Every cradle Catholic of a certain age understands what is meant by Catholic guilt. The emphasis on sin - starting with forcing seven year olds to confess their sins to a priest - haunts many Catholics. After Vatican II, most Catholics got fed up and simply stopped worrying about confessing their sins to another human being. I guess they were finally growing up on their own because VII didn’t say much about confession that I can recall. Anyway, most Catholics finally realized that God hears us, knows our souls, and our sins, and a human intermediary not only isn’t needed by God, they have often done plenty of harm in those confessional booths. Apparently there is also a lot of mis-information provided to converts in RCIA programs.
As an adult I learned that one feature of many evangelical churches is something called Home Groups. I had assumed that they are some kind of Bible study, but apparently they include weekly group confessions, although they aren’t called that. Then the other members can offer “ fraternal correction”. What I also didn’t know for years is that Catholics had it easy compared to the indoctrination suffered by many evangelical Protestant kids, often at christian youth camps apparently. Somehow I have gotten on the email list of Christian Century. There is an interesting article by a young woman who resisted the sin and damnation and repentance narrative she was raised with. It made me think about what Catholics have also done.
When our kids reached confirmation age I let them know that it was up to them - they had no say in being baptized, but they did have a say in confirmation. Two of ours were eventually confirmed - the eldest refused forever, the youngest went along because of social pressure primarily. I actually tried to talk him out of it, but all of his friends were being confirmed and he liked the social camaraderie of the two year parish program. At that point the parish was requiring that all confirmation kids go to a weekend sleep away retreat shortly before Confirmation. I refused permission. They started threatening me, essentially, saying that if he didn’t go he wouldn’t be confirmed. I said “ Fine. He’s not going to the retreat though”. One thing I feared at that retreat was pushing public true confessions. He did get confirmed - no retreat though.
This is the article in the Cristian Century about one woman’s experience growing up evangelical.
Thoughts?
I also was reminded of what my friend who spent three months as a postulant in a convent told me about publicly confessing in front of everyone, having to prostrate herself on the floor etc. I wouldn’t have lasted a week.
ReplyDeleteThey do catechesis around confession/reconciliation a lot different now than when we were young. I had to work through a lot of stuff, and a period of being very scrupulous. I do think there is such a thing as mortal sin, but I don't believe that children in the second or third grade (,which is when most of them do first penance) are capable of it. They don't harp on that anymore.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was that age they were saying that eating meat on Friday was a mortal sin. Also that if you didn't tell something like eating meat on Friday when you went to confession, that was another mortal sin. If half your relatives were protestant, as mine were, if I were staying with them, I would be eating meat on Friday because I was too shy to tell them I couldn't. Then when I got a little older, the nuns taught that even thinking about sex was an impure thought. And an impure thought was a mortal sin, because any sin against chastity was by definition a mortal sin. So you see where this was going.
For awhile there was an associate priest in our parish who didn't speak English well. I always tried to get in his line because he would let you ramble on for a little while, then say, "You are sorry, yes, no? .Make good act of contrition. Say three hail Marys." I liked that priest..
Fortunately when I was a teenager there were a couple of priests who would answer my questions and try to straighten out my thinking.
But the good old days weren't always good
Katherine, do you really think it’s a good idea to force seven year olds to go to confession ( reconciliation )- the name they use really doesn’t matter. Teaching young children to tell a priest- a relative stranger - their secrets is a really bad idea I think because basically little kids aren’t usually serious sinners. I have even read that some adults have said that they made up sins like being mean to a sibling - something generic - so that the priest wouldn’t cross- examine them. Confiding secrets to a stranger is potentially dangerous as we know, even if he wears a Roman collar. I’m sorry now that I made our sons go to first “reconciliation “. Fortunately five of our seven grandchildren aren’t being raised Catholic so they won’t have to do it, including two who aren’t Catholic but attend a Catholic school.
DeleteI don't think they cross examine them? And the priest who does first penance isn't a stranger, he's been working with them for awhile. They do first penance in the open church, visible but not so others can hear, and not in the confessional.
DeleteI think it's good that they learn how to do an examination of conscience.
About Confirmation, the kids are interviewed prior, if they don't want to go forward with it, they don't have to. I do disagree with the practice of requiring an overnight retreat for Confirmation. They don't do that here, they just have a day of recollection with some activities and serve them a lunch. They are generally 8th graders. I was 9 years old and just had to learn some catechism questions. At that time the bishop only made it to our town every few years, so there were all ages. My mom was confirmed at the same time I was, since she was a convert.
