Being God's Warriors by Skye Robbins

“I’m proud to stand with the Church.”

When I was growing up I had an inherent hatred for Christianity, I didn’t exactly have a reason for it and I couldn’t tell you where it came from. What I can tell you from that is that our culture, our world, our country, hates God. The world hates Catholicism and Christianity, and as a kid I fell into this deep seated hatred without a reason. We have to fight back against the destruction of our faith, being loving doesn’t mean shaking hands with evil and the devil.

Growing up me and my parents' spiritual journey was a bit of a wild ride. My family isn’t very religious, the closest Catholic in my family is my great great grandparents who I clearly didn’t meet. The closest religious person in my family is my great grandma who is Mormon and I’ve met her once. My grandma on my dads side is “spiritual” and somewhat buddhist. So as you can see, there was no real sign of Christ in any part of my family. I grew up in Portland and saw a lot of the hippie, spiritual, drug addicted, worldly worship that happens there and that was my basis for anything relating to something “greater”. With this context it’s really a miracle that I’ve become a radically faithful Catholic.

As I became a teenager me and my parents were interested in our ancestry, and we found that we had a lot of viking heritage and we found that interesting so we decided to start celebrating solstice instead of Christmas and we celebrated a lot of these Asatru celebrations and traditions. Soon I started celebrating some Jewish holidays as well because I found that I’m a third Jewish.

I never had the classic “Christian friend” who introduced me to Christ, I had nothing, not an ounce of an idea about the Bible, Christ, or the faith. And when my mom started going to church when the Covid-19 pandemic happened, my initial thought was that she was so weird. She asked me a few times to go with her to church and I always said no until she forced me to Easter Mass in 2021. I was terrified, in fact I took a sharpie to my arm and wrote viking runes to “protect me” from whatever I was about to go into.

I was amazed, I was blown away by how beautiful the Mass was. Yes, I was still nervous and scared, but I felt like my soul was torn open by God and he lit up my soul and heart. It took a few weekends of being forced to go to church until I was excited and happy to be getting up on Sunday and going to church.

I always found praying a little weird, in the sense that I felt like I needed to be addressing God like I would write a letter to the president. I never did that though, I always address God like my best friend and just talk to him casually about what I’m praying for or what I’m going through, and I feel like me and him have an understanding that that's how I communicate with him. I once heard a homily about how Jesus wants to be our best friend, not just some man in the sky, but our best friend who wants to hear our troubles and that made me feel better about how I talk with God.

Two years after I first went to that Easter Mass I got Confirmed and Baptized and received my first Communion, the Catholic Grand slam. Soon after I went to reconciliation and I came out of it thinking about my journey into the faith and what the faith is, and I thought “If this is our faith then I am one happy Catholic”. I’m proud to stand with the Church, I’m proud to talk about God in spaces He wouldn’t otherwise be mentioned, I’m proud to stand with historical Legends such as Joan of Arc, Charlamagne, and Charles Martel in the same faith they held. I’m proud to stand with the nameless in history who we don’t know their stories, who all they did was simply pray at home and live the good Catholic life. I’m proud to stand with Saints, Martyrs, Clergy, Men, Women, and Children in this faith founded by our lord.

If there is one thing I could say it is that God is the way. Once you invest your heart in him so many things about the world and spiritual life become abundantly clear. There will be times where I, and you, will be challenged in your faith, either by others or by yourself, but trust me when I say that that challenge is there to make you stronger in faith. Us as Catholics can’t sit down and let the faith fade away, we have to proudly, lovingly, loudly, and unrelentingly proclaim the truth and prize of heaven God has given us. It is required of us to not sit down and put our faith on the shelf until Sunday comes back around. God is calling every one of us, the weak, the strong, the rich, the poor, the soft spoken, and loud voices to proclaim his word. Our world needs Catholics being outspoken like no other time in history, if ever there was a time for us to step up to the plate for Jesus, the one who conquered death itself and suffered for forgiveness of our sins, that time is now. Be proud to be Catholic because you are being invited to be a warrior for God, and to take a spot in his heavenly kingdom. We are the children of God, it would be a major sin to selfishly hold your place in Heaven without reaching out for anyone else to come join you. Be God's greatest warrior, now more than ever.

Our Lord Jesus Christ bless you and give you the courage to be his warriors.

ABOUT SKYE ROBBINS: Hey, I’m Skye! I love God and I want to spread the faith as much as I can! I feel called to be one of God's warriors and I want to do my best to fight for what’s right and for God’s will. I hope if you’re finding Catholicism for the first time that you’ll be willing to dive deep into it and open up your heart, and if you’re already Catholic then go out and proclaim the word!