Because it’s Good Friday and I have been raised as Roman Catholic (I’m Italian, after all), I thought this could be a good day to tell my story with religion at large.
Growing up in Switzerland where Catholics weren’t the absolute majority, and having attended mixed masses of Catholics and Protestants, when I did my First Communion (1975) I was indeed very Catholic. Mr le Curé was a great old man who brought bread from Palestine and handed me an ivory cross for my First Communion that came straight from Jerusalem. He could keep children still for one-hour-and-a-half-long masses! 🙂
the ivory cross from Jerusalem
I loved Christmas and our Nativity scene with Santons de Provence. I loved Jesus. I loved the world.
Then I came back to The Roman Catholic Country, where the Pope lives, and was so disappointed with masses that a couple of years after Confirmation (1979), I stopped going to church altogether.
Since then I go only for weddings, funerals and baptisms. I don’t think the Church today is following Jesus’s teachings.
I now have my own form of spirituality. I believe in God and Jesus and my poor Guardian Angel with a nervous breakdown, but I don’t believe the Church has any right to dictate anything to anyone. I add some Asian beliefs such as karma, chakra and reincarnation, and I’m following my own path to enlightment, whatever that means! 😉
I picked up my copy of the New Testament, given to me for my Confirmation over thirty years ago, and am slowly wading into it – I don’t think I ever read it all, so curiosity it taking me through it. As for the Bible, it’s not on my TBR list yet (sorry, Janna! ;-)).
So now I pray, try to be a radiant center of divine love, accept my humanity and wait for what’s to come. Times are quickly shifting and I do believe the Age of the Aquarius is the age of truth: see how those false myths and castles of lies are crumbling down these days? 😉
Hopefully soon I won’t be requested to add subtext because people say one thing, think another and do a third! I’ve been told my characters are too straightforward – sorry, I have been writing what I know! 😀
God bless you all and have a wonderful Easter (or a great weekend if you’re not Christian)! 🙂
Barbara G.Tarn - writer 
Joleene Naylor
/ 22/04/2011I once read the entire old testament and most of the New testament (i refuse to pay any attention to Paul’s letters. i think he started out right but as he progresses I think he got off track, like his original story of being “saved” is very humble and by the end he has a fantastic tale where the glory of God broke through the clouds and labeled him the chosen one…) and a lot of it makes for dry reading (Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Numbers especially!) but it was an interesting insight.
I was raised Episcopalian, but I quit going to church for the most part after I was 17. Hubby and I found a nice one locally for a little while but the priest retired and the new one didn’t catch my interest, so i quit going.
Nice to find someone else who believes in both God, Jesus and reincarnation and karma 🙂 I think that really, all the religions in the world are the same religion with different names and, like the game telephone, over the centuries things have changed in different ways among the different groups. But, the core principals are all the same.
LikeLike
Barb
/ 22/04/2011yes, especially in monoteistic religions the core is the same. It’s just the human interpretation through the centuries that ruined it all! 😦
LikeLike
Jai Joshi
/ 22/04/2011Happy Easter!
Jai
LikeLike
Barb
/ 23/04/2011Thank you! What do YOU celebrate? 😉
LikeLike
Nancy
/ 23/04/2011I have to wonder how many former Catholics are sitting on the sidelines now wondering why they practiced Catholicism for as long as they did.
I attended 12 years of Catholic School and of course went to Mass every Sunday. Back when I was practicing, you couldn’t attend Mass on Saturday night. After my first husband was killed in Vietnam, I stopped going to Church. I really never went back.
I get upset when the Church asks for money…..money…and more money and there are still people starving in the world….many people, even in the US, who are poor and homeless and yet the Pope in Rome has everything he could possibly want and then some. Let’s not forget the Pope-mobile and all those jewels.
I feel that the Church should be embarrassed when a show comes to town and it is called “The Vatican Treasures”. Please tell me that I am wrong but wasn’t Jesus a poor man who went around preaching of God’s love and helping to feed the hungry etc? What happened?
When birth control is allowed since it is helping the curb the over-population of the world and priests stop molesting little boys (fool around with grown women instead), then I might give the Catholic Church another look. In the meantime, I think organized religion is a business not a non-profit religious organization.
But then everyone a right to their own opinion and if attending church and obeying their laws makes some people feel better….more power to them !
I will remember the ultimate sacrifice that Jesus made for us all in my own quiet private way.
LikeLike
Barb
/ 23/04/2011The Church has failed and forgotten Jesus’s message. He’s mad at them for becoming like those dreaded Jew priests.
I totally agree with you, and want to spend Easter on my own for this very reason.
And if I ever get married, it probably won’t be in a church! 😉
LikeLike