G'day, my name is Matt Fradd and this is ascension presents over the next two videos
I want to share with you how I went from being an agnostic to a Catholic
It's great to have you here many of you have asked me in the comments section
Can I share my story with you and just tell you a little bit about how I became a Christian?
I thought I would do that but it's gonna be a long story. So I thought I'd break it up over two videos
I was raised in a Catholic family
My mum was Catholic at least my dad wasn't. My grandma was a super Catholic
beautiful woman she was Maggie Harris
She would often sit there with her leg up because she had sores on it
You know, and in front of her she'd have her rosary
Beads and her prayer books and her murder mystery novels. She was a lovely woman
My mum would take us to Mass every week. Even though I didn't want to go it was boring. You see? Boring.
I didn't like going.
sometimes I'd be over friends houses eating fruit loops, watching cartoons and
You know mum would come to the door. Come on Matt. We're going to Mass and I thought that's not cool
I'm not interested, but okay
I have to. She'd take me to the doors in front of the church and she'd always say the same thing
You know be a good boy. Don't be loud. Don't annoy your sister. God bless my mum
She had to put up with a lot with the likes of me. Anyway, the priests were fine
I had good experiences of the priests
They were lovely the congregation were okay, but don't you understand? I didn't care. I didn't care to be there
Sometimes I say I rejected the faith of my childhood
I don't know if that's true though
Because in order to reject something don't you have to first own it first?
And I'm not sure I really did own the faith. It was never my own. I was given mixed messages
I think some people would say things like it's very important to pray but then they never prayed. Some people said
Save sex till marriage and then others said do what makes you happy
What some people would say hell doesn't exist the church doesn't teach that anymore and then other faithful
Catholics would say no hell does exist and you'll probably go there Matt
No, they didn't say that but you know, there's a chance that I'll go there. Mixed messages, wasn't that interested,
So I thought God probably doesn't exist.
You see the way I remember thinking about it is if you journal if you write in your journal, you might feel better
That's just cuz you've got your thoughts out. Well prayers sort of like that. You're not you're not really sort of
Communicating with some deity you just feel better because you think that there's some sugar daddy up in the clouds, right?
Who's gonna give you a theme-park when you're dead just be a good boy. That's how I saw it you understand?
I don't think it was true. Now I wasn't an atheist because an atheist
Well the word, the term a atheist hadn't yet become a shorthand way of saying I'm more intelligent than you, right
So I'm like I'm agnostic. I guess that sounds kind of weird and spiritual. I'm agnostic
I don't know if he she it whatever exists
Well, I'll never forget one day a good friend of mine sat me down because she was going through a lot in her life
Family life wasn't great and she was actually
contemplating ending her life
I was 12 years old at the time and I was doing everything I could to tell her that she had
Some reason to live that she was lovely
I told her I really liked her anyway, and she'd go to high school next year
Which would be fun and then we get our driving license and then we'd graduated high school
She could go to uni if she wanted to or she could just get a job
Maybe get married, you know, but every time I said something, you know, you'll get married you haven't you know
She'd look at me and she'd say then what?
And I'd be like well, then you have kids but then what eventually I said, well you'll be you know
Then I mean eventually you'll die
I mean we all we all die and she looked at me as if to say, do you see my point? And
I saw her point it fell on me like a ton of bricks, man
It just knocked me for six as we say in Australia. I had nothing to say to my friend that day
nothing and
It occurred to me that if atheism is true
Then this is a pretty bloody shabby existence
We all live in. We all walk around pretending that we have some deep meaning to our lives
But there really is no meaning. We distract ourselves
Walking towards the void that will soon engulf us. Now that's depressing now
I'm not saying it's depressing, therefore atheism mustn't be true
Maybe atheism is true, and we just have to learn to accept that it's super depressing
But I didn't have any good reasons to think God didn't exist. Don't you see? They weren't great
I would say things like well, the only reason you're a Christian is you were raised a Christian. It's the genetic fallacy
That doesn't work, you know or I'd say well you just believe in God because it makes you feel good
All right. Well, even if that's the point, you know, my blanket makes me feel good. It doesn't mean it's not there
I didn't have any good reasons, you know, I'm not saying there aren't sophisticated arguments for atheism
I just haven't heard any nor was I putting any forth
Well when I was about 17 years old
My mom came home from Mass and invited me to World Youth Day in Rome. Well Youth Day
I since learned was a gathering of the Pope and millions of young people
But when she said Rome, I wasn't sure what World Youth Day was or where Rome was
I thought maybe this is a trick
Maybe Rome is some little obscure town in South Australia population 42
You know some like Rome where like she's like Italy you idiot. Oh good. Yes
No, I'd like to go
I think you know well, anyway, I got packing and I was going around but I remember the day before leaving, you know
I said to my best mate in social studies class. I think I said I'm not gone for Jesus or any of that rubbish
I'm just going to have a good time meet some ladies. Little did I know that ladies didn't care about me, but that's okay
I had a good time anyway, but that just goes to show I wasn't interested
I didn't believe in Jesus or any of this stuff
so
I'm about to board this airplane right in Sydney to fly to Rome. And what happened next was was
Pretty incredible and would change my life forever. But for that you're gonna have to wait a week isn't that annoying?
This is what watching 24 and lost was like every single episode but unlike 24 and lost
Hopefully what I have to say will actually be somewhat satisfying because I think it's a pretty beautiful story
Thank you so much for tuning in to this week's episode. Please leave me a comment below if you want
You can even write a question for me by writing
#AskMattFradd and maybe I'll respond to you in an upcoming episode
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Thank you so much for watching