Teaching children to examine their consciences is probably a good thing. Forcing them to confess their “ sins” to a priest is not a good thing - even if they know the priest well. The main value of teaching kids about sin is teaching them to examine their consciences on a regular basis. It’s possible they might be more likely to keep up the practice if they know that these failings will be between them and God. They won’t have to be embarrassed walking around and running into Father Confessor. They will also know that if they want to talk about them, get guidance, there are adults around - priests, nuns, relatives etc who would be happy to work with them. Adults would often do better with a Spiritual Director ( not necessarily a priest) than going to a priest for confession. I never found a priest to be helpful as a confessor; my best spiritual director AND “confessor” was my closest friend from college days.
DeleteMy youngest son wanted to be confirmed. But I knew that his reasons had little to nothing to do with anything sacred but a desire to do what his friends were doing. He was in 8th grade. I was also in 8 th grade when I was confirmed. I remember nothing about it - I’m not even totally sure of what my confirmation name is. I think it’s Theresa but I’m not absolutely sure. It was just a ritual that my mom expected her kids to go through.
What I remember about Confirmation is the sweet smell of the chrism. I read that they put balsam in it, don't know where that comes from, but it smelled kind of like lilacs or Russian olive blossoms. And I remember that Great Aunt Evelyn was my sponsor, and she gave me a pretty Mary statue.
DeleteThere are three different kinds of holy oils, the chrism is the one used for Confirmation and Holy Orders. I have had the oil of the sick for Anointing prior to surgery, but it is just olive oil without the balsam.
I don’t remember who my sponsor was either. I didn’t even remember that there is a sponsor for confirmation. Now that I think about it, I don’t even remember who the sponsors were for the two sons who did get confirmed.
DeleteI remember with Confirmation thinking that I should pray a thanksgiving, similar to what we do after Communion. And feeling rather formal since I didn't know the Holy Spirit as well as I did Jesus. Sort of, "Won't you please take off your coat and stay awhile?"
DeleteConfession gave me the willies every time and eventually persuaded me to leave the Church.
ReplyDeleteAbout ages 10-12, my kid went to Confession every month or two. Sometimes he said he just knelt and said prayers during confession hours without going thru the sacrament. He has talked about how helpful and encouraging our old priest was.
I pray that if he goes back to being a practicing Catholic as he has talked about, he will find a good confessor.
Jean, can you imagine growing up like the author of the article did? Makes confession look pleasant. I object to it in principle but if some people think they have to go, or find it helpful, they can go. The I concur with the Episcopalian view of confession- “All may, some should, none must”.
DeleteMy parents were big on guilt as control, just not in a religious sense. It was real fun.
DeleteIf your son had a good experience with the old priest and can find another who is helpful rather than harmful, great. But he should also know that he doesn’t “ have” to go to confession to be a Catholic. About 80% of Catholics do not go to confession these days. Some Catholics think it’s a rule that Catholics have to go to confession at least once/ year. It’s not. The “ rule” is to go to confession before receiving communion IF one is aware of being in a state of mortal sin. Few ordinary people fit this description. I’m not sure that committing a mortal sin is even
Deletereally possible although people can do horrible, horrible things. Grave matter is common. Full knowledge and full consent create gray areas. If it’s defined as a willful choice to separate oneself from God then it’s also problematic. Can someone choose this really - - if they don’t actually “ know” God? .
I'm surprised that your parents used guilt against you. It would have possibly been worse if they had been religious.,
Maybe. They were big on "you're the reason I drink," which later ratcheted up to my mom's half-hearted suicide attempts if I stepped out of line. I could have laughed off "your going to hell" easier than some of those ambulance calls.
DeleteJean, what a nightmare for you at times. Yes, hell wouldn’t sound so awful when life is already hellish.
DeleteI'm not sure how relevant this is, but I heard it on TikTok and it struck me as raising a good point or two. A young man, probably gay, said, "Does anybody else think it's a little bit weird that children are too youg to know about their orientation or gender but they're old enough to learn about eternal conscious torment and substitutionary atonement and making a lifelong permanent commitment to Jesus Christ and Christianity? Also I would like to see a statistic of how many kindergartners actually know the definition of the word pledge and allegiance. Maybe we should change that."
ReplyDeleteI lean toward agnosticism now, and I think back on twelve years of religious indoctrination in Catholic schools as fairly disastrous, not because I feel there is nothing good about Catholicism, but because so much was pounded into my head at such a young age that its difficult even in my old age to be sure I am thinking for myself.
I remember a friend from high school who always used to say that the genius of Catholicism is that it makes you your own thought police. Doubting is a sin.
