Lawn Chair Catechism Week 3

Over at Catholicmom.com, you can participate in  the third session of Lawn Chair Catechism, using Forming Intentional Disciples: The Path to Knowing and Following Jesus, by Sherry Weddell (Our Sunday Visitor, 2012).  I downloaded it and am enjoying her easy reading style that still drills down to the core of what it means to be a follower of Jesus, i.e. to have an actual daily working intimate conversation/relationship with God.

• Are you comfortable talking with others about your relationship with God? Yes.  Most of the time.  I'm not sure if it is because I'm comfortable talking, or I'm comfortable having a relationship with God, or comfortable talking about God because it might be a means of not actually talking with God, talking about Him. 

• Would you say that you’re a “normal” Catholic using the criteria outlined? What was the criteria? Here's what was laid out on the homepage of Catholicmom.com:
•   . . It is NORMAL for lay Catholics to be excited Christian activists.
• . . . It is NORMAL for lay Catholics to be knowledgeable of their faith, the Scriptures, the doctrinal and moral teachings of the Church, and the history of the Church.
• . . . It is NORMAL for lay Catholics to have fellowship of other committed lay Catholics available to them, to encourage, nurture, and discern as they attempt to follow Jesus.

• So...am I a "normal" Catholic. 
• Criteria #1  I think I am naturally preset as enthusiastic, but again, that may be me being me and not me being about God, but about myself. It is a struggle for me to recognize it is not all about me. Thus it is important that I have lots of other people to pay attention to in my daily life. But I can also use them as a shield to hide from having a conversation with God, and thus avoid Him by being with people as well (under the argument of duty), as well as via my own tendency to be self absorbed.   I am enthusiastic to be Catholic, I'm not sure I am a Christian activist yet.
• Criteria #2  This is a subject I am working on improving. I've read Kreeft's Catholic Christianity --an excellent readable easily digestible version of the catechism and several saint's works and the Magnificat daily when I can find my copy.  But the more I read, the more I realize that I am a rank amateurs' amateur.  I was put off on the History of the Church by a History of the Church teacher, not because of the subject but the person.  Now, I don't know where I would start, but I do know, it is a weakness in the armor of my faith.  I am still a baby jedi of the faith.
• Criteria #3 Do feel this is an area I am working on constantly. When I went to the Parish picnic, I was struck by all these people of faith, working so hard to live it out, and how glad I was to be counted in their company, and how much I very much want this fellowship in my life. Probably need to formalize some of this though. 
• I look at the criteria and recognize the flaw for me in all criteria I examined, is the same, an organic response --that of a child to stimuli, rather than that of an adult, and to be an adult in faith, I'm going to have to will some of this into being by cooperating with God's grace (ah, there's the rub) and surrendering my will to do otherwise. 
• This is not to say I do not have some grasp of my faith, only that I need to knuckle down and do the work of engaging God and others through that relationship.  I need to hold that moment in the mass that is my favorite: after the Eucharist, when everyone is with Jesus, all of us bringing our crosses, our prayers, our whole lives to the altar, all of us asking for the yoke to be easier, or the grace to bear what we must, and then, I need to mindfully go out and serve.