Guard

Acts 2:7: Are not all these people who are speaking Galileans?
Acts 2:13: But others said, scoffing, "They have had too much new wine. "

I went to my first official bible study on Wednesday night. We were reading the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. The Apostles are going out and spreading the Good News and are able to communicate to people from all different backgrounds and nationalities in their native language. People gather and are amazed. This helps create the first Christian community.

We have a Jesuit Novice leading our group and he asked us how we would react to the situation if we were there. He told us that the Galileans weren't known for being the 'best and brightest', so having intellects from there was unfamiliar. Going around the circle, the first half said that they probably would have followed the Apostles. The second half remained silent and our novice pushed us to answer and I was the first to respond.

I said that I would have been hesitant. I would have been amazed by the miracle of tongues, and may have been intrigued to learn more about what they had to say. But I would have been really guarded about accepting their message. I probably would have been one of the people saying that they had too much wine.

The guy next to me said something along the same lines of me, and wrapped up the meeting.

I realized that is my approach to religion now. I am guarded. I'm scared about acceptance. I am very proud of identifying as Catholic. I grew up in a Mormon city, and everyone was surprised when they found out I was Catholic.  I'm scared about acceptance inside the church. I have many good friends at church, but I feel like I don't know a whole lot about my faith. I'm afraid that when people do find that out that they will judge me? I felt like there was always a higher standard that I just couldn't meet.

When I was taking religious ed classes through middle school and high school- none of that information ever stuck. I was in it more for the social aspect of it anyway. All of my friends and I were what I like to think of as the 'popular Catholics' (this was never established, but we were always helping out, leading retreats, etc). The majority of them went to Catholic school for elementary school, so it was engrained in their memory. The rest of them had extremely religious parents that personally engrained it in their kids memory. I never went to Catholic school. My parents are super religious, but they never pushed my siblings and I to be. I am grateful because I could have resented them for and that may have pushed me away from religion entirely. But it does kind of suck not to know every single detail about the bible and the catechism. Sometimes I feel like I'm a fraud or a terrible Catholic.

I was talking to one of my best friends(She's Catholic) today about coming to a Mardi Gras party that our church is putting on in a little over a week. She's more of a Christmas/Easter Catholic, but I still try to invite her to events that are going on. So I told her about it and she almost instantly said, No.

I went on to ask her why and she said she wasn't THAT Catholic. I told her that we won't be discussing theology, and it's really just an excuse to party. She told me exactly my fear. She isn't very knowledgable in our faith. I was about to confide in her that is my fear as well, but our yoga class started. And I completely forgot about it after class started.

I feel like I do put up a pretty great front though. I go to mass every Sunday- heck I even sing in the choir every week. I am one of the student campus ministers, and I go to a fancy meeting once a week. I've been spending time in the Catholic center library studying in between classes. I go to daily mass every once in a while.

I've also been thinking of this in terms of someone like my friend who won't even visit our church because they "aren't very knowledgable".

Perhaps I am even missing the point.

Maybe church should been viewed more as a school. Christians started schooling anyway right?

The problem is that I have been a really shit student. I've been going to class, but I've been day dreaming and not studying for the tests. Hmm part of that metaphor may have been lost.

The reason I am so guarded is that I haven't learned enough to be 100% confident in my choice. Participation can only go so far.


Hopefully that makes a little bit of sense?

-Eva