Number 2: Because we want to help other people.
There are lots of opportunities within the secular world to volunteer. What’s missing is the spiritual dimension that service within the Catholic Church provides. It’s more than just a “feel good” activity. It’s part of the “great commandment” (See Mark 12:28) to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. In reaching out to others, Catholic volunteers become instruments of God’s love. The Catholic Church offers opportunities to touch the lives of people at home or around the world.
Number 1: Because we hunger for the Eucharist.
[The Eucharist is the number one reason that people come back to the Church.]
Many people come back to the Catholic Church because they feel an intense longing for the Eucharist. Sometimes it happens at a wedding, a funeral, a baptism, a First Communion or a Confirmation. Sometimes it happens when people are alone or facing difficulties in life. They describe it as a deep hunger for the spiritual nourishment that comes when they receive the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ. This hunger for the Eucharist triggers a recognition of the presence of Christ in other sacraments, which draws them even more deeply into the practice of their faith. It is, without exception, the number one reason that people come back to the Catholic Church.
Most people discover that coming back to the Church is not an event as much as it is a process that involves a little pain, a little laughter, some thinking, some prayer, some discernment and a lot of letting go. “My actual return to full participation in a parish took about three years after I felt the first longing,” one person admitted.
And what do we get in return? The Catholic Church offers union with Jesus Christ:
in the Scripture
in prayer
in the community of others
in the Eucharist
and in the other sacraments.
It offers spiritual support in good times and bad. It offers divine wisdom which is thousands of years old from people just like YOU who lived in each and every century throughout Christian history: 33AD, 100AD, 800AD, 1000AD, 1300AD, 1964AD and 2005AD. It offers meaning and purpose in this life and the promise of eternal life with Him after death for those who persevere to the end.
You’ll know you are home when you begin to feel a deep sense of peace.