I Am Catholic: The Paths We All Take

By Hilary De Freitas

I Am Catholic: The Paths We All Take presents short stories that depict the daily struggles of Catholics making their journeys through disappointment, doubt, and fear. They discover anew the strength God gives through faith and the resolve he stirs up in them to know, serve, and love him. Hilary De Freitas has crafted stories reflecting the riches of Catholic piety and worship, revealing the internal struggles Catholics face in practicing their faith, and drawing the reader into finding common ground with the stories characters.
This collections twelve stories enter into the rhythms of life that arise from Catholic worship and prayer and view those defining moments as windows that reveal the riches of the faith and their response to lifes challenges. In Prayer, for instance, Jessica observes, Like most other people I know who pray the Rosary, I started off because I had petitions to make. I was praying for the souls of the faithful departed in my family, as that year we seemed to be losing a lot of family members. The loss was hitting our family very hard. Many times I wasnt praying for those who had passed but for those who remained.
If your life presents you with roadblocks to cultivating a deeper faith, then the stories in I Am Catholic: The Paths We All Take will offer you the encouragement that comes from following someone who has walked a path through the dark times and come to a deeper and renewed practice of the faith.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 5, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504907965

Hilary De Freitas

Hilary De Freitas was raised in a Catholic family, strayed from her faith, but then returned home to the Catholic Church through her search for the truth. A wife, mother, and business owner, she volunteers for Birthright of Memphis and has served as a catechist and a mentor in the schools.

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© 2015 Hilary De Freitas. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 05/04/2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-0795-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-0796-5 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1 Going to Mass

Chapter 2 First Holy Communion

Chapter 3 Praying

Chapter 4 Holy Purity… What’s That Again?

Chapter 5 Going to Mass Revised

Chapter 6 The Welcoming

Chapter 7 Confession

Chapter 8 The Right to Life

Chapter 9 Catholic and Gay?

Chapter 10 Prayer

Chapter 11 Spiritual Reading

Chapter 12 The Journey to Daily Mass

Epilogue

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Preface

At first when I started thinking about the idea for this book, I thought I’d be writing something that was full of doctrinal teachings – nothing too personal, but something that said, This is the Catholic Faith.

One day I was reading from my notebook – it was sort of my spiritual journal – and my husband said to me, Why don’t you write about the journey – all those little inspirations, thoughts, and resolutions from your notebook?

I thought to myself, No I can’t do that! That’s too personal. But then I realized that being a Catholic isn’t about following a perfect set of rules; it’s about following Jesus. And in following Jesus, you’re on a journey – a very long journey that only really ends when you close your eyes to this world.

I then thought to myself, But where would it start? And more importantly, where would the journey end…

We all know that the journey ends when we meet our maker, so how then can I write a book about the journey that had literally just begun for me. I had no clue when it was going to end. Is this going to be one of those books that has no ending – like Beethoven’s symphony?

Here was a challenge, as I had already started writing so many books and had not even cracked fifty pages. I was about to embark on a journey that had no definitive ending to speak of, as far as I knew, and it was really hard to pinpoint where it began.

However, the motive for writing the book was not to just share my journey but to share the fact that to live the Catholic Faith is a journey and that you always begin, again and again, never really reaching perfection but always striving for it. Here was an opportunity for me to speak to the many souls out there who thought they had failed and share the reality that the only failure is giving up. Here was an opportunity for me to share not only the story of my struggling journey but also those of many others – others who were not by any means perfect Catholics, but who were living, faithful Catholics who knew that their lives were also journeys that had one destination: heaven.

I started writing this book during Holy Week in 2012, and I as I began to write, I was haunted by the words of Jesus as Judas approached Him in the Garden – Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand. (Mark 14:42, RSV Catholic Edition). Jesus became very alert and prepared to face His most trying moment. He tells us also to Get up and face the music. Don’t be a coward hiding in your house or hiding in your office behind your desk. He says to each of us, Get up! Let us go! and just a little while before that, he reminds us to watch and pray, because without prayer, we will falter.

Here are words that we cannot ever forget on this journey; here are words that we should keep close to our hearts. We do get discouraged from time to time, but we also need to remember that Our Father is always with us.

This book has been long in the works, and looking back I can see elements of many other works that were started and never finished emerging on these pages. I am grateful to my husband for urging me on to finish this work, for giving me the idea, and for supporting me through this part of my journey. I am ever thankful to God for blessing us with our first child, and I pray that when she arrives, she will be greeted by the words of this book. I hope it