Lumen Fidei #6: "Make Straight in the Wasteland a Highway for Our God!"

John the Baptist

From #13: Believing means entrusting oneself to a merciful love which always accepts and pardons, which sustains and directs our lives, and which shows its power by its ability to make straight the crooked lines of our history.

 I have a pretty colorful history. When I was younger, I hung out with a different crowd. Goths, potheads, you name it! I never participated in any drinking or drugs, but I was close to people who did. We were the outsiders at school. By my senior year, we joked that I was the "mother" of the outsiders. I did have quite the protective, mama-bear attitude going around with my friends.

I would not win any prize for having the most colorful history, though. Many saints have more colorful histories than I: St. Ignatius of Loyola- the ambitious soldier, St. Francis of Assisi- the spoiled pretty boy, St. Augustine of Hippo- wine, women, and song.

God still makes radical changes in everyday lives. I've met one man who was a part of a motorcycle gang with all the worst that that can entail: drugs, crime, and hedonism. He found Jesus after having a stroke and radically changed his life.

God truly makes straight the crooked lines of our history. I remember my first time in Eucharistic Adoration. I had the overwhelming feeling that everything I've ever done, every event in my life was orchestrated to get me to that place in that moment. I felt like I had known all of the people in that chapel forever, even though I had never met them before in my life. As little sense as it has ever made to me, I truly feel I was made to be a Catholic. This is where I belong.

This is part six of a series looking at quotes from Pope Francis' encyclical Lumen Fidei. The others can be found here.