AND OF THE HOLY SPIRIT is the second in the autobiography of a Catholic Girl in this series...it's a story of a time when I thought as a child, of course...but now I am a woman....

AND OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

When a form asks me, 'Religion', I begin to feel very irreverent, a bit claustrophobic, and a lot like running down a church aisle screaming while tearing off my garments. That is, trapped. which is how I feel in religious buildings of all kinds. I do not belong in them. so why am I here in one?... I write: 'Other' at times. Other times, I leave the space blank. And then, 'NA'. I have never written any thing disrespectful. I have never written 'too cowardly to write Heathen'...although, I probably should...

For many years, once I say that I have had no formal Church affiliation since I was nineteen years old, people have asked me, as if it was their right to know, "Do you believe in God?" I have actually answered, most of the time, that the "...question of God doesn't interest me. How I can live a good life every day, that interests me." It's been 'interesting' that most people do not carry on any further conversation with me after I say that. It's not the answer they expected, maybe. Or maybe, they just don't want to get into it: assuming I said I was an Atheist or an Agnostic, which labels I've never related to either... Several former students of mine are praying for me pretty regularly, as they believe I am a Heathen, a Non-Believer....I thank them for their prayers, without sarcasm or question...

I was raised from Day One as a Roman Catholic. The Roman Catholic Church and my Family were one Family. No matter where we moved or lived, there was the Catholic Church, and we belonged. We were of the One, True Church. Other people were Protestants and Jews. They all believed in One God, like we did, but they didn't have the One True way to honor that God, and were not doing the rituals right and so on. We were taught this in all seriousness. This was very sober stuff. We were set apart, God's Chosen, not to be confused with the Jewish Chosen People, who had killed Jesus. Had there been any Jewish kids around, I never got to meet or play with them. Protestant Kids were also frowned upon, as not-being-good-influences. As I result, I was totally enamored of even the Idea of Jewish and Protestant Kids. They were the Exotic Humans in my limited world...no one ever even mentioned other faiths...Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Janes, Animists...all the other ways of approaching the idea of God, were completely unknown to me.

We were taught in school from first grade on, by Catholic Nuns. I was around Catholic Nuns until I was twenty years old These women had more authority in my life than my mother did. it was rare for her to discount any thing, any tiny thing, a Catholic Nun said. In charge of these Nuns, was the Pastor of the Parish. He was usually an older guy, who was thought of as pretty holy, on account of having been a priest for so long. Every Parish also had a younger Priest, who was kind-of in training. No matter how he really looked, he always was seen as handsome, in those cute robes and gear, and he was always "very modern", while the Pastor was "very traditional". The more liberal Parishioners loved and respected the younger guy; the more straight-laced and conventional Catholics loved and respected the older guy. Neither of them could do any wrong. This was known by everybody. World-wide now, it's been 'outed' that many of these men did a great deal of harm, psychologically and sexually. So did a lot of those 'Brides of Christ'...but, back in the day, they were all demigods to us!

We had "Catechism" class every day in school, right up through high school. This was a little, jam-packed Blue Book from out of Maryland, so, called: the Baltimore Catechism. In this book were all the Absolutely Factual Truths about the Catholic Church, that any Catholic should know, and they we kids had to memorize, slowly but surely. If items didn't make sense in this tome, we were taught that it didn't matter, since you had to accept every page and passage of that book "on faith". without 'faith', you were one lost soul, and certainly not a Catholic. There were lots of rules to memorize and practice faithfully as well...

Most of the rules involved Sin. Sin was largely a very long list of all the things you had to do, and if you missed doing them, you sinned. Then there was an even longer list of all the things that were absolutely wrong, which were totally Sins as well. You weren't supposed to eat meat on Fridays. Eat any food on Sunday before taking Holy Communion. Lie. Cheat. Steal. Have 'Impure Thoughts'. Do 'Impure Things'. Disobey your Parents, Priests, Nuns, Teachers, Cops, American Authorities of Any Sort, Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, the Bus driver, or the Babysitter.

