Maturing Your Catholic Faith

Table of contents

Introduction...... ................................

Basic Concepts....................................

Empirical Demonstration.............................

And Now What?...................................

Humility and Poverty of Spirit..........................

The Six Steps to Divine Peace..........................

How to Pray......................................

How to Ask......................................

The Three Pillars of Christianity........................

Tools God Gives Us................................

Forgiveness......................................

Equations.......................................

Tribulations......................................

The Fear of Death..................................

What to Do If We Get Stuck...........................

Prayers to Memorize................................

Steps to Regain Faith................................

Special Thanks....................................

Biography.......................................

Published Books...................................

Credits.........................................

Introduction

From a young age, if we live in a Christian environment, we receive the rudiments of the Christian religion, which are materialized, apart from the example at home, in catechism courses to make First Communion, and later Confirmation.

But unfortunately, some catechetical courses fall short, being taught by unqualified catechists, focused more on entertaining the students than on forming them in the Faith. This is without counting the poor example that many of us see within our families.

These students, as they mature and face life, encounter blows for which they are not prepared: such as the death of a loved one; the appearance of a serious illness in the family environment; suffering from a personal illness; seeing how the money does not reach us to the end of the month; being laid off from work; economic bankruptcy; a pandemic that disrupts everything; a war that causes a terrible economic crisis, etc.

Regardless of the percentage of bad things that can happen to us in life, we find ourselves under constant attack from the Devil, who takes advantage of our fears, traumas, and anxieties, to manipulate us and turn us away from God.

Faced with these blows and the attacks of the Evil One, the lack of a good religious foundation distances us from God, seeking compensation in things that do not give us happiness, and that even further distances us from Him, such as drugs, sex, strong emotions that produce adrenaline, mundane pleasures, etc.

In this book, I propose a direct journey toward Happiness and Peace, where you, simply with few clear ideas, dedicating time to pray, and letting yourself be done by Jesus, will find yourself comforted in a short time, helped in your personal and professional projects, and in a few years capable of withstanding any blow that life throws at you.

Dedicated to:

All those who face life daily, suffering and frustrated.

Basic Concepts

In this chapter I’m going to clarify a series of concepts, since I’m going to use them throughout the book. In this way you will understand what I intend to convey.

WITHOUT INVOLVEMENT THERE IS NO COMMITMENT

This principle says that if we want someone to commit to a project (whether personal or professional), we must let them participate in the decisions about that project. If we force something on them without allowing them to participate, they will obey us out of fear or respect, but they won't really be committed to the project.

This principle is key in our "relationship with God" project. God is not going to force us to do anything, because God doesn’t want slaves, but children. He gives us His love and helps us, but only if we are committed to Him. Therefore, if we want to have Faith, we have to ask Him. Likewise, if we want Him to help us, we have to ask Him. Only by participating will we be able to commit ourselves to our "relationship with God" project.

That is why we see around us that only when our hearts break and we hit bottom is when we generate enough humility to approach God and ask Him for Faith and help. Therefore, let’s not wait for God to come to us. We will be the ones who will have to go to Him.

In the same way we can intuit that religion is proposed, not imposed. If we force religion on our children, they will not compromise and the possibility of becoming atheists will appear. For this reason, it must always be kept in mind that without involvement there is no commitment.

DISTINCTION BETWEEN PRAYING, SAYING A PRAYER,  AND MEDITATING

Praying is talking with God (with God the Father, with Jesus, with Our Mother the Virgin, or with some Saint who is in Heaven), just as we do with a friend to whom we tell our things. Therefore, praying is the act of talking to God.

Saying a prayer is to emit a set phrase, such as the Ourfather, which Jesus has taught us directly, or which has been formed over the centuries, such as the Hailmary, the Hail, the Glorybe, etc.

Meditating is reflecting on our relationship with God and our condition as Christians. It is usually done by reading the Bible, or a book that talks about religious topics, like the one you’re holding in your hands, or listening to a talk (like the ones on the "10 Minutes with Jesus" app).

We’ll discover that many times when we say a prayer or meditate, we end up praying. For example, when I say the Holy Rosary, I offer each mystery for a series of people close to me, so I end up talking to Our Mother Mary, so that She can intercede in the matters that my relatives need the most. In the same way, if we meditate, in the end it’s normal ending up talking to Jesus, so that He can help us with those issues that weigh on us the most.

