Founder: My Story

My name is Brian John Villamor and I'm the founder of Be The Living Verse. Here's a little background of why I started this in the first place. I'm 24 years old and I was brought up in a Filipino Catholic household. I attended Catholic school from first grade all the way up to my senior year of high school. I went to church every Sunday and sometimes during the week. I thought I was a "good" Catholic who really believed in God. But was I a real believer or was I just going through the motions somewhat blindly? It was more evident in my college years that I was living a double-life. During the week I was sinning by: going out, clubbing, bar-hopping and doing things that I am too embarrassed to admit in this blog and then on Sunday I would go to church, sit in the pews and act like nothing was wrong. I thought doing all that stuff was going to make me happy and it's what the world said was the norm so I didn't think twice about some of my actions. I thought at this age that I was supposed to make tons of mistakes and eventually when I get older I'd learn and be done with those habits. But then after awhile I started feeling this emptiness. I would have a ton of fun those nights, but came home late still feeling like there was something missing. Then I just started owning up to my insecurities and started to question why I did the things I did? Was I doing it to fit in with my peers? Was it for attention? Was it so I would be looked at as socially relevant? It was toward the end of my last semester in college, where everything was going great, that I realized that I could not deny God's presence in my life. There was just no way all of these events could have just fit together by chance. I also started realizing that if I say believe in Jesus, why was I doing things that put him on the cross to begin with?

I decided that I didn’t want to be another one of those “cradle Catholics.” You know the kind that was born into the faith and just goes along with what family does without truly challenging or questioning any of the practices. "Good" on Sundays, and promoting sin Monday-Saturday. I was sick of being a hypocrite and not being able to defend my faith. I did some research and asked myself a lot of questions: Why do I believe in God? Why do I go to Church? Where did the Church and its teachings come from? Where does it say that ….. in the bible? Who wrote and put together the bible? Why do we have sacraments? Why do we honor Mary and the Saints? Why am I Catholic and not another kind of Christian? Aren't we all the same, we all believe in God? What is Heaven, Hell, Purgatory? I learned little bits and pieces from my earlier education at school and at home, and I never really questioned anything, but now I'm understanding that there is so much more to it. The more knowledge I gained, the more I started to develop a greater appreciation for the Church, her history and traditions. I felt like I found something and wanted everyone to know about it. What that something was was the TRUTH and the peace that I got from knowing that TRUTH. I'm not saying that everyday is so peaceful. I constantly have to remind myself of God's presence and that each obstacle is meant for me to learn something about myself or of God's will. But when I do try to line up my wants with God's wants, everything makes sense and that's when I feel that peace.