Transcript

Back in the old days when microwaves were first produced, I was still a child, and I remember some of the stories that came out of people's first experiences with microwaves.

You know how it is.

You got manufacturer's instructions and people didn't read the instructions, and so they would do things like cover plates with foil, tinfoil, put them in the microwave and watch them explode.

Do you remember the terrible story of the little boy who brought his cat in out of the rain and put the cat in the microwave hoping to dry it?

We can only imagine what happened.

I think about that when I think about the rules of the church, about the commandments of God.

The Catholic Church has taught me that God's commands are not arbitrary, but God's commands as the church teaches correspond to our nature, to who we are, that God is our manufacturer, He's our creator, and His rules as expressed in the church's rules are really the manufacturer's instructions.

If we want to be happy, if we want to be full and healthy and want to become like we were destined to become in heaven, then we follow the rules, not as an arbitrary thing, but because they correspond to the way we're made.

If we don't follow them, if we break the commandments, we break ourselves.

But if we follow them, we find in them health and healing and happiness and peace.

A lot of people view all of the church's rules, the church's laws, the church's, um, truths to be burdens in their life, as some sort of obstacles keeping them away from whatever happiness they are trying to achieve.

And the church teaches us that if you, if you follow these rules, if you stay true to these absolute truths, in the end you will find joy, which is way better than any sort of personal happiness, any sort of selfish happiness we could imagine here on Earth.

It's very common that we hear about the church is perceived as rules.

But I always think about it as that relationship.

If we have a relationship with Christ and we, we have decided for Him and we wanna live a life following Christ and in communion with Him, and we wanna know everything about Him, because that's how we can best follow Him, that's kind of the context I put in the guidance of the church.

Um, don't we wanna know everything about someone we love?

We want to, to know them better and better and better.

And, and I think the guidance that the church gives us is, it's like God's the one who created us, so only God can really know how will we truly know happiness, what's truly best for us.

And if you take the relationship component out of the picture, of course it's just rules.

But you're, when you're in a relationship of love, you wanna give yourself to the other, and, and that's what it's about.

How can I most fully be, stand with Christ and to be united with Him?

That's how I see it.

Uh, and the ru- the, the guidance of the church being perceived as rules, uh, of course they'll be perceived as rules if, if someone doesn't have a relationship with Jesus and doesn't, hasn't decided to follow Him, and doesn't really wanna know anything about Him.

Before becoming Catholic, I believed the lives, the lies of the world.

Um, I thought that things, uh, would make me happy.

I thought the, the more money I made, the bigger my house, bigger my car, um, you know, those were my goals.

Um, make a lot of money, live in a big city, and, uh, and buy the things that you want, and I thought that would make me happy.

Um, thank goodness for the Catholic Church.

Um, thank goodness that she found me, um, because I didn't expect to have any children, and here I am the mother of 12 beautiful children.

And it's in, in living by the church's precepts that I experience true freedom.