I was born and raised into a very religious family, of Catholic denomination. I grew up seeing my mom praying every day and going to church every Sunday. We were taught to love and respect God and the day of our First Holy Communion was eagerly awaited, not for the party or the gifts, but for the real meaning of the sacrament. We were happy Catholic kids and practiced our faith in a most respectful way, not only to God but to our parents who were happy to see how their religious teachings were making good people of us.

Then in my teenager years things changed a little and I had many confrontations with mom who was always upset when I preferred to stay at home watching a movie or talking to friends, rather than going to church to “give God just 20 minutes of my life”, as she stated. The fights got worse and worse every time and I ended up telling her that I didn’t think going to church every Sunday was going to save me from hell and that I had an open mind about religions. Yet, she forced me to go and I went just to be distracted when the priest was giving his sermon.

Then I turned 18 and she couldn’t do much about it because I was an adult and she couldn’t force me to go to church, although I did, not very often though. My concept of God, religion and how we should live our faith became very personal and although I respected the teachings of the Catholic church, I have to admit that I became very cold in that sense. During my adult years (10 to be exact) I’ve stated that I have a very personal relationship with God and that I don’t think following any kind of ritual will make it better or worse… My mom finally understood this, but told me that one day I would go and look for a way to channel my love for our Creator.

The time has come when I’ve realized that all those teachings I received from my parents and at school with the nuns, are the ones which fulfill my expectations and I want to practice my Catholic faith in every sense. Being married to someone who is extremely cold faith-wise (for socio-historical reasons), it gives me no option… I have to start this task alone, but I have to be strong, decided and wise, but most of all: very personal.

So today I’ve read again the Parable of the Prodigal Son, about the father being happy because his long gone son came back and somehow I think that somewhere out there Someone is going to be happy to have me practicing my Catholic beliefs again. I could go to any other church and it would be the same because my problem is that I wasn’t channeling my faith in any way and I was letting my love for God be in some kind of limbo.

Why Catholic? Because it suits me well. I’m looking forward to going to church tomorrow! Meanwhile I’ll keep on learning about other beliefs because the paths are many, but the goal is the same.