St. Matthias was where we wanted to be wed.
Eventually we had a son and I knew I wanted him to have a Christian faith. But I also knew that I could
not share something that I did not have, especially my faith. I could leave his faith formation up to CCD
or others but would that be fair to him? I looked into myself and noticed that I did not want him to turn
out like me when it came to his faith. He was baptized at St. Matthias because that is what Catholics do.
Yes, I was still fairly disengaged.
A couple of years later my childhood best friend was diagnosed with brain cancer. As kids we went to
school and the same parish together, grew up like brothers. He was an alter server as a kid but he too
fell away from his Catholic faith and was now “just a Christian”.
One day I was asked by his wife to sit with him so she could go to work. I took a vacation day and spent
what would become one last day with my childhood best friend. He was still lucid and we discussed rock
and roll and other dumb things. There was a knock on the door and I let in a young preacher. He went
into see my friend and he read scripture to him. I hovered in the doorway and politely declined any sort
of prayers with them.
I gave them some space and let “preacher man” do what he came to do. I popped my head in and
witnessed the preacher raising his hand over my friend and asked the good Lord to take away his cancer
right here and right now. I thought to myself “this is not right, he never mentioned “thy will be done”! A
red flag went up in my heart. It was a trigger that made me re-think where I was in my faith. What did I
truly believe?
The preacher left and soon after the Hospice called and said they were ready to take my friend in. I had
no idea what a hospice was but I passed along the message to my friend and called his wife. I was
clueless as to the impact of the message I was giving them. Within the week he was gone.
This “preacher man” got to me. A lot of people I knew seemed to be finding a “better” place to
worship. You know, lively band music, positive sermons, quaint signage in the front of the church with
cute sayings. It seemed easy, just believe that Jesus is your savior, learn a few key bible verses and quote
them to others. BAM! You are going to heaven. The Christians did not have rules like Holy days of
obligation, no meat on Fridays, Ash Wednesday, confession, the sacraments, mortal sins, venial sins,
feed the hungry, clothe the poor, visit the infirmed, and the list seemed to go on and on. I wondered if I
was wrong to hold onto what little I had left of my Catholic faith.
Yep, my faith was being squandered and replaced by apathy for just about everything.
So I decided to say a prayer one night. I asked anyone and I mean ANYONE in heaven to hear me and
help me. I basically said that I was really confused about this whole religion thing. What should I do?
Should I look beyond the Catholic Church or should I look back to Her? Through my prayers I felt that I
was told to look back to Her before I considered leaving Her. It seemed that Blessed Mary spoke to me
on this. I considered this thought; if I were open-minded enough to look beyond the Church, I needed to
be open-minded about the Church before any decisions could be made.
One night I kept hearing in my heart “Say the Rosary”. I went outside and lit a smoke, looked up into
the star lit sky and said aloud “The Rosary?! Are you sure? That is for old people, not me! Anyway, isn’t
that one of the last things you do before you die?” I laughed and agreed to it. Yes, I do talk out loud to
Jesus.
I thought to myself “Thy will be done”. I dug out a Rosary that was buried in a box in the basement. It
was my first Holy Communion rosary given to me as a gift from my aunt who was a religious sister. It
was busted so I rigged it back together with bread tie wraps. I bought a book about the Rosary and took
a “how to” pamphlet after Mass one day.
I stumbled through my rosary prayers but persevered. I said them nearly daily for weeks then months
on end and eventually was able to memorize the prayer. Eventually I began going back to Mass on an
almost regular basis. At one Mass I heard the reading of Revelations 3:16 “I know your deeds, that you
are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot
nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.” This bible quote really spoke to me personally. I felt as though
Jesus himself said that to me right then and right there. Ouch! Talk about a kick in the pants.
After praying about this I decided that I needed to be “all in or all out” as a Catholic. So, I bought
myself the “Catholicism for Dummies” book. It was not humiliating to buy it but it sure gave me some
humility about what I knew about my faith. I wanted to re-start with the basics, I devoured the book. I
was being gently nudged back into Catholicism by someone. Someone “up there” heard my prayers and
was responding. I truly believe it was my parents. I am eternally grateful for their intercession.
I was transforming spiritually. One book led to another then another then another. Soon I had a small
library of Catholicism books. I was watching EWTN and enjoying it. I was pro-actively searching online
for more about Catholicism. I continued to pray daily and was going to the Sacrament of Reconciliation
much more often.
As I grew in my faith, I was stepping outside of myself by going to the Men’s Catholic conferences and
the March for Life in D.C. I was volunteering at church events!? Sunday mass became what I looked
forward to the most. I was pretty darn excited to be a Catholic! I was “all in”. My inheritance was slowly
making a comeback.
Slowly I have come to realize in my journey of faith that I was living my life in reverse. For instance, I
put my relationships, employment, education, activities, etc. all before my faith. When life got rough I
had relied on these things to help me with my burdens. I bounced around seeking help through these
avenues and when they were of little or no help, they became less significant to me. As if they were a
waste of my time.
Eventually I began putting my faith first. Through prayer and help from the Holy Spirit I received the
grace of hope. I realized that my faith was the “glue” that bonded me to my loved ones, my career,
education and activities. This bond transformed me from much apathy to much passion for these things
in life. Putting my faith and hope first made the burdens in life much easier to deal with and
strengthened my interest in relationships, employment, education and activities. In hindsight putting my
faith first was so simple that it was overlooked.
If my faith were a cushion, I used to use it to land on, now I wear it. I learned that life’s burdens really
bounce me around and I really bruise. I seem to bruise a lot less now that I wear my faith rather than
relying on it to catch me after bruising.
I now consider myself Catholic first, before anything else. It has changed not only how I live my life but
how I perceive and approach politics, people, sports, and TV shows. Well, let’s just say that it has
affected every aspect of my life.
Do not get me wrong, I have a long way to go in my faith journey. But the graces I have been granted
so far have led me into a deeper relationship with Jesus. I do not and will not compare my faithfulness,
piety or holiness to others. I only compare my journey in faith to where I am today versus yesterday.
I am glad that I re-invested in my Catholic inheritance. I am also glad that I prayed for guidance. The
dividends have paid off one hundred fold. I have something to share with my family now. My
inheritance will be their inheritance. It is probably the greatest gift I can give them, my Catholic faith and
how I live it daily.
-St. Matthias Parishioner