Three Reasons to Love the Catholic Faith

More often than not we hear many criticisms about the Catholic faith, and not just from folks outside the faith that may have picked up on propaganda about Catholics, but also from people who are Catholic but for their own personal reasons feel let down by, or are opposed to, Catholic teaching. The Catholic faith is complex, it has accumulated seemingly endless volumes of study on Christ’s basic teachings, and if you are not a theologian the complexity can become overwhelming. Yet, at the root of the Catholic faith there are some fundamental principles that underscore its beauty and simplicity. Each individual may find his/her own reasons for falling in love with the Catholic faith - these are a few that come to mind.

Life is Important - In a popular song released in the year 2000, Jon Bon Jovi sang a mantra to which many people already gave their allegiance: It’s My Life.

It's my life

It's now or never

I ain't gonna live forever

I just want to live while I'm alive

(It's my life).

While this popular creed tends to enable modern generations with a sense of empowerment over their temporal existence, it undermines life’s ultimate value in many ways. This secular dogma is based on the premise that this is all there is (it’s now or never) - there is no afterlife, nor accountability in the hereafter, so you can live your life to your own satisfaction. On the surface it sounds ideal. The problem with this outlook is that it begins with a fragile assertion: it’s my life.

The question that begs an answer is: What makes it my life? Did I earn it? Did I buy it? Did I find it somewhere and decide to keep it? Was it given to me? If the answer lies only in the final question, that I was given life by my biological parents, it stills falls far short of a broader understanding. That two people came together in a sexual union and a body was formed limits life to its physical nature alone. What gives that physical body actual life requires thinking that goes beyond a limited understanding. When the Catholic faith answers the question by stating that life originates with the spirit of God, that each person is created in God’s own image and likeness, and that the soul, and life itself, is a gift from God, suddenly there are infinite possibilities and not the finite adage that this is all there is.

The Catholic faith, in its adherence to the teachings of Jesus Christ and his resurrection, ascribes limitless value to my life. Through the eyes of Catholic faith, my life is not small, it has potential beyond the here and now, and it is part of something much greater - it isn’t just mine to do with as I will, it belongs to God, and in His graciousness I have the power to use this gift of life to do great things, not for myself alone, but for His eternal Kingdom. Abusing this tremendous gift is a most ungrateful act, even by temporal limited standards. To view life through a lense of infinity (God’s life) is to see its greatness, its virtue and its stature - this is no ordinary man-made product to be used and discarded, it has a quality of beauty and dignity which is to be treasured and cultivated by increasing its value through love, and not limiting its value through the exclusivity of self-love. The Catholic faith continually emphasizes that life is much more important than the value that limited thinking can attribute to it. The value that an infinite God assigns to His creation is without measure.

Love - The Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero defined the idea of love by types - Eros, Storge, Phileo, and Agape. At the primal level, Eros is a passionate love rooted in attraction and desire - it is a love that gives one the feeling of being in love. Yet, if the feeling passes, love no longer thrives - it is limited. Storge love has its basis in familial love - natural love that exists between family members and satisfies certain needs, yet once these needs are no longer met this love can also change and wither. Phileo love finds its bonds in friendship, the kind that is deeply rooted in a genuine caring of another person. Agape is marked by the qualities of being unconditional, sacrificial, charitable and permanent. It has the capacity to be profoundly compassionate and merciful under difficult or seemingly impossible circumstances.

Life has a way of teaching us about these four loves. During our temporal existence we love many things: pets, nature, significant others, families, friends, hobbies, work, etc… Love is a good thing, but to limit love to only the here and now is to place an unfair shackle on a life that goes on forever. “We love because He first loved us” (1John 4:19). We were created by Love and have the capacity to love to a much higher degree than a finite while I’m alive mantra would suggest. We are loved into existence and that existence is eternal.

The Catholic faith invites us to follow the path of Christ’s love for humanity. He took on our human form and lived among us to demonstrate the potential of the human heart.The Catholic faith affirms Christ’s example of love by directing love towards God, who is Love, and by reiterating the precept that we love our neighbors via the agape model. Like the infinite quality of life, love has the potential to go beyond self-love in the limited now or never sense.

Sacraments - In a finite world, our experiences, our perceptions, and often our actions can be laden with a sense that nothing really matters. Nothing could be further from the truth. To a God that loves us deeply, purely, and infinitely, everything matters. If God, who is Holy matters, then everything He brought into existence matters. We matter, our lives matter, our tears and suffering matter, our joys matter - it all matters.

The Catholic faith understands the importance of what it means to be sacred. In situations where we may feel that if nothing really matters, then nothing is sacred, our world becomes increasingly devalued. The Catholic faith relentlessly attributes God’s holiness on every aspect of life on earth because it is here that we begin to build the Kingdom of Heaven - eternal life. Life is sacred. The human body is sacred. Love is sacred. Relationships are sacred. Work is sacred. Suffering is sacred. Everything we experience is sacred - it is holy, it has value, it has significance.

A sacrament is an outward and visible sign of inward and spiritual grace. In other words, when the Catholic faith celebrates a sacrament, the person(s) visibly acquires an outward sign of value, of holiness regarding the experience. Baptism marks our life with the holiness of sharing in God’s life - it affirms that life is holy, while the Eucharist, Christ’s own body and blood, attests to the fact that we are so important to God that even something as common as nourishment is holy and he offers us this special sustenance at the cost of his own life. The sacrament of Reconciliation ascribes a holiness to relationships - that the value of peace and unity, not only in our human relationships, but most especially in our relationship with God is of great significance. When a man and a woman wish to be joined in marriage, the sacrament of Matrimony makes their union holy - it isn’t merely a civil action - it has greater value in its inclusion of God in their union. When a person receives the sacrament of Confirmation, they chose to receive the special gifts of the Holy Spirit - placing hope in God, serving God, desiring to learn more about God, embracing spiritual strength, judging rightly, deepening our understanding and increasing our faith - and to make life more sacred by using these gifts. Choosing a vocation to serve God in Holy Orders is to understand and accept a calling, the sacrament acknowledges the inner grace to do so. Everyone at one time or another gets sick, and unfortunately at times the illness is grave or fatal - the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick places Christ’s hands upon us and bestows a sacred quality to our suffering, whether we are healed in body or in spirit. The Catholic faith takes all that is ordinary in human life and shows us that the ordinary, through Christ, can become extraordinary.

There are countless reasons to love the Catholic faith but at its core level - its defense of the holiness of human life, its supreme understanding of love and what is sacred - it continues to maintain the worth of humanity. We have life because God loves us into existence at each moment of the day. Is it my life? Yes, because it is a gift from God and part of His life. The Catholic faith helps me understand the value of this gift and how to offer this gift to God in return. If we were to modify the Bon Jovi lyrics to this understanding we might sing:

It's my life

It's now and forever

With God, I will live forever

I just want to live in His love - eternally.

(It's my life).