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POST 500 -Musings on my Catholic Childhood

POST 500 -Musings on my Catholic Childhood

Last updated on: March 17, 2023 at 6:26 am by Kristin Wilson

POST 500 -Musings on my Catholic Childhood 2023-03-17T06:26:59-05:00 Kristin Wilson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

My writing partner the Carmelite (who doesn’t write that much anymore) is gracing us with a blog post that I requested for my birthday that was on January 27th. And now on what would be the 102nd birthday of my father Harold Wilson here is Kristin telling us her

Musings on her Catholic Childhood.

I have a lot of memories from my childhood.
Some involve my misunderstandings about my religion.
I am a cradle Catholic.
We went to Mass on weekends and Holy Days.
We observed the Church Seasons.

However, as a child I did not understand why we say “Our Father who aren’t in heaven”.
Clearly God was everywhere, including heaven.

I also thought the song Amazing Grace was about Mary, the mother of Jesus.
We do after all say “Hail Mary full of grace”.
I guess I did not really even listen to or understand the words very well.

Then again there was the time very soon before my first communion that my mother gave me a bag of Doritos to pass out to my siblings and a few friends.
Instead of passing them out I played Extraordinary Minister of the Eucharist.
Yeah, our friends were not Christian at all.

When I was about eight, I was still a bit clueless.
I decided one Sunday, just on a whim, that I was going to keep Communion in my mouth as long as possible.
He had not completely dissolved so I kept the Communion off to the side for quite some time.
I even ate a donut while doing so.
I proudly showed my parents this wonderful accomplishment of mine.
Needless to say no one was impressed.
I swallowed right away and never tried that again, rightfully so.

I wanted to be famous.
Why, who knows.
I decided that when I was about to die I would have a cross, a big one, laying in the grassy yard.
Obviously I could only nail one hand onto the wood, which was pressure treated in my mind.
For my feet and the left hand I would just slip them under some duct tape already wrapped around the wood leaving just the right amount for my feet and left hand.
Then I would lay there in my usual clothes, die and be famous like Jesus.
After all He was famous for dying on a cross.

One evening while my sisters and I were seated at the kitchen table with my parents my twin sister Kathleen asked, quite innocently, “What’s a virgin?”
My parents looked at each other. Maybe they were surprised she did not know by the sixth grade.
They turned her question back on us after my twin sister explained how one of her classmates was telling everyone that “all the people in this room are virgins, except the teacher.”
(The classmate was a girl who had her own family challenges we did not learn about until she was almost ready to graduate high school.)
My mother asked us what we thought a virgin is. When she asked me I piped us and said,”Like a saint. Like Mary or something.”
They did, soon after they had their fun, tell us the real answer.
I do not think they went into detail, perhaps because we had a younger sister sitting at the dinner table and anyway it was dinner time.

I do want to thank my dear husband Mark.
We started this writing endeavor together but he has done so much more writing here than I have.
Great job Mark.
Thank you all who follow Catholic Bard.
You have just read post # 500!
God bless you all,

Mark and Kristin Wilson

Traveling through Ever-Changing Ireland MARCH 17, 2021

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