Caitlin Bray April 19th, 2017

Confession of Faith
I grew up in a small town of which was a square mile. There was one church that

everyone went to, a Catholic Church called St. Jerome’s. Because of this, everyone in my town

was Catholic, and if you weren’t you were looked at funny when you asked questions. My entire

school ranged from Pre-school all the way to 12th grade in one building, and was the size of a

normal town’s high school. I grew up with the same kids I graduated with, give or take a few

who moved away or moved in. We all went to school together every day, would say goodbye at

the end of the day around 2:30. However, on Tuesdays we would see each other again at 6:00, at

our Catholic Religious Education school. Every single one of us attended. If someone wasn’t

there it was strange, it was just what we were supposed to do. We were supposed to go to regular

school during the day, and religion at the end of the day. That’s just how it was. I remember

being so bored all the time and just wanting to go home. I never really cared for it, I only went

because my mom made me. We had to go in order to make our first communion, our first

penance, and our confirmation.

During the years of Religious Education my mom would drag me to church every Sunday

morning at 10:00, never without me putting up a fight, and I would sit there and end up falling

asleep. It just wasn’t for me. I never wanted to go to church, mostly because I just didn’t want to

wake up in the morning, I am very lazy, and I love to sleep. I also just found it so boring to go

and sit in those uncomfortable benches and listen to an old man read from an old book and listen

to ladies sing at the highest pitch possible. None of that was ever appealing to me. It still isn’t.

Throughout the years, I have increasingly stopped going to church. I had practices on Sunday

mornings for field hockey, or I was away for tournaments or cheerleading competitions, so I

always had an excuse, but honestly, I was just glad I didn’t have to deal with my mom irritating

me in the morning and trying to make me go to Church, knowing full-well that I am not going
Caitlin Bray April 19th, 2017

Confession of Faith
and that she had just woken me up for no reason. Of course, I will still go to church on

Christmas Eve and on Easter with my family, just because I really don’t care to listen to my

mom yell at me and tell me how terrible of a person I am on those days. I also still celebrate the

season of Lent, because I like the idea of giving up something, not only because of the actual

reason why, which is because Jesus Christ sacrificed his life on the cross, but to prove to myself

that I can live without something that I enjoy having around or doing.

What do I believe in? To be completely honest, I don’t really know what I believe in. I’m

not saying that I don’t think there is a God, or some sort of higher power out there, I am just

unsure of the role that God plays. I don’t think it is important to go to church every Sunday and

pray with a bunch of people you don’t know. Why can’t that just be done in the comfort of your

own home? To me, going to church every week is just so that you can prove that you believe in

something and so that everyone sees that you go. I guess as some sort of self-re-assurance. That’s

all it is in my town, anyways. You were go to church every Sunday morning and if you weren’t

seen there would be questions at school come Monday morning. Going to church has become

this big chore, and nobody likes to do chores. Whenever I’m struggling with something or

wishing for something good to happen, people tell me “God will help if you pray to him”.

Nothing that I have ever prayed to God for help about has happened. I used to pray that God

would save my grandpa who was sick in the hospital, he died. I used to pray that I would do well

on a test that I would end up failing. I used to pray that a friend would stop being mad at me, and

I ended up never speaking to them again. I used to pray that my current crush would have a crush

on me as well, and that never happened. I always hear all these stories about miracles that people

believe have been sent from heaven that have literally saved people’s lives, and I just wonder to

myself, “If God can save that person from a car crash by making their car break down, why
Caitlin Bray April 19th, 2017

Confession of Faith
couldn’t he help me get an A on that test I needed so desperately to pass that class?” I’m not

saying I need to see something in order to believe it, but I have never been given a reason to

believe other than the fact that it’s the way I was raised by my mother and my hometown. It’s

hard for me to put my full trust in something that I don’t know will for sure have my back. I have

put way too much trust in people and beliefs in the past to be let down anymore.

After doing some research, I have come to the conclusion that the closest thing that I can

declare myself as is Agnostic, which believes that you cannot have any proof on the existence of

God, so you cannot claim faith, nor disbelief in God. I will never be able to tell my mother what

I truly believe, I think that she would have a heart attack. My brother and I are similar in our

beliefs, and she is having a hard enough time with dealing with him telling her how he feels. I

don’t plan on studying Agnosticism or finding an Agnostic Church, if those even exist, I still

don’t believe that I need to go to Church to believe in something.