Spring Time Memories

This morning at the coffee shop the television was tuned in to Italian TV.  But it wasn’t because of a football (soccer) game as it usually is.  What was being broadcast, from Rome, was Easter Week kick-off ceremonies.  Ornate pomp and ritual; fancy cloaks and big hats; because that’s what the faithful expect.  It brought back childhood memories of my early religious training.

I was born into a Catholic family, Irish-Catholic on my father’s side, Polish-Catholic on my mother’s.  I was raised in my mother’s household, and I attended St Helen School.  At St Helen’s I was taught my catechism by ferocious Felician nuns (they’re from the order of St Felix, but there are several St Felix’s, it’s difficult to know which one).  It wasn’t so much teaching with these sisters, as it was us students reciting memorized responses to the theological questions posed in our catechism.

Every catechism from grade one through grade eight began with the same two questions:

    Who made you?  God made me.

    Why did God make you?  God made me to worship Him, and to share his glory in heaven.

This God I was taught about was a stern task-master.  Everything was fine if you did exactly what you were supposed to do, if you didn’t, you faced eternal punishment.  That just didn’t seem fair to me.  And I guess I’m not the only one that felt that way, since Confession was subsequently invented.  But we didn’t hear so much about God; it was more about Jesus.  And here it gets a little confusing.

There is only One God. It says so in the Ten Commandments.  However, this God has three parts.  There’s God, there’s His Son, and there’s a Holy Spirit part.  Jesus is His Son, and Jesus was also a man.  I wondered: if Jesus was the Son of God and a man, couldn’t we all be Children of God?  But speculations of this sort were not encouraged.  Instead we learned all about guilt.

In the Bible stories Jesus is portrayed as a wise, and loving, compassionate teacher; my elementary school teachers were anything but.

I do look forward to the Easter season however, but not for religious reasons.  The Easter Bunny reminds me how much I love hasenpfeffer.