Sometimes it's strange to me that I have faith.
Faith is not something I ever really thought I'd have. I find it easy to accept that Jesus was a nice guy who lived some large number of years ago, and who said some important things concerning the loving of enemies and the praying-for of persecutors. I have much more trouble wrapping my mind around Jesus as the Son of God, who came from heaven to be with us, and teach us, and die for us. I'm actually a terrible candidate for faith in that respect; I want to "get it." But faith was something that I wanted desperately, even before I knew I wanted it.
So I work on it. I became Catholic my senior year of college, and then promptly married a staunch nontheist two months later. I went to Mass on Saturday evenings while he went to tabletop gaming tournaments. And it sucked, and I was kind of pissed about being there by myself. And sometimes I still get kind of pissed. But I work on it, because faith is important to me, and being jealous of other people's Christian families is a perfect reflection of me totally missing Jesus' point.
Rob and I are officially Christian parents now, which is totally bizarre, since Rob isn't Christian and I've been going through an agnostic phase since Westley was born. (I wanted Westley's birth to be a big Newmanist experience, where Jesus, Mary, and the saints all huddled around and made their presence known, and maybe they were there, but I felt nothing. Nothing spiritual, at least. No deus ex vagina.) But I don't think there's a right way to go about having faith. Having faith means working through uncertainty, and trusting that experience. I look forward to sharing that with my own sweet son.
Westley was baptized yesterday, and it was fabulous. Our parish's wonderful, much-loved retired priest was, coincidentally, pulled out of retirement for that particular Mass. Westley commented a few times during the homily, but never cried. I managed not to dissolve into a tearful, mascara-streaked mess. Thank God.
You have put on Christ,in him you have been baptized.
Alleluia, alleluia! .....................................
