Thursday 16 February 2012

Sainthood: God's plan for all of us

Although I was baptised a Catholic, and attended mass during my childhood, I stopped practicing the faith during most of my teenage years because I did not have a personal relationship with God. God was in the background of my life, and even though I believed in Him and had a devout and doctrinally-orthodox Catholic religious education teacher, I rarely prayed, never read the bible except in religious education class at school, and was quite sinful. Interestingly and quite importantly, I still now remember a lot of my religion teacher’s classes, and I am very grateful to him for his inspirational efforts to instruct us in the faith.

Thankfully, I came home to the Catholic Church in mid 2006 after a series of events which led to me questioning who I was exactly. Put simply, I had built my life on poor foundation (myself), just like a house built on sand. I found myself in chaos, the wind came and knocked over my house. I'll write about this in my blog later on.

Talk about a lesson in humility! Lucky I rebuilt my house on the solid foundation of Christ, and the winds have come and tried to blow my house down, by it is still standing, reinforced by the 2000 year old tested and proven ways of the Catholic Church.

What about myself? I’m passionate about helping people, and I know that the best way to do this is to encourage and give hope to others. I believe that Christ offers the best inspiration, example and hope to all people.

Put bluntly, I want to become a Saint. Not so that I will be given honour, but because I know that being a Saint, especially in today’s world is life’s hardest mission and one that requires the most effort, and above all the most love. And yes, if I can inspire people then that is a great thing too.

However, I know that I can never become a Saint without the grace of God, so I try to spend a lot of time with God, mostly in prayer. Prayer is a treasure for my soul, and I love it. I never tire of praying, and I feel a duty to pray unceasingly as St Paul exhorts. I also go to visit Jesus in the adoration chapel where He is. I try to attend daily mass and read scripture daily. I guess my spirituality is a mix of Charismatic and Carmelite.

While I have considered the Priesthood as a vocation, I do not believe that it is my calling at this time. I am planning to go to Bible College next year, which is very exciting. I ask you to pray regarding my discernment of vocation and in general, and in return I will pray for all of you.

I am writing this blog because I feel that I have had quite a few diverse experiences, which I find are extremely encouraging, and that which I know which would benefit many others. Above all, I aim to encourage so my posts will mostly be uplifting.

Lastly I encourage you to give me feedback about my posts so I can make them better. You can offer suggestions for future posts, corrections, comments on them, or ask questions.

Thanks, and May God bless you

Chris Paynter

2 comments:

  1. Nice blog you have here, Chris.

    You may also want to consider non-ordained, vowed religious life when discerning your vocation. It's a great path to holiness. (You've probably already discussed it with your spiritual director.) I wanted to be a diocesan priest for a longtime, but God has given me the harder vocation- husband & father!

    All the best with going to a Bible college. I hope you will consider a Catholic college/university scripture program- it can be rough for a Roman Catholic in a protestant program with the understanding of Scripture being so different.

    Lastly, a shameless plug for my own blog:
    http://fromthebackofthechurch.blogspot.com

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  2. Thanks for the feedback Paul.
    I certainly appreciate your advice, especially in such a difficult time for me regarding decision making.

    I am definitely considering marriage, and so i'm looking for the right girl.

    Yes certainly, i'm glad you mentioned this about a Catholic Bible College. I have found one, and I've done some research into it, and on all accounts it sounds fantastic.

    Again many thanks for your feedback and good advice, and I will check out your blog soon :)

    May God bless you in abundance :)

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