I’m going to question your logic.
A few months ago I brought up me being kicked out of religion class while I attended a private Catholic school.
Today is a great day to tell you how as an eight grader I was banned from religion class for asking a question.
My sister and I attended private school for grades 6-8th, the majority of the school was made up of Non-Catholics so religion really wasn’t something that I thought about until Friday when the entire school attended Mass.
This wasn’t a big deal because it was a guaranteed 45 (you could set your watch to it) minute break for me every friday morning and during Lent Mass lasted longer.
After the first few visits to Mass I observed somethings that were completely different and odd to me coming from a Pentecostal background.
First of all the “sermon” was the exact same every friday.
After the first semester that I attended the school I was able to say the entire “sermon” word for word with the Priest.
I want to make it clear that I’m not saying there was anything wrong with this procedure but it was completely different from what I was used to which got me questioning other aspects of the Catholic religion.
The majority of my questions were answered which was all that I was looking for, but one question actually got me kicked out of religion class for an entire year.
During Lent (I believe) Catholics say the Hail Mary excessively (to me) using the Rosary (Hail Mary is said for every bead on the Rosary).
I have always been taught that I’m not supposed to worship a false god or pray to a statue but here I am in religion class doing exactly what I’ve done told all my life not to do.
Faced with this issue I spoke with one of the preachers at my church about this issue.
He agreed with me and told me that if I really wanted to know the answer to the question that I should ask my religion teacher.
So I went to my religion teacher privately and asked why was it that we prayed to Mary and wouldn’t this be considered praying to a false god or statue?
The answer that I got was “Mary is the mother of Jesus so it’s ok.”
I was well aware of the signifigance of Mary but how are we justifying starting a prayer by saying “Hail Mary?”
So I was once again told by my teacher that because it was the mother of Jesus that we’re not praying to a statue, we’re saying a prayer to the mother of Jesus.
This made NO SENSE at all seeing as how we faced the statue of Mary, held a Rosary and said the Hail Mary at least 10 times every morning during Lent.
Not only that but not once had I ever been taught to start a prayer with anything beyond “Father God” or “Jesus.”
Since I wasn’t satisfied with my teachers answer I went to the man that should not have had any issue answering a twelve year olds question.
The priest gave me basically the same answer and looked at me like I was stupid for asking him why we pray to a statue.
After I got what he considered his answer I dropped the subject until my evil delightful principal called me into her office for one of our many talks.
The first thing that she said to me was “Mary is the mother of Jesus, now go to detention.”
There was no need for me to even argue because I knew this woman had a warped sense of reality and always felt as though she was above answering to anyone (she was crazy).
So there I was, stuck in detention for the entire first period of the day for the remainder of the year for asking a question!
God forbid that I ask a question regarding religion in religion class.
The craziest part of this entire situation is the fact that they expected me to do the damn religion homework still!
The reason that I wrote about this tonight is because if something makes no logical sense to me then I’m going to question it.
It’s nothing personal against whatever or whomever I’m questioning but I want to know why it is that we’re expected to operate a certain way.
Question everything and leave nothing to chance, especially if it doesn’t seem logical.