As I said, I have a list of things I plan to do now that I'm retired. I included possibly studying my catechism and learning to say the rosary. This is notably odd to hear from someone who never took first communion or any of the other sacraments. So I thought I should give you some background on my life as a recovering Catholic.
First, my mother, a Catholic, married a heathen. I don't know what religion he was raised in but he told us he was a heathen and worshipped Sunday naps. Anyway, the Holy Roman Catholic Church only allowed my mother to marry said heathen in the Church if they both agreed the children of such marriage were raised Catholic. Everyone signed what they needed to and the wedding took place, not at the altar of course, but it was close enough to allow marital special hug time.
My memories of going to mass included:
Sunday morning mad dash to find our chapel caps, which were usually lost for good and all so we used hankies most of the time.
Arguing over who got to wear the muff and who got to wear the cape which my sister and I shared even though I was the oldest.
As you slide across the pew in reverse age order so the little ones sat next to mom, pausing at the place your brother would kneel to scrape your boots off on the kneeler.
Listening to the priest and figuring out that I would probably be able to understand him after I took my first communion
This was pre-Vatican II and no one bothered to tell me he was speaking a different language
Trying to figure out how everyone’s prayers took so long when I couldn’t think of anything after God Bless all the family names individually and remembering President Kennedy
I learned a few prayers, although occasionally when my mother asked my father to say grace he just shouted out GRACE. And we, as the kids believed this was the funniest blaspheme in the world. But, my path to being a good Catholic girl was well-established none the less. Although impediments lay ahead.
The first thing was my brother was enrolled in parochial school. You remember my father was a heathen? Well, he, my father not my brother, didn’t understand that Sister was allowed to hit my brother. My brother understood it. After all, this was the early sixties and everyone was allowed to hit us.
But the next thing I know I was being enrolled in public school that September.
At that same time, my brother was spending a lot of Saturday at something called catechism. At the end of which he would get a new suit and a lot of presents. Also, I think he was supposed to understand the priest. I shouldn’t worry, because I was supposed to go next year.
I should mention here that I didn’t have a whole lot of faith in this promise because when my brother had his tonsils and adenoids taken out he got to sit on Grandma Smith’s couch in his pjs using a table leaf as a tray. He also got a lot of ice cream and Model T toy car with a real crank. But when I went to the hospital, all I got was Jell-O even though I threw-up in the hall on the way to my room.
Well, I was right to doubt them. The summer before I was to take my catechism with the promise of parties, new clothes, and gifts, my parents split. This was ok at the time because they weren’t divorced. And I could still take catechism but instead we moved to Texas.
And there’s the rub. You see the Dallas Public School System didn’t do Catholicism. I haven’t really researched that, so I shouldn’t be so broad. Let’s just say, Stonewall Jackson Elementary School did not recognize good little Catholic girls. First I found out that crossing myself at lunch disturbed the other children. Then I learned that I didn't say the Lord's Prayer right. (yes this was after the church banned school supported prayer) Within three months I was the newest member of the Ridgecrest Southern Baptist Church's Girl's Auxiliary.
I learned dinner on Wednesday cost 35 cents. It was followed by singing Little Brown Church in the Vale and Onward Christian Soldier. I never got the hang of the “For thine is the power and the glory forever” bit, but they did give me a bible. Turned out it was different from the big red one my mother had with the flowers pressed in the middle and the picture of the flag raising on Iwo Jima.
We moved back north in the early 70s but the culture shock between pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic and Southern Baptist in the actual south put me off for a bit. I tried a few other services, including my Holy Roller uncle’s church, a non-denominational metaphysical church and even babysat for the Presbyterians.
Along this time, I was growing up and my mother was being more open to me about her experiences in the Church. She hadn’t remarried so they still considered her married to my father, but that is them, no biggie to us. She told me about telling the Father she would die if she tried to carry and deliver a baby. She asked for special dispensation to use birth control. The priest carefully explained there was no greater honor for a woman to die in childbirth.
I don’t know if this was the same priest who told her if she was just more patient with my father he wouldn’t beat her as often. But as these stories came out I became less and less enchanted with the Catholic faith.
OK, life goes on and I learn and discern more things so that I end up actually not being a Christian at all. I still have faith but I just stopped believing in the whole Christian dogma.
So again I ask, why study catechism and the rosary? I don’t really know. I know I’m not going to rejoin the Church. I certainly don’t plan on taking any of the sacraments. I am just curious I think. Kind of anti-climatic? Yeah, well maybe, but at least I remembered to blog today.
