First Communion

I went to Confession on Saturday night, for the first time in years. I explained to the priest that I really had no certainty whether or not God existed, but that I have decided to make an attempt to believe. I have leaned on the side of doubt for ten years and could never get over the feeling that I was missing something spiritually. I have come to the decision to lean to the side of faith instead. I wish to return to the Church, return to the Sacraments, and see if that makes me feel more spiritually fulfilled. If there is a God, perhaps I will get a better sense of that through returning to the Church.

The priest surprised me by telling me that everyone doubts, himself included. He said that nobody knows whether or not God exists, but that we must choose to believe.

I had never thought of faith as a choice. But I guess that’s exactly what it is. I am making a leap of faith.

The next morning, my fiance and I went to Church. He is not Catholic. He is an atheist, actually, but has agreed to go to Church with me each week.

Although our (future) kids will be raised with a Catholic mother and an atheist father, just as I was, I want their upbringing to be different. I will not have my kids praying for their father’s conversion. I do not want them to have the perception that I believe their father to be wrong. And he has agreed to go to Mass with us on Sundays, so that he does not give the impression that he believes me to be wrong. And perhaps, in this loving and mutually respectful manner, we will be able to minimize their internal conflict between doubt and faith.

Anyway, we went to church together on Sunday morning, where we discovered that this Mass was also a celebration of First Communion for a grade two class. It was going to be a much longer Mass than we’d accounted for. My fiance had to go home, because he had a roast in the oven and couldn’t spend the extra time in church wondering if our kitchen was burning down. I almost left with him. I hadn’t bargained for an extra-long Mass, either. I didn’t want to be here. I could start next week.

What kept me there was the knowledge that my fiance was going out of his way to make good on his promise to me that he will come to Mass with me every week, in spite of the fact that he doesn’t even believe in God! What a wonderful man I have. He certainly isn’t going for himself, and he won’t want to go for me, if I don’t show him that I believe it to be important! I had to stay.

And it turned out to be a wonderful experience. What could have been more appropriate than to take my first Communion in ten years at a First Holy Communion Mass? I felt I was meant to be there, and I couldn’t believe that I’d almost turned around and walked out when I found out it was going to be a longer than usual service.

The homily was, of course, all about the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Father said that it was as necessary for our spiritual growth as food is for our bodies. And I really believed, for a moment. I felt so happy to be receiving Jesus in the Sacrament. I could hardly wait for my turn to come. I watched the children receive their first Communion with tears in my eyes. Literally! And I could hardly wait for my turn. I stood up before it was time for my row to go, and had to sit down again. I could hardly contain my excitement. It’s really true, I thought. There is a God and I’m about to receive Communion. What a miracle!

And of course my doubt was clouding in. Of course there’s no God, you idiot. You’re just overly emotional from last night. Which may very well have been true. The previous night, after Confession, I’d met with my sister, two of my cousins, and all of my mother’s sisters to pray the rosary for my mother, and then to have a meeting about her alcoholism. We decided that my sister and I are going to confront my mother, and see if she will agree to go to a rehab.

So perhaps my enthusiasm for the Eucharist wasn’t my soul singing out in happiness to be fed with the Bread of Life. Perhaps I was just overtired and overemotional after a very draining evening the night before.

But faith is a choice I must make. And I have made the choice to believe. I wonder if it will get any easier, or if the doubt always comes running in, clouding that moment of true belief, and making it a choice to make all over again.

I really hope that I can resolve this, so that my faith is something I truly believe, and not so much something I must choose to believe over and over again.