I Could Never Leave The Church, It’s My Family

Ever since that darn Pew Study came out, my social media feeds have carried the dire prediction that the Catholic Church is on the wane. People are leaving in droves, they say. And I just smile. Do the people who write these things think that they are the first to predict the demise of the Holy Catholic Church? Do they think that this is the first time in her 2,000 year history that she has been called old-fashioned, irrelevant, and out of touch? Do they honestly believe that such dire predictions are new? News flash – they’re not. And that’s why I stay.

It’s ultimately the history and the traditions that brought me back to the Catholic Church, and that keep me here. I know for certain that it’s not the Eucharist, although it’s one of the things I love most about our faith. Even when I was a self-declared agnostic who rarely pondered the existence of God, I believed in the Eucharist. It’s a strangely disjointed way of not-believing, but from the time I was a teenager into my mid-twenties I’d have told you that I wasn’t sure that God mattered but that the Eucharist was real. It wasn’t even Truth that brought me home or that kept me anchored here, although I’ve sat with wonder as I’ve discovered new branches and layers of Truth contained in our ancient Faith.

I stay because it’s my home, and it’s my family.

I lost much of my biological family in my mid-teens as the fall-out from the car accident that robbed me of my mother reverberated throughout my life. I went from being a girl whose summer holidays we spent with far-flung relatives and winter holidays were spent at family tables, to a woman who cooked her own Thanksgiving turkey and ate it in solitude. The first time I returned to sit in a pew during Mass, I sobbed at the familiarity of it. The family tradition I’d ached for was in every Catholic Church I tried. As I began to read Church history and the lives of the Saints, I found the crazy relatives and the history of squabbling and reconciliation that are the life-blood of family dynamics.

The deeper I’ve dug into the history of the Roman Catholic Church, the more convinced I become that it is the place for me. I belong right here on this branch and limb of our Family Tree, and I’m proud of the stock I come from. We’re not always a pretty people. It’s true that we have scandals galore, and that we’re a people made up completely of sinners. Like every family we have saints, lunatics, and ordinary folks. We have relatives who make us burst with pride, and some who make us weep in shame.

It’s a rambling, diverse, and varied group; and yet we all claim the same heritage just as we claim the same family name. We are Catholic, all of us. While our outside appearances may look nothing alike, the indelible marks the Sacraments have made upon our souls mean that we all bear an uncanny resemblance to each other. We’re kin, all of us…reaching way back to the very foundation of our Church.

This is my family, and I’m in love with being a part of it. The fact that our patrimony includes the Fullness of Truth and the gift of the Eucharist? That’s the best inheritance anyone could ever hope to receive. I’m a Child of God and a Daughter of the Church. This is my home, and these people are my crazy, wonderful, messed-up, holy, and quirky family. What more could I ask for? What on Earth could ever make me leave?