My name is Linda Flanagan Eckert. I am a ‘cradle Catholic’ raised in New Orleans where almost all of the people I knew were Catholic too, except my best childhood friend who lived two doors down from us. She was Presbyterian and I was always envious because she didn’t seem to have to go to church every Sunday like I did, especially on Christmas when I always had to leave all the good stuff I just got from Santa and go to church.

Growing up with a large extended Irish Catholic family who were big on hugging and laughing and loving each other no matter what, I got a good sense of what God’s love is, although at the time I didn’t realize that’s what it was—I just knew they loved me no matter what. It didn’t depend on how smart I was or how good I was or how nice my clothes were—they just loved me—starting with my mom and dad, my brother (sometimes that might have been questionable after I had tattled on him for something), grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. I now know how very blessed that childhood was. God was there and I didn’t even realize it.

When I was 16 my family moved to Texas where all of a sudden being Catholic put me in a minority. How strange that was! I fell in love and married my high school sweetheart, Bill, who was Southern Baptist. His family wasn’t very happy about him marrying a Catholic! His mother said it would never work. Forty plus years later we have proved that statement false. We have now been married for forty-six years, have two grown sons and two beautiful daughters-in-law, plus three of the best grandkids ever!

Although I have always practiced my faith, I didn’t really know my faith.  I didn’t own my faith. When Bill would ask me questions about why did Catholics do this, why do you do that, I had no answers, I just knew that the sisters had taught me that in school. Sometime around the early 90s I began a journey. I decided showing up for Mass with my two boys in tow was not quite enough. I needed to do more. So I became a lector. When I had to study my readings for Sunday I realized I really didn’t know much about the Bible at all. I began taking adult faith formation classes and was completely taken by all that I was learning—finally discovering the richness and depth of the Catholic faith. It was no longer just an obligation to attend Mass. It all began to come alive. It was so exciting!

Then in 2004, after 30+ years of marriage and lots of prayer, my wonderful husband Bill became Catholic and our journey in faith together began. We attended a Christian Experience Weekend only about a month after he converted. That weekend made all the classes and things I had been learning come together. Now I knew what a Christian community was supposed to be. It changed my life—our lives actually. We now went to Bible classes together and we continue to grow in our faith. Putting God at the center of our lives made our marriage so much richer, made life so much richer.

We worked together on many CEW weekends after that, being part of a team, sharing faith with old friends and making new ones all the time. We still attend two Faith Sharing groups that came out of our CEW weekends. God is truly at the center of my life now and unlike when I was a child and didn’t realize how much he loved me, I am now aware of that amazing love. It makes me want everyone to know how joyful life can be with faith, even in the bad times, that deep down joy never goes away.

I hope to share with you some reflections on the daily challenges that come along when living as a disciple of Jesus. This is a journey we all need to share with each other. God didn’t create us to be alone, he created us to live in community.