Spring Break: Day 3

Today was nothing special, just another lazy Sunday. I went to church for the first time in a while, watched all three Wallace and Gromit shorts, a little bit of Pretty in Pink, some sitcoms, and organized all my schoolwork, which was cluttered around my room for the past two weeks.

The church thing really disappointed me. I had mentioned that I've been feeling down recently, and I'd hoped that returning to my churchgoing habit would rectify this. But going to mass just made me feel worse. The priest today was so pompous and he really looked like he was putting on a performance for all of us in the church. He was such a dandy. This is the second time that I feel my church has disappointed me. The first time was a couple of years ago when I went to confession for some advice and enlightenment but ended up being talked to (undeservedly) like a child.

For those of you who don't know, there is a part of the Catholic mass called the Consecration. This is the most important part of our mass. This is where the priest says a blessing over bread and wine thereby making them what we Catholics believe to be the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Now as inane as this concept may seem to non-Catholics--and, indeed, to any rational human being--I believe in it. I believe that what I consume in holy communion is actually the body and blood of Jesus. Kind of silly of me right?

But today I questioned whether or not this transformation had truly occurred. Something about the priest's manner stunk of insincerity. Aside from this, they asked us for more money again. I come from the Philippines--a poor country. And while I did not grow up poor there, I know--just as anyone who has ever set foot in my country would too--how much in need of money the majority of my people are. Yet churches back home do not ask for as much money as often as they do here in the beautiful American churches with their stained glass windows and wall-to-wall carpeting. During the homily they had someone spend an additional twenty minutes telling us how to fill out a pledge form. They gave us self-addressed envelopes to put our forms and our checks or credit card information in and mail to the archdiocese, but they still had the collectors go around and take our donations, so that everyone will know how generous you were, and so that misers or people who just can't afford it are passive-aggressively forced to donate so as to avoid scornful looks--looks that practically wag a finger at you and chastise you with a 'for shame!'--from their fellow churchgoers. The collector held the basket in front of my sister and I for an eternity, as if that would miraculously allow a single mother and a necessarily unemployed student to afford a $150 pledge for who knows what purposes, perhaps the rebuilding of a perfectly good church, which was the case with another parish I used to go to here.

I still believe in the Catholic Church. My faith in both God and my Church never did waver in the wake of all recent controversies. I don't begrudge the giving, but the way some people ask. And I hope You understand this, God, if You're reading this. If You are as nice as I know You are, I know You will. Please don't send me to hell.