I am a Roman Catholic Christian

This is my identity. This is who I am. It says it all about me, because my life, everyone's life, the whole world revolves around this. I am a child of God, beloved in His eyes. I am me, and no one else. I am what I am. Let me explain this further, so that you may have a deep understanding of what it means. I'll go through it backwards, starting with Christian.

A Christian is a follower of the Christ (Greek for “Anointed”). The Christ is a man anointed by God, called to bring the salvation of the world. Jesus, the only Son of God, is the Christ. He was born of a virgin to show God's power to the world, and, in this, He is fully man yet fully God.

There can only be one God, though, so Jesus is not an entirely different God, but the same God which gave birth to Him. There are three individual persons in one God, the Father, the Son (Jesus), and the Holy Spirit. They are one God but uniquely different persons in that God. This God is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent; in short, all-powerful, perfect. In order for God to be completely perfect, there can only be one God. Thus there can be no other God.

Man was created when God formed his body out of the dust and then breathed the Breath of Life, the Holy Spirit, into his nostrils. This spirit gave man a soul, and made him special among all earthly creations, because he is in the image of God. Man, in a sense, is a bridge between heaven and earth, because he has both earthly body and heavenly Spirit.

But, through the sin of one human, all humans were made sinful. Cast out of paradise, humans roamed the earth, seeking to live, turning from God through sin. But, as one human brought the judgement of all, one human brought the salvation of all: Christ Jesus.

Jesus gave Himself as the final sacrifice, a Passover lamb pure and without blemish. He suffered, bearing our sins in His pain, and was crucified as a criminal, nailed to a wooden cross to die not because He had done anything wrong but because the world refused to accept Him. But He did not stay in the grave. The tomb could not hold Him. After a short time, He was ressurected, brought back to life—even fuller life than before.

From there He visited many people, including His friends and followers, teaching them some final lessons before it was time to go. He breathed on his disciples the Breath of Life, the Holy Spirit, and empowered them to bring to the whole world the good news that Christ was risen from the dead. This good news is called the Gospel. After that, Jesus ascended into heaven to sit at the right of the throne of God our Father. Because in rosing from the dead He defeated death forever, and because He is our God and king, Jesus has been given the supreme name and title: “Lord.” Jesus is the LORD.

All of this He did so that our sins could be forgiven, and our lives transformed. As man is a bridge between heaven and earth, Jesus is the great bridge between man and God. Through sin we separated ourselves from God, but through the innocense of Jesus we are made holy and reconciled with God.

But this was not just so that we could go to heaven, but more. Living a life for God is wonderful. It's not like nothing bad ever happens though. I still have many problems, but I can deal with those problems better. God gives me a joy within, and every day I grow closer to God and that joy strengthens. God is the Truest Love someone could EVER find. No love could EVER be greater.

Being a Christian means accepting the Holy Trinity, which is the three persons within God, and seeking to follow Jesus. A Christian is not someone who merely believes in God. Even Satan, the devil, believes in God. A Christian is not someone who does good things and is nice to people. Anyone who worships any god can be nice to someone. A Christian is one who believes by trusting in and LOVING God, and BECAUSE OF THAT LOVE follows God's commandments, and thus does good things, because God told us to love one another. If you truly trust in God, that belief will spawn in you good things. You cannot say "I believe in God," and refuse to love others and be kind and giving (charitable). To do so would be a lie. If you accept God, you will do good things, because the Holy Spirit will be within you and will inspire you to spread the goodness of God.

Baptism is the primary ritual of initiation into Christianity. A person is baptized IN THE NAME OF the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, making them a follower of the Trinity. Christianity does not end at baptism though. Once someone is baptized, it does not mean that they are a Christian forever. Nor does it end when you verbally accept God. SAYING you accept God is not the same as DOING it, and if you accept Him once you can easily deny Him later, and fall back to where you were. Being with God is a choice, and being away from Him is also a choice. Heaven is being with God, and hell is being away from Him. If you choose to be away from Him throughout life, you will be away from Him in death as well.