BIBLICAL REFERENCES

We will see, in religious texts, references to the Bible. The Bible is made up of numerous books that make up the Old and New Testaments, respectively. The books, in turn, are made up of chapters, and within each chapter the text is distributed in verses, following an ascending numbering. For example, the prayer Ourfather is found in two books: in the Gospel of Matthew, and in the Gospel of Luke, both from the New Testament. In the Gospel of Luke it is found in chapter 11, between verses 2 and 4. Therefore, the biblical reference would be Luke 11:2-4. In the book of the Gospel of Matthew it is found in chapter 6, between verses 9 and 13, so the biblical reference would be Matthew 6:9-13.

GRACE

Throughout this book I’ll talk about the Grace that we receive from Jesus, and that I define as the divine intelligence that Jesus gives us to lead our lives toward Sanctity.

Grace is an essential element of the Christian, since it is the self-donation of Jesus that penetrates the soul of a person and transforms it. Jesus himself, in John 4:10, tells us, when he meets the Samaritan woman at the well, that Grace is living water:

... If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who is saying to you 'Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.

It is important to keep in mind that Grace is a gift, as Saint Paul tells us in his letter to the Ephesians (Ephesians 2:8):

For by Grace you have been saved through Faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.

God gives Grace to us because He loves us. This divine intelligence will help us to understand the Holy Scriptures, to have mercy with our neighbor, to realize the attacks that the Devil makes us, to treat our neighbor with love... That is, it will transform us and lead us toward Sanctity. Therefore, the more Grace we receive, the better it will be for us.

DISTINCTION BETWEEN HUMAN PEACE AND DIVINE PEACE

I told you in the introduction to this book, that by maturing the Faith you will obtain happiness and Peace. But before continuing we must distinguish between human peace and Divine Peace. In John 14:27, Jesus tells us:

Peace I leave with you; my Peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives.

Jesus makes it clear that his Peace has nothing to do with human peace. Therefore, it is important that we understand what the Divine Peace Jesus promises us is like, and how it differs from the human peace we’re used to:

Human Peace

The world tells us that to have peace we need a series of external elements that do not depend on us:

•  Having good friends

•  Having a loving family

•  Having security and protection

•  Having economic solvency

•  Having no conflict

•  Being free of guilt

•  Not holding a grudge against anyone

But we live in a world where there are:

•  Friends who betray us

•  Family members who project their frustrations onto us

•  Mistakes we made in the past, which haunt us

•  Inability to forgive offenses that have been done to us, thus accumulating resentment

•  Political, religious, and social turmoil

•  Diseases

•  Pandemics, such as the flu in the 1920s, or COVID-19 in the 2020s

•  Economic crises where people lose their jobs

•  Wars

•  Accidents that cause injuries and even death

•  And in general, all sorts of tribulations

How can we face the tests to which life submits us, and have human peace at the same time, if human peace doesn’t depend on us? If we stay on the purely human plane, we come to the conclusion that human peace is very easy to lose, so peace that the world sells us is a useless mirage.

Divine Peace

To explain what Divine Peace consists of, I’m going to begin by transcribing what Jesus tells the Apostles before his passion (John 16:33):

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have Peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.

Jesus is aware of the tribulations we have during life on earth, but in the midst of these tribulations, we can have Divine Peace if we remain in Him. The path of continuous improvement toward Sanctity that Jesus offers us provides us with the following:

•  Forgiveness from God in front of our repentance, so the sins we have committed in the past do not matter, since, if we sincerely repent, God, in all his mercy, forgives us and erases the sin from our soul through the sacrament of reconciliation.

•  Merciful treatment toward our neighbors, being able to forgive the offenses we receive, which eliminates resentment from our soul. A soul without resentment is a free soul. I will dedicate an entire chapter to forgiveness, since it is one of the most difficult parts to understand in this world we live in.

•  Help in the face of the needs we have, because Jesus, in all his mercy toward us, is willing to help us and pour His graces on us. He only asks us to turn to Him with trust.

Divine Peace comes even in the midst of the trials that life sends us. The path to Jesus frees us from fear and burden because he forgives us if we repent, teaches us to love and forgive our neighbor, and helps us in difficult times, if we turn to Him with trust. Therefore, Divine Peace eliminates fear from the equation. Divine Peace is a lasting Peace that does not depend on external agents, but only on putting God at the center of our lives.

