Faith(less)

I don't know how he knew, but a close friend recently pointed out the fact that I am ignoring my Sunday obligation. Blatant as the truth was, I thought I should give the church another go. So even though it was a Thursday, I decided to tag along him as he say his weekly novena prayers at the parish of St. Jude Thaddeus.

The church was hot that day, as with everything else. It was a skin-deep never-ending Thursday heat, like being baked inside an oven. I wondered, wasn't it the cold that was next to godliness, while sin was supposed to be the one associated with the fires of hell? What was it about God or Jesus or whoever he was that I often feel out of place and a little distracted every time I go to church, at any church for that matter?

All churches felt like this, or all the churches I had been in anyway. There was something about them -- the mean stabby wood, the stones exhaling dead breath all over you -- that always made me think of Dante's Inferno. I wonder if it might be worth announcing myself a Catholic.

Catholics, we have a thing for candles. Perhaps we cannot get enough of the heat as it is, lining up the way we do at the church's narrow candle area, hoping against hope that all our wishes will reach the ears of God via the little black smokes of the burning little sticks. That was how it was at St. Jude, him being the patron of hopeless cases and all.

I only stood throughout the entire Eucharist, like all other late-comers. I left my pamphlet at home too, so I sang Tantum Ergo guided only by my memory. Maybe it was a mistake for me to come here, with a heart that was stone-cold and the words of God not penetrating through. I wasn't always like this you know, having served as a lector for two years at the church inside my university. Somewhere between transferring to our current apartment and working in Ayala Avenue, I lost touch of my spirituality. It was only during my board exam review that I got to do novena prayer every week or attend Sunday service without fail. Perhaps it was only when I needed a miracle that I sought for God with fervor. A fervor that could easily be mistaken for hypocrisy.

St. Jude being renovated. Only the middle section retains the glory of the old days.

It was exactly around this month that I started going to St. Jude last year. The church was beautiful then, in an old-fashioned Filipino sort of way. Now, the pale-pink walls are replaced with a cleaner, more modern kind of white, like the ones you see in hospitals. I think the one thing that hasn't changed is the priest. He is Chinese, with defeated hair and mimsy voice. He is still around, his diction still odd and he still keeps punctuating things in the wrong places.

Perhaps most of the people I had gone to church with that day were students. Aspiring CPAs to be exact, as the board exam is on-going as I type this. I wonder how may of them will pass this May. I wonder, even more so, how many of them were like me, coming to St. Jude with aspiration and leaving just as quickly once the wish has been granted.

I am not out here to persecute them and say things that will only reflect my own lack of faith. I have not found any resolve as to how to change myself and my attitude towards religion. But I will try to go to church more often, and I will listen to priests even when they speak incomprehensibly, and I will try my hardest not only to become a good person, but to become a practicing Catholic because believe it or not, I am not as godless or as faithless as you might have come to conclude I am.