What does it mean to be Catholic? Simply put, a Catholic believes and follows the teachings of the Catholic Church; all of the teachings. We don’t have to fully understand all of them and will never know the full meaning of all the mysteries of the church on this side of heaven. We believe on faith. Knowing, believing and accepting something without proof is faith.

Do you believe in the Holy Trinity? Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the second person of the Trinity that was born of the Virgin Mary and became true man and true God? Do you believe that He came and established the Church on earth through his apostles who continued his mission through their teachings, the Eucharist, confession and the other sacraments? Do you believe that they were given the supernatural power to do this by Jesus and through the infusion of the gifts of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost? Hopefully, if you consider yourself a Catholic you completely accept all of this as true.

The Church teaches that the first apostles taught and preserved the faith as Jesus intended. They passed this on to their successors who became the first popes, bishops and priests. The faith has been preserved throughout the past two thousand years. The Lord Himself said the gates of hell will not prevail against the church.

If you have agreed to all of the above, then you are saying you believe the Catholic Church is the church of Christ, who established it to guide and lead us to Him. You have to accept all the Church teaches if you believe in the faithfulness of apostolic succession that was established with the first apostles. If you reject the teachings of the Church, then you are denying the faith has been preserved truthfully through time. If you disagree with the Church’s teachings on one area, why believe it is right in any other area? Did the truth just fail to be maintained in the areas in which you disagree? With God, there is no past, present or future. I remember learning in CCD that God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. It’s not like He is heaven thinking, “Wow, if I knew things were going to turn out this way, I would have written different commandments.” That is ludicrous.

One of the Church’s true examples of wisdom is its ability to preserve the truth no matter what the world believes. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. The Truth does not change because society has changed its values on sin and morality.

When we profess the Our Father, we proclaim, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done”. If we are faithful Catholics, we are proclaiming that we look for, accept and yearn for the “will” of the Father to be done. We are not imposing our own will on God. We don’t know God’s plan for our lives, the ones we love or the world. We don’t have an inkling of the master plan. I’m sure you’ve seen pictures of the earth from outer space that shows a large sphere covered with blue water and swirling clouds. We can imagine our own existence in the large scheme of the universe as a tiny speck that appears for a few moments and then is gone. Yet, somehow, when we move away from the Church, our pride leads us to think that we know better than God what we need, what we believe and how we should live our lives.

As Catholics, we seek the will of God and then with the grace of God work to fulfill it.