Topic:  What can I do to be embraced by God?

Source of this posting: Moderator response

Date originally posted: February 9, 2003

Moderator who originally posted this source: Father Phillip

Question:   I am distraught by my faith, and I don't know what to do or feel with my emotions of sadness and lonliness. My girlfriend and I go to church together every Sunday, and it is the part of the week I dread the most. I love going to Church, and I love listening to the various parables - it is enthralling for me to connect the dots between Scripture and its multitude of teachings and my daily life. However, I have not been Baptized, and cannot receive Communion. It hurts so much to watch my girlfriend go up and receive Him, while I am not allowed to. I do not feel good enough to go to Church, and do not feel like I belong there, because I am not Catholic, and for that matter not Christian by definition. Is there anything I can do at Mass to quash this feeling of emptiness, or is it a pain I have to swallow until my parish has room for me to join RCIA - they wouldn't let me because they supposedly ran out of room. I just want this pain of not being with Him to end - I am carrying 20 years of sin on my shoulders, and I do not believe anyone has a concept of how much that really hurts because they do not have to carry it. They can be forgiven for their sins, whereas when I leave Church, I am still stained with sin. Is there anything I can do?

Answer: 

Dear Steven,

You sound like a great guy! Your girlfriend is very blessed, indeed, to have a relationship with such a good person!

In the "profile" which you kindly filled out, you ended your comment with something like, "I am the damned!"

Golly gee whiz! I beg to differ!!!

The fact of the matter is, of course, that neither you nor I really know who is damned and who is not. Only God knows that for sure.

But if I were a betting man, I'd bet all the money I have (which is NOT an extravagant bet!) that you are NOT "the damned."

Clearly, you are a person who has a real faith. If you didn't have faith, you wouldn't care about not being able -- yet -- to receive the Eucharist. If you didn't have faith, you wouldn't go to Church each week. If you didn't have faith, being at Mass without being invited to the Altar to receive Him would make no difference to you.

Moreoever, our good and gracious God is love! And God loves YOU, Steven. God is not withholding divine love from you. God is lavishing that divine love on you: your desire to receive Baptism, your desire to receive the Eucharist are both signs of God's love being alive in your life.

In a strange way, even the pain you feel at being separated from the Eucharist is evidence of God's love entering deeply into your life.

So, rejoice, my young friend: God is very much with you...and you seem to be very much with God.

Now, to be sure, the Sacraments are VERY important!!! And you should continue your quest to receive them in the way that is prescribed by the Church.

(We don't have the 'right' just to decide for ourselves when and how to receive the Sacraments. God entrusted the Sacraments to the Church, and the Church is the arbiter of how and when to receive them. So you have to be willing to go through the processes that the Church determines are best for you to receive the Sacraments in a timely and appropriate way. We all have to do that!)

I would encourage you to make an appointment to talk with your campus minister/pastor and/or to the director of the RCIA in your campus ministry or parish. Share with them the feelings and desires that you shared with me/us in your posted question. They will be better as a result of knowing you more fully. And you will probably feel better and more integrated into the faith community as a result of having shared what's in your heart with some of the leaders of that community.

God works mysteriously. Sometimes God works really "fast" -- as with Saul on the road to Damascus. But very often God works "slowly" with us: leading us, guiding us, directing us at a pace that is perfectly (divinely!) suited exactly to who God knows each of us to be.

Our 'task,' as it were, is to be open and responsive to the way God is working in our lives.

You, Steven, certainly seem to be open to that divine 'working.' Wait patiently; wait expectantly. When the RCIA process is 'ready' for you, you will surely be ready for it. In the meantime, luxuriate in the fact that our God already loves you and is already powerfully at work in your life! When the "fullness of time" comes for you, God will bring you into full Sacramental communion with the Church. Until, then, rest easy in the love with which God is surrounding you!

Blessings,
Father Phillip