My Mom's Religious Journey

Religion has always been a very important thing in my family. I never really understood why myself. My parents enrolled my little brothers and I in Saturday school at St. Ignatius Catholic Church. We were supposed to be completing our First Communion. Although Saturday school was just another way to goof around in class with friends, it did raise certain questions. A significant moment in my childhood was asking my mom if she believed in heaven. Her answer was too real for a ten year old; she didn’t believe in heaven. She said that when a person dies, that’s it. Your existence is gone forever after death. Of course I overreacted at the thought that I would not get to see my mom again in heaven. In school, we were taught that if we believed in heaven, we would go there after we died. However, if you didn’t believe in heaven, you wouldn’t. I started to cry. My mom did not even try to make me feel better or sugarcoat it with anything. She just kept looking at her Sunday coupons. So, why did she enroll my brothers and I into Catechism classes? For this blog, I interviewed my mom about her beliefs and views on religion. 

My mom, Cecilia, was born and raised in a small town in Chalatenango, El Salvador. She is the third eldest of eight children. My mom and her family went through tough times during the civil war. My mom’s youngest brother died of a stomach illness, and my grandfather was killed shortly after by guerillas. Everyone was distraught over these events but still went on with life normally. My mom, along with the rest of her family, was raised Catholic. Some of the Catholic cultuses that believers practiced were going to church every Sunday and not forgetting to say prayers before going to bed. Some of the prayers my mom did every night were the same ones I use to recite night after night in the sixth grade. They included Our Father, Apostle’s Creed, and Hail Mary. I never learned them in English, and I don’t think my mom did either. Codes set by prior Catholics were pretty typical: always listen to your parents/elders, no sex outside of marriage, and no swearing. I asked my mom why she practiced this religion, and she said her parents told her to be Catholic. My mom was obedient and always did what she was told, so she would not get in trouble. She didn’t question them either. I also asked my mom if she ever had a connection with her religion. She did not. She never felt a thing when praying to God and said she only did it because it was part of the routine before going to bed. These Catholic creeds, codes, and cultuses forced her into a community that she didn’t really care about.

When my mom arrived in the United States at the age of twenty years old, she was still a practicing Catholic. She still went to church on Sundays with her siblings, because she thought it was her duty as a Catholic to go to church and thank God for her life and health. Although she did not feel a connection with her religion, she has always believed in God. She believes that God created the universe & Earth and because of this she owes it to him to believe. My mom stopped going to church when she became too busy taking care of me and brothers on top of working. A lot of misfortunate events have happened to us over the years. My mom began to question the existence of God at some point. She started going out on walks to different churches in the area, because she had not found her religious identity yet. My mom used to think that a person could only seriously pray inside a church because of the creeds and cultuses of her past.
My mom has since found her religious identity in Christianity. Although there are similarities between the two religions, Christianity and Catholicism have different creeds, codes and cultuses. She says, with the help of her new creeds, she is barely finding her peace and tranquility in life and that she owes it to her religion and community. Before she joined this Christian church, my mom did not really have any sort of friends. In her current church, members of this community gather on several occasions during the week to pray, talk about God, and discuss life events. This type of pattern is a characteristic of restorative religion. People in this community help each other bounce back whether it be with prayer or a plate of food. My mom’s experiences with religion show the manyness and oneness of it. That is that she acknowledges that there are other beliefs/faiths in the world but still finds a sense of religious unity in her group. I support whatever my mom does as long as she’s happy.