By Sandra Bazaldua
Because I am Catholic!
Many mention being Catholic because it is the religion under which they were born, many families remain in the Catholic religion by tradition, however, they do not really practice what it is to be a Catholic. Many of them also seek the sacraments because they know that they must be obtained. However, they do not give them the true value that this entails. I was one of those girls who was born in a Catholic home and who fulfilled the sacraments, however, I was not very clear about why I did them. I was also not clear about what God expected of me and, not to mention, knowing the scripture as the word of God, nor do I remember praying as a family or that we did any apostolate outside the family.
However, when I turned 16, I had the opportunity to go to a youth retreat and experience my first encounter with Christ, that experience changed my life completely. Right after it, I joined a youth group in which every Saturday we met to talk about the word of God, we participated in the Church choir, we attended missions during Holy Week and we did various apostolates in our city. All these events filled me with happiness and joy, they made me feel fulfilled. In each of these actions, I was able to experience the love of Christ and understand that there was a living God who loved me.
As the years went by, that faith that had started only out of a great sense of feeling, began to mature. However, a large part of my paternal family began their path under another religion and this brought doubts into my life, because as good protestants they constantly attacked me with biblical phrases that point out what they believe and see as errors of the Catholic Church, but which I could not defend at that time because my faith was focused on piety and action, but not on study. Today I continue to study and learn about my Catholic faith and the richness that not only does Scripture make known to us, but also the tradition that the apostles left us in their coexistence with Christ and their work of evangelization around the world.
Today I understand that I am Catholic because it is the Church that Christ founded, because we inherited the teaching of the apostles, because it is the universal Church that is open to everyone and that the only requirement is the real desire to get closer to God. I am Catholic because it is the Church where the sacred sacraments are found that allow us to be united to him, because we are the mystical body of Christ, because it is the Church where we have the certainty of being forgiven by God through the sacrament of reconciliation. I am Catholic because since I met God I never felt alone again. I belong to the “holy” Holy Catholic Church not by my own merit, but by the one who founded it, Christ Jesus.
Sandra Bazaldua serves as Hispanic Ministry coordinator at Holy Rosary Parish in Evansville.