thank you so much!! gosh thats a huge compliment

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"If you don't love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?"
— Rupaul

Though I was born into it, my parents were not particularly practicing Catholics. I was always curious as to faith and my grandfather indulged me as a child. Shortly after my mother would take me to daily mass. Sure, I would sleep or not fully comprehend the mass at 3, 4 years old, but I did slowly begin to grow in it.

The people who lived a Catholic life, to me, seemed happy and complete and I wanted the same for myself.

It's in no way a finished process, but that's how it is with regard to faith.

One of the things that kept me steadfast to Catholicism were the constant attacks from non-Catholic or Christian family members and friends who sought to contradict my faith by means of reason. As someone inquisitive, I welcomed the challenge to defend my faith which I felt, even when young, to be spiritual, reasonable, and good.

I'm sure there's a larger narrative there, but as I've grown and studied history, languages, philosophy, theology, and science I've never lost a sense of the interconnectedness of it all. That behind all of these good things lay a supreme Good. I've never felt my experience, both good and bad, to contradict this.

I'm always a hyper-critical person, but the deeper I dig into my own personal faith and Scripture I find a truth that is, sometimes, beyond words but not beyond living (if that makes sense).


So, long story short, I was born into Catholicism sort of lukewarm but grew into it with very much a free and warm passion to know, understand, and love it.

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"Where the bishop appears, there let the people be, just as where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church." St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans, circa 110 AD.