Re-examining My Faith

Every Sunday I try to attend Catholic Mass. Last week I brought with me a non-Catholic friend who needed to observe a mass for a religious studies class. Afterwards she questioned me about the significance of various prayers and rituals which are commonplace in a weekly Catholic Mass. Having an outside observer question fundamental ideas like transubstantiation (the Catholic belief that the bread and wine become the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ) inadvertently helped me to reexamine my own faith.

Even today with the increasing presence of religion in the media, many people still keep the religion they grew up with. Unfortunately, many people as a result lack the opportunities to deeply examine their beliefs if no one is there to question them. For me, I was raised a Catholic by an entirely Catholic family, and therefore some of the very basic teachings of the Catholic Church are embedded in my religious beliefs—that is, I take them as a given without really examining them as if I were an outsider. I think it is great that so many people keep the religion they grew up with; however, sometimes it is necessary to take an outsider’s perspective to truly understand what you believe in.