For my featured series on “Why I Love Being Catholic,” I really wanted to express some guys’ voices on here about why they love being Catholic. So, each month, I hope to have a woman and a man answer that question for us. Men see things in differently and have different ways of conveying their experiences and perspectives. Todd is a fellow Catholic whom I met on Instagram. He follows me and I follow him and I always enjoy his posts. I can tell he is truly trying to live out his Catholic faith and I admire his openness about his faith and convictions. He lives in Massachusetts with his wife of 20 years. His answers are great and think you’ll find his answer on how he became Catholic different from most answers you’ll hear and a powerful testament to the grace we receive in the Sacrament of Baptism.
1. Are you a Cradle Catholic or a convert? If a convert, where did you convert from?
Neither really. That’s weird, right? I was baptized as an infant by my Catholic mother, who while not practicing the Faith, still kept the faith in her heart. However, because my mom was not practicing her faith and my father was a non-Christian, I grew up essentially secular pagan. After reading the Bible out of curiosity, the spark of faith that was lying dormant in my soul because of my baptism brought about a conversion in my soul. Subsequently, I received the Sacrament of Confirmation and Holy Communion as an adult through the RCIA program.
2. Who is your favorite saint and why?
Of course my favorite saint is our Blessed Mother, the ever Virgin Mary and Mother of God. As the Byzantine Catholic prayer states, she is “more honorable than the Cherubim and beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim.” After Our Lady I have many other favorite saints: Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Sharbel Maklouf, and Saint Therese of Lisieux to name a few.
3. What is the best Catholic place you have visited? What is a place you hope to visit?
My favorite Catholic place that I have visited so far would probably be Lourdes in France. My wife and I had the great grace of visiting the holy shrine where Our Lady appeared to Saint Bernadette about 18 years ago. I was very taken by not only the shrine and the grotto where Our Lady appeared to Saint Bernadette, but by the entire town that seemed to be filled with a peace and sanctity that you don’t find in most places on earth. It’s a place of miracles and a wonderful demonstration of the faith of millions of Catholics. Someday, I would love to visit the Holy Land, God willing.
(The above picture is of Todd at Lourdes, France in front of a statue of St. Bernadette.)
4. What’s a myth or misconception about the Catholic Faith that you often hear? What’s the truth of it?
I often hear, as many other Catholics do, the misconception that the Catholic Church teaches us to worship Mary, as though she were a goddess. Of course the Catholic Church has never taught that we should worship anyone but God alone, but for some reason, especially among Protestants, this myth, which is in fact a lie, keeps being perpetuated. The truth of it is that worship, what theologians call “latria” is reserved for God alone. It would be a grave sin to accord this type of worship to anyone other than God himself.
(There are three types of worship: Dulia, which is honor and veneration to holy people, such as saints. There is hyperdulia when is honor and veneration for the Mother of God, Mary. Lastly, there is latria. This is the type of worship reserved only for God.)
5. Aside from receiving the Eucharist, what is your favorite part of the Mass?
My favorite part of the Mass other than Holy Communion is the consecration. That is the part of Holy Mass where the sacrament and sacrifice are actually confected. The bread is actually changed into the Body of Christ, and the wine is separately changed into the Blood of Christ. This causes the real presence of Christ in both sacred species and the re-presentation of His sacrifice upon Calvary.
6. Why do you love being Catholic?
It’s a great question, and I think I could answer it in many different ways. I think, though, that G.K. Chesterton said it best, and so I’ll make his words my words. “The difficulty of explaining ‘why I am a Catholic’ is that there are ten thousand reasons all amounting to one reason: That Catholicism is true.”
