I don’t remember her name, but I can still picture the freckles on her nose and the tight curls of her black hair. She was sharing about her life. An experience with God led her to break up with her live-in boyfriend, quit her job selling pharmaceuticals, and become a fundraising missionary on college campuses. Her ex had pushed back, challenging her belief in God and the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Her answer became a permanent guidepost in my life.
“I don’t have all the answers,” she had told him and shared now with us. “I can’t explain everything. But I know that I know enough to choose this, to choose God, to choose Catholicism. I am convinced that what the Catholic Church teaches about God, salvation, and the Sacraments is true. So I am confident in assenting to her in all things. Two thousand years of men and women who are smarter and holier than me have thought through these same things. Just because I don’t know the answer doesn’t mean there isn’t one. Just because I struggle with living out one part doesn’t mean the whole is wrong.”
Her honest, humble answer has become mine in moments of doubt and in conversations about hard things.
For example, today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. I could sorta kinda tell you what the Trinity is, but I really am limited in understanding how our God is three in one. Just as that missionary had experienced God and now knew Him in an undeniable way, I have experienced God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. I know that my Triune God reigns, loves, saves, lives. Yet I also find comfort in the fact that the eleven Apostles saw the risen Lord, worshipped Him, but still doubted (see Matthew 28:17).
There is a freedom in knowing that we don’t have to know it all. The Lord and His Church have given us enough to know that we can trust. He still chooses you just as He chose the Apostles. He is understanding in our limitations and generous in His blessings. How do you feel your chosen-ness today?
Most Holy Trinity, we worship and adore You.
LOVING GOD, LOVING OTHERS
A NEW WORKSHOP
COME BACK TO FIRST LOVE