You were not supposed to eat too much. drink alcohol. smoke cigarettes. be out past the time your parents said. play with non-Catholic kids. listen to rock and roll or R& B. You couldn't study Communism. You could learn a little about Socialism (mainly the rights of workers). You were never going to use Birth Control or have sex before marriage, so there was no sense in learning about it. you were only going to have lots of Catholic babies, so there was no reason to ever consider dating any body of any other Faith on the planet. You were not going to have 'impure thoughts' ever, do matter how your hormonal-driven body was feeling about it, so masturbation was not going to happen. Jesus was especially interested in Pure Virgin Young Ladies.(no sense asking about Mary Magdalene....)

You were obviously never going to murder anybody, especially conceived Catholic fetuses, no matter what. You were only going to murder people in Just Wars, like WW 2 and Korea, wars the Church approved of. You were never going to learn the history of the Catholic Church except as a wondrous Story of hundreds of very holy people, called 'Saints', and pretty holy people called 'Blesseds'...any brutal years of Roman Catholic Control over the peoples of the earth, like the three hundred plus years of the Inquisition... The eight hundred plus years of the Dark Ages..the looking-away during the Holocaust... the regimes of corrupt Popes and other Clergy and Catholic Kings... the reasons why Protestantism began anyway...these incredible historical episodes were discounted and sometimes even denied. The Church, through the Pope, was actually 'Infallible' in matters of anything of religious context. By extension, I guess, The Church had tons of rationalizations to justify these periods of Religious Oppression...anyway, we were not to be that interested in learning about all of these barbaric episodes in the RCC reign. To question the Church was to show a really sinful lack of Faith. And, Faith was blind, deaf, and dumb to all worldly concerns, history, values, mores, and traditions.

So, that's just how it was. I'm not going to argue it. it's just the way we were taught, from grade-school on up. Only, there are a Lot more Sins and Omissions....the List is endless, detailed, unsparing, and absolute....

Some of the Rituals were pretty cool though. They were, in the main, in old Latin, a lovely language, that spoke to how long the RCC had been around. Masses were daily, but you only had to go on Sunday. Not to go on Sunday was a 'mortal sin', just like eating meat on Friday. 'Mortal Sin' meant you would go straight to hell, no matter how great you had been before you 'committed' that Sin. It was irrevocable, except if you went to Confession, where it would be forgiven, as would be your 'veniel' Sins, the smaller Sins on the long lists...anyway, the Mass Ritual and the candles and the flowers and the hymns and the organ music were nice....

Special Ceremonies, like your First Holy Communion, Confirmation, and Weddings, were very ritualized with even more traditions, prayers, flowers, candles, hymns, and special outfits to wear. These events could take all day...Sad ones, like funerals and Good Friday (death of Christ on the Cross), Holy Saturday (Christ waiting to arise from the tomb), and Easter Sunday (Jesus Arises and goes to Heaven 'whole'), took days...Lent, before this last event, took forty days, in which you were supposed to 'give up' somethings...like dessert, or going to movies, or, you'd keep your room cleaner, or even 'fast' a bit....in honor of Jesus spending forty days fasting in a desert once....Christmas took about six weeks, from the beginning of Advent, four weeks ahead of Christ's Birthday, to twelve days after, when the Three Kings came to visit him with gifts and so on....

These Big Times were surrounded by smaller ritual times, like Saint's Days and Holy Days of Obligation, and, of course, every Friday not-eating-meat and Sunday Mass. Then there was Confession, which you had to do if you had committed a Moral Sin, and should-have-done if you were doing venial sins all of the time, which, of course, you were...You were expected to do a formula of prayers and a list of Sins for the priest, who would forgive you your Sins, totally! And, you'd have to do a Penance. A Penance was usually some prayers to say if your sins had been venial. a Lot more Prayers to say if your Sins were Mortal. Then your Sins, forgiven forever, would be wiped away, and you were told to "Sin no more." Which wasn't going to be to easy to do, since you always knew you could go back to Confession and the slate would be cleared again.

Extreme Unction is a Sacrament, like taking Holy Communion. Holy Communion means taking the Body of Christ directly into your self and your very Soul, through a piece of bread or a flour wafer that has been infused with this incredible Blessing by a Priest. You have to be fasting and reasonably sinless to take this Sacrament, and many Catholics love it. They also often check to see who is and who is not taking Communion at a Mass, for the obvious variety of reasons...Any way, Confession is a Sacrament too. And, so is Extreme Unction...

