By Peter Kasko
I have been on the journey of discovering, or perhaps re-discovering, faith for some time now. I am a cradle Catholic: baptised as a child, receiving First Communion and Confirmation, checking all the boxes as expected. But I reached the point where I realised I didn’t actually know what faith truly is. I didn’t know it could be personal – that you could have a personal relation with God: with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Mind-blowing, if you ask me. Like many others, it was my mother, and to some extent my grandmother, who made sure I went to church and received the sacraments. But looking back, I see that I never truly paid attention to what the Church teaches or to the deeper message of the Gospels. I picked up fragments – like being kind to your neighbour or avoiding mortal sin – but I can’t say with certainty that I grasped the true essence of what it means to live in a true and honest relationship with our Heavenly Father. And that, my friends, is a lifelong commitment.
I wanted meaning, but without sacrifice. I longed for belonging but hesitated to be claimed”
Commitment, I’ve come to learn, matures over time. In my teenage and young adult years, the very idea of commitment felt heavy – almost threatening. It implied a loss of freedom, a narrowing of options, and a level of responsibility I wasn’t ready to accept. I saw it as something that would tie me down rather than lift me up. Looking back, I realise how much of that fear stemmed from not knowing who I was, or what was truly worth committing to. I drifted through seasons of half-hearted efforts – relationships, routines, even faith – never fully present, always holding something back. I wanted meaning, but without sacrifice. I longed for belonging but hesitated to be claimed. The thought of a permanent ‘yes’ felt impossible when I wasn’t sure I even knew what I believed or desired. Or I was simply oblivious, living the day-to-day life, unaware that I was avoiding the deeper questions altogether.
Relationship
But life, in its quiet persistence and ticking, has a way of bringing us back to deeper questions. Through personal failures (and trust me, there is more than I care to remember), unexpected abundant graces, and countless conversations – with friends, mentors, even religious priests or brothers (shout out to my Dominican brotherhood) – I began to see that faith is not just a set of practices or rules, but a living relationship. It demands something real from you. God demands something real from you – not perfection, but presence. And consistency. As I found myself drawn into trouble, I also found myself drawn into prayer groups, spiritual reading, and moments of honest searching. These two often go hand-in-hand. There were highs and lows, seasons of clarity and seasons of doubt, but slowly I began to realise that faith is not just something you inherit – it is something you choose. Actively. Again, and again. Over time, this deeper search softened my resistance to commitment and helped me discover the beauty that can only be found on the other side of sacrifice. I’ve now come to see this clearly in marriage: not as a constraint, but as a sacred offering – where love is made real not in fleeting feelings, but in quiet, daily decisions to give yourself, fully and freely, to another.
Yes, you guessed correctly – I got married recently! Hooray!
A freedom that allows us to love more deeply, live more honestly, and become more fully who we are meant to be”
Commitment, I’ve come to believe, isn’t limited to relationships or careers, or even to noble causes like community or social work – though it certainly includes all of these. At its deepest level, commitment is spiritual. It’s rooted in our response to the One who first committed Himself to us. It is in faith, in our love for God, with God, and through God (ie. the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit), that all other commitments find their meaning and strength. Without that anchor, our ‘fiat’, our personal ‘yes’ is fragile, easily worn down by hardship or doubt. But when it’s grounded in Him – renewed through prayer, nourished in grace, and lived out in daily surrender – commitment becomes not a burden, but a pathway to freedom. A freedom that allows us to love more deeply, live more honestly, and become more fully who we are meant to be. It allows us to stay when it’s easier to walk away, to hope when the world offers despair and to give when nothing is guaranteed in return. It is in these choices, often quiet and hidden, that we learn what it means to be true disciples of Jesus and beloved children of God.