Crash Course in Catholicism
They say fourteen is the age of discernment, or the age or reason. The idea is that your old enough at that age to not only know right from wrong but able to make decisions on a rational basis. It this line of thinking that the Sacrament of Confirmation is given at this age and why many Protestants argue against infant baptism choosing this age to be the earliest for baptism.
The summer heading into my eighth grade year I had been conversing with my mother concerning my problems regarding not seeing any differences with the denominations and how I felt like a permanent guest. I was yearning for something but I couldn’t describe it. She understood how I felt and suggested attending a Catholic Mass. She wanted to come back to the Church but didn’t want to go alone, which she would due to my step-dad being a non-Catholic.
After that first Mass I came away feeling energized in a way that I hadn’t before. It was different then any service I had attended in recent memory and I loved that difference. It was as if the Catholic Church was proudly declaring “We are different, and this is how”. I agreed to keep going to make sure that the newness wouldn’t disappear.
After a couple of months I decided that I really wanted to dig into what it was that Catholics believed, what made them different from the other denominations. Enter Catholic Sunday school or CCD. I happened to wind up as my first year to coincide with the Sacrament of Confirmation. This meant while for the others it was a review of the major points of Catholic belief, it was my introduction into things like the Rosary, veneration of Saints, the Sacraments and all the rest.
I consider myself very fortunate in the individual who were the teachers for that class and in the parish priest Father Bevington. I had many questions and peppered them all with them. I wanted to know why Catholics held these beliefs, what was the basis. I often asked for the biblical justification for a variety of beliefs. Not once was I told, “It’s a mystery”. Not once were my questions refused. No one was afraid to say I can’t answer that. In fact if they couldn’t I was directed to Father Bevington. If it was clear that simple answer wasn’t going to satisfy that all directed me to the likes of St Augustine, St Ignatius, the decisions form the Councils and a huge body of written work that went into the logical and biblical argument that Church used to support its beliefs.
I have always been a history buff. When confronted by the sheer history and magnitude of the scholars that came before I became content on a lot of issues to just accept them with the knowledge that I’d find the reason behind the beliefs. That in a nut shell is why I became a Catholic and why I remain one. On the service it, Catholic Mass seems as just a highly ritualized function with its members going through the motions. However, there is deep meaning in every aspect of the Mass that goes into the very tenets of Catholic faith.
When I received Confirmation I knew I was home, and that the rest of my journey would be conducted as a faithful Catholic.
God and Country – Denominational Questions
It was awhile before I was comfortable attending the Presbyterian Church. It had more to do with be getting older and the need to start paying attention to the service and what the pastor had to say. Charles Johnson was the pastor there and it was his way of telling stories and jokes to apply the scripture readings to our daily lives that slowly had an effect on me.
With two sets of parents and all the relatives that entails during this period I would also attend the services at a Baptist Church, Methodist Church, Southern Baptist, non-denominational, and even a few Catholic services. During this time the question had entered my head at this time. What were the differences between these denominations? They were all Christian, I knew that much but what made a Baptist a Baptist? I couldn’t answer it, but I didn’t pursue it either.
That changed when I was confronted with the need to address it. A Scout is reverent is the twelfth and final element of the Scout Law. To help promote this the Scouts have created religious emblems for just about every world religion. And in the case of Christianity and especially in the United States separate emblems for the various denominations within Christianity. For Methodists it is God and Country.
Three boys in my Scout Troop were awarded God and Country at the same time. It had a nice ribbon and I decided I wanted to earn one two. Now up to this point I was used to just asking for the requirements for a badge or achievement award and going after it with gusto. I asked after this award and was told to speak to the Methodist pastor who led at the Church that acted as host for our troop. The pastor knew I wasn’t a member of the congregation and felt that if I truly wanted to get the emblem that I should be doing it with the Presbyterian church and “my pastor”.
I had always had this inkling that I was not a member of any denomination. I knew that even though I attended a community I had not taken certain steps to become a full member of it. With the initial conversations concerning earning God and Country I became aware that to do so I would by necessity become a member of that larger community. I would be a Methodist or Presbyterian. If that was the case then I had to be sure.
I diligently began this process in a very analytical way, which would have the prettiest emblem. I went to see how different the Presbyterian emblem would be vs. the Methodist one. I was shocked to see there wasn’t any difference except the word of the denomination on it. I tried to look deeper and found Lutherans had a unique one, Catholics, and eastern Orthodox all had unique ones. But many of the denominations present in the Southeastern United States used the ‘catch all’ of the God and Country emblem. So then came the question of the requirements, surely that would clue me in to the differences.
I cannot remember if I got to see the differences or not. I only remember I was disappointed and that based on the surface experience I had had with Presbyterians and Methodists I could see little difference. Why should I be one and not the other? For that matter why couldn’t I be a member of something else? See prior to this moment I hadn’t really grasped that there were separate denominations and that there were doctrinal issues that divided them. I had always thought that when a church had “Lutheran” it was simply some affectation of the specific church community and not a designator of a common theological outlook.
