Welcome to the third week in our message series, “8^th Grade Faith.” We have noted that whereas most of us have continued to mature in the ways we handle our relationships and other areas of our lives, for many Catholics their faith development stopped in the 8^th grade, right after receiving the sacrament of Confirmation. Instead of receiving the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to empower us to fully engage in the mission of the Church – to make disciples of all the nations – Confirmation became for too many Catholics a kind of graduation from Church. They just stopped coming to Mass on Sunday, never picked up the Catechism or some other spiritual work, or attended any more faith formation classes. Or if you had parents who “made” you come to Mass on Sundays, at least through high school, the point was to get it over with, to get on with the rest of your day, and to get on with the rest of your life. At best, for too many Catholics, faith and church became little more than an extracurricular activity, and not the “source and summit” of their lives.

I will admit, I guess I was a bit weird because that was not what it was like for me. My family really did center our lives around Church and our parish. Dad was a Knight of Columbus, an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion, on the parish council. Mom was, and still is, active in the Columbiettes, Altar Rosary, sings in the choir. My sisters and I attended the parish school, so we played on the school’s sports teams, my sisters where in the parish Girl Scouts, and I was an altar server, and in high school I worked a few nights a week in the rectory, answering the phone and filled out Mass cards.

I guess a real test of my faith came when I was 16 years-old. I was selected to be a Congressional Page in the House of Representatives, so I moved to Washington, DC by myself. I lived in a boarding house with some other Pages, and Mrs. Hengly would was the manager. It was then that I had to decide if I was going to continue to go to Mass on Sundays. The closest church was about 12 blocks away, and I did not have a car. With Mom and Dad here in New Jersey, it would have been very easy for me to just sleep in on Sundays. But I didn’t. Maybe it was habit, or “Irish-guilt,” but I think it really was because I liked going to church. In all kinds of weather, I walked to church every Sunday morning, prayed at Mass, talked with people afterwards, and then walked back to the boarding house. Even though there were other Pages who were Catholic in the boarding house where I lived, none of them joined me for Mass on Sundays when I invited them.

So OK, I was a weird “Jesus freak” growing up, and not the typical post-Confirmation, church as a boring, extracurricular activity that you might do occasionally. But I think I was a bit more like the Church at the times of the Apostles, the earliest Church, which had a very different approach to faith, and we are going to take a closer look at that today by looking at today’s second reading from St. Paul’s First Letter to Timothy.

St. Paul was an apostle, one of the leaders of the church together with St. Peter, and Timothy was his protégé whom he mentored in the faith and whom he treated like a son. In fact, Paul considered himself Timothy's father in faith. Paul invested in Timothy and believed so much in his leadership ability that he appointed him to lead the church in Ephesus. The letter which we read a part of today, was written towards the end of Paul's life. He wrote it to inspire and encourage Timothy as a leader and to help him with some of the challenges he was facing.

St. Paul reminds Timothy that some people of faith will fall away from faith. They leave the practice of the faith to pursue material goods and worldly ways. So he counsels Timothy, "But you man of God, pursue righteousness. You must pursue righteousness, devotion, faith, love, patience, and gentleness." He goes on, "Compete, compete well for the faith." So Paul describes faith here and elsewhere as an athletic contest. This was a favorite analogy of his. Like our culture, sports in Greek and Roman culture were huge. In fact, an interesting side note, some Scripture scholars thinks that St. Paul attended one of the ancient Olympics to preach the Gospel (so St. Paul was the original guy holding the “John 3:16” sign at a sporting event).

St. Paul knew that people love to watch and participate in sports and so he leveraged that for his evangelization purposes. Paul leverages that interest as an analogy for faith. He says, "Compete well for the faith." For Olympians, competition is a lifestyle. It's who they are. They make lifestyle choices that support that lifestyle. They eat the right food, they make exercise a part of their daily routine. They rest appropriately. They discipline themselves in their bodies to push themselves to their full potential. They compete. Have you ever considered bringing that same discipline to your faith?

That's what Paul is urging Timothy to do. To compete. You don't become a better Christian. You don't become more loving or more patient or more faithful by accident, or simply with age. You don't grow into it. It doesn't happen by merely showing up at church on Sunday morning. You have to compete. Finally, Paul encourages Timothy in a third way. He explains why it's worth it for us to really pursue our faith and to compete for our faith. In the same way Olympians go for the gold he says, "Lay hold of eternal life. Lay hold of it." By eternal life, Paul means God's life in us. He means a rich and full life, the life that God intends for us to live. In this world, we're tempted to try and find life in things that are not life, not true life. We expect power, pleasure, possessions, prestige, and sports to fill our hearts and enrich our soul. But we know from our experience that none of them do. At least not in a long term sustained way. They promise life, but they can't deliver and fulfill on it. We already know that's true, but why? And why is it true? Well, here's why.

They're smaller than you. Your heart will never be completely satisfied with something that's smaller than you. Power, pleasure, possessions, prestige, sports are all smaller than you. There's nothing wrong with them. They're perfectly fine on their own. They just aren't life in the sense of true life, the life that God intends for us to live. Only what's bigger will satisfy you. And the only thing bigger than you is God. St. Paul is telling us that if we want the life that God wants for us, that fills our hearts and enriches our souls, we've got to pursue it, we've got to compete for it, we've got to lay hold of it. 

He's encouraging us to be aggressive in growing our faith. A lifestyle choice that's far removed from that 8th-grade faith. But here's the problem. Now only God in His grace can satisfy us, but everything in our culture and our experience conspires against that goal and urges us to pursue other goals. In fact, we need help, we need support and encouragement, and we need a plan to do it.

That is why Faith Sharing Groups are so important. Rich Scanlon, or Director of Faith Formation, has organized several such groups over the past two years. I lead the Holy Name Society through one last Spring. Faith sharing groups should be small, say 6 to 10 people, who commit to meeting with each other for 60 to 90 minutes each week. You start with a prayer, and then maybe you do a Bible study, or some other faith formation program. And in your small group, you share what the study material is saying to you, in your particular place in your journey of faith. If you have a group of friends that you want to do a faith sharing group with, but are unsure about where to get the material content, just talk with Rich or myself, we have lots of sources. In fact, the place where I get these message series ideas puts together short videos with discussion questions for each week of the series. I will be happy to get them to any group who is interested. Developing friends in faith; what could be better?