Here. Now. A Catholic Guide to the Good Life by Amy Welborn- free today
An excerpt from Chapter 1:
Forgetting someone?
You may have noticed that in all of this talk about voices, forces and influences, we seem to have left someone out.
Ah, yes. God.
You're reading this book, so it's probably safe to assume that you're a baptized Christian - maybe even a baptized and con- firmed Catholic who goes to Mass regularly. Or at least a lot, rel- atively speaking.
So tell me. Where's God in your life?
And I don't mean that in terms in vague, abstract terms. I mean ... really. As you live your life, make your decisions, open your mouth to speak, spend your money, choose your career and pur- sue it... where's God?
I'll leave that up to you to figure out and confront. But after you've thought about it a bit, come back here and confront this:
If you say you're a Christian, you're saying that God is at the center of your life.
Because, you see, that's what being a Christian is. It's not a club dreamed up to keep you busy or make you feel like a useful mem- ber of society. It's not about just having a religious label because a religious label is a useful thing to have in our society. Believe it or not, it's not even about having standards or guidelines to live by or being a better person.
It's about this question: Who do you belong to? And this one:
Who's your judge?
Oh, and this one, too:
Who loves you, without end or limit?
In other words, being Christian - contrary to what you might have heard is most definitely not about obligations, rules, stan- dards, or membership. Oh, those things may spin out of our Chris- tian identity, especially as we live it in the world with others, but the heart of it all goes a whole lot deeper than that.
