Hey I'm Moses.
I must say the events of my life over the past few days have been deeply humbling. My faith has been challenged. A whirlpool of emotions have been stirred in me as well. However, at the end of it all, despite having my faith shaken, it now stands stronger than ever.
From young, I was a very angsty person, a victim of a syndrome called ‘victimisation’, I blamed everyone for everything that happened to me. Everyone was made a scapegoat in my eyes, even my parents. I always thought it unfair that my parents were old and unfun and when I was sad and unhappy, it was their fault rather than mine. I blamed them for even the silliest of things. My religion. I never liked being a Roman Catholic to be honest, and especially not being in the Neocatechumenal Way. The Way as it is called is a very unusual form of catholicism in nature. It goes back to the roots of the Jewish tradition and the fundamentals of catholicism including the theology of the Eucharist, transmitted by several people from Europe in a series of talks called the catechesis. Wiki it if you want to know what it is. I disliked my parents for being in the Way and making me join it as well as my parents didnt act like other christian parents. Other christian parents had many friends in church and always had fun in church, singing praise and worship songs, participating in various forms of ministry while my parents went to a Eucharist seperated from the main assembly, that lasted 2 to 3 hours each time because it did things rather differently from the normal church. This form of Eucharist is approved by the Pope though. I was indifferent to it however, and in fact hated it for being extremely boring and was very difficult to understand.
I then went to a different church, a reformed church (protestant), where it was there that I refound my faith in Christ and gained meaning in being a Christian. I was truely happy for the first time where nothing else in the world mattered for such happiness cannot be found except in God’s grace.
This faith did not last very long though when a few days ago, my mum told me she thinks she has cancer. Her symptoms matched that of a certain cancer and she was quite afraid. Anger overwhelmed me and instinct made me want to blame everyone for everything again. In my heart, I blamed my parents for giving birth to me at such an old age and that such illnesses already struck them when I was only a teenager. I blamed God as well for my very existence. Hopelessness then befell me as I realised if my mum did have cancer, I would not be able to do anything at all except hope that a good doctor would be able to perform surgery on her. My mum asked me for a prayer request too. But it was a very different prayer request from what I expected to hear. She asked me to pray that she would be able to accept her suffering and to find joy in it. Those words made my heart ache.
I talked to my dad about my thoughts and feelings. He is probably the wisest man on earth that I know of. He said that if not for the Neocatechumenal Way, my mum probably would not have been the person she was now. She would have been bitter, blaming God for many things as well. He gave me a brief history of the Way’s founder, Kiko Arguello, saying that Kiko never ever cared about the success or the failures of the NC Way. He only intended for a person’s heart to change through the Way. That is his emphasis till today. It doesn’t matter to him how many NC communities are being formed or how many people are joining it. It matters to him how great a change in heart it has been for a person. The only organisation that I had so many prejudices against was the very one that shaped my parents into the persons they had begun.
As of now, I still worship in a reformed church and am still very happy there. While my history of salvation isn’t as colourful as that of my parents, I can see that in every path I take and in every event that has taken place in my life, God is there. As Christmas dawns, I am reminded of Isaiah’s words in Isaiah 7:14 “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. ” Immanuel or Emmanuel means “God (is) with us”. This is the reason why I am stronger in my faith then ever and I know that through everything, I too will be shaped as a person that is worthy of being called a Christian, for in every suffering and in every event that happens, God is with us.
