Amethyst Olive
Sam Schrager, Stacey Davis
3/5/15

Turning Point

The word “God” has a variety of meanings to different people. To some it means fear, to others it means faith. When I was a little girl, the word “God” was a notion of comfort; a force in the sky that did good things for good people. A theory I didn’t question until my first communion.
My grandma used to tell me many stories about God and the many miracles he performed. She would tell me that everything we had and everything we were was because of him. I was enchanted, completely content with the promise of a good life and the eventual entrance to heaven for being a holy person.
By the time I was ready to begin school, it was decided that I would attend the Catholic school “Holy Rosary” where I would continue my education about God and what it meant to be a true Catholic girl. While I was there, I learned things like the Ten Commandments, the Stations of the Cross, and all about the many different Saints. What I remember most however is the year my 2nd grade teacher began to prepare us for our first communion.
Every day there was a time when my teacher would have the whole class sit on a giant blue carpet in the corner of the room. She would then sit down in a chair set in front of us and pull out various papers that held all of the information we would need for one of the most important days of our lives: the day we committed ourselves to Catholicism and confessed our sins to the priest for the first time. I was mostly excited about the pretty white dress I would get to wear and the piece of cake that would be waiting for me after the ceremony.
However it was during these times in class that I began to start having many questions, like “how do you really know there is a heaven,” or “if God forgives us of our sins, then why is there a hell?” For every question I had I would receive the very same answer: You just have to have faith. Every time I was told this, I only grew more and more confused, which only evoked more questions.
Soon enough, the day of my first communion came and I decided that since I would be committing myself officially, God would present me with the answers I had been searching for. My grandparents were so proud. I slipped into my white dress and veil, buckled my new white dress shoes and began my venture to the chapel. When I arrived, all of my classmates were there, looking just as sharp. I dipped my fingers in the holy water, walked down the aisle, kneeled at the pew and waited for the ceremony to begin- the whole time contemplating what I would confess to the priest, wondering if I would be forgiven and be worthy of God’s grace.
Finally, it was my turn. I went into the confessional booth and the priest began his speech. I confessed that I had been mean to my younger sisters that week, and he told me I was forgiven by the Lord and directed me to do ten Hail Mary’s, in which I immediately obliged. To complete the sacrament, I was to taste the flesh of Christ, which just tasted like flavorless bread that sort of melted on your tongue; and the blood of Christ, which I was relieved to discover, was actually just grape juice.
When the ceremony was over, I felt a sense of relief- but not because I now held the answers I was so eager to receive, but more so because it had been a long ceremony and I was ready to go home. The day I thought would bring me more answers only again filled me with even more questions that could not be answered. How could this be, could every and any sin just be forgiven with a ten Hail Mary? Could something as dark as murder be the same worth as my bullying? Nothing was what it seemed. The flesh wasn’t flesh, the blood wasn’t blood, and my confessions lead me to no real answers and no real sense of a connection to God. I could feel the enchantment that once filled me so begin to slowly fade away.
This was one of the very first turning points in my life. The moment I began to question everything I was ever taught about life and death. I began to realize that nobody really had the answers. The comfort I once knew began to dwindle. I no longer had confidence in what I was committing myself to, because nobody gave me a solid answer about what it all really meant. I did, however, begin to find comfort in the fact that although I wasn’t sure if anything was true or what I believed, I still knew that I wanted to be a good person and I had the power to do that.
Over the years I learned to develop my own truths about the world and life and death. I took values form the Catholicism that I liked and left the other ideas and rules that I didn’t. To this day, the word “God” is still a comfort and it still brings me hope. It’s just the definition of “God” that has changed for me over the years.