Proud to be Catholic!

My parents, Vicente and Maria (seen on the left during our pilgrimage to Rome in 2005), are on a plane as I write this to visit our family in the Philippines.

I called them yesterday morning to wish them a good trip.  I was talking with them from a convent in National City (in southern San Diego County) where teens from my youth group and other members of St. James parish were helping the sisters of the Missionaries of Charity fix up their home.  

As I was talking to my Mom and Dad, they told me how proud they were of me for what we were doing for the sisters.  Of course, this made me feel very good.  Love and affirmation from your parents never gets old, even when you're 36.  But as the day went on, I reflected on why they both reacted this way.  It didn't really seem like that big of a deal.  Yet, it was, not just for them, but for me.

They are proud of their Catholic faith, especially when faith is lived out and proclaimed in truth.  They modeled that pride for my siblings and I as we were growing up and taught us the value of being faithful to our Catholic roots.  And now that my sister and brothers and I are all adults (or at least pose as adults), they make it a point to express their hope that we will continue to be proud to be Catholic.

But what exactly does this mean, this idea of pride in the church, pride in our religion?

After I returned home from working at the convent, I watched the coverage of the World Youth Day Opening Mass.  To see the thousands of people there and all the joy and faith (and wishing I was there) was pretty overwhelming.  One big Catholic party.

This only made me think more...

I feel proud to be Catholic.  I mean, I wear Catholic t-shirts, listen to Catholic music, I pray, I go to Mass, I read the Bible, I study up on church teaching, I try not to hurt people...that should be good enough, right?

Then Cardinal George Pell of the Archdiocese of Sydney shared his powerful words of faith, hope and love, and I couldn't help but feel like he was talking to me from 9,000 miles away when he said, "Don't spend your life sitting on the fence, keeping your options open, because only commitments bring fulfillment."

And that's when it clicked.  Showing your pride in your faith is about commitment to a person, Jesus Christ, who is made known and visible to us most powerfully and clearly through the Catholic Church.  

Wearing t-shirts, listening to music, participating in prayer and liturgy, studying, traveling to meet the Pope, even serving your community are powerful expressions of that commitment.  But if the commitment of the heart isn't there, those exterior signs have less meaning.

Pride is about still being committed even though we're not completely understanding or completely living the teaching of the church, but desire to grow closer to the truth through humility and conversion.  

Pride is knowing that the truth is a person, Jesus Christ, and that the truth loves us at all times.

Pride is understanding that putting on a Catholic t-shirt or listening to a Catholic CD or setting foot in a church for Sunday Mass carries with it a responsibility to be an outward sign of the invisible reality of God's mercy and peace.

Pride is acknowledging our Catholic faith as a gift given to us by Christ (through our parents, families, and parish communities).  It is living with hope that God will bless us in our faithfulness to Him, especially in our sin and brokenness.

While we can certainly agree that sharing our pride in our faith is challenging even in the best of circumstances, the reward that awaits us is worth all of our trouble:  Heaven.