Laws of Life Essay

“Faith… comes only when the outward fact penetrates to the inner heart of man and takes possession of him there -- and this is the work of the Spirit” -George Hendry

All my life, I‘ve felt as if I were on the periphery: outside looking in. I was born into a Catholic family, raised on Catholic manners, and taught in Catholic Sunday school. As a little kid, it was easy to accept God and His great love for me because when you’re small, you believe what your parents believe. There is no reason to question what your parents obviously know to be true. My struggle began when I started to grow up and become more independent; I was able to form my own opinions and become my own person. More and more so, my own person seemed to be someone that wasn’t born into a Catholic family, raised on Catholic manners, and taught in Catholic Sunday school. This was when I lost my faith and began looking in at Catholicism instead of living it.

Every Mass, every youth group, every retreat was meaningless because I couldn’t convince myself to believe without seeing and know without reason. I went to church and small group, but I was simply going through the motions. Confession was nerve-wracking, Adoration was time-consuming, and my life in the Catholic church was dying. With doubts lingering in my mind, none of my prayers meant anything. My faith’s growth became stunted because I couldn't truly imagine a world where God could exist. No matter how hard I tried to blindly have faith, at every point, some part of me wasn't convinced. I was never able to feel His presence, hear His voice, or understand His message. However, this all began to change a few months ago, as I started my Confirmation journey.

In the Catholic church, children are baptized as infants, given the Eucharist as 3rd graders, and confirmed as Catholic when they begin high school. Confirmation is when Catholic-raised children choose Catholicism for themselves, and I was planning on being Confirmed even if I still couldn't find God in my heart. However, as I began to go to the high school version of the youth group I had been in for middle school, my mind became less convinced of His absence. I met an amazing small group leader who believed wholeheartedly and was so incredible that I wanted to model my life in the faith after her; she knew God was real without the proof that I seemed to need.

As I began to believe again, I found myself thinking often