What?

     My mother says she didn't raise us (my sisters and I) in any kind of faith because she wanted us to be able to choose for ourselves when we were older what was best for us.  I always thought that a strange statement because how do you know what's best, if you haven't experienced the choices out there?

     Having said that, here is what I recall from my childhood as far as faith goes.  One of my very first memories was standing at the door of our duplex on Poplar Street.  I was about 3 or 4 years old.  I was crying because I wanted to go to church with my dad, who was driving down the street without me, and my mother told me I couldn't go.

     I remember pictures painted on the walls, done by a friend of my mother.  My mom thought they would be nice when people came over for her astrology or yoga classes or for transcendental meditation or past-life regressions.

     We had a porcelain knick knack in the shape of a book and it had a meal blessing on it and I remember that we prayed that whenever we sat down to eat dinner together.  It is the only time I recall our family praying together.

     I also remember we had spirits in the house, some friendly, some not so friendly.  Actually, it would be better to say that some didn't seem to be a bother at all, but I can remember not wanting to even walk by a room upstairs because it always seemed dark to me and as though red eyes were peering out at me, or rather, glaring at me.  My mother is convinced it was my grandfather (her dad) standing at the end of my crib, but why would he have red eyes and be glaring at me?  Besides, my room was down the hall and my little sister was in the crib, not me.

     Anyway, I know my mother tried to teach me astrology and she certainly had us doing yoga.  I can remember tarot cards in the house and crystals.  I also remember, when I was about 7, a "healing pyramid" - which was a wood frame, pyramid shaped object that you were to sit under and visualize yourself being healed.  I was given this "honor" at the age of 7 because they discovered that I was nearly blind in one eye, presumably since birth, and they were trying to heal me.  According to the doctor I had only 5% vision in my right eye.  I cannot tell you how many times I was subjected to sitting under this pyramid, but I hated it.  Mostly because it was set up in the basement and I hated the basement but also because I thought it was dumb.  Eventually I heard my mother saying that the healing pyramid had "cured" my eyesight, but I've never been able to figure out how.  First of all, the doctor said my eyesight had increased to about 30%, but he was convinced it was because of the patch they put over my other eye, to make the "lazy" one work.  The eye patch seemed a more logical explanation for the increase in my eyesight.

     Thirty percent vision is better than five percent for sure, however, one could hardly say I was cured in any event as I was still seventy percent short of full vision in the right eye (I've always had 20/20 vision in the left eye).  I still have no depth perception, I only have peripheral vision in the right eye and really the only thing I can see is motion in that eye.  If someone comes up on my right side I'll have no idea who it is until I look at them with my left eye!!

     I do remember going to church with my dad, even after he and my mother divorced.  I can actually remember going on Sunday mornings and evenings and then on Wednesday evenings.  That didn't last for long.  By the time I was 8 our step-dad adopted us and that was certainly the end of any church going in our house.

     On occasion I would spend the night with a friend and would attend Mass with them on Sunday mornings.  I never had a clue what was going on, but I didn't mind going.  It was certainly a "small price to pay" to get to spend the night with my friends.  Now I wonder if the parents of my friends weren't performing an act of mercy by ensuring I at least got into the presence of God, because it was not happening in our house.

     I won't get into the whole story now of how I came into the Catholic Church, but I did eventually find my way.  My daughter went to Catholic schools and has been confirmed.  A few years ago my mother was visiting and made the comment again about how she never took us to church because she wanted us to be able to make up our own minds what was best for us.  I told her that didn't make any sense to me.  My mother was raised Catholic and yet, she made the choice to leave the Church and pursue other options.  Did she not think her own daughters or granddaughter would be "smart" enough to make an informed decision?

     In fact, my older sister and I have done just that (our little sister, Danielle, died 17 years ago).  Despite not being raised in a Christian home, we have both found a relationship with Christ and our Christian faith is central to our lives.  We both volunteer at our churches in many capacities.

     What my mother doesn't realize, or doesn't want to admit, is that she did raise us in a "faith".  New Age is a faith, though many will argue that point.  It is a very self-centered faith, based upon what we can attain on our own, instead of being God centered and what we can attain in Him, with Him, for Him and through Him.

     It is amazing how God calls us to Him.  Thank You Jesus!

   

The Angels Around Us

     We forget that the devil and his demons are angels - albeit fallen angels.  They have not lost any of the abilities that God created them with, they just no longer use them for good.  They live among us just as surely as the angels who remained in a right relationship with God.  I might also remind you that the devil and his demons were cast down to earth, not to hell.  They are living among us, though we cannot see them.  They see everything we do and they remember it, to use it against us, to tell us we are not worthy of a relationship with God because of our sinfulness.  Do not let them fool you, God's mercy is limitless.

     I forget who the cartoon character was, but he was trying to decide between good and evil and good and evil were depicted by an angel on one shoulder and a little devil on the other shoulder.  Of course one of them, the devil, promising fun and the other, the angel of God, promising only boredom and perhaps mockery.

     Hermes, in The Shepherd said, "Every man has close to him two angels, the one an angel of holiness, the other an angel of perversion...and how then, O Lord, shall I recognize the workings of these two since they both dwell within me?"

     I think St. Ignatius of Loyola answers this well enough when he says to look at the end results of our actions - if what we do leads to selfishness, hate, violence or things of evil then its origin is satan and the temptation should be avoided.  If the end result is for good, then the source is God.

     This does not mean we can do something evil knowing that God can bring good out of it (like bringing a new life out of the terrible act of rape or robbing a bank and using the money to feed the poor), but rather, what our intent is meant to be in our action.

     Since evil does not cooperate with love in any way, rest assured that when you enter a church or an adoration chapel (the presence of Jesus) you do so with only one of these angels - which is why it is so efficacious to take everything to our Lord in prayer.

     Jesus, I trust in You!