Why I Love Being Catholic
I love being Catholic because it connects me to God, who is infinitely larger than myself - a living, breathing faith that spans continents and centuries, with Our Lady always leading us to Jesus. When I walk into any Catholic Church, anywhere, I know exactly where I belong. The same prayers, the same rhythms, the same profound mystery of the Holy Eucharist - and always, always, the tender presence of Mary watching over us. It's like having a spiritual passport that's honored everywhere, a family reunion that never ends, with Jesus' mother as our welcoming hostess. We are beautifully, wonderfully diverse, yet unmistakably one family under her mantle.
What moves me most deeply is how we love our Lord Jesus Christ, with every fiber of our being, and how Mary shows us the way. Every Sunday, and every other possible day I can, I participate in the Mass, and it is there that I often think of Mary at the foot of the cross, holding vigil, holding us all in her heart. When I receive the Eucharist, I know I am encountering the living Jesus Christ who continues to break bread with us, the same Jesus that Mary nursed and watched grow into the man who would save us all. She said "yes" to God's impossible plan, "Let it be unto me according to your word," and brought us our Savior. This isn't a metaphor - this is reality. Jesus is in His Real Presence is in the Holy Eucharist at every single Mass. It's bold, it's mysterious, it's completely life-changing. How can I not love a faith that dares to proclaim such magnificent impossibilities, all made possible by our Blessed Mother's courageous "yes"?
I love the richness of our spiritual tradition, the way it sanctifies the ordinary and makes every day sacred, especially through the gentle intercession of Our Lady. We have saints for everything - lost causes, animals, broken hearts, impossible dreams - and have Mary, the Queen of them all, who brings our needs to her son just as she did at Cana when she simply said, "They have no wine." Our liturgical calendar is a constant celebration, a rhythm of feasts and seasons that marks time not just with dates but with meaning. From the quiet introspection of Advent, when we await the Christ child with Mary, to the explosive joy of Easter, when she rejoices as the first believer in the Resurrection, from the honoring of Mary herself in May and October to the commemoration of martyrs, we live in a world where the sacred and the everyday dance together. Even our symbols speak this language - water, oil, bread, wine, the touch of human hands, the blue mantle of Our Lady. We find God not in the exotic but in the essential, not in the distant but in the immediate, often through the loving intercession of the woman who knew Jesus best.
Perhaps most importantly, I love being Catholic because it gives me heroes worth imitating and a mission worth living, with Mary as the perfect model of discipleship. When I look at Dorothy Day serving the poor, or Mother Teresa cradling the dying, I see what it means to be fully human, fully alive, fully surrendered to God's love, just as Mary was. These aren't distant figures from storybooks - they're my spiritual ancestors, my family, my guides, all following in the footsteps of the woman who first said "yes" to God's plan. And the mission they've passed on to me is breathtaking in its scope: to be in Christ's presence on earth, to build God's kingdom here and now, to transform the world through His love. It's an impossible task, which is exactly why it requires faith - and why I turn to Mary, who shows us how to trust completely in God's goodness even when we don't understand the plan.
Yes, the Church is imperfect, beautifully, frustratingly, gloriously imperfect. But that's what makes it home, and Mary understands this better than anyone. Like any family, we have our struggles, our disagreements, our moments of profound disappointment. But we also have our moments of transcendent grace, our shared laughter, our common table, with Our Lady there to intercede for us, to bring our needs to her son. She who stood at the foot of the cross, who experienced the deepest sorrow a mother can know, understands our pain and our joy. We are the people who gather day after day, week after week, not because we have it all figured out, but because we know we need each other and we need the bread that sustains us, and we need the mother who leads us always to Jesus. We are the Church that dares to say "Here comes everybody," and means it, with Mary's arms open wide to embrace us all. How can I not love a faith that has room for all of us - saints and sinners, doubters and believers, the broken and the beautiful - under the protective mantle of the Mother of God? This is where I belong. This is who I am. This is love, both human and divine, made visible in the woman who brought us our Savior. Discover this treasure for yourself, then become completely devoted to our Lord, our Lady, and the Rosary, and your life will never be the same.
©2025 James Dacey Jr.
