Consider the parallel lives of John and Bill, who each have three children, reside in the suburbs, and commute to the city to work. John is agnostic and indifferent to things religious. Bill is a practicing Catholic; he attends Mass each Sunday and prays daily.
The two do essentially the same things each day. Is there a substantive difference between their lives, given their faith – or lack of it?
On Monday, both get caught in traffic. En route, John is listening to the news, Bill to the Bible in a Year Podcast. They both arrive late and flustered. Bill, having heard Matthew 11 recited in the car, prays that God will make light the burdens that come with being late for work.
At their desks, they open their emails. Each receives a note from his boss assigning an odious task. Each is aggravated. Bill asks God why He is testing him. Then, though still unsettled, he stammers a silent, “Thy will be done,” and digs in.
Taking a break, each runs into an exasperating co-worker with whom he does not wish to speak. Each cuts his interlocutor short and scurries away. Bill realizes immediately that he was rude. He asks God for forgiveness and resolves to go to Confession on Saturday.
At lunch, they sit at their desks and eat from brown bags. Bill silently says grace and makes the sign of the cross before he eats.
The day ends, and they drive home. The roads are clear; each arrives home in a good mood. They morph into “Dad mode” immediately: each drives one child to practice, another to scouts, picks up the first, eats dinner, goes back out to get the second, cleans the kitchen, checks one child’s homework, and watches 15 minutes of sports on television. Exhausted, John bids his children good night and passes out. Just as tired, Bill gathers his family; they pray one decade of the rosary together. Bill passes out in the chair, rosary in hand.
Tuesday morning comes. John rises at 6:00. Bill rises at 5:45. The latter spends fifteen minutes in prayer next to his bed before preparing for the day.
How is Bill’s life different? Is it “better” than John’s when they are doing the same things, living the same family life, enduring the same trials?
John has a wonderful wife, healthy children, friends, and a good job. Yet all these are discordant notes in a cacophony. They have neither rhyme nor reason. He occasionally feels overwhelmed. In his few quiet moments, he asks himself what he is doing with his life. Things are going well, but they don’t make sense. He muddles through – there is no other choice. The years pile up, and he wonders how many he has ahead. He has worldly goals for himself and his children. Focusing on these keeps his mind from wandering toward bigger, more vexing questions.
The Catholic faith allows Bill to see realities that John cannot. Bill knows God is always present right next to him. He knows his blessings come from Him, and he gives thanks; he knows He sends trials to stretch him, and he tries to grow from them. His life is not easy, yet he realizes God has willed his existence for many ends, even when he does not understand what God intends in most situations. But knowing God is in control gives him both purpose and a sense of adventure: wherever he goes, and whenever he comes home, God has a new set of circumstances waiting for him. In his better moments, he smiles, imagining that he is part of an epic action film without knowing its ending.
Bill is also grateful that he has something that John does not: accountability and structure for his life. God’s laws, as directed in the Ten Commandments and distilled into their multiple dimensions in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, tell him plainly what he should do and what he should avoid. Since Bill loves God, he sees these laws not as an unpleasant imposition, but as a gift to help keep him on the straight and narrow. In more recent years, he has learned from the Catechism about virtue – about how to do good, beyond just avoiding evil. He has also learned through Catholic podcasts about imitating Christ: namely, that in sacrificing himself, he finds himself. He finds this last very difficult, and he fails often. His efforts, however, have improved his disposition when doing household chores and his relationship with his wife.
Lastly, Bill has one more friend than John – he has Jesus Christ. Bill talks to Jesus throughout the day in his heart. These conversations have deepened Bill’s desire to participate in Jesus’ self-sacrifice at Mass each Sunday and then unite with Him in Holy Communion. His prayers during those few minutes after he receives the Lord and returns to his pew are the simplest and most genuine, he offers all week: “Lord Jesus, I love you. Help me. Help me to love you, to love my family, and to do your will. I love you, Jesus. Help me.”
Our culture proposes that “to have it all” is to be happy. Bill may not have it all, but he has more than John. Nevertheless, more adults today choose to imitate John – they refuse to trust what they cannot see with their eyes. Unwillingness to trust is fatal to life and to relationships. It’s no wonder, then, why younger generations report crippling anxieties and depression.
In the Nicene Creed we declare our belief in all things, visible and invisible. When we learn to trust that the invisible things of God are more real than the visible, we will be on the road to happiness. Which is to say, we will be on the road of salvation in Christ.
Judging “lifestyle choices” is not cool these days, but I will go out on a limb: Bill’s life is better than John’s.
