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Being of French-Canadian descent also means being raised Catholic. I grew up as a low-key Catholic. We went to Mass every Sunday, and generally made it to the other Holy Days of Obligation as well, but that was about the extent of it. I had my first confession in third grade, I believe, as part of catechism; however, my parents never went to confession and never suggested we should go. My earliest memory in connection with going to Mass is of deciding it was boring and wanting to stay home and watch cartoons or play with my toys; I remember kicking up a fuss about it more than once, and being pretty surly while at church. However, my church had a “folk Mass” with a group singing contemporary songs; they were actually pretty good, and that eventually caught my interest and made Mass bearable. My interest in playing guitar (which I never ended up learning) was spurred by seeing this group of musicians every week, although I realize now the one that really interested me was the electric bass—at the time they were all just guitars to me, but the bassist had the electric one while the other two were acoustic, and clearly the electric “guitar” was the cool one.
As I mentioned in topic #4, due to my need for speech therapy I did not go through the Catholic school system, while my older sister did through junior high and my younger did through elementary, so I didn’t have that sort of cultural acclimation either. We did all go to catechism (Sunday school) before Mass. Catechism was always pretty boring. It was also a little weird for me, as there were a couple kids I knew from my public elementary school but mostly it was kids I’d met in kindergarden who were still in the Catholic school system, and I felt disconnected from them. I got in a little trouble once as I looked in the desk I was sitting at, found a comic book of the movie Alien, and kept pulling it out to read it instead of paying attention. I also remember at least once dawdling so much on the way to the school, playing with the snowbanks on the side of the road, that my dad came by in the car (I can’t remember if he was specifically looking for me or just found me on his way to get doughnuts) and yelled at me.
For the older kids, catechism switched after fifth grade from Sunday mornings before Mass to Tuesday evenings. That, however, was also when I moved from the Cub Scout troop to Boy Scouts, and my local Boy Scout troop met on Tuesday evenings as well. My parents said I’d be going to catechism, I insisted no, I wanted to go to Boy Scouts, and that was it: they didn’t fight about it, I went to Boy Scouts. I had no further religious education until tenth or eleventh grade, when it was time to start preparing for confirmation; fortunately those classes were on a different night. My standout memory from confirmation classes is of going on an overnight retreat where, once again, I was with a bunch of kids I didn’t really know—there were two retreat nights, and all my high school friends were put in the other group on the other night—and I mostly stayed by myself. In due course I was confirmed, and I did feel good about it, it was something I felt I should do, but I didn’t actually have any greater interest in my faith and religion than before.
I’m pressed for time so I’m going to call that a full entry—it is over 600 words and nearly an hour of thinking and writing—and save my thoughts on being an adult and Catholic for another topic.
As I mentioned in topic #4, due to my need for speech therapy I did not go through the Catholic school system, while my older sister did through junior high and my younger did through elementary, so I didn’t have that sort of cultural acclimation either. We did all go to catechism (Sunday school) before Mass. Catechism was always pretty boring. It was also a little weird for me, as there were a couple kids I knew from my public elementary school but mostly it was kids I’d met in kindergarden who were still in the Catholic school system, and I felt disconnected from them. I got in a little trouble once as I looked in the desk I was sitting at, found a comic book of the movie Alien, and kept pulling it out to read it instead of paying attention. I also remember at least once dawdling so much on the way to the school, playing with the snowbanks on the side of the road, that my dad came by in the car (I can’t remember if he was specifically looking for me or just found me on his way to get doughnuts) and yelled at me.
For the older kids, catechism switched after fifth grade from Sunday mornings before Mass to Tuesday evenings. That, however, was also when I moved from the Cub Scout troop to Boy Scouts, and my local Boy Scout troop met on Tuesday evenings as well. My parents said I’d be going to catechism, I insisted no, I wanted to go to Boy Scouts, and that was it: they didn’t fight about it, I went to Boy Scouts. I had no further religious education until tenth or eleventh grade, when it was time to start preparing for confirmation; fortunately those classes were on a different night. My standout memory from confirmation classes is of going on an overnight retreat where, once again, I was with a bunch of kids I didn’t really know—there were two retreat nights, and all my high school friends were put in the other group on the other night—and I mostly stayed by myself. In due course I was confirmed, and I did feel good about it, it was something I felt I should do, but I didn’t actually have any greater interest in my faith and religion than before.
I’m pressed for time so I’m going to call that a full entry—it is over 600 words and nearly an hour of thinking and writing—and save my thoughts on being an adult and Catholic for another topic.
