I don’t know what I believe about the Lord’s Supper, or the Eucharist. As someone who grew up in the Catholic Church, the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist seems to be one of the last explicitly Catholic doctrines I have continued to internalize. Now I am struggling. What I do know that I believe is that communion, at the very least, represents something beautiful. All those believers, all over the world, having comm-union, community, with each other through... Read more
It’s the Fourth of July in a country deeply divided. Inflation rises, Twitter is a mess, people make fun of each other on the internet and in person over things like gender identity and gender roles. Hatred rises, and people lash out at each other in pain and fear. Laws are being made that restrict trans people’s rights. Christians are complicit and even encourage the state to use its heavy hand on other groups of people. I hate to see... Read more
According to a Kyiv International Institute of Sociology survey in August of 2022, 72% of Ukrainians identify with some variant of Orthodoxy. Their results were not likely to be significantly affected by the war due to the similarity of Ukrainian religious identity across occupied and unoccupied regions. Another 10% identify with atheism, 8% with Greek or Byzantine Rite Catholicism, and the other ten percent identify with Protestantism or Latin Rite Catholicism. Lviv, Ukraine, the city closest to the Polish-Ukrainian border,... Read more
We are all born members of Christ’s body. Baptism doesn’t change the fact we are God’s Creation. It was never meant to become a delineating factor between “good” and “bad.” Galatians states, “there is no longer Jew or Greek,” and I believe God says there is Christian or non-Christian in Them either. It is meant to bring us into a community that tells us we are holy, and good. Of course, our communities are often less than perfect. God often... Read more
Recently, I’ve been enjoying several musicals. I watched Hamilton on Disney+ about a year ago, and I started listening to the soundtrack on repeat afterwards. My love for Hamilton would’ve died if it weren’t for the paper I wrote on it in my first semester English class last semester thanks to an assignment to write a movie review. One musical ended up leading to another. My YouTube recommendations ended up recommending other musicals, and my love expanded to Six, Beetlejuice,... Read more
Trigger warning: mentions of hell, death, anxiety Today is Ash Wednesday. This is a day when Catholics in particular decide to put ashes on their foreheads, and remind each other to repent or else. “Remember you are dust and to dush shall you return.” I grew up Catholic, hearing these words many times throughout my childhood. The last few days, those words have haunted me. Honestly, it’s been longer; closer to several months. I’ve been struggling with so much death... Read more
Hello, Merry Christmas to you all! I hope you all had a good day. If you didn’t, then I hope you heal and find peace. On Christmas, I found it funny how pristine and white, red, gold, and green all of the parties are, when childbirth is a messy affair. My own church was decked out in white. Try and bring the mother who’d just given birth, and the child who’d just been born, into these celebrations, and I’m almost... Read more
I have a very complex relationship to All Saints Day and Halloween growing up Catholic. When I was a child, I went trick or treating, like most other children in America. I have pictures from when I was two years old, dressed up in a big giant pumpkin. In preschool, I dressed as a Care Bear. I didn’t understand much about that night, except that Halloween meant dressing up and candy. Four-year-old me understood that dressing up is fun, and... Read more
I am nervous to start writing here, I will be honest. I hope I’m always honest, here and elsewhere. Let me introduce myself. My name is Mary. I’ve been writing about religion in my trusty journal since the beginning of this year. I have a lot of thoughts, and I’m still thinking, and I will think for the rest of my life. I am twenty years old. Like many in the modern-day world, my family raised me Catholic, and what... Read more
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