“ I think back on twelve years of religious indoctrination in Catholic schools as fairly disastrous, not because I feel there is nothing good about Catholicism, but because so much was pounded into my head at such a young age that its difficult even in my old age to be sure I am thinking for myself.”
DeleteUnderstand that and I only had 4 years of parochial school plus four college where they weren’t trying to indoctrinate us.
In France, at least at one time, First Communion and Confirmation happened around 12 or 13. Makes way more sense to me. You can't even be a Girl Scout/Boy Scout in 2nd grade.
DeleteWell, now some want them both at 7. The orthodox do baptism, communion, and confirmation at the same time, although I’m not sure how old the babies are so that they can swallow the bread. I went to the sacramental initiation ceremonies of two of my Greek friend’s children but don’t remember the details except for the total immersion of the poor baby. Maybe three months? She has a new granddaughter who will be born tomorrow apparently- induced labor. I’ll ask about the bread.
DeleteAnyone who has a seven year old living in the household knows that they are not sinless. If you doubt it's possible, then get acquainted with any 2nd grade teacher.
ReplyDeleteWe don't have to have our children make their sacramental milestones. I guess we don't have to get them vaccinated, either. But istm the logic of Pascal's Wager would lead us to do both anyway, even if we're skeptics.
Btw, Canon 989 states that we should confess serious sins at least once per year. There is a lot of wisdom behind that requirement.
Jim, I raised three sons, all of whom wiere 7 years old at one point. Of course they did things wrong. Call that sin, if you choose to, but I tend to see childhood transgressions as not involving a deliberate choice to reject God. In church parlance, maybe a “venial” sin. That’s why teaching them how to do an examination of conscience in terms that a 7 year old can understand is a good thing to do. But forcing them to go to confession to a priest is not a good thing to do. Teaching your child yourself to try to help them recognize how their words or actions hurt someone and helping them discern how to make it up, apologize or whatever is needed is better than a distant authority figure - a priest - telling them to say Three Hail Marys and try not to do it again. Plus it’s wrong to let children think that God won’t forgive them, and that a man has to say certain words to “absolve” them. . They need to know that, if they choose, they can talk with the priest, but they also need to know that they can confess directly to God - that a human being does not forgive sins - only God does that. If they don’t trust God to forgive them, and need to hear the priest say the words of absolution it’s a bit sad.
DeleteHave they changed the wording? Now it’s “ serious” sin rather than “ mortal”? It’s difficult to define “ serious”. But it still doesn’t matter. Confessing to a priest should not be required ever. Confessing to God is a good thing to do.,
Once kids are 13 or so they can make up their own minds about whether or not they feel ready to make a more adult commitment to the church by being confirmed. Forcing them to do it is another questionable idea. When our eldest decided not to be confirmed our pastor was very upset with me for not forcing him to. ( it was on me as the Catholic parent). How meaningful would confirmation be if forced to do it? How much resentment would it cause? Our #2 son thought about it and finally decided to get confirmed when he was 16. The third was too anxious to do what everyone else was doing so he was confirmed at 13. I didn’t prevent him, but I did discuss his reasons with him, telling him that it didn’t seem clear that he was choosing confirmation for the right reasons. Deciding whether to participate in a ritual isn’t relevant to Pascal’s wager. That is an argument that says -“ well, better believe just in case there is a God” - but apparently a God whose ego is so fragile that s/he would take offense because someone doubts? As some note, forced “ belief” in order to hedge your bet- based on self- interest- isn’t really belief. And there is ample evidence that demonstrates that Confirmation doesn’t guarantee belief.
To me there's a big difference between encouraging and forcing. Yes of course we encouraged our kids to do all the sacraments of initiation (well except for the first one, Baptism, they were under a month old then). It never seemed like it was a problem to them.
DeleteI agree that there is a difference between sins, or maybe it's understood as a continuum. Not every serious sin is a mortal sin, but people don't start out with the big rejections of God and grace. It's a process. Confession can be a moment of spiritual honesty, whether it's in small or large matters. Personally I know the priests who are my confessors pretty well. Been the same two of them for about 25 years. I wouldn't feel comfortable going to someone I didn't know.
Pascal's Wager = Fire insurance for agnostics.
DeleteI think there are two issues in the story that Anne posted that invite discussion:
ReplyDeleteAt what age is it appropriate to get kids thinking in terms of sin that imperils your immortal soul and sends you to hell forever?
At what point does talking about and confessing sin to others in various ways induce unhelpful scrupulosity?
And maybe: What is the best way to help kids understand the importance of their yearly confession. Most helpful to me in RCIA was Father's talk about things that helped him help others make a "good" confession.
