Additional Columns by Sherry Antonetti: The Gifts of Sons Teen Tips for Surviving to Adulthood, Spritually Intact The Luminous Mystery of Marriage, A Primer for All of Us Prayer Spam My Son Peter Meets the Pope Being Spiritually Awake for the Feast Why We Don't Always Get What We Want...And Shouldn't "Cheer, Cheer for Old Notre Dame!" Becoming a Great Story Learning to be Unafraid to Ask The Gift of Courage Coming Home to the Wide Open Door of the Father To Do List for the Day, Every Day Delighting in the Unexpected Immediate Intimacy of Answered Prayers Celebrating the Song of Songs on Saint Valentine's Day Forty Lenten Resolutions

The Year of Paul the Apostle

This is the year of Saint Paul the Evangelizer, the “Least of the Apostles.” as he declared himself.

People who disavow the existence of God are the darlings of the modern world. There is a whole prominently displayed table full of “The Atheist’s Essential Readings” and “God is Not Great” and the “Atheist’s Bible,” near the front of my local favorite book store, whereas religion/spiritual/devotional/new age are clumped together in the back of the lower level basement next to a section on financial planning. Preparation for long term investments, either fiscal or eternal apparently don’t have the public sizzle of being able to quote Faust, Voltaire, Freud and the latest anti-hero, Einstein.

Looking at all of these tomes that celebrate with smug certainty their knowledge that the rest of the world and indeed most of history was populated with dunderheads, I wonder, will one of them get the grace to repudiate what they themselves have written? Being someone who unapologetically believes that God exists and even more radically, takes an interest in what we do and who we become, I have to wonder, where is the next Saul that will become Paul?

Thumbing through a few of the books, every new unbeliever of any accomplishment is hailed as a new saint in this church devoid of meaning. Some atheists even have the chutzpah to mention Mother Teresa because of her private writings of the silent time in her prayer life. Every deceased person of any fame that espoused non belief is hailed as a prophet of the Old Testament to the Reality of Unbelief. Their lives are cited as proof that this understanding of the reality of reality is not modern but has always been repressed or suppressed by the evils of those who promote “organized religion” for the sake of maintaining power. Any evidence to the contrary is ignored. Any actions or statements from the newly proclaimed anti-prophet’s whole life which reflected a sense of faith, are blissfully dismissed as “youthful indiscressions” or deemed irrelevant and unreflective of his or her “true core values.” Likewise, any non believers who convert to having a faith life, committed philosophical suicide or aren’t credible, as they were brainwashed or doing it to appease others. Free will apparently only applies in one direction in the modern world, doubt and disbelief.

Saul, Saul, you grand fool you!

So what do the rest of us do who haven’t been given the great vision or oratory zeal and skill of Paul to take on the seemingly legion of unbelievers that posit unless the faithful can answer every claim and every argument, that their clinging to God is illogical and irrational? We have to become wiser stewards and shepherds of our faith. We must study and learn the history and tenets of our faith, just as our unbelieving brothers and sisters study the texts which pound home how imperative it is that one not believe. We must also be as unafraid of our own faith, as they are of their disbelief. Instead of answering each charge for all of human history in mucking up Christ’s message, we need to address the central flaw in such an argument: Demanding to know everything in order to be certain of anything is also childish. We don’t know all the answers anymore than an atheists does, but we do know our faith is not based on the merely books read or not read, nor the result of systemic brainwashing via a steady stream of consecrated hosts and hypnotizing sermons. Faith is faith. It is a gift and the result of a sought for and sustained relationship with God, as manifested in daily life.

That sort of conversation isn’t one you have online or using the tools of a classic argument. You can’t meet the enemy on this battlefield to fight if you actually want to produce a change of heart. Very few souls are moved by logic to abandon a tenet of faith, and for atheists, their non belief is held with a conviction that rivals the saints. Saul wasn’t challenged by argument to convert, he was knocked down and blinded by the sheer presence of God, overwhelmed by the personal experience of the Divine Christ.

Since this is the year of Paul the apostle, say a prayer for all those who stop to consider the books for a moment, that they put them down and for those who write them. Hope that the buyers/purveyors and sellers of this sort of celebrated nihilism come to know that knowledge does not equal wisdom anymore than science equals faith. I hope that Paul inspires some of them who so passionately argue against God, to become the greatest advocates. It would require great humility and strength of will and a profound sense of the Divine to speak out in this day and age in favor of God when such a position earns public scorn at best.

It would be a fitting tribute to Saint Paul if ever there was one.

Sherry Antonetti is a mother of eight children and a freelance writer of humor and family life columns with prior publications in Absolutewrite, the Catholic Standard, Beaumont Enterprise and the Washington Post. She can be reached at Smwbmpfjm@netzero.com. You can read additional pieces from her blog, http://sherryantonettiwrites.blogspot.com.