No, Christians aren't perfect. We make lots of mistakes too, and yes, we do sin, and have lots of trouble just as anyone else. And if anyone tells you a Christian is perfect, they've probably never met one. We are close to God, and that makes life wonderful, and it helps us to avoid sin. That doesn't mean we never sin, or that we are better than anyone else. We are people, just like everyone else, and we are trying, struggling. Still God accepts us, because He doesn't expect us to be perfect. His mercy takes care of our sins, and He forgives us every time we truly come to Him and apologize. Every single time, without hesitation, He forgives us, and loves us, and we love Him. This forgiveness is offered to everyone, but Christians are simply the ones who accept it.

Being a Christian means loving God, plain and simple. And Jesus said, "If you love me you will keep my commandments." (John 14:15) Thus, if you TRULY love God, you will turn away from sin. It doesn't mean you'll be perfect and sinless, but you'll seek God, and He will take you as His child.

A lot of this is really hard to believe. Some of it seems very strange. Well, as my good friend Fr. Charlie has often said, it's too crazy to be made up! And people did try to make stuff up. Nearly two thousand years ago, some people made up stories about Jesus to try and make it sound better. They talked about elaborate love stories and such, much like you'd find on TV today. However, before Jesus left He built a mighty Church to protect against lies. This Church is the writer of the New Testament (the books in The Bible about Jesus), and, it is the Church that decided which books would be in The Bible. This is the Roman Catholic Church.

“And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:18)

This is a verse from The Bible, in the New Testament, where Jesus is speaking to His good friend and disciple Simon. Jesus renamed Simon to "Peter", just as God renamed many people throughout history; Abram became Abraham, Jacob became Israel, Saul became Paul. It is symbolic of how one lives a new life once they come to God.

Simon's name meant even more, though. It means “Rock.” When the Bible was being translated into Greek, his name was Petra, which means rock (like “petrified”), which we now read as “Peter.” The importance of this is that Jesus says “upon this ROCK I will build my church.” He means that He will build it on Peter! Well how do you accomplish that? Simple: He made Peter the first pope.

As you may have heard, the pope is the leader of the Roman Catholic Church. His job, put simply, is to lead us all closer to Christ. No, he's not a king, and no he doesn't have any super powers or anything, he's just a VERY holy man who loves God very deeply, and wants to share that love with us. He's a kewl guy.

Now by making Peter the first pope, Jesus founded the holy Roman Catholic Church. And, in this verse He also says that “the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.” That doesn't mean that everyone inside the church is sinless and perfect. No; we're all people still. It means that no matter what, even if many of the people are turning from God, the Church itself will NOT be destroyed, nor will it be abandoned by God. The Church is MORE than the clergy, the priests and religious. It's us normal people, the laity, too. It's everyone who is baptized. It is especially everyone who receives Holy Communion, the Body and Blood of the risen Lord.

And, though many people attack the Church out of hatred, they will NEVER win, because we have God on our side. Jesus told us that the netherworld, hell, would never overcome the Church, and we believe Him. The LORD does not lie. So no matter what, through nuclear apocalypse, ice age, of whatever, NOTHING will overcome God's holy Church.

It is the Bride of God, and the presence of God on earth. It is the Holy Spirit, bonding our hearts together, and the very model of the Trinity. It is the Kingdom of God on Earth.

“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” (from the “Lord's Prayer”, aka the “Our Father”)

God is a family. The Trinity itself is a family (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). Thus, the Church is also a family. Pope means “father” or “dad”, and, we call priests “father”. Religious (like nuns and monks) are usually called “brother”, “sister”, or “mother” (like Mother Teresa). We do this to recognize that the Church, like a family, is a model of the Trinity.

Being Catholic means believing in the Church that Jesus founded, again by trusting in it and loving it. The Church protects the Truth, making sure that lies do not seep into it. It keeps to the ancient scriptures and traditions and studies them, guided by God, to be sure that the scriptures are not misinterpreted. Many Christians have a habit of taking a single verse from the Bible and calling it “The Word of God,” and not caring about the context of that verse. However, if you do that then the Bible can say just about anything, because for the most part it was written as individual BOOKS, which are meant to be read straight through, not to be chopped up sentence by sentence. In most cases, you cannot take a single sentence from ANY book and say that it describes the book in its entirety.

The job of the Church, then, is to make sure that people interpret things right and don't come up with off-the-wall claims. There can only be one truth, right? Because we can both look at the same chair, and I could say that the chair is not there, but no matter what I say the chair is still there. Even if I turned my back and didn't look at it, unless someone moved it or it blew up or something, it would still be there. I can deny the truth, but that does not change it. There is only one truth.