DeleteI think one should talk about things that hurt your relationship with God, and other people, particularly things that objectify other people, before the things that send you to hell. Because no one starts out with those things. It's steps along a path.
DeleteThat's interesting what your priest said about things that helped him help others make a good confession. What were some of the things he mentioned?
He said most people didn't progress much beyond a spreadsheet of venial sins: "I swore 10 times, had 4 impure thoughts, and disobeyed my mom." He said that it was helpful when people said, "I do X too much and want to do better."
DeleteHe suggested thinking more about what you have done to hurt others and what drives those sins--the 7 Deadlies inventory, pretty much. He liked to say that confessing was the first step in realizing your faults so that you could do something about them.
He was less about sins against God--God is not hurt or surprised by your sins--but that you show your love of God by loving your neighbor.
Subsequent priests, in my experience, want the spreadsheet.
Katherine, what sins would you call “ mortal”? How do you define it? Are people who are morally depraved, and brutal - child rapist/ killers etc sane? If not, are they actually “ choosing” to reject God in their horrendous actions? I don’t know and apparently the “ experts” can never be sure.
DeleteThe church has wavered a lot in definitions since I was a kid. Now mortal sins are called “ serious”? I think of mortal sins as being far worse than “ serious”, based on what I was taught so many decades ago. It’s still in the CCC, but is pretty vague about the specifics of mortal sins.
Example - most consider adultery to be a serious sin, but I’m not sure if it’s always “ mortal”. A mortal sin requires grave matter - we see that all around us - but it also requires full knowledge and full consent. Most people are good at rationalizing. I have read questions to advise columnists about having an affair when a spouse has been to lost Alzheimer’s for years. One friend’s mother lived for more than 25 years after diagnosis, until she was 100. She did not recognize family, and did not respond to speech, or speak herself during the last ten or fifteen years. Her husband had died, so the children put her in memory care. Many spouses do this also because the spouses/caregivers are usually old, and are exhausted - physically, mentally, and emotionally, but may eventually meet someone whom they learn to love, someone who cares for them. So - adultery is a serious offense against the marriage vows, but even if the person enter into the extra- marital relationship with a few twinges of guilt are they also doing this with the idea that they are choosing to reject God? A mortal sin requires knowing a sin is serious, consenting to do it anyway, AND rejecting God with full knowledge and full consent by this action. I also wonder if someone would, or even can, deliberately reject God if they have known God as love. I don’t think many people experience God directly, or feel God’s love. The Christian Religion has generally kept people in line and in the pews through teaching God as judge, a judge who will cast someone into hell for all eternity for any transgression. So you had better toe the line, follow all the rules, or there will be hell to pay, literally. If this is God, then choosing to reject God would be understandable, but also those who buy into this understanding ( taught by the church for most of my life and emphasized by evangelicals apparently) are too afraid to deliberately reject God.
I agree with Jean and her priest - a rare man based on my lifetime of experiences with priests - the sins God cares about are those things we do that harm others, including the stranger. The man who finds a new love while caring for his lost to the years long awake-coma of Alzheimer’s may not be harming her, but by helping himself, may be better able to care for his wife.
Priests or others can help people sort through challenging and ambiguous moral dilemmas, but going to confession isn’t the best way to obtain this kind of complicated guidance.
Every Lent the Archdiocese launches a campaign to lure Catholics to the confessional. They put ads on buses! They publish a guide to examination of conscience that is so simplistic that it seems meant for 8 year olds. So the pastor of one of my parishes ( a Vatican II priest, now retired) published his own guide for the parish. It was so much better. I would have possibly trusted him as a spiritual guide, but few other priests. I have his guide to examining your conscience somewhere in the papers, but not sure where.
My own lifetime personal spiritual guide/confessor is now lost to me because apparently she inherited her mother’s Alzheimer gene. It breaks my heart. She understood a few years ago what was going to happen. It was her mom who lived to be 100, decades after diagnosis. I hope God, if there is one, and if God is love, takes her home long before that. She is now 79.
Re scrupulosity- based on comments I read by conservative Catholics at the America site it seems that scrupulosity has returned in a big way for them. They seem to believe that everyone is pretty much in a state of mortal sin much of the time and must go to confession every week or so.
Delete"...what sins would you call “ mortal”? All we can say is what would objectively be mortal. Only God knows the state of someone's soul. We can certainly look around and see the objective results of greed, pride, lust, wrath, and all the rest of the deadlies. I'd say spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to burn tons of food that could have saved thousands of people from starvation to make some kind of statement is objectively something that would deserve hell, but only God knows. Or sending innocent people, or even guilty ones, to Alligator Alcatraz. Maybe they are so impaired that they lack any sense of empathy that might prevent them from doing such a thing, I don't know.
