Being Shut Out of the Perfect Closed Sphere of Faith: I’m at The Catholic Woman

Being Shut Out of the Perfect Closed Sphere of Faith: I’m at The Catholic Woman April 24, 2019

being a Catholic woman:

Hey–

Back in 1998 or 1999, when I was a very recent convert to Catholicism and full of boisterous, somewhat obnoxious delight in the Church, I told my best friend that as a Catholic, “It’s just that my worldview is so unified!”

One of the great blessings of friendship is that she made fun of me for this for twenty years.

It can be easy to feel like the Catholic Church hands you an intricate, interlocking object, and if you handle it correctly, all the pieces fall into place and your faith forms a perfect and beautiful sphere.

This is a misconception which Catholics ourselves often buy into, when we suggest that our faith gives us “answers to life’s questions,” or that the great thing about being Catholic is that you will always have clear guidance in what to do.

But many of us find that we don’t have clear models for what we’re supposed to do—what it would even look like to bring all our wild, weird, harrowing experiences to the altar.

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