Anyway, here are some of my thoughts:
Born in 1947, I was brought up Catholic. I went to a Catholic school till grade 5. Every day we went to church and every day we went to confession. I remember those days vividly. When I married, it wasn't in a Catholic church because my husband and I sort of married in a hurry. NO, not because I was pregnant! It was because he was in the U.S. Navy and we decided to marry because we "couldn't live without each other" so to speak. Now this goes into another long story which I'll try to shorten ...
When he transferred out of the military base in Rhode Island at Quonset Point to Mayport Beach, Florida, I was just miserable without him around and one day I wrote to him. Well, being the Catholic girl I was brought up to be, even though this was the 60s, I wrote to him and told him I was coming down to Florida to live and "you better not expect me to live with you!" Well, you know, in the 60s, there was that "free love" and the beginnings of what we know today of young couples living together before marriage (or even never marriage). I was not going to be one of those because it really was against my religion! LOL
So, we decided to get married on short notice, no wedding, no shower, no reception, just marry and dinner with my parents. Wayne's parents were none too happy to hear that but we were in love. What could I say?
Ok, not to get into our early marriage, I wanted to talk about today's Christianity and how it has affected me and Wayne too.
Anyway, I was having these thoughts about Christians, about our Catholic Faith, and the fact that we are now attending a
non-denominational Church. This Church is going back to the teachings from the bible when Jesus was alive. We are suppose to "get baptised" when we become members of this Church. We haven't done that as of yet. We were baptised when we were babies in the Catholic Church. Some think if they are Baptists for example, that a Catholic "hasn't been saved" because they were not baptised at an older age. But the way I look at it is this: Yes, we were baptised as babies, but we did make our First Communion around 1st or 2nd grade and then later when we were teens, we made our Confirmation.
non-denominational Church. This Church is going back to the teachings from the bible when Jesus was alive. We are suppose to "get baptised" when we become members of this Church. We haven't done that as of yet. We were baptised when we were babies in the Catholic Church. Some think if they are Baptists for example, that a Catholic "hasn't been saved" because they were not baptised at an older age. But the way I look at it is this: Yes, we were baptised as babies, but we did make our First Communion around 1st or 2nd grade and then later when we were teens, we made our Confirmation.
Confirmation is regarded as the perfection of Baptism, because, as the introduction to the Rite of Confirmation states:
by the sacrament of Confirmation, [the baptized] are more perfectly bound to the Church and are enriched with a special strength of the Holy Spirit. Hence they are, as true witnesses of Christ, more strictly obliged to spread and defend the faith by word and deed. (taken from http://catholicism.about.com/od/beliefsteachings/p/Confirmation.htm)
I believe that Confirmation is to confirm to Christ that we will live our lives in the Catholic Faith and as Jesus taught us. I believe that Confirmation sort of takes place that baptism that so many other religions do at an age where one knows the difference between right and wrong, for example. Also, someone once said to me that I was not a Christian if I was Catholic, that Catholics are NOT Christian, and that is just an insult.
Now having said all that, we still attend this non-denominational Church and I am considering getting baptised and become a member of the Church. But it still bothers me because I am still connected to my Catholic Faith and so is Wayne it seems. He is not ready to be baptised. I'm willing to do it because I see nothing wrong in doing that. We will probably attend this Church till the day we die, so why not? It's just that I am still having those connections with the Catholic church. I think when you are brought up a strict Catholic, (or any other religion for that matter), it is hard to totally let go. I still believe in the Blessed Virgin. I always will I'm sure. It doesn't mean that we can't be good church goers at this church or good participating members of this church.
Because we are raising two of our grandchildren, we wanted them to get some Christian bible teachings and we feel this Church is a good place for them. When I tried years ago to get them baptised in the Catholic Church, we were told it would take 2 years and that just shocked me. Why? Because I was taught that if you weren't baptised as a baby, and you died, then you were put in Limbo and wouldn't go to Heaven. The fact that they would make the children wait 2 years to get baptised just threw all those teachings out the door for me. That's when I started looking elsewhere.
Not sure I'm making any sense, but those are my thoughts.
...To Be Continued...
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