Delete"...They seem to believe that everyone is pretty much in a state of mortal sin much of the time..." Yeah, seems like neo-Calvinism. The the belief in total depravity. But Calvinism is an objective heresy.
DeleteKatherine, the problem is that people don’t agree on what is objectively evil. And even though institutions - including the Catholic Church - commit institutional sins that harm others, the church and the federal government don’t go to confession. I doubt that Presbyterians and multiple conservative evangelical groups based on Calvinism would agree that a Calvinism is “objective” heresy. They think that saying a man - a Pope - is “objective” heresy.
DeleteNone of these institutional sins are really relevant in the context of individual Catholics being told to go to confession if they are in a state of mortal sin.
Interesting PBS "American Masters" about Hannah Arendt and "the banality of evil"--you institutionalize it so nobody feels personally responsible. Watch it now before PBS gets buggered by Trump.
DeleteThanks for the heads up, Jean.I guess it’s time to increase our donation a bit even though our budget is tighter these days.
Delete"At what age is it appropriate to get kids thinking in terms of sin that imperils your immortal soul and sends you to hell forever?"
ReplyDeletePeople develop at different rates, but most 16 year olds are capable of impregnating someone or getting pregnant; of killing someone; and of a "clean break" with God. That doesn't mean that all 16 year olds have done any of these things, but they are within the realm of possibility. Can a 16 year old do anything with full knowledge and consent? So complicated to discern the answer to that question. It may be different from Teen A to Teen B to Teen C. But I think that, by the time we are in the midst of our teenage years, sin is fairly far along in its project of insinuating itself around us, in us and through us.
While I agree that scrupulosity can be a problem, I also think that whatever the opposite of scrupulosity is, is a much, much bigger problem in today's world: we give up on the possibility of resisting sin, and despair of being able to do anything about sin.
What about a 13 year old? Less likely. What about a 10 year old? Even less likely. What about a 7 year old? I'd hesitate to say "impossible", but very, very unlikely.
Even so, I think there is spiritual value in teaching 7 year olds that sin is real; that they've committed sins; that we don't need to just accept sin as "the way things are" as though there is no recourse; and that the church offers healing and grace through this sacrament; and that it can be a positive thing.
I did "make" my children go to confession. That's part of being a parent - making them do things they don't want to do but aren't equipped to decide. Now that they're grown up, it's completely up to them, but I don't hide the fact (nor, I hope, trumpet the fact) that I do go to confession a few times a year.
FWIW, one of my children didn't get confirmed, either. I hope she may change her mind some day. The others did, and it was their choice.
I required The Boy to go through prep for First Communion and Confirmation. He went thru attendant Sacraments for both, but I did not require that he believe anything specifically, only said what I believed when asked. In retrospect, I relied WAY too much on Church Ladies to provide instruction. Which sadly left him with the impression that Church is for fussbudgety, dour middle aged women. We went to Mass as a family, but I didn't receive Communion after he was 8. He didn't get curious about that until he was in high school. Once he was living on his own, there was no reason for me to go to Mass every week, and I pretty much stopped after COVID. None of us has ever felt much affinity with the people in this parish or vice versa. Raber attends an out of town parish when he has a few bucks for the collection. I am glad The Boy is interested in Church again, and I pray it he will have an anchor of faith in his life.
DeleteJim, unsurprisingly I never made my kids go to confession. I remember that when I was in parochial school we were forced to go to confession once/month, a day everyone dreaded. Since I left that school after 4th grade, that meant only two school years. After moving, and going to public school, I honestly can’t remember ever going to confession but I suppose I probably did. I developed a lifelong dread of it somewhere along the line. Even my devout, Jansenist Irish American mom never forced me to go. In my Catholic college years I don’t ever remember going to Confession either, but I may have a couple of times. I certainly wasn’t going to make our sons go after the required first confession before first communion since I had little respect for the practice. I only went once to confession as an adult before asking myself why I was doing it - I didn’t believe in it, it was not helpful. So no reason to go just because the church said to go. So I didn’t go anymore except to the advent and lent penance services. I felt those were helpful because I feel that examinations of conscience are a very good practice and that’s what we should focus on when teaching kids.. They always imported more priests to hear confessions after the service but I left when the service was over. Those who find going to a priest to confess helpful should go.
DeleteIt’s perfectly possible to teach kids about sin without making them go to confession. .but you are a traditional Catholic and apparently have pretty much stayed within the lines of official Catholicism whereas I started rebelling against teachings that I didn’t agree with in parochial school (starting with papal infallibility), slowly evolving into a cafeteria Catholic. So while I thought it was important to give the boys a solid foundation in Jesus’s teachings, I was also teaching them to question and to learn to follow their own beliefs and create their own spiritual path.
