Nuptial Mystery: Divine Love and Human Salvation-Blog #1
This class interested me mainly because I have always wanted to be married and have a family, but I don’t know much about Catholicism and marriage specifically. I am minoring in Theology and thought this would be an interesting and valuable class for me to take. I am especially interested to learn more about how marriage is tied to human salvation.
I was raised in a Lutheran (LCMS) family by my parents, although my family has a lot of threads of catholicism running through it. My mom grew up Catholic, but chose to become Lutheran while she and my dad were engaged because they wanted to raise my siblings and I up in a common faith tradition. It was an easier process for her to become Lutheran than for my dad to go through the RCIA procress. When it was time to decide where I would attend high school, the catholic school was the obvious choice, as it was a college-prep school and the “perfect” size. During high school, I fell away from the Lutheran faith, despite still attending church with my family every Sunday. During my junior year, I went on a Kairos retreat with my classmates. During the retreat, I felt called back to faith and realized that God had always been guiding my life even when I wasn't aware of it. Afterwards, I began to explore the Catholic church and campus ministry within my school. I started to feel very connected to the community that the Church had.
I spent my freshman year of college at UCLA. My first quarter was the stereotypical college experience at a large public university filled with several (admittedly) poor life choices. I was extremely unhappy at UCLA and was eager to transfer anywhere else by Thanksgiving, but I decided to stick it out for a year. At some point, I realized that I needed to turn my life around and began attending mass held by the University Catholic Center. I reached out to the staff there and joined an RCIA group. After connecting with my faith and visiting Notre Dame, I knew where I wanted to transfer…and luckily I did just that!
So, I’ve been catholic for about a year and a half now. My relationship with God has been full of ups and downs, but in the time since I converted to Catholicism I have felt more connected to the faith than ever. I dove in and learned a lot about God and myself. I don’t think that I am a perfect catholic and there are a lot of things within the Church that I’m not totally sure how I feel about, but I love the traditions and community that the Church has and I’m happy with my decision.
