During the past forty years, Catholics have not been educated in their faith. Many Catholic adults have high school diplomas, bachelors, masters, and even PhD’s in business, science, medicine, etc. But, unfortunately, they have a second or third grade education in their Catholic faith! This is so sad, because when we are ignorant of our Catholic faith and the history behind it, we are vulnerable to having what faith we do have destroyed by someone of equal or greater ignorance, but perhaps greater persuasive powers. In other words, they may have more faith in their error, than we do in our truth. Remember, the Catholic faith contains the fullness of divinely revealed truth! So, what should we do? We should educate ourselves by studying all our adult lives. There are many good Catholic Audio Files files available on the Internet that you can download and listen to. There are many good Catholic websites available that can offer you solid Catholic teaching, such as ,Catholic Audio, where you can begin to “catch up” on all the Catholic doctrine and history you have missed out on.
Take me, for example. Until I was in my early thirties, I didn’t really know my Catholic faith that well. I thought I did, but when I actually began studying, I discovered I knew very little! In fact, even today, I realize that there is SO much to learn, that I can study all my life and never know it all. I guess that’s why the Pope has his own personal theologian to help him when he does research and study. Yes, the Pope studies the Catholic faith, too!
Some folks learn better by reading, some learn better by hearing. The Bible says that faith comes by hearing the Word of God. That’s why I think audio might be a little better than reading for this sort of thing. That’s why I recommend that you take a little time and download some of the audio (.MP3) files from the site I recommended and similar sites.
If you have an .MP3 player or an iPod, these type files would easily play on it. If you don’t, and have a PC with a CD burner, you can easily create music CD’s with the .MP3 files. You can do like I do and play the CD’s in your car’s CD player on the way to work and back. (I live approximately 67 miles from work, and this is a great time to listen to a good Catholic lecture on some topic or other.) I was especially interested in the talks on personal conversions to Christ and the Catholic Church. I was also interested in the history of the Catholic Church by Steve Kellmeyer. All these audio files are orthodox, i.e., faithful to Catholic teaching. We need to be very careful what we read and to what we listen in this day and age, because there has been a strong attack on the Catholic Church from without AND from within. To be able to discern what is truly Catholic teaching and what is not is of utmost importance. And I believe that the Catholic Audio Files files are as orthodox as you can find!
God bless!
Steve Bergeron
P.S. Read how emotional freedom technique helped many people to find the way to spirituality and self improvement.