Beyond Sunday by Teresa Tomeo

Author:Teresa Tomeo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Our Sunday Visitor
Published: 2018-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

Up Close and Personal

The Church and God in Our Everyday Lives

If I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.

— 1 Timothy 3:15

God has given us the Church as a gift, because he loves us. The Church, founded by Jesus himself on the rock of Saint Peter (see Mt 16:18), has stood the test of time, trials, and countless tribulations. And the Church isn’t just a cold institution imposing rules and regulations on her members. Everything she does and offers is with our best interests in mind. In the Gospel of John, Jesus says that he came to give us abundant life (10:10). So much of that abundance is there for us within the teachings and structure of the Catholic Church — but, especially as adults, it’s up to us to take the time to explore and learn.

Sadly, many of us hardly know where to begin.

If you’re anything like me and my husband before we began our journey back into the Catholic Church, chances are you haven’t thought much about what “church” really means beyond the doors of your local parish. For many of us, when it comes to our personal, everyday lives, we figure “church” pretty much begins and ends there. If we want to be active and engaged, we can volunteer with parish ministries (which is a good and worthwhile thing to do). But do we really recognize just how much the Church should be part of our lives and decisions, no matter where we are, whether in the church hall or in our own living room? I know I didn’t. That is, not until I came in contact with the treasure trove of Church teachings, which helped me see just how up close and personal our life of faith should be. It’s all about a relationship.

Scripture

As we were returning to the Catholic Church, my husband and I became involved in a nondenominational Bible study. Back in the early 1990s, at least in our area, there weren’t many Scripture-based studies for Catholics — at least none that we were aware of. We were still Christian newbies on so many levels, so when Dominick received a personal invitation to this Bible study, we decided that, at least for the time being, when it came to learning about the Bible, this was the best place for us.

We were surprised by a question often asked by the Protestants in the study with us: they wanted to know whether we had “a personal relationship” with Jesus. Had we accepted him as our “personal” Lord and Savior? That terminology wasn’t commonly used by Catholics, and we weren’t sure what it meant. Yet the more we studied the Bible together, the more this idea of a “personal” relationship with a very “personal” Savior began to make sense.

Through our Scripture study, we really got to know Jesus much more personally. He became real to us as we encountered him in the Gospels and began to learn just how much God loves us.

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