As a note to all, I am one of the worst offenders of the struggle I am about to describe here. If any of you are going through the same challenges, perhaps we can all pray for each other.
In our current time, however, future historians will label it, we are blessed beyond belief with a high number of books and other resources to help us grow in our faith.
A simple keyword search of the online retailer of your choice can yield results for almost any relevant topic you can think of.
Do you want to know more about “suffering”? You can. Do you want to know more about “Adoration”? You can. Do you want to know more about “The Mass”? You can. “Church Fathers”? “Divine Mercy”? “Natural Family Planning”? “Lives of the Saints”? Yes to all. There are Catholic books on all of these topics and more.
We are called to “know, love, and serve” God, and a manageable way to “know” Him is by learning. Books are still a good way to learn.
So, read up my readers, read up.
But, we have to do more than that.
More than words
The cycle goes as follows: You want to learn more about your faith, you find a book online (or maybe in a real live bookstore), you start reading the book, you finish it eventually, you feel like you learned a lot, you find yourself seeking more a short time later, you buy another book and repeat the cycle.
That’s good. Reading is good, but we probably have to do more.
Where is the loving? Where is the serving? Gee, I don’t know. I’d better read up on that.
Let’s not get trapped in our books and forget about the rest of the story.
There’s a big difference between knowing God and knowing of God.
When you’re getting to know someone, do you read about them or talk to them, spend time with them, and get to know them?
Oh hey, communication. That gives me an idea — prayer!
Reading about our faith is one thing. Praying about it is a whole other and debatably greater thing.
How about this? Every time we read a book about our faith, let’s pray on it upon completion. Or better yet, before we start reading, let’s pray to God that we get out of it what He wants us to get out of it.
What good is reading Imitation of Christ if we aren’t actually striving to imitate Christ?
‘Write’ our own ‘books’
I don’t mean actually sit down, type out a bunch of words, and get it published (although some of you may have those gifts).
I mean take what we know and have learned and get out there and do stuff.
Let’s make our own stories.
Let’s make some materials that could go in our chapters in a lives of the saints book.
Something like “St. Kevin of Madison, the patron saint suffering sports fandom sat at home and read a lot of books” isn’t going to inspire anyone to grow in their faith.
[No, I don’t think I’ll be canonized, called anything like that, etc., etc.]
Students don’t spend their entire lives in school. Eventually, they get out of the classroom, turn pro, and do things.
We need to pray about what our “things” are after we read a book.
God will bless us with the gift of knowledge and learning, but He didn’t mean it just to be hoarded by ourselves. We need to find ways to share that with others.
Start reading
Lest I forget part of you out there, if you’re not an avid reader of books good and Catholic, start.
Part of our faith is always wanting to know more and always being curious.
If books aren’t your thing, try online blogs and articles or print magazines.
If words aren’t your thing, there are a lot of videos and audios out there.
Some videos are as long as movies and some of them are just a few minutes long. Some are done very well so you can learn a lot.
If you love technology, there are apps that provide more material than you could ever get through by yourself.
Truth and knowledge are out there. Go find them. We live in a time where you can find all sorts of Catholic facts in a palatable way that will help you learn according to your personality.
Let the Spirit guide you.
Thank you for reading.
I’m praying for you.