My Challenges to Faith
I am the first person to admit that I have imperfect Faith. My life is affected by thousands of outside messages that force me to question my Faith or go against what I believe. Because of their prevalence, it is impossible for me to list all of them, so I will just mention the primary ones. My Faith is challenged by peer pressure, other religions, hedonism/laziness/selfishness, school work, and personalities within the Church.
Peer pressure, I believe, is what most often causes me to make decisions contrary to what I believe I should do. Sometimes, it has to do with getting caught up in the moment, but often times I do things because I want to fit in, things that I am ashamed I did later. These challenge my faith not only in my friends, but also my faith in myself and in a society that is predominantly Christian. How can a society that supposedly follows Christian and or Catholic teachings be so flawed? If these evils are so prevalent among Catholics, how can I be Catholic? Also, after I make these poor decisions I often am ashamed of myself, and wonder why a person as evil as I am deserves salvation.
The triumvirate of hedonism, laziness, and selfishness account for fairly similar challenges to Faith because they all put self above others and above God. I often succumb to these things for immediate gratification, when I want to avoid pain and prolong and maximize immediate pleasure no matter the cost (even if in the long run it causes pain.) These tendencies can manifest themselves in a variety of ways, from making fun of others to eating what I should not to not exercising to procrastinating in homework to any number of other things one can imagine. These selfish decisions strain my relationships with others, with God, and with myself. They are never physically, spiritually, morally, or emotionally healthy, and if I didn’t make those selfish decisions, I would feel much better about myself.
Other religions can also try my Faith. Although I know little about other religions, I do believe that there is some supernatural deity that exists, be it God, Buddha, Allah, etc. If one did not exist, our lives would be meaningless, and I do not want to believe this. However, sometimes trusting that a man/God came from the sky and demeaned himself to the point of allowing himself to be killed by that which he created is hard to believe. This in addition to the fact that we must eat our God at least once each week to sustain us spiritually is just weird, even though I have been brought up with this my whole life. Sometimes I wonder if a few (twelve) either insane or dedicated practical jokers decided to try to get people to believe a story and see where they could take it, and they just ended up starting a religion. In short, on occasion Catholicism just does not seem like the most sensible religion.
School work, as strange as it sounds, can also challenge my Faith in that, when combined with my laziness, it doesn’t give me a chance to really have Faith. I go to Mass on Sundays, but some weeks, regardless of laziness, if I want to get sleep I can’t pray. Often there is just seems to be no time to sit and think about life, especially during the week. I try to do this on the weekends, but time on weekends is often inadequate as well. This is both a challenge to Faith and to living an examined life.
The last major challenge to Faith for me is the personalities within the Church. This is more of a recent challenge to Faith, with the Burke pastoral letter coming out in the last few months. I strongly disagree with the pastoral, and for Burke to practically say that I can’t be my religion if I follow what I believe challenges my Faith to say the least. I just don’t know if I can follow a “shepherd” that wants to have so much control over a flock that has supposed free will.
My Faith is not strong, and it is subject to many trials, many of which I succumb to. By trying to find time to look at my life and what I believe more closely, hopefully I will eventually decide to continue fighting through those challenges or take my beliefs in a different direction.