I have a wonderful friend called Anna whom I met at my local church about two years ago. I was new to the area and it was my first time at Mass, and I was looking to buy a copy of the Catholic Herald. Anna had read all the lessons and prayers that morning so I thought she seemed like the right person to approach about how to pay for my magazine as there wasn’t an obvious place to leave the money. Besides that, Anna was also beautifully dressed and had a slight Australian accent – unusual to these parts of South Wales – and so I was intrigued by her.
We have since become firm friends. Not that I was ever uncertain about Anna’s goodness, but my opinion of her was confirmed when she met my very small children, who I always think are the best judges of character. Toddlers are like dogs in that they are always drawn to the kindest person in a room and do not shy away from showing those they don’t like how they feel about them. Needless to say, they love Anna.
Anna has a strong lifelong faith, but it is a questioning faith so we always have animated conversations which range from Vatican politics to the meaning of life. We also cover topics such as commercial enterprise (Anna, unlike me, is a very successful businesswoman) and child-rearing (Anna is a mother and grandmother). Last week, over coffee, Anna said with characteristic modesty: “If I go to bed at night knowing in my heart that I haven’t hurt anyone that day, I can sleep soundly.”
I don’t want to embarrass Anna any more so I won’t keep listing the ways in which she is wonderful and in which she helps, along with the other ladies, to make our local church so happy, vibrant and welcoming. But I will say how thankful I am for her friendship, wisdom and perspective.
Anna’s faith is different from mine, which was non-existent for much of my teens and early twenties and only really came back when I got married and became a mother. Sometimes I think mine looks like a faith of convenience – now I am past the partying stage of my life, I can start going to Mass and trying to instil some holiness in my children.
I do hope and believe, though, that there is more to it than that.
As a result of this long gap, I am relearning a lot about how to live as a Catholic and am endlessly surprised by the perks of my religion.
The other day Anna gave me some advice which would never have occurred to me. I was struggling with a decision which had been going round in my head for months. I won’t say what the decision involves, not because it is private, but because the reader will become as bored as I and the people around me have become by my indecision.
Anna said: “Why don’t you offer it up to God?” What an unusual idea, I thought. Let go of something? Before looking up the theological significance of “offering it up”, I tried it on its most basic level.
I stopped trying to decide and instead said a prayer and went to sleep. I did this a few nights in a row. A week on, the less I dwell on the problem, the more clearly a solution seems to be forming in my head.
To a novice or someone rediscovering the Catholic faith, the theology behind this concept is mind-blowing. By offering up our annoyance or suffering, we are uniting with Christ who suffered for us and told us to take up our own cross. As St Paul said: “For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, engaged in the same conflict which you saw and now hear to be mine” (Philippians 1:29-30).
Furthermore, by offering up our pain or problems, we are also helping the souls in purgatory on their journey to heaven. The idea that suffering has meaning and power naturally encourages us to stop complaining. Instead we offer our strife to Jesus for the good of the human race.
How inspiring but also comforting are the words of St Therese of Lisieux in this vein: “How I thirst for Heaven – that blessed habitation where our love for Jesus will have no limit! But to get there we must suffer… we must weep… Well, I wish to suffer all that shall please my Beloved.”
As I wrote in my column last month about the documentary One of Nine, I have always been amazed by people who really live their faith, thinking that this is something far beyond the realms of my capability, but increasingly I am realising that it is the only way to live – there is nothing complicated about it. I am grateful to friends like Anna who remind me of this.
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