I was born and raised a Catholic. I went to Catholic school from kindergarten all the way through high school. I attended mass religiously every Sunday throughout my childhood. During the school year, I attended mass every Friday. I had religion class every day. When I got to high school, I joined a Catholic youth group. I happily went to youth group on Tuesdays and Sundays after mass. I went on retreats. I was full blown Catholic and I had very little knowledge of any other religions.
Towards the end of my high school years, I started to fall away from the church. I moved away from home after finishing high school to go to college. There was a Catholic Campus Ministry at my college, but I wasn't too interested in going. I felt like religion had been shoved down my throat my entire life and this was finally my chance to explore. I took several religion classes and learned more about other religions. I still believed in my Catholic faith, but I had no desire to attend mass regularly. There were several things that the church teaches that I don't agree with, but I still believe in the basics of the religion.
Its been about ten years since I've regularly attended mass. I've always attended on the "big" religious days... Christmas and Easter... and whenever my parents asked me to go with them. I know that I've missed going to church and I've always felt like I needed to get back to church, but I just wasn't ready.
Recently, I realized that I may never be "ready" to go back to church, I just need to go. So, as part of my bucket list for the year, I've committed to going to mass at least two times each month. I'm in my second week of my first month and I know that I will be out of town next weekend and may not be able to make it to mass. I didn't go last weekend because I was moving and just didn't make it. So Saturday night, it occurred to me that in order to stick with my goal, I had to go to mass on Sunday. I looked up mass times and found a church to attend. Sunday morning, when I woke up, I thought about just backing out. I wasn't ready... but I may never be, so I got dressed and headed to St. John Bosco Catholic Church.
I'm not going to lie... it felt weird. I felt out of place, yet I felt at home. It was an awkward feeling. I'm still not sure how I feel about it. Last year, the Catholic church changed some of the wording at the regular mass. It was a huge change. I've said the same wording every Sunday for my whole childhood. So to show up at mass and have the words changed felt... well, weird. I'm sure I will get used to it and it will become ingrained in my mind just like the old wording.
The mass wasn't that great. There was a priest visiting from India who did the homily. For those that don't know, the homily is a time for the priest to relate the gospel reading for the day to our everyday lives. Instead, this visiting priest took that time to basically beg for money for all the poor people in India. I have no problem with helping the poor, I just didn't like the approach. But the music at the mass brought me right back home. The music has always made me feel at home. Its always been my connection to the church.
I plan to continue going to church. I want to be able to baptize my children (once I have children) and I think its important to be practicing my faith before baptizing my children into the faith. Don't worry... this isn't going to become some religious blog. I just wanted to share this with you... something that has always been, and will always be, part of my life.
Yesterday, after church, I went home and spent some time with my hubby. The weather here in St. Louis has been
It definitely hit the spot. And at the end of the night, the rain swept through and the temperatures in the area finally started dropping. Thank goodness!
Until next time... keep it cool :)
