Mary, whats your faith like?

 My faith can probably be described in a few words.

For one, it’s ongoing. I will never be able to dive deep enough into my faith because it’s a never-ending pool. I am constantly learning and growing, deepening my knowledge about scripture and the Lord. Over the past year I have come to yearn for a deeper knowledge of what I, on a daily basis, call my faith. Which brings me to my next word.

My faith is a struggle. A constant struggle that I believe will last for the rest of my life. Probably because I’m human (well, definitely because I’m human). I used to try and deny my struggle, saying things like my faith is awesome and Jesus is my best friend. Over the past years I’ve tried to be honest with myself about my faith and the most honest answer I discerned about was that it’s a struggle. I have trouble believing in things I can’t understand. The Catholic faith is called a mystery. Although a struggle, this past week at youth group kind of opened my eyes to something. I was asked to speak on the Eucharist and I was reading different stories in the Gospels. I read John 6:60-68 (which is quickly becoming one of my favorite passages ever!) which, and I quote, says:

“Many, therefore, of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can hear it?’ When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, ‘Does this offend you?...’ From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Then Jesus said to the twelve, ‘Will you also go away?’ Then Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.’”

 I get a lot from this passage. Mostly, however, that this passage kind of describes my faith. They’re talking about the Eucharist as a hard concept, hard to understand, therefor hard to believe. The people who came from all ends of the earth to see him had trouble understanding and many left. His best friends, the 12, had trouble understanding. But when Jesus asked his 12 “Will you go away also?” will you leave too? Simon Pete said “Whom shall we go?”. I read this and my faith, in a way, made sense. My faith is a struggle because Catholicism is full of hard concepts and I don’t always understand them. I have learned, however, that I’m not called to understand them, just to believe in them. If I don’t believe in what is so clearly written for me, what has been so clearly passed down for me, then where else would I go?