Being a Catholic does not mean accepting everything that the Church says right away, but seeking the Truth in the Church. And, even for stubborn people like me, if you truly seek answers you will find them, and if you have an open heart, God will convince you. Jesus said this about prayer:

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Which one of you would hand his son a stone when he asks for a loaf of bread, or a snake when he asks for a fish? If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him.” (Matthew 7:7-11)

Our beliefs cannot change.

A belief is a solid truth that we hold to govern the entire universe, such as the belief that God created man, and the belief that Jesus died for our sins. They can NEVER be changed. The same goes for controversial issues such as the ordination of women. It is a belief that it is IMPOSSIBLE to truly ordain a woman to the priesthood, and thus the Church CAN NOT decide to ordain women. Also, abortion. The Church has decided that life begins at conception and thus abortion is murder, and that belief cannot be changed.

They cannot change because God does not change. Since God is perfect, He cannot become any more or less perfect, so He cannot change at all. If God cannot change, then the things He tells us cannot change.

A practice is something that traditionally dictates how we worship God. It can be changed, and does differ within the Church. Practices include what kind of music we listen to or sing at Mass, and how we receive Holy Communion. There is more than one way to worship God, just as priests, religious (monks, brothers, nuns, sisters, etc), and laity (normal people) all worship God, even though they live very different lives. In the same way different church communities often have different ways of worshipping. The difference in practices and heredity usually dictate what Catholic rite you are a part of.

Catholic rites are different groups within the Church, but they differ from Christian denominations in that different denominations believe different things, but different Catholic rites all believe EXACTLY the same thing, yet they worship God with some different practices.

For example, I am a Roman (aka Latin) Catholic, and we usually play instruments and sing at Mass. However, Byzantine Catholics prefer only to use their voices, without instruments. It is not a belief, and it's not saying that instruments are evil. It's only a practice; they feel they can worship God better with their voices, and that's fine. It all works according to our beliefs. :o)

There are about 24 different rites, the Roman rite being the largest. Being Roman is in large part due to my ethnic heritage. I am Mexican, and Mexico got its Christianity from Spain, which, is inherently Roman because its people were once part of the Roman Empire. Thus, the same rite has carried on through generations to me, and I am still Roman. God could call me to another rite, but for the most part people stay in the rite that they were born into. Yet they all believe the same thing, and all are part of the Roman Catholic Church. Some practices differ between rites (like which language is used at church services), but our beliefs are united.

Another part of being Roman is displayed in my Theology. As a Theologian I draw from a long tradition of Theologians. As a Roman, I especially am an heir to the Theological thought that came out of the Western Roman Empire, from great minds such as St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas.

Although I am Catholic and blessed to know the Church which protects God's Truth, all Christians are my brethren. One does not need to be Catholic to be close to God, but it is truly a blessing, because Jesus gave us His own Body and Blood, Holy Communion, which links us together at the heart and Spirit and makes us One Holy Church. Since I am Catholic, it would be a sin for me to leave the Church and become another kind of Christian, because although they have some of the truth, they are missing other parts of it, and I would be shunning those parts that they are missing. As I said, a person cannot pick and choose, but must accept the whole truth, even gradually. Still I love my fellow Christians and respect them, and believe that they worship and glorify the same wonderful God.

We have many professions of faith, which are statements used to profess what we believe. They are important not only for defending our faith, but as prayers, because in saying them we reaffirm our beliefs and turn from sin and the devil. One of the oldest, greatest, and most well-known of these professions of faith is the Apostle's Creed. As a quick summary of who I am, I will write it here:

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth,
And in Jesus Christ, His only Son our Lord,
Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
And born of the Virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
Was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended into hell.
On the third day, He rose again from the dead,
He ascended into heaven,
And is seated at the right hand of the Father.
From thence, He shall come to judge the living and the dead,
And His kingdom will have no end.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
The Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints,
The forgiveness of sins,
The ressurection of the body,
And life everlasting.
Amen.

So, that's who I am. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it and learned a lot. For more information, you can check out my page of Catholic links, particularly the pamphlet “Pillar of Fire, Pillar of Truth.”

~Michael Anthony