Faith & Confirmation

So, as I mentioned in my first post, I was confirmed in the Catholic Church in 2005. I also mentioned that we had to pick a confirmation name and write a report on it. What name did I pick, you ask? A name that now could not be more ironic: Faith. Even at 14 I didn't have very much faith so I obviously didn't pick it because it described me. I picked it because confirmation names must be picked in honor of a saint. There are over 10,000 saints and not one of them was named Buffy. Quelle suprise. There is, however, a saint Faith (I have no memory of what earned her her sainthood, so don't ask). I wrote my report on her and in my statement of why I chose that name, I very clearly stated that it was because one of my favorite characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer was called Faith and she was totally badass. OK. I didn't say badass to the church. But that pretty much summarizes what I did say. Now, I laugh every time I think about picking this name because in the religion which requires the utmost faith, I have none. I don't have faith in the theology, the system, or most of the people.

For my service project to the church I acted as an usher for about three months. Basically, all I did was collect the money and release people from their seats for communion. I had to go to church anyways so standing up and walking around during the mass was totally worth my service hours. Best part about ushering: the couple who was in charge of it have a beautiful son. He is a year older than I am and I got to sit next to him for three wonderful months. Of course I was secretly hoping he'd want to "go out" with me, I was a 14 year old girl, people. (I'm 87% sure he's an atheist now, so church did us both wonders.)

I won't go into detail about the trinity again, just going to reiterate that it was a serious problem for me. I just kept hoping and hoping as we got closer to the actual ceremony that it would finally click. I had anxiety over it. Then I just gave up and resolved that I would understand it when I was older - like it was a calculus problem or something and I was only ready for algebra. Well, I got a 5 on the AP Calc test and I still don't get it. And I finally figured out, it simply isn't possible. The solution does not exist, DNE.

So you might be wondering now, why did you go through with it? Why not just say no thanks and not be confirmed? Easier said than done, mon amis. How am I supposed to tell my Italian father and grandfather that I don't wanna be Catholic? If I had, they probably would have just laughed and said I was 14 and that I didn't know what I wanted. This wasn't like not wanting to go to school. If you're not ready to make a life long commitment, then you shouldn't do it. No one would have let me get married. So why did I have to confirm my faith? But that's not the way things work in the Catholic Church or my family. To my family, and to a lot of other people, the Catholic Church is about tradition, and you don't monkey with tradition.


However, I did make one attempt to get out of it, but it wasn't the most well planned strategy. It was sort of an accident. About three or four weeks before the ceremony, my mom took me out dress shopping. I was very cranky and didn't like anything she/we picked out. Then we saw the director of religious education - a woman who to this day does not like me; the feeling's mutual - and I was not thrilled. So then in the dressing room I'm getting really agitated by it all and my mom looks at me and asks, "Do you even want to be confirmed?" Almost immediately, I responded with wide eyes, "No." She sighed. The next month I was confirmed.

I don't think I will ever in my life forget my confirmation. I was sitting on the left side of the church, about four rows back and my confirmation sponsor was sitting on my left. She was wearing blue and I was wearing pink. When the bishop got to the part about becoming adults and what a huge step we were all making, I peeked to the right and looked at everyone. Did I really think that anyone was going to jump up and say, "Forget this!" and walk out? No. But I wanted to see if anyone else looked as doubtful as I felt. To my surprise, everyone looked so calm, sure of themselves, and excited for the next part of their lives. "Crap," I thought. "This is it."

There was a party back at our house afterwards. And everyone congratulated me. At least there was food.