For me being Catholic has never been easy. It is something I struggle with day in and day out. If I did not take my identity as a Catholic as seriously as I do, this struggle would be a non-issue. Fortunately, and (by self-report) unfortunately, I was born into Catholicism - it is not a faith I chose on my own. But I am a captive and I wish I could simply explain my troubles away by virtue of an affliction of Stockholm syndrome. But it is so much more complicated than that.

Being Catholic is who I came to be first and foremost in this life, and everything after this fact is secondary and subject to this first fact. I can not escape this. Do I live my life in strict adherence to Church teachings? Absolutely not - I can’t in good conscience do so. And I state this because I happened to listen and learn well during my twelve years of Catholic schooling. I know what it means to follow the gospel as preached by Jesus, the Lord, the Christ. I’ve read the scriptures. I’ve studied the scriptures. And I know that I will never know what the exact meaning of scripture is. I know that “I will never know what God knows” - this is my mantra.

That is why I read as much good theological literature as I can reasonably understand given my limitations in intellect and religious studies. For the past six months I have been reading, processing, and meditating on a work by Paul Elie called “ The Life You Save May Be Your Own - An American Pilgrimage”. It is a scholarly treatise on the writers Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Walker Percy, and Flannery O’Connor. While I have read some works by each of these writers I was not very familiar with each writer’s unique Catholic pilgrimage.

Coming away from this book I have a sense of being affected profoundly by this thorough examination of these writers and their own struggles with being Catholic and what it means to be an ‘authentic” Catholic. How refreshing to know that there are great Catholics who never purported to know all the answers; never judged others harshly for their limitations in following the faith as they did; never presumed to know what God knows. These writers pointed the way to following Christ in the ideal sense. And according to Elie never wanted anyone reading their work to believe as they did, or to copy or emulate their faith experience. These writers pointed the way for believers to read, learn, absorb and create their own unique faith experience-journey. Day, Merton, Walker, O'Connor provide the blueprints for authentic Catholicism - to follow a faith based in the reality of the daily experience of each unique believer.