CHAPTER 2: The life of a "non-practicing" Catholic single woman - turning away from God.

I therefore spent my childhood and my teen years at peace with God. But my faith was somewhat superficial, and my standards of piety were summarized in the Sunday masses and days of precept and a few prayers I had learned in childhood. As I learned from dear Father Augusto, my former spiritual director, "not to evolve in faith every day is to regress", the time came when temptations came and they found the house founded on the clay feet of pusillanimity and  lukewarmness. And it happened when I entered college.

I spent the year 1999 studying insanely to be approved in a public university, that are among the best ones in Brazil. So at the beginning of the year 2000, with the release of the results of VUNESP, came the announcement I expected: I had been approved in the Public Business course at the Araraquara campus. It was an immense joy and in February of the first year of the new millennium I was already packed ready to move to the city of the Sun and start this long awaited period.

The life of faith, in order not to be lost, must be rooted in an intense life of prayer and sacrifice and finally supported by the sacraments. Mine, however, was not and when this happens, although well intentioned one is, sooner or later it gets lost. That's what happened to me. The university life, living far from my parents and with loose reins made me move away from God more and more. The first virtue that began to quake was the diligence. That student from the school who did not miss a class and who stayed up late studying and clearing up doubts gave way to a lazy university student, who did only the minimum - and sometimes not even the minimum necessary to take the famous "five ball" and that spent several nights of the week in the night outs or in other student houses playing chit-chat. Nothing more propitious for the soul to get out of the way. St Josemaría Escrivá, who is known as the saint of work or ordinary life, founded in 1928 Opus Dei with new and at the same time old preaching as the Gospels that all of us Christians can and should be saints and our matter of sanctification is our own daily work, whatever it may be. And so, there is nothing worst to a baptized person who wants to follow this Path as much as laziness and neglect with daily chores.

However, the soul is not lost overnight. Just as Judas did not betray Our Lord only on the

 night of the Thursday before the Passion, we usually do not fall in a devastating way at 

one time. The evangelist St. John tells us that he "took care of the bag and took out what

 was thrown there". A soul usually begins to make small concessions before falling down 

completely.

I spent most of my first year of college as a person moving further and further away from

 God for the 'little' things of everyday life: laziness and sloppiness with my studies,

 little attention to people around me, arguments with my parents when I went back 

home on weekends etc.

This kind of behavior is a step until we drop completely. And that's what happened. 

At the end of that year I engaged my first serious relationship, and since I was not

 exactly formed and strengthened by the virtues, losing myself in chastity was only 

a matter of time. They were then two relationships and almost six years living away

 from the faith and also: questioning everything I always knew was right. This is one

of the obvious signs of when we are moving away from the Path: the intelligence that 

was once illuminated by faith and the state of grace is lost in vague and purely human 

concepts and logic is subverted.

In September 2006, however, after that long period living away from God, the source of 

all good and all grace, I came to what I consider to be the rock bottom. They say that

 after the bottom is reached, there is only one option other than to sink in completely: swim

 back and climb. And by the immense mercy of God, I took some baby steps toward the 

Light again; but as always before the glory we have to go to calvary, mine had arrived

 and with it I could understand that God really takes good from all evil.

It was the eve of the Sept. 7  holiday in Brazil and I was in this totally selfish relationship

 when that afternoon I got home from work already thrilled with the free time I would have

 the next day. My younger sister asked me to drive her to a friend's house. I got in the car, 

drove there, left my sister and was driving back home when my head started to throb heavily. 

I had had migraine since I was a child and it seemed to be worse than ever. The pain 

started coming so strong.

and so fast that I did not think I'd make it home. With the grace of God I got home and

 went to bed straight away. After a while my mother arrived and as the pain was very 

unbearable I asked her to take me to the hospital. Then began my struggle. The doctors

 gave me all sorts of analgesic, including through vein, but nothing seemed to work.

 After I had been prescribed a tramal, a very strong pain killer, but without success they 

decided to call a specialist, for my arm had already begun to tingle. After almost six

 hours on duty, the neurologist arrived and began asking me and my mother some 

questions, and nothing we answered helped him come to a conclusion. It was then that

 he calmly approached my bed, took my arm and told me: "Girl, may I ask you one more 

thing: do you take any contraceptives?" At that moment I looked at the corner of the room

 and saw my mother there, tired, for hours without food and without rest after a day that 

was probably exhausting, suffering with my pain. My mother who had taught me so many 

times what the Way was, who prayed kneeling with me and my siblings every night the

 three Hail Marys for holy purity, my mother who had been the best example for me, 

in front of her and after looking furtively at her with shame and remorse I had to 

answer, "Yes, I take contraception."

Bingo! After that dialogue, my mother and I spent the night in the hospital and went 

home the next day. When I got home, without saying anything, I took the contraceptive

 packet in my hand, threw it in the trash and made a promise to God: I would never put 

that poison in my body again, no matter what kind of relationship I would have to face.

When God sees in a soul the smallest sign of a firm will to please Him, no matter what, 

He gives us all the graces we need to keep that purpose. After that September 7, 2006, 

despite other relationships with people with much less faith, I never put a contraceptive 

on my body again.

There, at that moment, my journey began towards the Light again, and it would not be 

easy. When a Christian rises by performing noble works offered to God, the whole 

Church mysteriously rises as well. The problem is that the opposite is also true: 

every time, with the ugliness of our sins, we set bad example and corrupt those we

 should build with our attitudes, we also draw the body of Christ, which is the Church, 

to low.

In Martin Scorsese's film “Silence”, there is a scene that made me reflect on the period

 of my life when I walked away and alienated so many of God's people with my bad

 example and made me  reflect on my own vocation as a Christian. The film portrays 

the history of the two Portuguese Jesuit priests, Sebastião Rodrigues and Francisco

 Garupe, who went to Japan in the seventeenth century to rescue their colleague 

Cristóvão Ferreira, about whom they heard to have apostatized. The young priests 

also go with the intention of evangelizing that country. The scene takes place when the

 two priests are already in Japanese territory, trying to escape the persecution by the

 Buddhists. Knowing of the cruelty with which the emperor and his guards  treated 

Christians - often killing and torturing them in the most terrible forms, the two priests

 begin to discuss whether it would be worthwhile to continue the trip. One of them

 hesitates and tells the other that it would be better to return immediately to Portugal, 

because the danger was very big. What the priest responds should make us reflect. 

He says, "If we go back now, the Church in Japan dies with us." Although today,

 almost four centuries later, most of the time the mission of all of us, the baptized,

 is less radical in terms of the dangers we face, we must also remember that God sends

 us to the place where our daily life goes : the family, the work, the University, 

the sport to evangelize, and every time, with our unfaithful attitudes, we contradict 

God's plans for our lives, the small but important part of the Church that Christ 

entrusted to each one of us, in a way dies with us.