Extreme Unction is the one Sacrament I was considering doing up until the last few years. This one is a chance, while you are dying, or before you are possibly going to die, or, even after you're dead, to 'go-out' as a good Catholic This way, at the last minute, literally, you can get to go straight to heaven, or at least avoid hell, and wind up in Purgatory, where you'll wait for awhile, feeling pretty OK, until you can get into heaven somehow. Any way... If you can, you do one more Confession and take Holy Communion. Then very ritualistic and actually beautiful Prayers that sound ancient and giving, are said over you, and you are annointed with Holy Oil on your forehead and hands and feet. That's why it's the extreme, last, unction, anointing. Lately, I've decided to have family do somthing like that for me if I'm obviously dying, in whatever way suits them and me at the time...

One more thing I forgot, is Confirmation: that's when the Bishop, who's in charge of all the Catholics and Priests and Church property in a region called a Diocese, comes to your Parish and 'Confirms' a whole lot of kids, and some adults, who are also confirming that they will be Catholics, for life. You repeat a whole lot of promises to the Roman Catholic Church, about how you're going to be Catholic for the rest of your days. It's a serious business, but in my day, it could happen as early as age eight, and your white First Holy Communion dress was 'let-out' for you to wear again for your Confirmation. It was a little early to make such a serious choice, but, that's how it was done for me!

Benediction was a hugely important Ritual for me...Incense was a total high for me, and, I suspect, for many a Catholic child through, veritably, the adult population! the larger candles, the march around the church with special vestments by the priest, the more-altar-boys than-usual in attendance...it was a ceremony loaded with pomp and ritual and 'high' smoke and gold and Latin and Mystery...
Besides singing in the choir, which I loved doing (I would do anything, and I mean Anything! to SING!), Benediction was the bomb. I loved the experience, which was, of course, a trance state of the highest sort!

While I was at (Catholic) Nursing School as an older teen, I joined the Young Christian Nurses. This was an extension of the Young Christian Students, who I had belonged to when I was in High School. This had always been a chance to try to get into the more 'modern' Catholic agenda, about Workers' Rights, and Human Rights, and Catholic meddling in politics and so on. I loved it. It also was a great chance to meet Catholic guys who were a little more humanistic. I had several crushes and some serious flirtations, all very proper of course...and, in Nursing School, it meant a night out of the Dorm with no curfew! I really enjoyed the discussions for a long time. We more with-it young Catholics were going to change the world!....

Of course, I mean no disrespect. I really don't. It is not my business to be unconscious to the importance of Religion to so many of this dear planet's people. This little tale is just about exactly what the Catholic Church was like to me, as a kid from birth until age nineteen... At age nineteen, I walked out of my last Catholic Church service, a Sunday Mass...."When I was a Child, I thought as a Child..."
All my life I had been a True Believer. Christ, and God the Father, and the Mother of God, Mary...I truly loved them all. They were more than Family to me... only, at age nineteen, I realized that the Church was not the answer for me about, How do I live a good life? How do I live this one life of mine?....

I have been answering that question best I could, or, more likely, simply living with that question, all the rest of my days....the answers, any at all, have all been rewarding. The questions have not been tortuous. They are merely questions. Living life well and kindly, it turns out, is not truly that complex. Just, hard to do all the time....

For me, the labels have no meaning. I am a self, joined in humanity and culture and human habit to this planet for this lifetime. That is enough for me. For others, I know, much more thought and desire and effort and direction and faith are necessities. Not for me, that's all...

My idea of God is all of everything around me, living and non-living. this planet and its air and earth and water and life are enough for me...perhaps that is a Heathen, a Pagan spirituality...the name of the way to an idea of God,that is, what 'Religion' I 'belong to'...truly doesn't matter. Not for me....

I am on this planet for this one life.
I will be true to this one life.
I will join in compassion with all living on this one planet.
I will attempt to stay aware in this compassion. to be kind.

I'll do this life by love.

There. I see it:

My religious preference?

It is Love.

That's what I do....