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The permissive times we have inhabited since the 1960s (and beginning even farther back) have made Christianity a tough belief to willingly follow. Christianity has a behavior code, a code of ethics, and it is a belief system that holds that there are eternal, universal truths such as good and evil. This makes following the Faith, in an era when others break life's ethical standards at will, often very difficult. Relativism is the way of our times, and it is the concept that values are relative to the individual. As this idea sweeps the world and holds people in its grasp, it is ever more difficult to be a person of honor, integrity & ethics. Christianity gives us the code of beliefs and values to attempt an ethical life during a pagan period in history.
The permissive times we have inhabited since the 1960s (and beginning even farther back) have made Christianity a tough belief to willingly follow. Christianity has a behavior code, a code of ethics, and it is a belief system that holds that there are eternal, universal truths such as good and evil. This makes following the Faith, in an era when others break life's ethical standards at will, often very difficult. Relativism is the way of our times, and it is the concept that values are relative to the individual. As this idea sweeps the world and holds people in its grasp, it is ever more difficult to be a person of honor, integrity & ethics. Christianity gives us the code of beliefs and values to attempt an ethical life during a pagan period in history.
If you have never been a Catholic, or Christian in general, or if you have fallen away, perhaps because you never fully understood the Faith, we will try to explain some of the basics. Our MISSION is to present Catholic belief in a straightforward and logical way so that readers can make up their minds whether it is believable to them. Our INSPIRATION has been the many derogatory remarks and official stances by professors, teacher, media professionals, and officials of political organizations as well as government officials concerning both Christianity & Catholicism. In America, the nation of religious freedom, Christian citizens are made to feel that they do not fully enjoy that freedom. The nation that used to honor its Christian roots and culture is now ashamed of it. Further inspiration comes from the fact that Catholicism is derided by many other Christian denominations who very probably do not understand Catholicism. Last of all, we are inspired by the fact that Catholics, young and old, do not know the beliefs of their own Faith. In the modern era, where every discipline is somewhat relaxed, Catholic catechesis is as well. We have been reminded by Father Mitch Pacwa that Germany and Russia were predominately devout Christian countries immediately prior to their fall into the twin, totalitarian, earthly hells of fascism and communism respectively. Our safety & security as Christians in this worldly life is always precarious, even in the best of times when we may feel secure. Our FAITH & BELIEF, that of the authors of this site, is grounded in two basic sets of evidence:
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Fear Understood After Research Into Faith, previously published: Triond, Yahoo Associated Content & Robert Jackson's American Art
Fear is something that we all face each time we stop repressing the reality of ultimate death and the possibility of negative things that could occur to us during our life. If we observe every conceivable precaution and tiptoe through life, we still risk bad things that we cannot avoid. There is no way to totally avoid the possibility of an accident caused by another person, natural occurrences, unavoidable exposures to contaminates, or defects in equipment we or others may be operating at any given time. We can reduce the odds of such dangers but we cannot bring those odds down to zero. Neither can we be sure that nothing bad will ever happen to those we love. We can try to protect them, but that is often overdone resulting in negative consequences, which include hard feelings between them and us.
Once you are aware of death, the jig is up. You can push truth of it to the far recesses of your mind, but it occasionally seeps out into your consciousness. My Russian History professor said that the “generation gap” and “never trust anyone over thirty” sayings popular in the late 1960s and early ‘70s were based upon a fundamental difference between those over thirty and those under thirty. He explained that thirty was about the age at which the average person truly realizes their mortality. At that point, if not before, it begins to soak in that your life is not going to last forever. Somewhere around that same time you also realize that the life that seemed so long (after you realize it’s not infinite) may not really be so long. The years can actually seem to roll by, and the more you do, the more fun you have, the faster they seem to pass.
For me a realization of limited life span came earlier in life resulting in a briefly depressing afternoon. I cannot remember my age, but I have the feeling of the constant play, yard work and adventure of a preschooler. However, it was probably later than that. My mother from the Smoky Mountain foothills would sing all the classic, old folk songs as she did her housework. A favorite of mine was “On Top of Old Smoky.” I used to sing it myself. One day I actually listened to the words we were singing. I had a real problem with the part about turning to dust in the grave. I remember worrying about my parents ending up in that condition, and it seemed like a flash of my own inevitable end ensued. You would think my own eventual demise would stick more prominently in the memory, but of course nothing is more important to a small child than parents.
