It Ain't Easy Being Catholic...

I have two posts in my drafts folder that I was bound and determined to work on and publish this week.

Then a little thing called a CONCLAVE happened and this is what I spent most of yesterday and today doing:

No clue where my kids ran off to

These past few days have been exciting. I was glued to social media and the TV looking for those first signs of white smoke. A certain brother of mine may have used the word "obsessed" to desrcibe how I was acting, and I can't say I disagree with him.

Today was full of anticipation. I don't think I've ever stared at a chimney on a screen so long before. I can tell you I've never been so amused by a seagull sitting on one. Once that puff-puff-puff came out... it looked dark... but got lighter and lighter. I may or may not have reacted somewhat like this:

Then the waiting game began... who was this new pope? What name would he choose? The Catholic world was all a flutter with excitement. The bells ringing, the crowds cheering, the bands playing- talk about Holy Ghost goosebumps!

Soon our new Father came out to greet us. He looked so humble. So simple. He prayed. He asked for a blessing before he blessed us. He told his flock good night, good rest... just like a good father does.

I'm so very pleased with our new pope! Today has been so emotional, and I should be sleeping now (1:00 a.m. is the dead hour for me), but instead I have to get some thoughts out there into the wonderful world of the interwebz.

When I had my spiritual growth spurt I was so excited and on fire about the Catholic faith. I loved the history, the traditions, the stories of the saints. I coudn't get enough. I could sniff out a Catholic book store five miles away and I would spend so much time in there and dream about winning the lottery so I could BUY ALL THE BOOKS!

During these last few years, that fire has fizzled quite a bit. I still love being Catholic, but I wasn't all excited when Pope Benedict got on Twitter. I wasn't a Cardinal Dolan groupie. I never waivered on my beliefs, but I just wasn't passionate about them anymore.

But these last few weeks my love for all things Catholic has come back again with great joy. I'm practically giddy!

Why do I love being Catholic? Because the Church points me to Jesus and to heaven. I know a lot of people don't like organized religion or they believe that one should have a personal relationship with Jesus. But the great thing about the Catholic Church is we have TONS of tools to help us to get to know Jesus even BETTER. To help us when we need help the most. We have saints, sacraments, history, music, colors, paintings, statues, prayers, liturgy, Scripture, gestures, oh my goodness... just thousands of different things to help us get to Jesus! A lot of this stuff looks foreign to people outside the Catholic Church. I've had a few friends comment to me on facebook about things they didn't know before regarding the Catholic Church, asking me questions and expressing their fascination. I'm so humbled that they asked me and I am so grateful that they are asking questions instead of straight up dismissing the Church. I've seen comments during this week that expresses ignorance toward the Church and that makes me mad and sad.

That brings me to the hard part. The part of being Catholic that has been on my mind for years now. It's so incredibly hard to be a faithful Catholic. It's not easy to be any kind of faithful Christian in this world, really. Our world just isn't built to have Christianity be a part of the norm. But I feel it's especially hard as a faithful Catholic. You have non-Christian people who think we're homophobic, against women, and intolerant. You have other Christian denoms thinking we're the whore of Babylon, a cult, a part of the anti-Christ. We're even ridiculed by other Catholics who think we are lunatics for not using contraception and think we do what we do because of blind obedience. I'm not saying everyone out there is like this, but sometimes it sure is lonely being Catholic.

Years ago I was confused and even kind of weirded out by some of the traditions of the Catholic Church. But I questioned, I wondered, and I learned. Soon I accepted it all. I'm all in, even though there are many things I still struggle with. Many of the things we have in the Church are gifts from Christ himself- confession, the Eucharist, the papacy... the list goes on. Jesus loves us so much that he gave us guides- multiple guides and tools to help us stay on the right path. He knew we'd be confused and lost without these gifts.

Sometimes I feel like we're having to defend ourselves from all sides. It gets tiring. It gets incredibly frustrating. Sometimes I get embarrassed by the looks I get when I say I went to confession or when I say I use natural family planning. But Jesus said being his follower wouldn't be sunshine and sparkly unicorn farts. We have to die to ourselves. We have to sacrifice. The path to heaven isn't easy. What we believe and what we do usually goes against what everybody else is doing. And, well, that can just plain suck sometimes.

But the suckiness is worth it. Today, I joined in with about 1 billion other Catholics, not only by social media, but in prayer and we were united by the Holy Spirit to see our 266th pope say hello to the world. I saw tradition. I saw things of old (the chimney) and things of our modern age (tweets and Facebook posts about the day) come together. I saw a glimpse of Christ in this very secular and sad world. And I saw in myself a new wave of hope and excitement for my faith life.

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for the gift of the Catholic faith. THANK YOU!

(Still get chills every time I see this video!)