Hw # 54

I grew up going to church every Sunday of my life from the moment I was a crying baby to today and probably will continue to until the end of my life. This was something very important to my parents because they had been taken to church every week and had been passed down this religion, so they wanted to do the same with their own kids. The priest at my church talked of this way parents would enforce their religion on their kids back in the day and now due to growth of technology and many more ideas taught in school he believed that these days were over. He told me how one time a young couple came into the church that had been standing shyly in the back, so he approached them. He asked them what they were observing and they said how beautiful the church was. Thus leading him to ask them what they believed in, the young man quickly responded science, he spoke of how science can explain everything even life. The young girl responded she was a Buddhist. This reminded me of a part I read in Curtains, of author saying how believing in something whether it in science or Catholicism it keeps us going on with our day, to believe that there is an explanation for life, for death and the afterlife or else we’d just be shriveled up in a corner.

Then in a text we read in church on the Sunday of mother's day it connected to the whole aspect of the afterlife and Heaven from A reading from the Act of the Apostles 2:14, 22 – 23, it said “ I saw the lord ever before me, with him at my right hand I shall not be disturbed. Therefore my heart has been glad and my tongue has been exulted; my flesh too, will dwell in hope, because you will not abandon my soul to the netherworld, nor will you suffer your holy one to see corruption. You have made known to me the paths of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence” (Liturgical Press 253). In the last sentence David speaks of how God will not abandon him into the “netherworld”; nothingness the minute he dies but instead will go to heaven at his side. This is the part of this religion that is comforting to the catholic people or even those who just believe the idea of a Heaven because it is nice to believe that death is not the end of everything. This thought can be overwhelming because anyone who loves life and living, don’t want to think that after death there is just a gaping hole of nothingness. This according to Bible and the priest the way you go to Heaven, if you follow the path of God and if one ever commits a sin must confess to be cleansed of our sins when the day comes to meet God.

Then my little brother told me about a place called the Purgatory that he was taught about in Sunday school by a catechist, where he has to attend to be confirmed. She told him of how when someone dies in an accident and/or dies without having their sins forgiven; they will not go to Heaven or Hell but a place called the Purgatory. Where the person’s soul (soul is what goes to Heaven or Hell while our body rots and eaten by worms), remains in the " in between" between Heaven and Hell while family below prays for the person’s forgiveness of their sins and if they regretted their sins they will go to Heaven. If they did not they would go to Hell. In Sunday school, children are taught fully in depth all the ideas of this religion and have their questions answered to actually know about the religion they are practicing.