This is about the time that I became acquainted with Mormons, also known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS). I really wanted to belong to something that I could deeply believe in, not just a place to be entertained each Sunday. I realized with a shock that this life was a small part of eternity, and that it behooved me to concentrate more on that eternity. One night, as I lay in bed, I was hit with what was for me a startling truth: Life is really short and moving very quickly. It had great music, beautiful videos, and cute kids, but it was fifteen minutes into the service before God was even mentioned. I recall, for example, how once I attended my niece’s church for a Christmas service. And always I found myself disturbed by the fact that the congregations were centered on the preacher, the choir, and keeping the congregation entertained - but not really on God. I found in these congregations I attended very little, if any, theological substance or clearly defined standards or codes. Eventually and inevitably, however, I would realize that there wasn’t much beyond the “show.” I would join the individual congregation and denomination and try to become an active member. My experiences at all of them were similar.įor a few months, I would be enraptured by the “show” - the preaching, the music, the various presentations, the camaraderie of the congregation. Over the following fifteen years, through my twenties and early thirties, I moved from Presbyterian to “Christian New Age” to Lutheran congregations.

I went to graduate school in Library Science and found myself suddenly yearning to go to a church. God had given me a great interest in other religions, and that created a desire in me to be part of something larger than myself and to believe. And my anti-Christian ideas did not last long. I found that atheism and secularism provided a relief to the fear I had felt all my life, and I rejected Christianity as a tool of ignorance and repression.įortunately, God did not desert me as I had Him. I went on to a state university, and while there I broke away from the Church completely. I was bored with the Mass and was already drifting away. Unfortunately, by then I was in the rebellious stage. Things changed when I went to a “progressive” and rather intellectual Catholic high school, where Christianity was presented in a much more positive light. We came to believe that breaking any of these rules - or the many, many others - would send us straight to hell. We knew that the Host was the Body and Blood of Christ and that we could not eat or drink anything before receiving it. No one, for example, ever explained to me the great miracle of God’s love that is the Eucharist. Instead, the nuns concentrated on filling us with fear: I was taught to the rules of the Church to avoid hell, rather than to please God. Like everyone I knew, I went to Catholic school, but from first grade on, I cannot recall ever hearing there about the love and mercy of God. I am a cradle Catholic, born and raised in the 1960s in Los Angeles among an extended Italian family. Resources for Non-Catholic Clergy and Ministers.Bible and the Catechism in a Year Reading Plan.

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