My Testimony

The Early Years Of My Faith

    I grew up in a Catholic family I had never been In a Catholic church before but had always watched mass on tv with my grandmother. I aways knew I wanted to be baptized in the family faith but never knew when I was going to do it. Then while sitting in my grandfathers funeral at the age of 15 the Lord spoke to me and said I wanted you to be part of the faith. From then on I prayed about it from the age of fifteen to eighteen. I was still in high school at the time starting to finishing what I thought was my last year. Then that fall the Lord spoke to me again saying I think its time for you to enter the church. 

 So I started thinking and praying about it. Then I prayed and told the Lord I'll do it after I graduate so I have more time to focus on it. But thats not how it happened I was visiting with my grandma one day in 2013 and told her what I wanted to do. Not even three days later I get a phone call from one of the deacons from the church to set up a meeting with the priest. Then from there I met the priest and then started classes. 

I meet some really awesome people in R.C.I.A. (rite of christian initiation of adults). I loved going to mass on Thursday night with my mum and godmother before class started. Then Easter 2014 at the age of eighteen I was baptized in to the Catholic faith. Heres an Ironic thing to think about my mum got baptized 20 years earlier in the same church and we have the same godmother which is her aunt and my great aunt. Ok back to my story one night while researching the Roman Catholic church and her traditions. 

I was also looking what was appropriate to wear to mass for women. That season of Lent in 2014 I gave up wearing pants for good and ever since then I have only worn skirts, dresses and modest shirt. Then while still in R.C.I.A. and researching the church I stumbled upon some articles about women covering their heads while in mass and how its slowly coming back in to practice. From there I prayed about it to ask GOD if he wanted me to cover my head while in mass. 

My First Year After Baptism

   My first year in the church was very interesting I started going to mass on Saturday evenings. I started going to mass on Saturday nights because I’m not a morning person. So luckily my parish has a 5 pm Saturday that is the Sunday mass for anyone that cant make it Sunday. In my parish we have a lot of people so its nice that we have 3 masses to attend because are parish is on the tinier side.

That summer my mum and I went on a vacation for a couple days and we went to Mount Caramel monastery to check out the gift shop. While I was there I was looking at the jewellery and praying while looking. The Lord Put it on my heart that day to wear a purity ring so it would remind me every time I looked at it I would stay pure while waiting for the right man to marry.

So as we were driving home we stop at the gospel lighthouse store and while there I bought a purity ring. The next Saturday when I went to mass I had my priest bless it. I had that ring for almost 2 years before the jewell fell out of the middle. Then I went and got one that was a bit more well set.

So then Advent 2014 came I prepared for my first Advent after being baptized. I didn’t know there was more to advent then just counting down the days until Christmas and Jesus’ birth. I didn't know that every Sunday before Christmas you light a candle and say a prayer. I thought only the Jewish did that for Hanukah. To prepare for my first Advent I had to go online and find these Advent prayers. It was hard to find them. It maybe took me a few hours to finally find them. 

After finding what I needed I decided to make a binder for these papers so that they would not get wrecked. I spent about an hour making a binder cover and putting the sheets in plastic protectors. Now that I know the actual meaning of Advent I look forward to it every year a long with Lent. 

Speaking of Lent it’s seems like every year you know its coming so you start thinking of the different things to give up and you always are like nope can't give that up. So for lent 2015 I tried my hardest to not eat meat on Fridays but its hard when you’re not really in to fish and your mum hates it altogether. So it was a semi challenge because trying to find vegetarian food to cook that didn't have tofu was a challenge in it self.