It seems that your goal was to give your kids everything they needed to become solid, committed Catholic adults, which was not my goal. So you “ made” them go to confession. I admit I’m surprised that you allowed your daughter to make her own choice about confirmation. Good for you!
I don't believe any child or adult should be threatened with eternal suffering in hell. Pope Francis was once asked how he imagine hell. He said, “What I am going to say is not a dogma of faith but my own personal view: I like to think of hell as empty; I hope it is.”
DeleteI remember once a Jewish friend said that the Catholic concept of hell was so powerful that, as a child, he used to fear going to Catholic hell. How is a person supposed to think straight when taught that an all-good, loving God is watching their every move and is committed to sending them to eternal torment if they do not obey all the Church's rules? It seems akin to terrorism to me.
I am aware of the attempts to "soften" the teachings about eternal suffering. They are not particularly successful. The door to hell, they say, is locked from the inside. I am not sure how the Church expects people to understand eternity, but if it is infinite time without end, the idea of even spending it happily is disturbing. (I remember Rita Rudner saying, "I want to have children, but my friends scare me. One of my friends told me she was in labor for 36 hours. I don't even want to do anything that feels good for 36 hours.")
I don't ever remember being coerced by my mother (my father was not Catholic) to go to confession or receive confirmation or anything of that nature. As I remember it, I and my brother and two sisters did what was expected of us with little if any coercion. Never do I remember my mother (and certainly not my father) telling any of us to do or not do something because it was a sin.
I think "sin" is a word freighted with eternal damnation. I didn't use it when talking to my kid about right and wrong. "How would you feel if ..." seemed to be a better way teach notions of right and wrong and to build the kind of love-your-neighbor empathy that God commands.
DeleteI believe there may be some kind of joyous afterlife experience for those who live lives of exceptional generosity and holiness. But some people kill off their souls by creating misery and strife here on earth, and when they're dead, they're done.
My friend Charlie was, I guess, a deist. He didn’t believe in an afterlife. He died 12 years ago at age 69 from pancreatic cancer. He endured all kinds of.medical procedures to hang on. He liked sailing his boat again and again out of Rock Hall, MD into Chesepeake Bay. He loved skiing, too. His tombstone (traditional interment) is engraved with a sailboat and a skier. I think Charlie would be happy sailing and skiing for all eternity and hopefully, he is.
DeleteI occasionally enjoy thinking up heavens (and hells) for various people. I long ago abandoned any notion that God was on board with my ideas, though. I do like to think that there are a few moments after we die when we are aware of being out of pain, when we know the things of this world can no longer touch us, that we are free. That would be nice.
DeleteStanley, did you ever go with Charlie? We sailed too, and liked Rock Hall a lot. We considered buying a retirement home there. But George had been diagnosed with heart failure in 2019 and we didn’t like the idea of being so far from a really good hospital so we didn’t pursue it.
DeleteThank you, Jean and David. The “how would you feel” approach is what we used most of the time. Direct disobedience of a parental order was rare - like ignoring a time for bed order - “ if you aren’t upstairs getting ready for bed in five minutes “ …..(unstated implied something) in a certain tone of voice usually produced action. Three boys together having a good “brotherly” time horsing around sometimes weren’t anxious to head upstairs. I didn’t use the word “sin” with our kids either. They may have gotten some sin talk in CCD when preparing for First Communion and confession.
DeleteI have long pondered the question of the nature of God. We 1950s Catholic kids were taught about a God who judged. A mean God, ready to pounce whenever you did something “wrong” like miss mass on Sunday or eat a hamburger on Friday. Or were born to a family of the wrong religion. My first doubts came when the nun teaching my class taught us that only Catholics could go to heaven. This really upset me because my best friend’s father (Jewish) had died of a heart attack. After she said only Catholics could go to heaven I asked about good people who weren’t Catholic, like my Jewish friend’s father, and she said that since he knew about Jesus but hadn’t converted, he would not go to heaven. I was shocked. I didn’t believe a “good” God would do that. That started me on my lifelong journey of doubt and dissent. I was too much of a literalist then, trusted authorities too much, and I was too young to know that many things that we were told were “mortal sins” - sins that would condemn you to hell for all eternity - like no meat on Friday - if not confessed before being hit by a car going home from the hamburger place were manmade rules of an institution, not divine commands. I started listening to my own conscience, and stopped worrying so much about church rules.
