At the end of my freshman year of high school, my mother came up to me and decided to sign me up for confirmation classes. I gave her this look as if I had smelled something bad. Sure, I went to mass, received communion, knelt for what seemed like three hours, and went to religion class at school. I had believed what was drilled into my head since the day I was born. I believed in God and that Jesus died and rose from the dead, pretty much all the facts that a good Catholic should know. The problem was that I did not feel that personal relationship with him, just an empty void. Rebecca, you have to put forth the effort. Rebecca, Jesus died for you, live for him. Rebecca, everything happens because of God! These statements and many more seemed to surround me at home. My family is seen as majorly religious to say the least. My mother was a eucharistic server, and my father proudly showed up at mass. The only time he didn’t participate was when the old ladies choir decided to sing every prayer in existence. That had been the routine growing up with reference to my religious life: go to eight thirty-mass, put my hand over my eyes, fall asleep, and then go home. So when my mother came out the blue and told me she signed me up for confirmation classes, my first thought was why would I need classes to receive something I have no emotional attachment to? I told her, okay, that I would go to satisfy her.
“Great!” She said. “Classes start in the beginning of your sophomore year.”
I let out a frustrated sigh and just accepted it.
Despite my religious household, my social life with my friends was quite the opposite.
When I was at home, God was the reason why everything happened. When my friends came over,  they saw this. Don’t misinterpret me wrong, I love and respect my friend’s beliefs and decisions, there  were just times at school when I would become frustrated. I would often receive comments like Oh, here she goes preaching again! How would your parents feel that you’re watching this? How would they feel that you’re doing this? In response, I would just roll my eyes, but I would feel hurt and a bit offended. Why did my parents beliefs bother them? Why did it inconvenience them to have sleepovers on Saturday then go to mass the next day? All of these factors in school and outside of school had put a heavy toll on me.
As time went on, Confirmation classes started.The classes were just a repeat of what I had already learned in religion class. All of the kids in my class were just people from my elementary school that I had never wished to see again. On the second month of class, a girl from my old school had walked in. She made eye contact with me and looked away as if I wasn’t there. Immediately, anger flared up in my stomach similar to hot lava. I suddenly thought Wow, I bet God loves this. Years ago, I was constantly tormented by her and decided to switch schools. After I left my old school, the angry feelings and grudges faded until I could barely remember them. Seeing her made all of those feeling come back in a tidal wave. I shook my head and wondered why I was so angry. Since then, I decided to not make eye contact or any indication that I had seen her. This had worked for the most part, but I was still angry.
Midway through the course, the time came to pick a sponsor. We were supposed to pick someone who would always be a guide for us. I had decided to not choose anyone from my family, who were fighting, I did not want that in my future. I wanted someone who could be able to stay out of the petty arguments that they seemed to always have. I didn’t understand how a religious family always seemed to find something to fight over. I decided that the perfect person would be my Uncle John. I felt that if anyone could help me with that relationship with God, he could help. So, when I called him, I awkwardly asked him to be my sponsor. I mean, isn’t it awkward to talk to someone you haven’t seen in years and lives a whole state away from you? Despite my awkwardness, he agreed with enthusiasm.
Time had gone on, and I had become increasingly angry and resentful towards God. There were times where on Sundays instead of a homily, we would receive talks on how much the school needed money to fix this, that, and the other. Other times, there were homilies where the priest would say what we ought to be getting out of the mass. I kept thinking to myself Shouldn’t the homily explain the gospel? I was starting to approach a point where I simply stopped listening because I was so angry that I had still not developed any sort of personal relationship with God like I had hoped.
Before I knew it, summer was coming to a close, and those dreadful back to school advertisements on TV were popping up everywhere. I knew that the retreat for Confirmation was coming up so one night at dinner, I told my mother that I wanted to see my Uncle John before I was confirmed.
In reply, my father just chuckled and my mom said, “And how do you think you’ll get to Corpus Christi Texas? We can’t travel because your sister still has softball tournaments, and Andrew has summer tutoring.”
I saw my opportunity slipping away so I voiced the unlikely, “Maybe I could take a plane!”
Surprisingly, my parents went silent.
“Rebecca, you can’t go by yourself,” said my Dad unconvincingly. So I let the subject drop.
Later that same evening, I saw my parents talking to each other outside. The scene looked as if they were talking about my dad’s travel softball. I threw any idea of seeing my uncle out of my head. I had hoped that maybe he could help me with my anger, resentment, and maybe help me with my relationship with God. About a week later, I received an email and I saw that the message was a plane receipt ticket to Corpus Christi. I suddenly realized that my mother must have taken my request seriously.
When she arrived home I asked her, “Mom is this real?!”
She shakes her head.
Then I asked, “And what did dad say?”
A mischievous grin crossed her face and replied with “Well… He didn’t say no.”