WE CANNOT ALONE

Today's world promises us what it cannot give:

•  That happiness is achieved through technology, or material goods

•  That we are self-sufficient, owners and masters of our destiny

•  That we can give meaning to our lives apart from God

An idea that should be very clear to us is that we cannot achieve Sanctity alone. Faith is a gift from God, and we have to ask for it. This is precisely what the poverty of spirit of which Jesus speaks in the Gospel consists (Matthew 5:3). It is natural to the human being to believe themselves self-sufficient, taking pride out of them and not allowing themselves to be helped. Furthermore, the Devil exploits this craving for self-sufficiency to manipulate and tempt us. For this reason, Jesus praises children, since they are aware that they know nothing, and that they need the help of adults (Mark 10:13-16). We need help, and that requires the humility to recognize it. Furthermore, in John 6:65, Jesus explains to us: No one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.

Everything that means believing ourselves to be self-sufficient is the product of our pride, increased most of the time by the Devil, who is not interested at all that we achieve Sanctity.

Jesus reminds us, in the parable of the vine and the branches, that we can do nothing without Him (John 15:1-5):

I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

Arrogance (or pride) makes us not need God's help, which is why it keeps us from loving Him. In the same way, arrogance makes us focus only on the defects of our neighbors, which is why it keeps us from loving them. For this reason, pride is the worst quality we can have, because it is exactly what Satan exploits to distance us from God.

I know a phrase from Saint Faustina in which she explains this clearly:

I have learned that for God to work in a soul, it has to give up acting on its own, otherwise, God will not carry out His will in it.

The soul alone will not get very far, and Satan precisely wants the soul that desires Sanctity to guide itself, since then it will never be able to reach it.

We’ve seen that on the path of continuous improvement toward Sanctity we need God's help. But who can be Saints? We see it in the next section.

WE CAN ALL BE SAINTS

Sanctity is loving God and always wanting to do His will, each one in his particular state. When we die in this state, we go to Heaven to enjoy Eternal Life. It is then that we become Saints.

Therefore, a Saint is a soul that is in Heaven, already enjoying Eternal Life. Being in Heaven, we can go to that soul to help us, begging and interceding for us. Let's clarify, first, that miracles are only done by God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the Saints are not the ones who perform miracles for us, but they only pray and intercede for us, so that Jesus is the one who performs the miracles.

For generations, the following idea spread: only some of those who consecrated their lives to God, or those who died for Him (the martyrs) could be Saints. I sense that this idea was introduced by Satan in Humanity, to see Sanctity as something very difficult and unattainable. That way, it's easy for us to throw in the towel and not even try. But God, in his infinite mercy, revealed to St. Josemaría Escrivá, at the end of the 1920s, that anyone could be Saint. It is enough to place God in the center of our hearts, approach Him with humility, let ourselves be done, and pray through daily work well done.

Already in the 21st century, Pope Francis said the following during the catechesis on November 19, 2014:

Sanctity is not the prerogative of only a few: Holiness is a gift that is offered to all, no one is excluded, which is why it constitutes the distinctive character of every Christian.

It is very interesting how Humanity has forgotten the essential parts of Jesus's message, and how God has had to act over and over again in history to lead us back on the right path. Another example of God's intervention in history is found in the revelation of Divine Mercy that Jesus had to make to Saint Faustina at the dawn of World War II. This intervention was to remind the Human Being that Jesus loves us madly, that he is all merciful, and that he is willing to help us.

Therefore God, in his great mercy, wants us all to be Saints and bear fruit. He also knows that life can be very hard, so He is willing to help us. We simply need to have the will to approach Him, with great humility and trust, let ourselves be transformed, and bear fruit.

SUMMARY

In this chapter I’ve outlined a number of basic concepts that I will use in this book. In this way we’ll handle the same vocabulary, giving it the same meaning:

•  I have introduced you to the principle that "without involvement there is no commitment." It is a principle that God uses so that we go to Him freely and voluntarily.

•  I have shown you the difference between praying, saying a prayer, and meditating, so that the different nuances between them are clear.

•  In case you don't have a lot of experience handling Biblical references, I have shown you the notation that I’m going to use in this book, so that you don’t have any problem finding these