Questo articolo è disponibile anche in: Italian English Spanish French

Question

Dear Father Angelo

My name is Sergio, I come from a Catholic family of Catholic tradition and   from a young age up to 23/24 I used to frequent  the parish, I/received the sacraments of Communion and Confirmation, I  used to attend Sunday Mass and to  try to concretely represent in my daily life the teachings of the gospel, peace, love and mercy … ..I was lucky enough to be caressed by the Holy Father John Paul II, who for years  used to be a source of inspiration and devotion for me … ..for years I  had been reading the Bible where often I found comfort and peace ….. the Bible was a light for me … I would always  bring it with me on all my trips from city to city where I moved for work over the years …  During a period of time, I thought I wanted to become a priest…. to live in  poor lands and to help people less lucky than me living in the Word of God.

…… All this until a few years ago …… then… .. Suddenly I turned away from God and from prayer…. My Faith…. Which in the past had been a resource in various difficulties, had become a difficult burden to accept, to understand, to explain to others, I started asking myself a thousand questions … .. Does God exist? … After death ?? There are certainly other forms of life in the universe … Then everything I believed in, makes no sense …Life makes no sense …. Nothing makes sense at all.. I started asking myself why God allowed all the ugliness of the time in which we live ….

… … I started to frequent disreputable friendships, to abuse alcohol and drugs, to live in sin, to frequent street women and to live an immoderate life always in search of the cursed god-money to pursue the ephemeral values ​​of this capitalist society in disarray … All those ephemeral values ​​that, regardless of faith, I had always criticized and tried to fight.

Suddenly my faith was gone … years have passed in which I have not noticed the harm done to so many people in the family, at work, in society, I participated in scams and sold drugs … Everything only for money … … If today I turn back I wonder how I did it and how the last 10 years of my life have flown away without meaning … ..

Today finally “I am back on earth” …. after a long labor. Everything that has happened has changed me a lot … It has also closed me a lot, … I always thank God that despite the times of great labor I came out clean and alive … Without any particular problems…I carry with me, however,  a  deep sorrow for the pain of which I was the cause ……. and  for which I still cannot give myself peace … .I thank God … But a God I don’t know any longer, and that perhaps I don’t deserve, and who maybe doesn’t accept me anymore.

In another analysis I approached Islam with curiosity., I frequented Muslim communities … discovering important values ​​that our society in disarray has long lost … I am not speaking of a conversion but of a search for values ​​that I can no longer manage to find in my faith….

I would love to go back to believing in a strong, coherent way …. I would like to be the bearer of the gospel but I still cannot turn and entrust myself to God in totality and find certainty in HIm.

The other day I went to a funeral, I had not entered a church for a long time. As soon as I entered I had a feeling of well-being. Instinctively I looked at the crucifix and as if I heard myself say…. Welcome home…

Dear Father I hope to get closer to God and to be His instrument to be bearer of His Word … I hope with my heart to rediscover the profound Faith ….

I hope you can give me some advice and understand what you think of my profound curiosity towards Islam

Thank you

Answer

Dear Sergio,

1. Reading the story of your life I am not so sure that your faith disappeared by itself, as if by magic, and then the moral degradation began.

Perhaps the opposite has happened, namely that moral degradation has extinguished faith.

2. However, in any case it is true that faith must be cultivated.

In yesterday’s Mass (27 October 2019) in the second reading we heard the following words from St. Paul: “I fought the good fight, I finished the race, I kept the faith” (2 Tm 4,7).

Like any living reality, faith is not preserved by itself, but must be nourished through the nourishment of the Word of God and the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist and confession.

3. Concomitantly or following your estrangement from God, the moral drift you described began and is still a source of sorrow for the suffering you have caused to so many people.

You find yourself in the condition of yesterday’s tax collector of the Gospel who, standing at a distance in the temple, did not dare raise his eyes to heaven.

He did not dare to raise them up because he had always kept them on the things of the earth to the point   to become depraved.

Now he felt unworthy to turn to God after having abandoned Him so unworthily.

But he came out with these humble words: “O God, have mercy on me who am a sinner” (Lk 18:13).

Jesus said that he returned to his home justified (Lk 18:14).

He probably felt embraced by God’s mercy as a consolation.

It was more or less the same sensation you felt when you set your foot back in the church on the occasion of a funeral and you heard the voice of God who, despite everything, was saying to you: “Welcome home”.

4. As much  as evil was gradually  coming out of your life, eventually God was entering it  again.

God and sin cannot coexist in the same place.

For this reason, in the  Sacred Scripture we read: “Wisdom (synonymous with God, editor’s note) does not enter a soul that does evil or dwells in a body oppressed by sin” (Wis 1,4).

As we read in the next verse: “The Holy Spirit (which is synonymous with the grace of the Holy Spirit) … is cast out when injustice sets in” (Wis 1,5).

5. Likewise Jesus says: “The light has come into the world, but people loved darkness more than light, because their works were evil” (Jn 3:19).

That is to say: the presence of sin prevents us from welcoming God because in itself sin is a departure from God.

But He also said these other words that portray your current situation well: 

“Instead, he who does the truth comes towards the light, so that it may clearly appear that his works have been done in God” (Jn 3:21).

When evil comes out of your life, God returns.

Just as when the rain-filled clouds go away, the sun reappears in its splendor.

6. Now resume your Christian life starting from the sacramental confession.

And since, despite the return to God you are still a convalescent, I suggest that you remain faithful to sacramental Confession by always approaching the same priest every 15 days or so.

John Paul II wrote of the sacramental confession that “He who instituted this sacrament (Jesus Christ) knows what the true needs of the human heart are” (Novo millennio ineunte).

7. On the other hand, you can take this from Islam:   consider that many go with zeal after a man who they  see as the prophet, while many Christians follow Jesus Christ, who is God made flesh and has given overwhelming proofs of it, with unfortunately less zeal. 

Therefore, resume your Christian life with the fervor you had as a child, when holy things (then you were pure!) Attracted you to the point that you even thought of dedicating your whole life to God and to your neighbor by becoming a priest.

Resume it with the right step which is that of sacramental confession.

I wish you well, I gladly entrust you to the Lord and I bless you.

Father Angelo