Stop Looking and Start Believing

Elijah will indeed come and restore all things
but I tell you that Elijah has already come –Matthew 9:11

Today’s blog entry will be very brief.  First and foremost, I wish to offer my prayers for the children and people killed yesterday in Newtown, CT.  May the Lord lovingly receive their souls and may He grant us his mercy to cope and recover from this tragedy. 

I spend a considerable amount of time looking for signs and signals.  I tend to be very stationary and do not move unless provoked by rational thought and compelling evidence.  So when it comes to matters of faith, I am still stationary and do not move unless compelled to do so.  My conversion to Catholicism came during a High School retreat in 2001.  I was very new to the faith and was almost completely unfamiliar with anything Catholic.  However, I had an experience in adoration that altered my course of life.  Looking back on these 11 years, I see that the initial conversion was not a life-altering conversion because it was so brief.  

However, it is not insignificant because it called me to repentance and into full communion with the Church.  The encounter, with what I know now, with Christ moved me to become a believer in Christ.  What it did not do was magically heal me of many wounds I had been carrying to that point.  My darker moments in my life were yet to come.  I feel those confessions may have to wait for another blog entry.  Needless to say, some habits may have changed with an encounter with the Lord but some long held behaviors did not.  I still would look for signs and wonders to remind me that God was present in my life.  I did not believe deeply in God because my memory of the retreat would fade and I required a renewal of sorts. 

That renewal would not come.  However, the faith remained though it vacillated often between radical Catholic and nominal Catholic.  The faith inspired me to start to participate in some events and to do some charity.  I began to give back in catechesis and youth ministry.  During deployments, I also had ministries where I participated in as well.  These did not have the power of the Holy Spirit in my first conversion but they had the grace to continually renew me in my faith.  These little events became the signs and wonders because I participated in the life of the Church. 

The life of the Church is the participation we are called to.  The Church is a sacrament for us to receive grace.  It is a visible sign instituted by Christ to give grace.  We can also give to the Church of ourselves to help others to help bring God to others.  Just as the people in Jesus’ time were looking for Elijah to come, we too are looking for our own Elijahs in our lives.  And the response from Christ is the same to them as to us:  Elijah has already come.  Stop looking and start believing.