God in the driving seat of my life

My parent's brought me up with a really strong belief in God and of His love for His people. Their example led me to my own understanding and deepening of my faith. So the foundations of my faith were built on rock, and when the winds of my parents splitting up blew and the rain came, my faith stood strong. Yes, there were definitely rough patches and my beliefs about sex and marriage in particular were thoroughly shaken and there were times when I couldn't feel God: I just felt lost and hopeless, but I kept believing that He was carrying me through, and that He did. Matthew 11:28 was a verse that kept appearing at these times when I was ready to fall apart, and was a much needed lifeline: 'I will ease and relieve and refresh your souls'. So though I have endured struggles and hardships, these have in fact only brought me closer to God. Though I feel close to God, I often need to remind myself of this fact, and the fact that I should be placing God in the driving seat of my life, rather than letting myself get swept along with not much thought. So that's where I'm at the moment, trying to place all my trust in God...

Not a burden but a grace

Being a young Catholic today has become increasingly more difficult with pressures to conform to a very unreligious society from which young Catholics can feel alienated and like myself are persecuted for their faith, and the challenge is to listen to what Christ said, “if they Persecuted me, they will persecute you too” (John 15:20). These words are very familiar to me as my parish priest back home in Jersey was always reminding me of them; Christ gave us these as a warning and is a reference to all who believe in Christ that you will endure hardships in the name of Christ which is the struggle of being a young Catholic today. This message however is of great hope and comfort that Christ was telling us of how with His Crucifixion He shares in our sufferings and hardships, and was the confrontation He had throughout His ministry when dealing with society, and in knowing this it is an important call I feel for young people to hold firm to the Truth which is Christ and manifested in His Church. It is a call to follow Christ more closely, which we all try to do but speaking from experience there are times where as a young person you can find yourself amercing yourself into society as it seems the easiest option and seems the most desirable. To do this we are indirectly rejecting Christ by accepting a society which has rejected Him. It becomes a challenge and a great pain to know that you have the truth but no one can see and they laugh it off. The secular and the sacred move further apart and is young Catholics job to determine how to strike a balance between the two through prayer, the Church and hope in the risen Lord who gives us hope through having overcome persecution by rising from the dead, so I know that holding on this we can be saved. I have always believed that the best way to live out faith in this way is for young people to get as involved in their church communities as much as possible otherwise they will not only be distanced from society but also fellow Christians which can lead to a loss of faith. Coming together as young Catholics today is hugely important and at home and here in Lancaster I have been very lucky that there are many opportunities for sharing faith and living out faith together but we need to always be renewing our faith and bringing others to faith who are willing to endure the hardships of being a Catholic today with us not as a burden of course but as a grace.

Trusting in God

The last year wasn’t a particularly easy one for me. After receiving my a-level results and not gaining my place at university I decided to repeat my last year at school, despite many people telling me it would be extremely hard. It wasn’t until my friend went off to university themselves that it really hit home and I felt very lonely. At the same time, home wasn’t very peaceful with arguments pretty much the norm. I found it increasingly hard to concentrate to believe that this was God’s plan. After all I felt like everyone was disappointed in me, why would God be any different?
With my friends off at university, the people I always talked to about everything gone, I bottled everything up inside. Church became more of a chore than a choice and I felt like I could no longer feel God.
I got asked if I would do the Philip course and agreed as at the time I didn’t have much else to do. One of the things we looked at whilst there was all about the Father’s love. One line stuck in my head; ‘no matter what you do, I shall always love you.’ I realised that God hadn’t left me, he wasn’t disappointed in me, and I had turned away from Him! After this I began to take more interest in church again and it no longer felt like such a chore.

Daydream Believer

When I was about 10 years old, I used to go to church every Sunday but sometimes I really didn’t want to go. My parents would often wake me up to get ready for church, but I often used to shout because I didn’t want to go. But as parents do, they made me go, and how thankful I am to them now.

I used to sit in mass, daydreaming and messing about and not concentrating on the priest at all. I felt like I didn’t understand what was going on, so why should I listen? Anyway as I got older and started high school, my thoughts began to change as I started to learn about God and his teachings. Normally I would find it hard to just sit and listen in lesson, but listening to my teacher talking about God seemed so easy. Sundays came and went and every week parts of the mass became much clearer. Not only did I want to start going to mass on a Sunday, but I used to set my alarm to get up and get ready for mass!

I felt like God was with me, wherever I was, whatever I was doing, I knew he was helping me, and now when I look back and think that I never wanted to go to church on a Sunday, I am grateful to not only my parents, but God as well for helping me get where I am today.

So Much More to Live For

I love being Catholic. Before I took my faith seriously, life was good, and I was happy, but looking back, I see that something was missing, and there was an emptiness inside me. Now my faith is a big part of my life, and it doesn't hold me back from anything I want to do, but it gives me so much more to live for.I know I have a reason to live, and it's to love and to serve God. It is often a massive struggle within - to love God, and follow His teachings given to me through the Church, even though everything the world tells me often seems to go against that... But when I'm praying, I feel strong and close to God.I have found that we can serve God in everything we do. Not just for 1 hour a week in Mass; but wether I'm praying a rosary, or out for a ride on my motorcycle, I know God is always there with me, and we can offer Him all that we do.

The Steady Struggle For Truth

As I write this rather a large part of me feels that being a young catholic today is in fact very much like being a catholic of any age. It brings, I assume, much the same joys, struggles, hopes and fears. In fact I consider one of the most beautiful aspects of my Catholic faith the unity it gives me with so many others of all ages, of all walks of life.
One thing that surprises me however is how a path that has been trodden by so many before does not get any easier to follow, you would have thought the track would get wider and smoother over the years! It seems not. It can be tempting to wonder why I cannot live by the lessons that others have learnt, why I cannot be satisfied by the solutions that others have come up with. The more I journey the more I find that it is only in allowing my heart to ask again that I truly encounter God. It is the search for truth and life that makes faith meaningful, and it is the discovery of meaningful faith that makes my life true.
It is that discovery of true life in Christ that enables me to follow the narrow path, challenging though it is in today’s society. I have found one of the gifts of youth is the freedom and flexibility I have to commit time to His ends, and in offering what I have my life takes on a whole new dimension. True, there are exhausting weeks when I wonder if life wouldn’t be easier some other way, but as my favourite young saint Bl Pier Giorgio Frassati wonderfully expresses “To live without faith, without a patrimony to defend, without a steady struggle for truth, that is not living, but existing.”

Live the Life

My name is Charlotte Sadler and I was raised a Catholic. I have never minded going to Church because for as long as I can remember I have found ways to get involved in the Mass: Altar serving, reading, sacristan, youth worker or little things like partaking in the offertory.

However, I never truly understood the importance of what I was taking part in at Mass until my priest invited me to start going to the Faith Conference, a movement set up 30 years ago to help young people grow in their faith. Their conferences are certainly the highlight of my summer and my Christmas Break and where I have met the people who have inspired me. When I started going to Faith I found it rather overwhelming at first and when I sat at my first talk I can remember thinking after that I didn’t understand a word of that. But, “ask and you will receive” and I received better understanding of my Faith.

Some of the people that I met and who I found most inspiring are the Sisters of the Gospel of Life who work with women who are having a crisis pregnancy. It became clear to me after meeting the sisters that it was one thing to say you’re Pro-life but another thing to live that out. So, when I go back to College and my peers ask me about it, I use a lot of the stories and things the sisters have taught me just by their example to help me to put my idea across clearly and I challenge my friends to think about the issues they ask me about just as the Word of God should challenge all of us.