I grew up Catholic. I like Catholicism. Mass is sometimes boring and priests are sometimes hard to relate to, but I love the omnipotence that fills an old church. I love the smell of incense and the sound of Latin prayers. I like walking into a side door on a busy street in Europe to find an unexpected world of serenity and mystery inside an old, grandiose church.
My earliest memories of going to church are trivial. We went every Sunday and I made it as far as my first communion before sports took over my weekends. I remember rushing out the door to mass every Sunday morning with my mom, sister and brother. My dad never went because he doesn’t believe in organized religion. We were almost always late, so usually sat in the back. My mom usually tried to sit between my older brother and me so he wouldn’t torment me throughout the service, but she often failed in the frenzy to find an open seat. We shuffled into the pew, kneeling and crossing ourselves excessively like a bunch of nut jobs…Father, Son, Holy Ghost, my forehead and chest still dripping wet from crossing myself with holy water at the door on the way in.
Once seated, we stayed there for what seemed like eternity and I was convinced that the purpose of church was to give people a taste of how torturous Hell would be. People would hate it so much that they’d never do anything bad again.
I passed eternity by making faces at the other bored children in the pews around me. My brother got passed it by fidgeting until his hand finally found one of my body parts—an arm to squeeze, a thigh to punch (dead leg!!), or a finger to bend back. This further proved my theory of church being a little piece of Hell.
Communion was my favorite part even though it terrified me that Jesus was going to come back to life after I ate him. Would he be mad? Would he look weird? We never had time to eat breakfast, so my mouth began to water as the altar boys helped the priest prepare the bread and wine.
Now and then my sister looked up from the book she brought to whisper in my ear, “I’m hungry for some Jesus!” or “I could sure go for some Jesus right now!”
I agreed, trying my best to muffle my laughter.
I savored the Body of Christ and kept Him on my tongue until He dissolved as I kneeled and pretended to pray. That was the most I ever desired Jesus…in the form of a wafer, melting in my mouth, holding me over until I could find something else to fill the void.
Quite a few years have passed since then. It is the season of Lent, and Easter is fast approaching. Faith is something that has never come easy to me–I’m skeptical, pessimistic and stubborn–but it is something that consumes my thoughts because of that human desire for a higher purpose. It’s an overwhelming idea at times, but when I have trouble I remember a sermon that stuck with me. The priest was talking about skepticism and doubt, something I could relate to.
“You don’t have to believe all the way,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion, “Just believe what you can right now…and build on that.”
That’s when something funny happened. I got a little emotional, too, sitting there alone in my pew. Something inside of me opened up and let a little bit of God in. For the first time, a void was filled with something more substantial than a wafer.
DC-ish 