Before I knew it, the day came where I had to fly on the plane by myself. My mother kept everyone up to date of my departure on facebook. She even took some pictures. That weekend passed in a blur. The whole situation seemed similar to a movie. Girl arrives at Texas, plays cards with the family for eight hours, has one small heart to heart talk, then before she knows it, it’s time to leave. I was glad that I went and saw family that I haven’t seen in years, but I felt no more prepared or closer to God than I had felt that previous year. At the end of my trip, my Uncle told me that he felt as if I was ready to receive the Holy Spirit. If anything, I had felt utterly unprepared.
When I arrived back home, I decided to push all these thoughts that have been stressing me for the past year, and focus on starting off school. A month goes by and what do you know, retreat is the next day.
As I wake up the next morning and my mother is bringing me into my church, she tells me “Rebecca, give this a chance.” I stare out the window and don’t respond.
As I walked into the building that the retreat was in, I was greeted by seniors who looked to talk about Jesus. As the retreat went on, the day was filled with small group talks, in which the leader asked questions and everyone just stared at each other in awkward silence, and speeches about how the Holy Spirit had changed people’s spiritual lives. Just as a good person should, I listened respectively and tried to absorb what they were telling us.
About midday, we all went into the chapel. The girl who I had made sure not to make eye contact with was also in the chapel with my group. When the priest walked in, the chapel plunged into silence.
What do you know, the man starts talking about forgiveness: “You can’t move on with your life until you let go some of the hurtful things from your past.”
When he said this, my eyes had widened and my heart was racing at a million miles an hour. I felt as if he had read my mind.
My mother’s voice popped into my head “God does mysterious things sometimes.” After the priest gave his talk, he offered everyone to go to confession.
While everyone was getting up to go to confession, I was sitting there in a stunned silence. I looked over to my right and noticed someone sitting next to me. He was my good friend Mark. We had gone to elementary school together and both left early. So we started talking to each other. The usual “hey how are you doing.” After we had caught up, we both slipped into silence. One thought had started to obsessively circle my mind: How can I let go of my past when all I want is an apology.
All of a sudden Mark turned to me and said “Sometimes, people feel like they are too good to apologize.”
Again, my eyes widened and my heart started to race.
Before I could even respond, I heard “All right guys, time to go back for adoration!”
I somehow managed to escape out of my pew and follow everyone out. I kept thinking to myself What in the world just happened? When we finally retuned back to the retreat room, the seniors were explaining what we had to do in adoration. Then the priest who had spoken in the chapel went up to the front of the room and read aloud a passage from Scripture.
At the end he looked up at all of us and said, “I am going to be walking around the room with the Blessed Sacrament. If any of you feel like you need some sort of healing, touch the end of the garments I will be wearing.”
Maybe the request may have seemed like a weird option, but at the time, something in my heart had started to stir. It wasn’t until he was three feet away from me with the Blessed Sacrament when something inside of me broke. I had found myself kneeling on the floor with tears streaming down my face. The experience was similar to an out-of-body experience, and finally I felt something within me. I realized for the first time in my life that I was allowed to feel hurt and resentment towards God, that he will somehow always be there.
About a week before Confirmation, all sponsors were asked to go to a meeting with their candidates. My Uncle drove from Texas to Slidell to be there. After the meeting was over, everyone was offered some cake in the lounge room; we obviously accepted. A few minutes after we sat down and started eating, my Uncle John stopped suddenly, turned pale, and put his head in his hands. I was a little freaked out, but I didn’t know what to say, so I looked at the wall as the white paint was the most interesting thing I had ever seen. I looked back at my uncle to make sure he hadn’t died. When I looked at him, all of a sudden a part of his arm started to shake. I started to freak out and think What am I going to say if he drops dead?! The cake was poison?! Then before I knew it, part of his chest had begun to vibrate.
Before I asked him what in the world was going on, he looked at me and said “Rebecca, I am being filled with the Holy Spirit. I am being told that you want to talk to me about something.”
Speechless,  I waved him off.
We finally finished our cake and walked out to the car. Once we stepped into the car, we sat there in silence.
Unable to take the deafening silence anymore, I blurted out, “How do you let go of your past when all you want is an apology?” He started to think for a second, but I still continued, “I mean how do you move on and forgive someone who caused you so much pain?”
He tells me “Rebecca, you have every right to be mad and you should be. But if you decide to hate that person for the rest of your life, you hold onto her. She may have already gone to confession and was forgiven for what she did to you, or she may not even have given you a second thought. But as soon as you hang on to that person and let your hate grow, you eventually find yourself falling so far, you won’t be able to get back up.”
For the third time in two weeks I find myself speechless as he clasped his hands together and motioned as if they were falling off a cliff. I was finally realizing that I could maybe begin to start that personal relationship with God, and I had felt comfortable and somewhat prepared for Confirmation. I had learned to let go of the hurt because dwelling on the past was not getting me anywhere. I knew the journey was going to be long but I had to try.