religion or not?
My son just made first communion. The day the Pope died, in fact. (Does that make it extra-special?) I hate to admit that my other son made his fourth or fifth communion that day because in the 2 years between them I've hardly been able to bring myself to go to church.
I live in MA. Our Cardinal Law lied, lied, lied about abusive priests--he transferred them here and there to avoid problems. This is documented. Many escaped punishment. Law himself will help elect the next Pope. No one really cared. Then the church immediately gave us their views on stem cell research, Terri Schiavo, gay marriage... not from a position of auth0rity.
The God I believe in is not a hypocrite.
So the big question tonight is whether we enroll the kids for another year in CCD. They don't go to church.
They hate CCD.
They know Mom is conflicted.
But part of me says "Just get them through Confirmation."
It's time to enroll them and now my husband says forget it. I don't k now what is right. Should I allow my disillusionment to govern my children's exposure and having the sacraments?
Arrgh.
posted by Redhead Gal at 9:53 PM
9 Comments:
Just my thoughts ok????.............i say get them through confirmation then they can make thier own minds up or at least that's how i felt about it at the time and i wasn't real into the big church thing either at the time and now i'm glad i did at least follow through with my "promise" boy was i raised catholic or what the darn guilt!! ha ha anyway now mine are 21 and 16 both attend mass at times and if they choose to do so for marriage at least i got them to that point of confirmation and they are free to go either direction or any for that matter, just my thoughts on it!!! take it for what they are worth!!
My thought is not so much whether or not to get them through first communion, but that it would probably be helpful to them if you were completely open and honest about both sides of the argument with them. Tell them why you want to do it; then tell them about your reluctance. I doubt they'll be surprised or confused by your ambivalence -- they probably sense it already!
Trinker
I was raised Catholic, my mother had converted from a conservative Baptist upbringing and my father was Presbyterian and attended his own church, I don't remember him ever coming with us to church.
I guess I followed along in that tradition, as I married a man who was baptized Catholic, but it ended there, his parents are not at all religious and don't go to church and never took him, he's more or less an agnostic. We had a Catholic wedding, with no mass. I went to church, he didn't.
I more or less continued going to church on my own before we had children. While I was pregnant with my first child, my husband's sister's 3-year old daughter (my niece) was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. During that terribly stressful part of my life I turned to God and to the church for solace and we prayed that she would somehow survive, and for several months it looked like that might come to pass.
But her tumor recurred all over her brain and spine, and to add insult to injury, in a last-ditch attempt at radiation not to save her life but to kill the tumor in her spine so the cancer wouldn't get into her nerves and cause unbearable pain, she had a rare and severe allergic reaction to the dilantin she was taking to prevent seizures and the allergic reaction almost killed her.
More than anything the tumor had done, the allergic reaction was unbearably painful, I'm sorry to be so graphic, but she had oozing sores over every inch of her body, including the inside of her mouth and nose and down her throat and radiation was interrupted while she was in ICU for a month.
She recovered, finished radiation, spent a pleasant Thanksgiving and Christmas and on New Year's Day, she awoke and couldn't use her right hand any more and so began her slow decline to death, the day after Valentine's Day, in 1996. My son was 18 months old.
I stopped going to church when she got that allergic reaction, I couldn't believe in a God that would allow such a horrible thing to happen to a little girl. I didn't baptize my sons, I didn't go to church, I was done. Finis.
Fast forward to 2002. My first grade son's friends are going to faith formation classes (CCD) and I'm beginning to feel guilty, I remember the promise my hubby and I made when we married, to bring our kids up in the faith. I had always envisioned myself doing it, but I wasn't fulfilling my promise.
So, spring 2002, I take my kids to church one Sunday. And the next and the next, then I decide I'm going to enroll them in classes the following fall so my son, who will be in second grade then, will be able to make his First Communion along with his friends.
So, we do it all-- baptize the 2nd grader and my kindergartener in November, first reconciliation in November, then First Communion in May, we attend Sunday mass every week. We may not be right in our heads yet, where it counts most, but at least we're walking the walk.
Ironically, during the First Communion photos, my son broke away from the kids to rush to the bathroom, decked out fully in his suit and tie, to throw up. I ran into the bathroom with him and took his tie off first. I believe now that that was the first symptom of the growing monster in his head, as he didn't seem to be otherwise sick.
Fast forward 4 months to early September. My son is having intermittent headaches and vomiting on a semi-regular basis. 3 days after his ninth birthday, on the 5th day of third grade, his doctor finally orders an MRI, he has a huge malignant brain tumor in his head.
The story of our treatment is on his website, but what I probably have never done justice to is what the church has done for us. For the next three months, we never had to make dinner. We got movie tickets, videos, cards, prayers. The priest was at the hospital with him after his surgery. They took care of our kids, gave us gift certificates to restaurants.
