(ZENIT News / Rome, 09.17.2024).- Alisa is a young Russian girl who along with her mother and sister decided to leave her country to go to study at university on the European continent, more specifically in Malta. She was raised in a completely secular environment, without any religious orientation. She never considered the idea of God or religion in her life… until her 20s.
She began to realize that something was missing, but she never thought it could be God or religion since she had never had any contact with these realities in her upbringing.
She says, “I thought religion was for weak-minded people, who are not very bright and choose the easy way out. But I felt very empty, like missing something…”. She admits that she began to experience a great lack of meaning and thought about committing suicide, although she never attempted it.
One of the things that helped her at that time was to open up to her friends and talk about it, which made her think that maybe God could be working in her. On the other hand, she had a boyfriend who had been baptized as a Catholic, but was a non-practicing person, however, as she began this search for God, they decided to go to Mass together one Sunday.
She says that her experience was very different from what she expected because it was the first time she participated in a mass and her feeling was as if she was returning home, although curiously she had never been there, but she adds: “I remember when in Russia we played in the snow in freezing weather. As soon as we would come home, we would get that warm, cozy feeling of family and warm food. That to me is the feeling of coming home, and that’s exactly what I felt when I walked into that church for the first time.”
Since then, she and her boyfriend have not stopped attending Mass every Sunday and having formation with a priest, and this has helped her understand the faith more and prepare to be baptized and enter the Catholic Church.
Shortly before her baptism she reflected, “I used to think that faith was limiting and oppressive, but now I realize that it is extremely liberating… knowing that everything is forgiven makes me feel absolutely free, not because I think I can do anything now, but because I know that no matter what I did wrong, I don’t have to carry that burden with me,” she details. “I feel both at peace and very excited.”
She also mentions this regarding the war in Ukraine: “I strongly condemn all this violence that is happening”. She claims that faith has sustained her in these difficult times. “There are people who ask me how I can believe in God when we see all these atrocities of war. But I believe that God gave us free will. Some use it to serve their pride, but we can use it to work for peace.”
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