It was only as an adult that I began to really think about the nature of God - a mean judge? A Santa Claus who would grant your desires if you prayed hard enough? Someone you could bargain with - a transactional God? A God who would help someone who had lots of Catholic friends and family praying for them but ignore the person who is alone, without family to pray “for” them, or a devout Sikh whose whole life was dedicated to gentle living? Did God hand out favors only to Christians with lots of friends? I do pray for people, but it will never make sense to me and it still instills doubt that a God like that is Love. Because at some point the message became God is Love, not a mean judge. I also have a hard time reconciling the image of God is Love with the reality of the world - why would a God who is love allow so much evil to innocents? The never answered by religion question.
Unfortunately christianity has been totally focused on sin from the beginning. One of Augustine’s worst legacies is his concept of original sin. Some years back I read a number of spiritual books by a Hindu scholar from India who went to UC Berkeley to teach one year on a Fulbright . He stayed and continued to teach English literature at UC Berkeley. They asked him to also teach an official class on meditation - the first ever apparently in an American university. I initially learned to meditate using his method. He taught meditation using the Prayer of St Francis. His book on Meditation was recommended by a nun who taught christian Centering Prayer. I bought and read several of his books. One is called “Original Goodness”. I thought it was about sin, but it’s actually commentary on the Beatitudes. Why doesn’t the Catholic Church focus on the positive? Their teaching of the “good news” is that God sent his son to be tortured to death so that he could rise and give us sinners hope for eternal life after death - assuming, of course, that we are not in “a state of (unconfessed) mortal sin”. The “ good news”? Really? What kind of a God does this “ good news” really imply?
DeleteOriginal Goodness - “ Love, compassion, meaning, hope, and freedom from fear are not qualities we need to acquire. We simply need to uncover what we already have. Original goodness is Eknath Easwaran's phrase for this spark of divinity hidden in every one of us, regardless of our personal liabilities or past mistakes.”
The church mentions these things, but the focus is still sin.
The universe had to come from somewhere. Some creator set off the Big Bang. So I believe that there is a Creator. I WANT to believe that the magnificence of creation - the beauty and literally endless variety just of our tiny part of the universe - not to mention the universe itself - seems to reveal a good God, a God of Love. I find a few moments of peace, and sometimes even feel a hint of the presence of a God who is good, when alone in nature. The religion focused folk scoff at those of us who find God in the sunset more than in a church. I like what Jesus teaches (usually - sometimes his meaning is hard to grasp) and hope that what he taught about the nature of God is true. I don’t know, and really no longer care, if Jesus was divine, if the Trinity is really the best explanation of God there is. It’s all mystery and I have learned to live with mystery better in my old age.
Since I’m old now I am looking at a short time horizon as a creature on earth. I don’t know what comes after. If anything, I hope it means peace at last, what Buddhism calls Nirvana. Jean was forced to face mortality younger than most of us. But eventually all of us face it. Like Jean, I hope to spend whatever time is left trying to help others in whatever way I can. Running off to a poor country to help isn’t possible for me now. So I just donate to those who work with the poor, and trust that our funds will last us. I refuse to stop the automatic monthly credit card donations to my favorite humanitarian groups. With the richest country on earth stopping grants for humanitarian aid I hope to increase them now that I’ve recovered enough to care for my husband with only part- time help, saving around $10,000/ month in caregiver costs. I still pray - that we can get by with part- time care to the end, even though I’m not convinced that anyone is listening, or that anyone arranges our lives according to our prayers. I pray that God will give me and everyone else I pray for strength and courage- I don’t pray for miraculous cures.
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I believe in original sin. I just don't believe in original innocence, the Garden of Eden and the snake, etc. I also believe in evolution, to which I feel original sin is closely related (more about that theory another time.) We had a pastor years ago who used to speak a lot about "man's propensities", propensities for getting into trouble, I guess. There seems to be plenty of evidence for that, whether we call it sin or not.
DeleteI'm not a believer in substitution atonement, more in Duns Scotus' proposition that the Incarnation was always plan A, and Christ's sacrifice was out of infinite love, not to appease an angry Father (Jesus insisted in the gospels that he and the Father are one, so substitution atonement makes no sense).
I am like everyone else, the sand in the hour glass is sifting through. I have been gifted with a little more time, but who knows how much. I'm trying to spend it doing good, but have to fight against my own propensity for sloth.
Yes, Anne. I sailed a few times with Charlie. He didn’t live in Rock Hall. The boat was a second home, a vacation home. One time I had M with me and she got everybody up very early so we could see the baby cheetahs let out at the National Zoo. It was worth it. Glad you know about Rock Hall. It would’ve been a nice place to be. Shame it didn’t work out for you.
