I've got to get my Sunday School lesson together this morning. I enjoy teaching Sunday School. In having to prepare to teach from the Bible, I must first read it, reflect upon it, apply it, or try to apply to my life, evaluate it, and sythesize it. All this I do, what most teachers do, when they find themselves having to teach something to another. Teaching about Jesus, the life of early Christians, the history of the Hebrews, their stories as they act upon or react to God's Word, His commands, His plan, and His callings is a task that takes preparation, thought and time. I would do these things even if I didn't have to teach Sunday School, so why not teach it? That's how I became a Sunday School teacher.
When I was a kid, I didn't even know what Sunday School was. Being brought up a Catholic, I remember attending catechism classes briefly for my First Holy Communion, and again when I made my Confirmation. My sister, a year and a half younger than myself, and I attended these classes together. But it's the only classes I remember attending. No Sunday School.
My mother was a Catholic... is a Catholic. When we were kids (there were seven of us), she rarely took us to church. We walked to church on Sunday, my sister and sometimes my two younger brothers, when they were old enough to do this, but generally, it was my sister and I walking off to the nearest Catholic Church. Mom would give us each a dime to put in the collection basket. Money was hard to come by in my family. I didn't realize that we were considered "poor" back then, and even when we lived in the projects, I never understood what the projects were for, and actually have many fond and wonderful memories of our friends and neighbors there. But with a family of seven children, money had to have been tight on my dad's Airman First Class salary, and mom trying to bring a few extra dollars babysitting a toddler or two.
With so many little ones, and dad not going to church, it was very difficult for mom to take us all. We had to dress up for church back then, with nice shoes, frilly dress, and a lacy veil-like head covering. Those were the earliest times of going to church that I remember, when confession was on Saturdays and you had to fast for 8 hours before receiving Holy Communion.
I remember making the sign of the cross every time we walked past a statue of Mother Mary standing in a yard. We did that several times on the way to church whenwe lived in Manchester, New Hampshire. Lots of statues up there. It was done very reverently and respectfully because, after all, she represented the mother of Jesus, and she was a Holy Saint, the Virgin Mother. She inspired young girls and mothers alike. But as I made the sign of the cross, and probably my sister too, we had no idea what virgin meant. We just knew she was the Holy Mother and deserved to be honored and remembered for her role in Jesus' life.
Still, money seldom was put into my hand except to walk to the local store and pick up a loaf of bread or other staple when we ran out of such. The only other times I was given money was that dime on Sundays to put into the church basket. I did that faithfully until one day it occurred to me that I could stop at a store on the way to church and get two nickels for my dime, and further, I could buy some penny candy or gum for one nickel, and still have a nickel left over for the basket. I told my sister of the idea, and of course, she thought it was a good idea too. So we would stop and get the two nickels, go to church, put one nickel in the basket, and on the walk home we'd be so hungry by then from fasting for Communion, and we'd stop and spend the other nickel. I remember I didn't see it as cheating anyone, and Jesus knew we deserved it, and that we did put the nickel in the basket, afterall. I didn't tell anyone either. Therein lies the guilt that keeps a kid going to confession and going to church!
We did that for as long as we were given dimes, and only for as long as we lived in that area, which was about 2 years. We moved about every two years during the duration of my father's service in the USAF, so any bad habits I picked up in one place would be forgotten and forgiven by the time we got settled into our new place.
At other churches, as we moved from air base to air base, we became what I now refer to as drop-off kids. Mom or dad would drive us to a church because it was too far for us to walk, and they'd drive back to pick us up. I never liked doing that. No one spoke to us, no one took notice of my sister and myself as we sat by ourselves on the pews amongst strangers. We sang and participated and dropped our coins into the basket and sometimes we'd get into whisper arguments over who was sitting too close to the other. It didn't matter to anyone that we were there or not. No one paid us any mind at all. I think my belief and feelings for the church, and by association, God, started waning between 4th and 6th grade, when I started to feel invisible.
I remember our parents taking us to church when my dad was stationed in Berlin, Germany, at Templehof Central Air Base back in 1966-68 or thereabouts. By then I was in 7th and 8th grades. My youngest sister was about 3 years old at the time. There was a chapel on the base, and we attended Mass on most Sundays. By then we (the older kids) looked forward to going to Mass because it was an opportunity to get out and do something that wasn't school, and we were quite old enough and capable of getting dressed and helping around the house so mom only had to worry about getting herself and the youngest ready.
I wasn't into the worshiping God thing back then. I mean, I went through all the motions and gestures and recitations at the Mass, the prayers, the singing, and listening to scripture, but I didn't really understand that I was worshiping our Lord, that I had to worship Him, or that I would ever want to worship Him. I thought everyone went to church, but I never really knew what was going on because I didn't pay attention to the words at that time. I know we sang songs from the hymn book, we repeated words in unison, we prayed, we made confession, and we had Holy Communion. By the time I was a teen-ager, I wanted to know more, I had questions about everything, I became aware of the words, and wondered what they meant, and how could that wafer possibly be the Body of Christ? And why couldn't I go to my friend's church? And why do we have the ashes on Ash Wednesday rubbed into our foreheads? And why do we genuflect? or cross ourselves? or have confession? And what about babies? What sin could they possibly be born with? I didn't get original sin, or venial sins. Or purgatory or limbo. Even though these questions were answered in some prepared response in the Catechism, I felt empty and void of any personal involvement with God or with His Son, Jesus. I needed more, and I wasn't getting it at Church. Not the churches I had been attending. So I left it. Just quit going when I left home for college.
No one tried to talk me into continuing seeking my faith. Even at the university, as a Junior, I made another attempt to reconnect with my faith and my Church. I walked into a Catholic student center. The priest (or student priest or counselor, I wasn't sure which one he was) showed little interest in my being there. Maybe he was waiting for me to make the first move, ask the question, say something, but I was ashamed for not having been at church for two years, and didn't know where to start, so I just stood around the lobby, looking at brochures and trying to appear curious. He didn't ask me to come back, nor invite me to the student meetings, and I took his indifference as disinterest. Certainly I can't blame him for my ensuing retreat from the faithful path my mother had first instilled in me as a child, but it was one of those crossroads I came to where I chose to turn in another direction because I failed to see the signs that showed the Way.
I won't tell the whole story of how I returned to Christ in this entry because I that's a long, but interesting, story. However, I did return, wholeheartedly, just not to the Catholic church of my upbringing. With apologies to my mother who did everything she knew to do to make sure her kids went to church, even when she couldn't go with us, I returned to worshiping the Lord in the United Methodist Church, where having a personal relationship with Christ is understood, where people are the disciples of Christ, and their hands and hearts and feet are the hands and heart and feet of Christ, where being involved is expected, where drop-off kids are not invisible, and worship is a necessary discipline of the Christ follower.
This is not to say that the Catholic people don't have personal relationships with their Lord. I'm sure many do. I know there are many great disciples and saints among the Catholic church as there are among the Protestant churches. I just didn't see it or experience it when I was growing up.
Sadly, I didn't demonstrate my present understanding and faith for my own son when he was younger because I was still a non-church person up until he was a teenager. History does have a way of repeating itself.
So, now I have to go get my Sunday School lesson together. I can't think of any other way to spend Sunday morning unless it's in bed, sleeping late. Preparing for Sunday School helps get me out of bed, helps get me out into the world. And that is a good thing.
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