After an hour and a half of sitting through a Catholic wedding ceremony last weekend, it got me thinking about religion. Well, more specifically, the lack of religion in my life.
I started out as a Catholic. Baptism? Check. First Communion? Check. Confirmation. SCREEEEECH. Nope. At that point in my life, I became Lutheran. I went to a Lutheran Confirmation Camp. I was confirmed Lutheran. Then I went to a Catholic college. Then a Catholic university and law school. At some point, I decided that it was important to me to return to my Catholic roots. I thought I wanted the traditional Catholic wedding ceremony. I loved the tradition, the Ave Maria, especially.
However, a few years after law school, after a rather tumultuous relationship with an allegedly Catholic person (who behaved decidedly un-Christian-like, never mind his subscription to the tenets of Catholicism), I decided that being Catholic wasn't for me. If I had to tell myself that I could be Catholic despite not believing in so very many of its principles, it certainly wasn't for me.
When I got married, I chose a civil ceremony. My husband isn't religious either. We thought it would be silly to find a church in which to marry, given that neither of us was particularly religious. We don't go to church. Yet on that day, wed by a very dear and close friend, I felt connected and loved. A church wouldn't have added to that experience, I am certain.
Yet as I sat in that open church on Saturday and remembered all of the various traditions that go into a traditional mass, I wondered at exactly which part of my life did I lose my religion?
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
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If you took out the switch to Lutheran, and the Catholic college/law school, you'd pretty much be describing my relationship with Catholicism, too. We, too, chose to be married outside of the church and by a friend. Sometimes I crave the rituals and the feeling of being in a church, but ultimately I feel that religion is too often divisive and I also don't agree with a lot of both the Catholic church's tenets and their behavior. But I know what you mean, it's weird to grow up with something and have it mean so much and then it's just gone.
ReplyDeleteI feel like that often and have a weird guilt complex where I feel the need to go to church, especially after I'm in one. Bonus to me going to church? I'm presbyterian - that big beautiful church on Mich. Ave. is my denomination. maybe one day we should go find God.
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