Posts Tagged Catholic
Silent Night
While everyone ponders if he’s making his list, and checking it twice. Enjoying the massive wastage of electricity along Orchard Road, or simply making it the most merriest of occasions with friends and family in all honesty, i have a very different outake on it.
I’m actually going to church for the second time this year, aside from Easter Sunday.
To others this may seem like no big deal, but for the past three Xmas’s by which this bi-annual attending of mass has occured, it’s always get me thinking just exactly what is faith, how i lost it and what it is actually meant to be.
To me, despite all my shortcomings, i never ever lost faith in God, i never blamed him really for anything, but then again i never really thanked him for anything. It’s been teetering ever since i entered my poly days and i guess the independence of maturity moved me away from the parish that i used to call my sunday home. From alternate sundays, to monthly visits to where it is now, i guess attending church/mass for me was always more of a hassle rather than something i really appreciated.
Sure there were times then and there when i felt that i had rekindled my companionship with the almighty one, but call its circumstancial pressure or a desire to achieve other knowings, it all just fell apart.
Strangely enough i don’t feel ever remorseful whatsoever nowadays, even as i see my parents being so actively involved in the parish, or when i meet up with relatives and forced family friends and everyone say grace at the table. i just take it as part of a respect and a routine rather than anything else.
See the problem lies not with the teachings, but the way it’s been placed on not only me, but many people of the Catholic Church alike.
Being Baptised from dayone sort of cements you into the Catholic faith whether you like it or not, i’m not saying that it’s terrible and all, as a kid it was great having a real Godfather who wasn’t Al Pacino, sort of a seperate uncle that you were always close to and really cared for you because of his devotion to the cause.
Then came cathecism, and just like freedom of speech in Singapore, you probably had no say as you would spend the next 8 years attending weekly classes that you hated, topping off with irritating children’s mass and having your first communion.confession and confirmation in between. where u donned the most gay of white coloured tresses.
For me i guess i was really active in the happenings of the church as i was really just following and looking up to what my parents, my relatives and parent’s friends did. Yes indeed, almost 95% were Catholic, if not to be converted in the years to come.
So where your parents go, you follow, whether you liked it or not. But i guessed overtime when you meet people of the same calibre and thinking, i.e. people who also didn’t like going to cathechism.
For those who do not understand what Cathechism, or Sunday School at my parish, it basically involved you waking up amazingly early as you did for morning session classes and truding off to this dainty like run down former conveant school, having a ” teacher ” preach about the words of god and the bible, and basically asking you to let god in your life and how we can learn to give and receive based on his teachings.
Now the good thing about it is it wasn’t really so hard-hitting in a Multi Level Marketing Personiffied way, unlike some other faiths that i shall not mentioned.
But then again having to go to school on a sunday of all days, sitting through readings that were nowhere as cool as the Power Rangers and Ninja Turtles, it really gets you angsty, rebellious and altogether cranky. Most of these teachers were mainly volunteers as well, who never really had any professional kind of tutelage or training in handling kids, and i guess in that sense the lack of a proper mentorship, guidance and overall REAL INTEREST in the whole works of the bible really led to its demise.
In secondary school, as puberty sets in and you become more adventuruous and basically a pompous dickhead who thinks he’s the coolest dude on the planet, you realise just how small your circle in the parish is and you really feel like breaking away from the pursestrings that’s holding you back. You somehow feel that the church is holding you back from accomplishing everything and anything else you want. and then you wander further from it.
So the animosity grows, you make rash decisions and after the end of your 8 year tie-down. which is the day you get confirmed, you really start to wonder if there’s any need to head back anymore.That was in my case anyway, and the case of the only 3 friends whom i met along the way. 3 peeps who’ve i’ve really been close to my whole life.
Stepping into poly, i found out after a long tedious semester that my course of 85 peeps only had 5 catholics, me being the only guy. And though i never really heard the whole stories from them, we all shared two common traits.
1. We still believe in God
2. We did not frequently attended mass or were involved in any form of parish activities
Whether it’s a vicious cycle or the advancement of a modern era, the shortcomings of the church or just the wanting for all these adolescents to break away from something they’ve been more or lessed forced into initially, one things for sure.
I still believe that god is watching over me and on the day that jesus is born, i always head back there to reaffirm my faith even if it is for just an hour or more. For me Christmas without going back there wouldn’t be Christmas at all.
for god so loved the world that he gave us his only son
-soapfat
Add comment December 24, 2008
