What I Learned To Grow Up In A Catholic Household

I was raised going to a catholic school until high school, and there in catholic school they taught me what it meant to believe, love, and accept. I learned to believe when things cannot even be seen. I studied many things and went to church two times a week, once on wednesday and once on sunday. I was surrounded with people who were able to find hope even when it seemed like there was no way out, people who were able to believe when many couldn’t, and I was able to find that motivation too.

As a child, I grew up going to Catholic School, from Kindergarten, until eighth grade. My mother thought private school was best for my brother and I, as there’s a misconception that since you’re paying a tuition, the education is better. My mother was also Catholic at the time, so she was more comfortable with us growing up being taught religion, which should inevitably cause us to be Christians and believe in God. Years went by of me being educated on religion, and by the age of twelve, I felt guilty that I couldn’t process or accept the idea of there being a God. I came to this reality due to the fact that I didn’t feel the connection to God that our teachers taught us we should have; I didn’t feel loved by an alternate being, I felt alone, and I didn’t grasp how such a thing could be possible.

When I was 14 years old, I went into high school already struggling. I was caught sneaking out of my house when I was in seventh grade and had been accused of everything from drinking to doing drugs. I was the oldest of four girls and the pressure to be a role model was suffocating and I didn’t do well. No one trusted me.

I was blessed to be able to go through such a good school system. Some people complained about going to a private, Christian school, but I really enjoyed it. I do wonder sometimes though what it would have been like to go through public schooling and if that would have changed how I am today. I think the strong morals and values I hold today were largely created by my upbringing. But, I do think I used to simply claim to be a Christian because of my family. If my parents are Christian that must mean I’m a Christian, right? Going to college made me realize that my faith is something that I have to make my own. My faith is not necessarily my parents’ faith. I have to make a decision on what I believe and what I stand for, separate from my family. I remember that around the age of 14 I started to feel distant from God and was not very strong in my faith. Throughout high school I think I had different points of feeling “spiritual highs,” but felt like my faith was lukewarm. Today, I think I am starting to separate my parent’s faith from my own, and starting to make it mine. I feel like this is something everyone has to do at some point in their life. In the past year, and in the past couple months especially, I have had a stronger relationship with God. I definitely don’t feel “strong” in my faith, but I feel like I am growing spiritually. I think being here and the

They say to be innocent is to be blind, but it’s also what protects us from the things we can’t comprehend. High school was this transition period for me. At this time all the cruel things that I was oblivious to before, finally struck home. With the death of a teammate, the sickness of a loved one, and the overall stress that high school brings, this innocence was quickly washed away. Through this transition I’ve been somewhat forced to grow up quickly and to focus on my future.

Everyone in their childhood has a moment that stands out and defines who they are. Mine is a moment, but is also part of my background. This came about in my nine year Catholic education. I attended St. James Catholic School from when I was a kindergartner until I graduated eighth grade. I am the third generation of my family to attend St. James, and can still remember my first day as a kindergartner. I walked into school with the same feeling as all of my other kindergarten classmates with a blank face and did not know which direction to go. Kids, who I thought were giants, guided me to class. From that time on I looked up to them as my friends, and could count on them if I needed help. For the next nine years that building was my home, but I can recall a moment in second grade that sky rocketed me in my Catholic faith. This moment was when I made my First Communion.

I was raised in a Christian school from potty training up until the first day of higschool. It was a small school, no one new ever entered my class and no one ever left it. One Wednesday during chapel, my small group leader was talking about how we must be the disciples for Christ on earth while he is not here and how we must bring him new followers everyday. This confused me because I wasn't sure how I could bring Christ new followers if no one new ever came into my life. That night I went home and asked my parents if I coud transfer to Buford Highschool. My parents were not fond of this idea

I believe that my siblings conformed to the idea of being Catholics. That fueled the fire for me to be expressive about the doubts I had in this religion. I began to just say that I was an atheist and around this age there is a large portion of teenagers that are trying to rebel against their parents. I was invested in proving that I was right and that everyone should be able to see what I believe or why I believe it. As I got older I became more humble about my views and what I believed in, I stopped being so upfront about what I thought was right or wrong. One of the main reasons was that it was brought to my attention that everyone has their own personal reasons for what they believe in and just because I don’t agree with it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t respect it. A break through moment was when I had a conversation with my sister about God and the concept of him watching over everyone, and she told me that she believed in God because it was reassurance, she needed to believe that there was something beyond her and that she wasn’t entirely alone in this world. I understood what she was saying and at that point I respected her views. I also realized that in this point of my life I can’t be at peace with that. I’ve struggled with a lot of things in my life and it just wasn’t logical to me it still really isn’t clear to me. I continue to venture out and inform myself about different religions and

Humans believe in something, whether it is an animal, person, material object, or scientific ideology. It is just the natural way people explain what happens in their lives. Growing up in Catholic schools, I have only experienced my faith through Jesus, even though I lived five minutes from a mosque. As a matured, I gained a lot of friends who practiced Islam, but I never made an attempt to understand their prophet and history behind their faith until now.

My junior high experience was a nightmare. In sixth grade my grandpa passed away and I was very close to him so it had a huge effect on me. Then in seventh grade I found out that all of my friends were fake. They set me up and I almost got suspended because of it. I have been raised Catholic my entire life but I didn’t actually know much about what I believed in. I started to actually get into my faith when my grandpa died and it really

As a student going into my first year of high school, it seemed like I got a lot more freedom but that also came along with a lot of responsibility. I was always given a lot of leeway and trust by my parents until I did something wrong. Being a freshman meant spending many hours studying to get good grades that I was expected to get, because I didn’t really believe that grades were as important as I should have thought. But my parents continued to push me to get exceptional grades. Freshman year I always wanted to go out with my friends and have fun,

Since my junior year of high school, I realized that religious beliefs, values and morals my parents taught to me since I was able to process and understand what exactly was being said to me, were not the same beliefs that I had as an individual.

Growing up in a Catholic home, going to a Catholic grade school, and attending Mass every week all resulted in everything being handed to me. Receiving a religious education was a given, and did not truly matter to me. When it came time for high school, I started attending Timberland High School, which was a complete shift. I went from a class of sixty to a class of five hundred and I was in shock. I knew zero people and it was all up to me to make friends and fit in. At first everything was fine, but as the weeks went on I realized that I felt miserable. I remember crying in the bathroom every morning before leaving for school because I was so alone. I told my parents that I wanted to switch schools and they agreed to send me to St. Dominic

Attending Catholic school from elementary to high school helped to shape and mold young D.I.V.A. I was taught how to love and help total strangers, pray for the sick and give unconditionally. I began a relationship with God and as it started to strengthen, then I became afraid and scared not understanding what was happening, I fell from grace. I turned from Christ, stopped praying and believing, soon I ventured down the wrong path.

I grew up in a Catholic home. From my earliest memories, I believed in God and knew He existed. Every week we faithfully attended our local parish. There was no Sunday School so we sat with our parents during mass. I remember my youngest sister, Jennifer, playing with my Dad’s keys