I have been writing about how Catholics can build their domestic church and live out their faith day to day for 12 years now, and I love it! I usually share how to celebrate feast days at home, how to raise your own children in the Catholic faith, and I share recipes or printables to help you on your own journey of living the liturgical year. But today, I want to speak to y’all about something that’s been on my heart. Today, I want to talk about why we need to unite as Catholics.
I had a backlash on social media this week, and in response, I received hundreds of messages from readers supporting me (which I really appreciated by the way. Love you guys!)
What broke my hear is, about half of these messages included the following themes:
- Parenting has been super super hard this past year
- Many Catholic moms feel isolated from their Catholic communities
- Things that shouldn’t have been political became political in the past year
Ok. I want to share some “behind the scenes” of Catholic Icing that I’ve never shared before.
Anyone on social media knows that the most controversial posts go the most viral on social media because of the response these types of posts will receive. However, in 12 years of running Catholic Icing now, I have never used this as a way to grow my platform on social media.
Why? I truly believe in the depths of my heart that Satan wants to divide Catholics, and not just Catholics, but also all Christians. The last thing that Satan wants is all of the Christians in the world peacefully working together in love and harmony to help everyone in the world.
So what does Satan do about this? Well, I believe he hands us magnifying glasses. This way, rather than concentrating on the 99.9% of things we agree upon, we can zoom in on the .01% that we don’t agree on. I can picture all the Catholics looking through these magnifying glasses, and zooming in at the texture of the bark on a specific tree, when in reality, Jesus wants us to see the forest!
Here is the forest of what I believe Jesus wants us to see, and things that we have in common with all Christians:
- Love the Lord your God!
- Love one another!
- Help one another!
- Do good! Stop thinking about doing good or studying how to do good, and simply help the one closest to you!
- Spread the word of God’s love!
That’s the “big picture” that I take away from Christianity.
As Catholics, we also have many many things that we all have in common:
- The belief in the true presence in the Eucharist
- Leadership under one Pope, even within all 23 rites of the Catholic Church
- The Bible
- The communion of Saints
- The 7 Sacraments
This is a very short list that could be extremely long, but I’m talking about the big picture here.
The point is… we have so so so many things that we can agree upon and be united under!
But then Satan hands up a magnifying glass, wanting us to see these tiny cracks where we disagree, and he starts planting questions in our heads to divide us. The next thing you know, you have Catholics that are arguing about (huge HUGE hesitation here to even acknowledge any of these “controversies”, but I think a few specific examples will be helpful, so here we go)…
- Should we be taking communion in our hand, or in our mouth?
- Should girls really be allowed to be altar servers?
- Should guitars be allowed with music during Mass?
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Y’all… I could list dozens of more questions like these here, but why? For the purpose of dividing Catholics? I have no desire to do so.
We are so blessed to be a part of the Catholic Church which is extremely organized, and provides us with a lot of guidance on our beliefs. However, some things become a personal choice, and when those things are not against the teachings of the Church, there is absolutely no reason to let those things become divisive in our community.
We. need. to. stick. together! We need to be united! We have too much in common, and there are too many truly important issues in the world to let these types of questions tear us apart.
Danielle Bean had an Instagram post today that I absolutely love! Check out what she has to say about mask wearing.
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What Can I Do To Unite My Catholic Community?
For the end of this Easter season, I would like to ask one thing of you. Could you reach out to a fellow Catholic this week, and ask them how they’re doing? Could you ask them if they need anything, or if they would like to get together in a manner of which they are comfortable with? Also, pray for them! Pray for all of your neighbors.
My heart is so broken for isolated Catholic moms, and our community is big enough to make a difference! We are the body of Christ, and it’s up to us to reach out to others.
This year has been so hard! This year has been so divisive! I will leave you with this… please, let’s all put down our magnifying glasses, see the forest, and extend some love and grace to others. We all need it right now more than ever!
I love you all, and you are in my prayers.
Thank you for saying this Lacy! It breaks my heart to see so much division. This is excellent advice – practical and something we should all be able to get behind.