Another story which reveals that our innate fears may be genetically ingrained concerns the reaction of a very small child to blood. I had an injured knee that was closed with stitches. While visiting a friend for dinner, the stitches ripped out when I bent down to set an armload of firewood on the hearth. We went to the kitchen, where our wives and my friend’s baby were, to check out the damage. As I pulled up the pant leg to reveal the open gash and profuse blood, the small guy in the highchair took one look and burst into tears. He knew.
In my young adult years through early middle age, I was somewhat driven by the normal fears that concern personal, as well as family, health and safety. Even fears of war and environmental disaster revolve around the safety of you and yours. Then follows concerns for the continuation of freedom, nation, and life as we know it. After marrying a Catholic and learning more about Christianity and Catholicism I began to believe the Christian story more. Religious belief of any kind naturally addresses fear.
At last two realizations gave me the understanding of how to face fear as a Christian even if I do not always deal with it well. The first was connected to personal renewal of my faith. The second involved deeper understanding of Catholicism. Always a Christian, I was not always one who fully understood what I was supposed to believe. During my doubting years, Christ was always in the back of my mind. Was it indoctrination in my youth, or was he real and making sure I did not forget him? Now that my belief is stronger, I prefer to believe the latter.
Concerning the first realization, I decided to more deeply investigate the Catholicism I had somewhat superficially accepted. Suddenly fear fell into its rightful place like one of my Catholic books on my shelf. Once I better understood what Catholics believed about God, Christ, and our role, death no longer felt so scary. First of course, Christians believe in an afterlife that will be better than our worldly life. But it wasn’t that simple. Suddenly, it just seemed so obvious that everyone is supposed to die. It seemed so obvious that you are in this big game of life and the earthly goals are: to do the best you can, roll with the punches, remain ethical, and deal honorably with your inevitable ethical failures.
Following from this was the further realization that suffering was not a bad thing. It is the stuff of heroes and martyrs. [Now, Christian martyrs are not the same as terrorist type martyrs. It is a sin in the Catholic Faith to destroy others, especially innocents, to make a political point. Short of war, all protests and political efforts must be peaceful. Yes, the historical Church (and more particularly some of its followers) carried out evil political actions.] But concerning followers of Jesus, suffering is a cornerstone of true Christianity. This is based on the suffering of Christ and it is culturally cemented into the foundations of the church by the persecution of early Christians. What a thought: we are supposed to suffer because we are supposed to try to be like Christ who suffered for us. We are supposed to try to be like the saints, to aspire to sainthood ourselves. The saints that have been identified as such by the Catholic Church are Christians who were extremely holy people and/or suffered for the Faith.
I came to this realization about suffering most completely when my wife, daughter, and I were taking care of my wife’s dying mother. As we would move her, or sit her up to eat, or any such thing; my wife would answer her groans of pain with the phrase “Give it up to Christ.” Of course she meant “Offer the pain to Christ as a sacrificial gift because of his suffering and death for us.”
Do I no longer fear? No, it’s always there. Can I face it better? Yes, because I’m better prepared. I understand the answer to the age old question atheists throw at believers: If there is a benevolent God, why is there suffering in the world? I understand that everyone who suffers, whether Christian or not, is facing what Christ faced for us. I understand that their suffering is heroic and is followed, for most of us hopefully, by a better, permanent existence. How my research allowed me to embrace this system of belief that arms me against fear requires another essay.
I’ll say here only these things about my renewal of faith. I approached Catholicism as a skeptic researcher and read the works of atheists who converted to Christianity and Catholic deniers and haters who became Catholic. I did not have to read the works of those who remained atheist or anti-Catholic. First, their views had been mine at some point. I knew them. Secondly, the converted writers explained where they had come from. I also focused as much on history and science as I did Faith, because I knew I would need to defend my Faith to many skeptics. I found historical justification for the scriptures, the existence of Jesus, Christ’s divinity, and much more that the Church teaches. I find the arguments against these things, as well as the theory that Paul of Tarsus invented Christianity, to be very weak. I am aware also of well documented miracles and I feel that I have a grasp of the purpose of such things.
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