a call to... religion?! part one

I am not a religious person.  I was born and raised Roman Catholic, like all good little Italian boys and girls.  I  LOVED Mass and wanted to be a priest. For reals.  I practiced in my bathroom mirror. I would have been good!  But, alas, I was to told women were not allowed to hold such postions of power in the Catholic Church. I could be a nun. And feed the poor or spank naughty children with a ruler in school.  No thanks, it's Glory or nothing for this chick.

Then I suffered a fall from Grace. In the eyes of the Church.  I had a baby out of wedlock, and a priest who tried to discourage me from baptizing her. (Um, hello? The whole point of Baptism is to erase original Sin- and the sins of the mother and father, right?  See, I was doing more than filing my nails in the back of CCD class.)  Then, the same priest tried to discourage her father and me from getting married in the Church because we didn't "practice" our Religion. There were a lot of things I wasn't practing then - birth control being one of them (hey, isn't that in line with Catholic teachings?),  as I was 28 weeks pregnant when he finally, begrudgingly, married us. I do not hold his displeasure in that task against him, as we were seperated just over one year later.  It's the fact that I was not welcomed back into the fold, because I was now a >gasp< divorcee.   That really gets my goat. At 23, with two little girls to raise, hello, I could have used God's help.  And yet,  if I had had some odd hundred dollars and the cooperation of my ex-husband, the same Church would have said the whole marriage thing never happened, despite the fact I would still be left with two girls who again, for all intents and purposes, would go back to being born to an unwed mother.

Confused? I was. Bitter? I might still be.

And yet, I let my oldest daughter pursue and receive her First Communion (with the help of her grandmother) and watched her interest wain as soon as she did.  I spent the rest of my twenties and early thirties on the very liberal side of the fence and defended my family's lack of practicing any organized religion by sighting the political and bloody  history of organized religion and the Church's views and hypocrisy on so many rights I believe(ed) in.  When Shaye and Mackenna were born and when my husband wanted to baptize them, I protested, stating that I didn't want our daughters' views and morals shaped by anyone but us and if they wanted to, they could "find" religion when they were adults.

The only time I have stepped in a church since, was for my father's funeral Mass - just over five years ago.  And despite all of my years of indignity and distaste, I found the (still!) familiar service soothing. The sights and sounds of my old Church... comforting.

And then life went on.