Knowing Faith 

   I am a convert to Catholicism; in fact, you could even say I am a convert to Christianity.  There was very little experience with God or church in my childhood.  When people ask what I was before becoming Catholic, I usually answer that I was heathen.

   My wife, God rest her soul, was Catholic from birth and she brought me both to God and to the Catholic Church.  She never pushed, she never cajoled, but what I saw in her and her faith is what convinced me that I had to come to know God.  While she was not a learned theologian, she was a faithful woman who, by her example, taught me faith.

   As a convert I desired to know all I could about this new-found faith in God.  For years I studied and read the history and teachings of Christianity and the Catholic Church, as well as that of many other Christian denominations.  I spent three years in becoming a certified catechist in the Church; I enrolled in numerous college level theology classes.  All in an effort to better understand this thing called faith.

   I say this, not to brag, but because the most important thing I found was that faith cannot be learned in school.  We learn to love by the experience of  knowing one who loves, so too faith.  We cannot come to know faith in a lesson plan, but only by the grace of God.  Studying my faith was a great experience and I highly recommend it.  But way to truly know faith is by the example of one who is faithful.  And the greatest example of all is our Lord, Jesus Christ.

   Saint Thomas Aquinas said, “To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary.  To one without faith, no explanation is possible.”  We cannot come to faith except by the grace of God.  Ask and He will give it.