The by product was for me to really start to pay attention during the services I attended. How was the service structured, what hymns did they chose to sing, how often did they repeat them, what was utilized for scripture readings, and of course what was said during the sermons. In time I came to the conclusion there was little difference between the few communities I had visited during this time. I refocused on earning my Eagle badge and thoughts on the religious emblem faded to the background
First Church Unity
During those years before I started to attend any Sunday service again, I wanted to be a good kid and wanted to go to Heaven. I was told in that simplistic way done to children that all I needed to do was believe Jesus was the Son of God and that would get me into Heaven. A friend from childhood had a very zealous attitude about his Christianity. I think he’d make a good biblical scholar if he hadn’t decided to be a Doctor. He would constantly ask us until he was satisfied if we were saved, if we were Christians, etc. I always flubbed this up, which led him to asking me again weeks or months later. He also was trying to make sure we all were reading our bibles, which I didn’t really have. For some reason I never counted the Children’s Bible that I had at an early age.
At some point during this time I must have been bothered enough to ask my mom if I was a Christian. She was still angry with the Catholic Church, her marriage with my father was her second marriage and I think she was having some difficulty getting an annulment. In any event she found what was supposed to be a non-denominational church, First Church Unity. Today I suspect it was a Unitarian Church.
I attended First Church Unity sometime either in the second or third grade till about sixth grade. During this time I went through their Sunday school and finally learned the life and lessons on Jesus. I finally heard the parables and was taught on how to apply his example to my daily life. About the fifth grade is when I wanted to my own bible, not a picture one like the children’s bible but a real one. It was at this Community that I received a King James Version complete with Jesus’ words in red text.
It was about this age that I started to have difficulty with going to a Sunday Service. I was getting too old for the Sunday school’s but I was still too young to gain the full benefit from a normal adult service. I tended to get bored and fidgety. I missed the engagement that I had experienced in Sunday classes and the discussion on what we as individuals were picking up form the readings.
My twelfth year was an eventful one. Both my parents remarried in the same year. On the one hand with my mom this was also the year we stopped attending First Church Unity. I wasn’t too bothered by it because on the few occasion I had attended the adult service I wasn’t impressed and I felt something lacking. Conversely, my dad and step-mom were attending a Presbyterian community. So on the occasions I was with my dad on the weekend I was attending this community. I also became a boy Scout.
Broken Catholic Home
Most testimony’s I have heard involved adult lives, very tragic life events, dark times, etc. Mine has none of this. I consider myself very blessed in having a very ordinary life and the currents took me to where I needed to go. Due to the age that I was for most of this it is hard for me to remember exactly what I was thinking and way, but I have tried to represent things as truthfully as I can.
My parents got divorced when I was six years old. I do not know when it was finalized but for me it was when my mom left the house when I was six. She stayed in the same city and they had a duel custody arrangement. They both got remarried when I was eleven and twelve. I grew up in Tennessee and one of many areas that likes to refer to itself as the “buckle of the bible belt”.
While growing up I talked to my mom and step-dad quite a bit about religion but I don’t recall doing the same with my father and step-mother. I am not entirely sure why this was but that’s how things were. My parents came from Catholic homes while my step-parents came from Protestant back grounds.
My mom came from at I would describe as a devout home, with my grandfather helping to build the local church and act as a caretaker for the building. A great-aunt of mine is a nun, and my mom studied nursing at a convent. She went through periods where she has left the Church only to come back to it.
I can’t really say the level of devoutness on my dad’s side. Again this is something that I have not really discussed with him or my relatives. I believe that my father is an agnostic, wanting to believe there’s a higher power but not seeing it involved on a day to day basis. I think he views organized religion as something that is good on paper but fails in practice.
So that by the age of six I has been baptized as a Catholic but could not was not old enough for Mass. I think I attended the room for the infants and toddlers whenever we went and the few times I had attended Mass did not care for it. It was the “standup, sit-down, stand-up, sit down, kneel” church. I was also upset that I could not participate in the Eucharist for purely childish reasons.
When my parents got divorced all attendance to any church service whether it was Catholic or not ceased. What little I recall from those days I don’t think we went all that often to begin with. So this meant that I knew very little about Christianity much less about Catholicism. I knew there was a God, Jesus was his Son, and I was supposed to pray. I think in would be true to say that I was Catholic only by virtue of my baptism, and Christian in name only. I would often not know which was which declaring myself one but not the other.
So with the double effect of the Lentan season and my wife posting a spiritual journal I thought about starting my own spiritual blog. I have always enjoyed sharing my faith with others, trying to explain it better, and just help others understand it better. It also has led me to explore my faith more and gain a better understanding myself. In the end that’s the real objective is that I gain better awareness and understanding of my own faith.
For those that care, I am not a theologian. In other words, I do not have a degree or have received any formal schooling. While I do my best to give accurate information, I could be wrong or misinterpreting the resources available to me. I have studied on and off again on my own. So those if you reading this please remember I am a simple layman and quite capable of human mistakes.
While the next few entries I intend to express my personal journey to my current state, I will go into more theological points, musings, and assuming my blog see the light of day I will try to address the questions of my readers. So now the boring part is over, on with the show?
