What Our Faith Means

I was sitting at a pub in my town one day during my conversion to Catholicism, when a friend asked me what Catholics believe. Afterwards I wrote this, and I think it should be available to someone else who might stumble across it, and maybe make up for what I didn't do that day. I just found it again tonight in my computer.

She probably wasn’t really interested. Not in a genuinely spiritual sense. She was my friend, and knew I was converting, and so she asked me, in a very nonchalant way;

“So, what do Catholics believe?”

I stared at her for a moment, sitting across from me in a pub downtown, the wood table highly polished and the bar downstairs already a little loud. Clearly she didn’t understand the meaning of her question. The depth that an explanation would require. What do Catholics believe?

I faltered, and said the easiest thing would be to recite The Creed. So I did, and she asked a few questions about it, but I always felt that I let myself down, and The Church.

What do we believe? Where to begin! Should I mention the pouring of pure water from a silver shell across the head of a newborn baby, the Holy Baptism that marks the introduction into a Catholic’s life? Well what about what that Sacrament does? The washing away of that Original Sin that marks us all? Well then I would have to mention our First Parents and that day long, long ago…and the apple that started it all.

Or turning from The Sacraments, what about Mary? She probably wouldn’t have even understood how controversial our Mother is, or why Protestant Missionaries would want to desecrate her shrine. I could speak about the rosary, and the multitude of flowers dropped at the feet of the Queen of Heaven as we recite each ‘Ave’.

Or the Latin! How it has breached the borders and spread our Faith across an entire globe. The solemnity of it, the importance of knowing how to speak in our family’s tongue. How it brings us together and why we feel this ‘dead’ language is so alive.

Maybe I should go into the Angels who were with us, sitting in that booth. Her Guardian Angel, and mine, and the archangels who approach the throne of God, and who are sent to defend us. I could’ve told her about the sword of St. Michael, or the touch of St. Raphael, or the voice of St. Gabriel. I could’ve taught her the prayer to her Guardian Angel, and informed her of the fact that she has had a heavenly helper, and an intercessor, all the days of her life.

The saints! On our rosaries, our medals, in our books and prayers. The truth of their lives, both on Earth and in Heaven. Their special quirks that live on in the way they answer our prayers, and the steady trust we have in them, brought on by their never-failing intercession and continuing prayers to God.

But really, when it comes down to it. I should’ve told her about a cross. A rough, splinter-filled, blood stained cross that hoisted upon it a man who was more than a man. A man who was God, and yet no less a human being. A man who had friends who abandoned Him, a mother who loved Him, a religion that had been taught to Him. The God, who had created the world, and us, and who wanted to save us from a fate we had brought about so long ago, with an apple.

I should’ve spoken about a crown of thorns that was more beautiful and glorious than any wrought today from the purest gold, silver, and gems. About a military cloak, saturated with scabs and blood, that created a garment that seemed to be more grand that the longest robes worn by Kings. I should’ve spoken of three nails, that hung Him there, propped us for all to see, throughout all time.

His Sacred Heart, and the blood, and the water, that poured from it. His Divine Mercy, which flows from Heaven down to us everyday and lets us make it to tomorrow.

I should’ve have given my lips to the Holy Spirit and let Him lead me to say words that would’ve touched her heart and made her think, “Maybe…”

Instead I recited The Creed. I mentioned nothing of the flesh and blood that we believed in, I only gave the skeleton. In saying The Creed I presented her with a gift that still may one day spring to the forefront of her mind, but didn’t give her the living faith. I gave her the basics, and none of the meat.

It’s haunted me ever since.