Week 2
Being raised in a Catholic setting was not at all what people expect. I was baptized, my family believed in God, but my father’s family were the biggest fans of the religion. At home, it wasn’t like the religion was shoved down my throat. My mom wasn’t baptized and she wasn’t raised in the faith like my father was. Either way, my contact with Catholicism was not through my parents, but through my elementary education.
From the time I was entered into the school system in pre-k to the end of my fourth-grade year, all of my education was through the Catholic lens. Until fifth grade, all of the schools I attended were private Catholic schools where mass was attendance mandatory every week (one school would have us walk from our elementary school to the church a few blocks away once a month because there was no chapel on campus and mass was usually held in the cafeteria any other time) and Bible study was a part of the regular curriculum. In first grade, my teacher was actually a nun, one that was not very fond of me, I might add.
The same school that required us little kids to walk from campus to church once a month actually had me complete my first communion. I can’t remember if this was an assignment for my religion class, an option, or if it was just something we were all expected to do. What I do remember though is how none of it was really my choice to make. If it was my choice, I’m not sure I would be able to make it properly. Maybe if I had been given the choice before going into the school system, it would have been a different situation, but there’s no point in wishing it was different. It is what it is now, and I don’t think I would ever want to change it anyway. Everything happens for a reason, right? It all led me here and here is pretty great.