The Faith Mystery

Photo Credit: Faith In Numbers by Wormulus (deviantart)

This is not a post about the many intricate mysteries of spirituality. Rather it is a post about the mysteries people may associate to the way I practice my faith.

I have ceased labeling myself with a particular religious denomination. I grew up in a Catholic environment and became Born Again when I was in college. Now I am back in my predominantly Catholic environment trying to balance my new found beliefs as a Born Again and a good testimony to my Catholic social circle.

I have thus labeled myself as having a relationship and not a religion. For indeed, my faith is built more on the relationship I have with my Maker than religion which I believe is very limited and bounded by the rites of tradition, rituals and cultures.

But to most who do not understand, they must remain completely baffled at how I profess my faith. Take for instance today wherein our office is celebrating the Pagsungko ni Ina. It is an event wherein the image of the Lady of Peñafrancia visits our office annually and people hold vigils throughout the day. There’s a mass and the image is fetched and brought back through a procession to her shrine, which thankfully, is nearby.

However, my relationship is with Jesus. Not with Mary. And so I have since then stopped praying to her and worshiping her. For me, there is only One to be worshiped and that is Christ. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit – One God in three forms. Saints and even Mary do not possess the characteristics of God for me to give them my prayers and worship.

And so, years of education and even serving as a student leader of a Mary organization is discarded, for I now no longer believe in Mary as a worship entity.

And thus explains why me, who attends Holy Mass every now and then, who receives communion then and now, refuse to participate in Mary glorifying activities.

Does this shed some light to my albeit mysterious faith?

being catholic

It has been such a long time since I was last a Catholic. That is, since I last attended a Catholic mass. But today, being Father’s Day, I accepted the invitation of his parents to go to mass with them then eventually to dinner. So there I was, going to mass, in a crowded Catholic church, reminiscing all the reasons why I decided to give up Catholicism, with his family minus him. Yep. He had work to do so he can’t come. I was the substitute child.

So there I was. In a crowded Catholic Church. Wishing I had suggested we go to some more solemn Catholic Church. But then despite all the reasons I found myself thinking why I switched, I still managed to have that connection with Him. And in the end, realized that indeed, what I have is not religion but a relationship.

installing updates 2 of 3

This will be one of those general posts where I write everything in one single post.

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For the past days, my blog stats have hit an all time high. Thanks to two posts. But the creepy thing is, there are no comments, no referrers even. I am at a lost as to who are reading them. I won’t go into details on the stats, I told myself I would make a stat post when I am closing down my blog to move on to the new blog which I haven’t done anything yet! So suffice to say that for the past three days my blog has seen double or even quadruple the usual number of visitors thanks to two posts whose hits have been more (much more) than the previous all time highest hit the entire blog has ever seen. Creepy to think someone can be stalking me now. But why read only two post – one of them a sort of social concern post? Maybe these are all robots anyways.

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The LOVE issue. Sigh. I guess this is it dear readers. The time when my mind and my heart are meeting. Because already there is an internal debate going on in my head which goes something like this:

Why would you not give it a chance?

Coz I am afraid that he may not be the one..the forever guy.

But love is a risk..an emotional risk..

But I am afraid to take that risk.

You will never learn to love till you decide to give it a shot.

As I have read in a friend’s profile in FB

“If we deny love that is given to us, if we refuse to give love because we fear the pain of loss, then our lives will be empty, our loss greater” -Tanis/Tanthalas, Dragons of Winter Night DragonLance Chronicles

And as to the question that he goes to a different church, one of my respected churchmates told me that it is the faith – the faith that is important and we should not be legalistic about it. He gave me a very sound advice that quelched that nagging feeling in me. And his bottomline was that so long as I included God in the decision process, then God would be pleased.

So now, all that is left for me to do is, as another fave brother put it, is to go with the flow. Just chillax to all of these and see where it leads. And do have an open mind that there is a great possibility that he could be the one.

So I guess I’m ok now with the thought. I am free to love him after all. Even if we are not of the same faith technically. And yes, I am praying for him. But it is liberating to know I could love him – without guilt.

Now, if he could only go back online so I could quelch also these emotions of insanely missing him.

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I still have articles to write, but haven’t written coz I gut stuck with the holiday tide. Ah. The holidays, no matter how tense our holidays were, it does get the better of you.

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