College is hard. Between classes, a social life, work, sleeping, and assuring your parents that you aren’t dead even though you haven’t called in two weeks, it’s hard to keep track of everything. For me, this has become increasingly true. While taking 20 units and working two jobs can take it’s toll, I would say that I’ve done a fairly good job balancing my time pretty evenly in all aspects of my life except for one, my spiritual life.
I am what you would call a “cradle Catholic” – I was born and raised a Catholic, and I have attended catholic school ever since kindergarten. I grew up going to Mass every Sunday, I volunteered for my church’s youth program, and I led numerous school retreats in high school including Kairos. Basically, I thought I had my faith all figured out at 18 years old and didn’t think anything was going to change that… and then I went to college.
Coming to college I figured nothing would change. I was going to a Jesuit university, so if anything my faith should get stronger, right? Wrong. Initially I stood strong in my Catholic values; I went to Mass regularly and didn’t really go out on the weekends as most of my other friends did. But, little by little, I began to go out more and more, and to be frank, I became more concerned with getting sh•tfaced and fitting in then caring about my faith. I didn’t really go to Mass anymore, and for a time I just stopped praying and talking to God altogether. While I’m not by any means saying that just because you go out and party makes you a bad Catholic, I’m just saying that I lost focus from something that was very important to me and placed that focus into something else entirely.
I didn’t really realize how much I had strayed away from my faith until my mom confronted me about it over spring break last year. My mom knows me pretty well, so I think she kind of expected me to burst out into tears after she asked me, “Are you still going to Mass?” It wasn’t until that moment that I realized just exactly what I had done to myself. She sat there patiently as I explained to her how I had stopped feeling like God cared about me and how I felt like my faith was basically gone altogether. She did what any good mom did and assured me that He hadn’t, but part of me still had a hard time believing it.
As much as I trusted my mom and her advice, I still felt like something wasn’t clicking. Going to Mass seemed like a chore more than anything and I just couldn’t gather up the will to walk to the Mission Church every week. I felt ashamed and hurt. I felt like as much as God was giving up on me that I was giving up on Him too, and I hated it. But I still didn’t know how to fix it.
A few months later, my brother approached me and asked if I would be his sponsor for Confirmation. I was elated, but at the same time I was deeply burdened. How would I be able to be a good steward of faith for my brother when I couldn’t even be a good steward for myself? That was the first time since fall quarter of freshman year that I actually sat down and prayed. I prayed primarily for forgiveness for the countless weeks that I had neglected God and my relationship with him. I prayed for healing, so that I might know the grace of God again. But mostly, I prayed for courage. I prayed for the courage to be able to walk into Mass again without feeling like a total hypocrite. After that day, I decided it was time to make my faith a priority again, if not for me then for my brother.
It has definitely been a bumpy road since then. While I would like to sit here and tell you that I don’t go out and drink more than I should and go to Mass every Sunday, I don’t. I still struggle in my faith, and there are times where I place other trivial things in front of my spiritual life. But to give myself credit, and to you if you’re struggling too, it’s because you’re human. God didn’t create us to be these perfect beings that never made mistakes, but He loves us anyways. That’s the beauty of faith; no matter how hard or how often you fall, God will always be right by your side to pick you back up. Through my friends, family, and most importantly myself, I have found a support system in which I feel like I am able to finally return to a place where I am happy in my faith.