Solemnity of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist - 15 years of being a catholic

Happy Solemnity of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist!

In the beginning of this year I used the Saint's Name Generator so that I have one patron saint that I can pray to this upcoming year. St. John the Baptist was my patron saint this year. It's special because only after a couple of weeks did I realize that I was baptized one day before this feast day. I also realized only recently that since I was baptized in the evening, technically, I was baptized on the vigil of this feast day! So, I get it Lord, you want me to reflect back and remind myself why did I want to get baptized in the first place.

It was a tumultuous time that year. My grandpa passed away. I started questioning why am I here in the first place? Will I get to see him again when I die? This all came from my own pride. I was insulted when my grandpa said that I ate like a tiger (I happened to be born in the year of the tiger according to the Chinese horoscope). Little did I know that his health would deteriorate... and ended in him passing away from this world. I felt terrible. I didn't get to see him during his hospitalization. I didn't get to say sorry for being offended by what he said. I knew that he's just joking about it, and it was really my pride that resulted in me not wanting to see my grandpa even in his last moment of his life.

But truly, I was feeling insecure at that tender age in life. I have always been a chubby little guy. It didn't help that there is this one very popular TV series who happened to have this one female character with a super chubby figure with the same name as mine. I was teased a lot in school around that time period and I felt more and more insecure. When my grandpa teased me on my eating habit (ipso facto my chubby-ness), it hit on the very core of my insecurities.

I should contrast that to my general feeling about the catholic church. Since my kindergarten era, my parents (who are not catholic) wanted me to be educated in a catholic school. They believe in the catholic education. The discipline, the moral compass, and the charity that the catholic church promote are some of the characteristics that they view to be good and important to have for their kids.

Truly there are more than the fact that I become catholic because I grew up in a catholic school environment. I did my naive research of different world religion at that young age of 10 years old. I see beauty in each of the major religion in the world. I even find the discipline of praying 5 times a day that Islam taught to be a good practice in reorienting ourselves to God. Yet human interactions with the flaws of its practitioner and intolerant view of religion outside of itself deter me from Islam. Alas, the human interaction was also one of the big deciding factor as to why I decide to become a Catholic.

Nothing exemplifies the catholic church more than its priest. One stood out in particular: Fr. Blessing, OSC. One dutch missionaries who chose to leave his homeland to come and serve in my own hometown. I had a dream once that he sat right next to me during one of his visit to promote pastoral work in our school. I was honored and I felt loved, a love that I have never felt before. I see him exuding this joy and peace that I have never felt from anyone else before. I want that joy and peace. So I decided to become catholic.

After taking that first step of finally deciding the faith system that I wanted to believe in, I finally went through the RCIA. I didn't really recall anything in particular that stood out during this process. Only that it was a joyful experience. It felt like that joy that I've always wanted will finally come to its realization.

So we came to the story of my baptismal patron saint. During that time period, I got this book called the lives of the saints. It provides different saints short biography from a to z. I was charmed by stories of their lives and their heroic virtues. During those months of RCIA, I would devour this book like a little kid in a candy store. Each stories bring in different facet of virtuous lives that I would want to emulate. Since I had always been fascinated by legends and fairy tales, reading stories upon stories of real people trying to live out their christian lives are very encouraging. One story struck my fancy, it's the story of St. Adrian and Natalia of Nicomedia.

Here's the story from catholic.org:

According to legend Adrian was a pagan officer at the imperial court of Nicomedia. Impressed by the courage of a group of Christians who were being tortured, he declared himself a Christian and was imprisoned with them and suffered excruciating tortures before he was put to death. His young wife, Natalia, who was present at his death, comforted him in his agony, recovered one of his severed hands, and took it to Argyropolis near Constantinople, where she fled to escape the importunities of an imperial official of Nicomedia who wanted to marry her. She died there peacefully on December 1. Adrian is the patron of soldiers and butchers.

There are a couple of things that I like about him. First, his name is not very well known. At that time, I felt that a big saint as my baptismal patron saint is like putting too lofty of a burden to my mustard-seed-like faith. I wanted to have one small saint to pray for my life as a christian.

Secondly, he is a convert. Going through the list of saints, I didn't see many converts on the list of the saints. He caught my eye because he was "impressed by the courage of a group of Christians who were being tortured...". That is similar to my own conversion. That I was impressed by the lives of Catholics living their life, in particular my priest in my parish.

Thirdly is because of the name Natalia. At that time, I had this infatuation with a girl a couple years older than me by the name of Natalia. I know it sounded superficial, but it really was this piece of the story that sealed my decision to choose Adrian as my baptismal patron saint. Thank God that grace builds on nature. He saw this naïveté and used it for me to grow in my faith life as a catholic christian.

Fast forward 15 years later. Here I am, year 2012. I spent my time yesterday by accompanying two friends of mine in learning how to drive. I spent a couple of hours volunteering for habitat for humanity. I spent a moment in front of the blessed sacrament to reflect on my state in life at this point in time. Lastly a couple of us went and had dinner along with watching the newest pixar movie, Brave. It was a nice movie on a mother-daughter relationship and in general how family dynamics operate through the imperfections of our own character. Small family dispute is what triggers my process of conversion to the Catholic church. I wish that one day all the discords in my family can be mended through His grace and through my daily prayer for my family as well. As one quote says, "conversion begins, but never ends." O Sacred Heart of Jesus, may my family and I be converted to be more like you every day!