Being a Catholic Pilgrim means knowing your faith. Our formation doesn’t stop at Confirmation, it should be a life-long journey to understand and know our faith well, so that we may defend the faith. Christianity is not unreasonable, but we must know it to defend it.

Growing up Protestant, I basically didn’t do any studying of the Christian faith. I was young, so it’s understandable. When I became Catholic in 2009, I had so much to learn, but I wasn’t totally committed to really learning the faith well and being able to defend it. Around that time, one of my old college roommates, who used to be Christian, became an atheist. She took to Facebook and constantly has something to say about religion, specifically Christianity. She would lash out questions and snarky comments to me and other Christians and I was embarrassed that I didn’t know my faith that well.

I like to say it took an atheist for me to wake up. She lit a fire under me and once I cracked open the books, I couldn’t stop. I found that there is so much to learn and with Catholicism being over 2000 years old, there are plenty of subjects to research. St. Peter tells us in Scripture to always be prepared to give an explanation for our faith.

My challenge to You: Read, read, and read some more. There is too much in this life to learn to just sit idly by and let our brains fall into misuse. Listen to podcasts about the faith. Some of my favorites are Catholic Answers Live and Pints with Aquinas. Above all, study your bible. I like to get study guides for the different books so that I dive deeper into verses and have a fully understanding of what is being said.