DeleteIf I still went to confession, sloth would definitely be on the list. Did you ever read “Acedia” by Kathleen Norris?
ReplyDeleteI would be interested in learning more about your belief that the human propensity to sin ( which I think is to cause harm to others) is the result of evolution. Augustine’s understanding, taught by the church, is focused on sex. Evolutionary forces could be part of that except, of course, Augustine read the Hebrew scriptures pretty literally because he didn’t know about evolution.
Atonement theology is one of the reasons I dislike how the Eucharist is taught in the church. The blood sacrifice. It is why I dislike Aquinas’s explanation of transubstantiation. Augustine’s ideas on communion were better than Aquinas’s, but the church seems to emphasize some of the worst ideas of both of those men.
Anne wrote, "We 1950s Catholic kids were taught about a God who judged. A mean God, ready to pounce whenever you did something “wrong” like miss mass on Sunday or eat a hamburger on Friday."
ReplyDeleteMy own kid time frame was mid-late 1960s, running into the 1970s. It was post-Vatican II. I heard in a podcast earlier today that preaching changed following Vatican II. I'm thinking that the priests' styles of hearing confession changed, too. And what we were taught about it. I'm sure eternal damnation figured in the explanation somewhere, but I don't have any memory of it being talked about. It certainly wasn't shoved down our throats, and nobody tried to scare us into going to confession.
FWIW, as an adult I've had the sense, at various times, of being separated from God. I don't like it. I don't want to be separated from him. And I do fear it - not only in the sense of, "We know not the hour..." but also in the sense that I fear getting too used to being separated from him and accepting it as normal. It's not how I want to live.
Jim, I’m glad you weren’t given the 50s and early 60s version of God. But there is still plenty of that type of thinking around in the church today, based on the comments I read by conservative Catholics. Since I gave up confession decades ago I really can’t say from first hand experience what goes on. I gave up confession when I was young - I don’t even remember. Maybe high school, definitely by college age. I decided to give it a try a couple of years after getting married. I was still researching the birth control teaching, while using it. I mentioned it to the priest. He immediately became creepy - voyeuristic almost - asking questions about how many times a week we used birth control. That was it. Never again did it occur to me to ever consider discussing anything about religion or morality with a priest. I certainly didn’t want my sons exposed to them, and they were young long before we learned about priests identifying vulnerable possible young victims during confession.
DeleteThe Archdiocesan annual Lenten guide to examining one’s conscience sent to all parishes still sounds very much like the 1950s.
Nobody needs to go to confession if they feel separated from God. But if that’s what you need, then that’s what you need. It never really helped me feel closer to God to go to mass or confession or any other religious ritual. . I have often felt separated from God since I really don’t know if God exists or what God is like. I CHOOSE to believe that God, if there is a God, is a God of love. When I feel too far from God, I go to a beautiful spot on the Potomac, away from people, and sit in silence. I usually begin a conversation with God in my head. Then I try to pray - meditate with Centering Prayer, until the monkey mind gradually becomes still. In the silence of CP - eventually- I feel a presence that I choose to believe is God.
Jim, you were lucky that your early formation happened after VII, some of the things they used to call mortal sins (such as the meat on Friday thing) were no longer considered sins at all. However, having said that, I had some good memories of church back in the day. I actually liked Latin and learned the responses. I started singing in the children's choir as a third grader, I have always loved music. The nuns I had for teachers were kind, even though strict.
DeleteI understand what you are saying about not liking a feeling of separation from God. I remember that Gospel reading about Jesus being asleep in the boat when a storm came up. I will always remember that televised Urbi et Orbi blessing in 2020, with Pope Francis carrying the Blessed Sacrament alone in the rainy twilight. He preached on that Gospel reading.
I don't think we can separate ourselves from God, though I presume that Catholics feel that the Sacraments and weekly Mass are essential to growing closer to the Divine and getting to Heaven and don't want to live without that.
DeleteI'm just tired and try to say this every morning:
Dear Lord, it's me, Jean. I'm still here, though I don't see the point. If I have to be here, please help me be of service to someone today. Keep me from being a trial to myself and others. Please keep my symptoms at bay and bless my caregivers and the people who supply my meds. Watch over John and Dave and Flora and Daisy [add other intentions]. In the name etc.
Perfect prayer.
DeleteI pray that if God has any say in the timing, that I will live long enough to take care of my husband while he’s still alive. After that, take me anytime. If I go first, I know our sons will make sure he’s taken care of, but I also worry that they will put him in assisted living and just visit now and then. But he didn’t hate it as much as I did, so that would probably be ok for him.