When he and I went to St. Jude in Memphis for his treatment, we received packages from home daily. The church got together and sent us toiletries, phone cards, stamps, envelopes, wine (that's a story all in itself), stuffed animals, homemade quilts, a portable DVD player, DVD's, books, books on tape, and personal notes on a weekly basis. We got phone calls, cards,
stickers, rosaries, and the prayers and good wishes of people we didn't know before all this happened. For my son and hubby left at home, they got dinners, babysitting, more movies, they cleaned our house-- it was overwhelming.
For us 2000 miles away from home in Memphis where we knew no one, the church there became a lifeline. They came to the hospital twice a week when my son was inpatient to bring Communion. People from the church came to the hospital to stay with my son so I could go have a shower and work out and have a little break. They did our grocery shopping for us, they made dinners, and on half a dozen occasions, complete strangers approached me and tucked money into my hand, then took off. One day I got a rosary blessed at Lourdes. People from the church brought dinners, gave us rides, invited us to their homes, and when it came time to go back to San Diego, they (at considerable expense) Fed-Ex'ed all our stuff 2000 miles so that it was waiting on our doorstep when we got back. And I'm ony scratching the surface, they went above and beyond the call, there is no possible way I can ever thank them adequately.
In retrospect, I cannot tell you how incredibly glad I am that I decided to return to the Church. I've got issues, just as you do, and I think Cardinal Law should be in jail. But we never know what the future holds for us, and I don't know where we would have been for the last year and a half without our church family, both in San Diego and in Memphis.
I guess what I want to say is that the church is so much more than just its leaders. I don't know how you feel about our recently deceased pope, but I feel blessed that we were so lucky to have such a wonderful leader for so many years. The cardinals may not all be what we would like, but I firmly believe they take the responsibility of choosing a new pope seriously, and that the process of choosing one is far less political than the media would have us believe. Pope John Paul wasn't ever even on the list of probable candidates, he was chosen out of nowhere, and what a wonderful pope he turned out to be, I find it unlikely they will find someone to match him, but we'll wait and see.
I know you've gone through your own challenges, and we all come from our own experiences and point of view, and I am far from being someone that has all the answers. I'm sorry to have written such a long entry, but your post touched me. If we hadn't returned to the church when we did, I don't know how we would have made it through the last year and a half.
My own personal belief (and I'm wrong much of the time) is that the CCD classes won't be of nearly as much good if you don't attend mass, even if your heart isn't in it. For us, the most important part of being in a church is to be part of the community of people who (hopefully) are trying to live their lives for a greater good, and church is one of the main times that you get to be part of that community.
I apologize for writing a book in your comments, but your post touched me and please, please, don't take my comments to be critical or judgmental, I've long since learned not to second-guess the considered decisions of others and my own life is full of bad decisions and wrong turns, I am not in any way in a position to tell you I know better than you.
Please keep in contact and let us know what you decide. I just went through First Reconciliation with my 7-year old, there's a post about it here. All the parents wrote letters of affirmation to their kids and many of them read them out loud, no dry eyes there, I read the letter in my post out loud through my tears and all the adults in the room were was crying, it was a moving experience.
Bless you and your family.
Although my older kids went through with Confirmation at the normal age I think I might now leave it till yhey were older. At that age I dont think they can make choices like that. Both of them stopped going to Mass straight after and have bever been back. They can always choose to go later in life and I never go either. It is a difficult one.
I'm an Episcopal Priest who saw a reference to your post on Audience of 1. For obvious reasons, it caught my interest.
I meet a lot of "recovering catholics". That is what they call themselves, not what I call them. Most of them want nothing to do with the church anymore.
Perhaps some of the question is what you really want for your kids...and for yourself...and for all of you together.
If "just getting them through confirmation" is ...I don't quite know how to say it, don't mean any respect...just going through the motions, well, I'm not sure that will get any of you where you want to go.
I hope this in no way comes off as critical; I do not mean it to be so. Lord knows, and He does, the Episcopal church has plenty of problems of its own. These are just my thoughts, for whatever they are--or are not--worth.
Whew thats a rough one.
My thoughts are
1. God is a loving God not a punishing god, therefore you are allowed to make mistkaes.
2. You should not just get them through with it if your hearts arent in it. Thats not to say, find a way to make your hearts be init, either they are or they arent.
3. My family was raised catholic and non of us are practicing catholic anymore. I dont think I ever was. I choose to find my own religion and church that fit me and my beliefs.
Im not saying dont be catholic, I personally dont understand the catholic religion becasue I wasnt brought up in it. I do know hat we read the same king james Version bible as the catholics...here is my problem.
When the pope died my children said, who is the pope, what does he do and where is he in the bible.
My answer...hes a religious man who is not in the bible. I felt bad, but how do I explain a man people worship like god (idolize) whois not in the bible especially since the bible say not to have idols..ugh very confusing.
Good luck whichever way you go :)
Hi, Redhead Gal, - follow your heart.
My kids were both confirmed. We don't go to church anymore, and rarely did, but I'm glad they got confirmed.
I just realized with embarassment that I mistyped in my comment. Hopefully it was clear that I meant to type that "I don't mean any disrespect." I do apologize for any confusion the original comment may have created.
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