Angie’s Faith Formation

My journey of faith is not always clear to me and most of the time I do not seem to know where I am going. For me to state when I first started in this journey is like trying to find out exactly when God decided to create me or when did I first start to see light as an infant. I can’t even remember how the “first” experience of light was like. All I know and can remember is that in my first stages of knowing God, it was like getting to know someone who has already been there since ever; He was a fact that I was only beginning to recognize and understand better.



And because God was bigger than my little mind, I once grew very angry with him because I could not understand the words in the bible as God intended. I started my readings with the first few books of Pentateuch and I didn’t like what I was reading because I found it too bizarre and sometimes unreasonably cruel. I told myself that if God was such a being, how could he be my God? I have grown in a religion that believes in many gods and some of these gods could be really fierce and scary and I was thinking that it doesn’t make sense that God created us, only to be angry with us. And then as I realised that God seemed like the gods that I had grown up with, I shouldn’t stick with it. I decided to reject him for what the bible says and opt for the easier choice of not thinking about him at all—I stopped acknowledging his existence. What I didn’t realize is that I had jumped to conclusions and I gave no chance for God to explain Himself to me. How can God be explained in 5 books? I had sight but I chose to cover my eyes because I could not see through the brightness.



Painfully, I realized that to live without God is to be in living hell. Everything becomes monotonous, boring, empty, meaningless and sometimes sad and despairing. But as ever-loving God is, He lets me wander off on my own, but not very far. He continues to provide me the guidance and support, the strength and desire to search for him because He knows that we cannot live without Him. As St Augustine said: “ Our hearts are restless, until they rest in You.” And so my heart was restless. Like a child who plays hide and seek, I kept peeping through my fingers to try to see what God looked like.



As I seek to know God better, I realized that I had a particular search pattern—now and then, I’d be passionate and understand God in the most amazing sense, and then my enthusiasm would dwindle off as I found all the involvement with Godly things all too overwhelming. Even going to church on Sundays was a daunting task for me to maintain. What made it worse for me at that time were the many churches I visited that made it difficult for me to decide where I should call my home. I didn’t who to trust and which to trust; I didn’t know if I was doing my own understanding or doing God’s understanding; I simply could not decide.



Everything changed when I got to know Verbum Dei through Paola. Surely in God’s plan, I met Paola in an expedition to India and surely in His plan, we got to know each other better through our common interest in this faith. In this same plan, I got to know Venisha too from the same expedition and same common interest. We were pretty different in character and background but this difference helped us to grow in faith. We got to know Grace—one of the missionaries from Vdei and she really helped us to understand more of our faith not only through her words but also her actions. Every week, we met up for about an hour before Thursday Prayers to learn more about the faith and this little group we called it Faith Formation. In one year, through Faith Formation, we learnt how to pray and as a result, we learnt more about Jesus as our friend, our savior, our God. As for me, the most significant revelation is when I realized that love cannot be completely defined by what it is but rather by who it is. Who is Love? Not, what is love. And Jesus is love.



Unknowingly, I started to attend Thursday Prayers regularly, even after Faith Formation ended after a year.


This is an amazing commitment that gradually grew in me and it was only possible because I did not see myself committing out of obligation but more of my need and want to have my restless heart rest in Jesus. In this growth, my particular search pattern became less erratic and I feel more secured in myself in Jesus. I learn how to base my decision on Jesus and not on others or on my judgment of other people.



At that point in time, I still wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a Catholic. Paola was baptized, Venisha was confirmed as a Catholic, and I know how nice it would be if I followed suit. But, no. I mustn’t make such a crucial decision because I want to “go with the flow”. This decision had to be between Jesus and I.



Then, I decided to join the RCIA to see how things might turn out. I couldn’t see what laid ahead of me when I joined it but Jesus told me to trust in Him despite the uncertainties. Going through RCIA was a test of my patience and humility because I knew most of the things they taught in RCIA. I had a hard time concentrating and I was yearning to retrieve the enthusiasm I had the previous year in Faith Formation. It felt like I wasn’t learning anything and I wanted to quit badly. In fact, the more sessions I went through, the more I felt like escaping from the suffocating pressures of this commitment. I remembered telling Stacia that “there are so many things to do to be a Catholic. And ironically, I felt even more pressurized because of the people who supported me. Knowing that they might be disappointed if I quit, made it even more difficult for me to make a clear decision. I was once again starting to see this commitment as a form of obligation.



And so, I chose to withdraw from RCIA. I deliberately went away for a long holiday in December so that I could miss many of the sessions so that eventually, when I stop going for it, it wouldn’t seem too abrupt. I wanted to slowly distance myself away from everything and I start to doubt in Jesus’ credibility. But God has His ingenious way of fitting you into His plan/ making you part of His plan. Because of this decision to “fly away”, I had the chance to be with no one else but Jesus himself. Again ironically, in saying the ‘no’ to RCIA, I was able to see how much God loves me despite all. His constant message to me during the trip was “It’s OKAY. No matter what, I STILL LOVE YOU. How can I not?” Through this, I understood that my free will was a result of His Love—“ For God so love us that He gave us free will”. In travelling, I re-recognised by dependence in God and I see Him more clearly, so much so that when I returned to Singapore, I was again ready to say ‘yes’ to Jesus because of my relationship with Him.



The next question I had for God was—“If I am already in a good relationship with Jesus, why do I need to be baptized?” Brilliantly established in His plan, God answered me in my prayers. I was reading about Jesus’ baptism in John and also the part about Jesus coming to baptize us with the Holy Spirit. And I told myself: “If Jesus himself chose to be baptized, who am I to say that I do not need it?” Not only did I need to be baptized because Jesus said so but I needed to be baptized in order to receive fully what Jesus wanted to give us.



The day when I definitively said my ‘yes’ to Jesus, I was at peace. And when I was at peace, I was able to see that what I had been through this time of RCIA was the time when God was trying to teach me a very important part of this faith. He allowed me to understand, in my own pace, that faith is not about bouts of feelings (e.g. enthusiasm, euphoria, gratitude, feeling touched etc) but it is also our constant ‘yes’ to God in the absence of positive feelings/ in the presence of negative feelings. First, he gave me the ‘feeling’; then, he showed me the ‘choice’, so that I could fully understand this faith.



In retrospect, I realize that I have changed a great deal. I realize that god’s existence in our lives is both easy and difficult to acknowledge. The outward change of behaviours helped to make the inward change of my heart, just as the inward heart changes the outward behaviors. That is, my deliberate explicit saying of ‘yes’ can help to fuel an eventual change of character and desire to say ‘yes’. Vice versa.


Without God, the mind is a blank, the heart is cold and life is a meaningless routine.



One thing I really love about Jesus is that no matter how many times I fail, or how troubled I seem to be, I have a sense of security that run deeps within me – because I know Jesus is always there and is always loving me. Only He can provide the calm in the raging storm. This faith is his gift to us and our response to his love. Amen