Wounds to Healing

“There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate The Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be.” ~ Fulton J. Sheen

In 1989, my sister and I were sent to attend a private Evangelical school in our hometown in VA.  They advertise with the preface that they are a non-denominational school, but this particular school might really mean "non-denominational as long as you aren't Catholic".  I was nine years old when we made the switch and I was so excited because many of my friends already went to school there.  At that time, I didn't really think anything of the few negative experiences I had, but in hind sight, those experiences created in me a harsh, defensive nature.  

It was at this elementary school that I was told by some of my peers that I wasn't a Christian because I was Catholic.  Ouch.  As a nine year old little girl, who had asked Jesus to be the Light of her Heart just five years earlier, I didn't understand.  One day, a teacher very kindly asked me to bring my Catholic Bible to show and tell.  I 
remember feeling embarrassed, thinking "Don't y'all have your own bibles?  
Mine's pretty much the same..."  

 It was at this point in my life I remember the questions starting.  Questions like "Why do you worship Mary and the Saints?".  My mother was called names in the carpool line.  We became defensive and wounded.

Fast forward several years and I was going off to college.  I had decided to follow in my older sister's footsteps and attend the Franciscan University of Steubenville.  This was definitely where the Lord was leading me and I made a lot of great friends during my four years there.  Almost all of us are still friends today.  It was/is comfortable for all of us to share the same faith.  It's easy to be friends with others when your core 
beliefs are the same.

I look back on the years in college, and through the years leading up until this point, and I realize something.  This is something that really began to materialize in my mind after two uncomfortable exchanges between a couple of college friends and my husband Matt, back when we were dating.  We have become so comfortable with our Catholic friends and in our Catholic bubbles that we have forgotten how to love.  We have become so defensive, we're now the ones asking the questions.  "Why aren't YOU Catholic?"  
"Why don't you love Mary?!  She IS the mother of God you know."  We're sneering at non-Catholic Christians and they're sneering at us.  WHY?  

Scripture tells us in John 17:20-21,
 "I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me."
     
 Are we "in the Lord" when we're sneering, jabbing, and publicly arguing with our Christian brothers and sisters of other faith backgrounds?  No.  

We have to learn to love each other.  In word and action. 

Thankfully, my husband Matt has been teaching me how to love my non-Catholic brothers and sisters since the day we met.  We've learned that we're not all that different.  
"We believe in God the Father.  We believe in Jesus Christ.  We believe in the Holy Spirit, and He's given us New Life!"