How Did You Learn Your Faith?

[Cruce]

The Catholics here seem to be pretty well informed about their faith and I was wondering how they received their faith formation. With all the insufficient "catholic" schools out there I thought it would be interesting to hear how phorum members discovered their faith. Good parents? Books? Good youth group?

So please share all

My school had a very poor religious education program so my faith formation was mainly due to personal reading and a very good parish priest. You guys?

[Piccoli Fiori JMJ]

During all my formation when I was little, the few things I can remember out of those years, is making a glittery popsicle stick cross stuck in a wad of clay with the letters for Jesus colored and cut out and pasted on. That I having to learn my prayers. Mom made us go to Mass every Sunday and no jeans were allowed EVER. That was also a point of contension until recent years. Other than being kind to others, that was about as far as my religious education at home went. And, I was a public school kid, through and through.

I didn't really become interested in being Catholic until I was in 7th grade I think and I started getting involved with youth ministry events. I learned quite a bit, but I think a lot of the time was building a positive self-image during these years and just coming to know and love God. I really don't recall there being a lot about faith, doctrine, and such. But there were some deep youth group meetings along with several rallies, conferences, and more that helped to understand the basic necessity of the sacraments and the Catholic faith.

It actually wasn't until right after Confirmation that I started to want to know more about what I believed. I started reading books and looking things up for fun on the intarwebs (which I imagine is how I found phatmass... I really can't remember how I found pm.) and it has just escalated from there. Looking back and even in conversation with several religious Sisters, I'm suprised that I am called to a religious vocation. Most families where priestly or religious vocations are from are faith-filled families that know the faith and live everyday by it. It's kinda shocking to me. I'm just glad that He has lead me down this path.

Edited December 1, 2009 by FutureNunJMJ

[HisChild]

[quote name='FutureNunJMJ' date='01 December 2009 - 07:57 AM' timestamp='1259675856' post='2012459']
During all my formation when I was little, the few things I can remember out of those years, is making a glittery popsicle stick cross stuck in a wad of clay with the letters for Jesus colored and cut out and pasted on. That I having to learn my prayers. Mom made us go to Mass every Sunday and no jeans were allowed EVER. That was also a point of contension until recent years. Other than being kind to others, that was about as far as my religious education at home went. And, I was a public school kid, through and through.

I didn't really become interested in being Catholic until I was in 7th grade I think and I started getting involved with youth ministry events. I learned quite a bit, but I think a lot of the time was building a positive self-image during these years and just coming to know and love God. I really don't recall there being a lot about faith, doctrine, and such. But there were some deep youth group meetings along with several rallies, conferences, and more that helped to understand the basic necessity of the sacraments and the Catholic faith.

It actually wasn't until right after Confirmation that I started to want to know more about what I believed. I started reading books and looking things up for fun on the intarwebs (which I imagine is how I found phatmass... I really can't remember how I found pm.) and it has just escalated from there. Looking back and even in conversation with several religious Sisters, I'm suprised that I am called to a religious vocation. Most families where priestly or religious vocations are from are faith-filled families that know the faith and live everyday by it. It's kinda shocking to me. I'm just glad that He has lead me down this path.
[/quote]


I'd have to say I'm with you there, not only for the education, but the self-searching... AND the shocking thought of being called to religious life.

I've been Catholic all my life, but we never prayed as a family except for 'grace before meals'. I was educated in public schools, and Wednesday night Religious Ed. Any time I had a question about faith, it was always 'ask the priest'. After not really seeing my faith practiced in the home, it came to have little meaning for me. I even rebelled after being Confirmed and stopped attending church for almost 2 years. During that time, I researched other churches but nothing felt right. It actually led me back to our own faith, and so when I finally started going to Mass again, I'd done a lot of research and reading on the Church... from our history to what we believe and how we practice that faith. I knew that, when I returned, I could say I believed, not because it was how I was raised (rather mindlessly, actually) but it was because I felt it in my heart AND in my head.

I hear what you say about religious vocations. I once visited a monastery and the couple that picked me up from the airport was this retired husband and wife who helped out the nuns. They weren't even Catholic, something I found rather odd. But as we were driving to the monastery, they said of all the women they'd chauffeured back and forth to the monastery, my family had the least amount of children (3) and every other girl's family had at least one other who was also in the religious life. To be honest, it made me question my vocation! But He knows what He's doing eh? If He wants me to enter religious life, it'll happen.

[Nihil Obstat]

For me, almost entirely from Phatmass and good books.

[Sojourner]

My faith formation started with parents who were very concerned with making sure each of us had a foundation in faith (Protestant). My parents had family worship every night, where we'd read from the Scripture, discuss it, and have family prayer. They strongly encouraged each of us to develop our own methods of study and spiritual discipline, and I have kept that up throughout my life. As I've gotten older, I appreciate their work all the more. I am a firm believer that parents must have an active role in developing their children's spiritual development and not just rely on school/church to provide formation -- although school and church can be an integral part of formation.

I have done quite a bit of personal study over the years, and I am now one class (really, one paper) short of getting a masters in Catholic Studies. that degree was one of the best investments I made when deciding to go back to school. The program I went through is stellar and really opened my eyes to the plethora of resources out there available to people wanting to engage in academic pursuit of the faith.

[ChildoftheCreator]

Not Catholic, but I know quite a lot about Catholicism, which came basically from internet articles, forums, EWTN, and a couple of books. I was raised in a Protestant family that went to church every Sunday and said prayers, but was not really taught anything at home other than that. My parents did, however, send me to a private school where a learned a love for God and had a lot of good role models who really loved God. Faith was not just something that you knew, but something that you lived out in your everyday life.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

Mostly self-catechized (went to a bad Catholic school), then learned through debate with Catholics more knowledgeable than I, then a theology degree program.

[Veridicus]

[quote name='Raphael' date='01 December 2009 - 12:05 PM' timestamp='1259687123' post='2012520']
Mostly self-catechized (went to a bad Catholic school), then learned through debate with Catholics more knowledgeable than I, then a theology degree program.
[/quote]


[quote name='Nihil Obstat' date='01 December 2009 - 09:51 AM' timestamp='1259679063' post='2012477']
For me, almost entirely from Phatmass and good books.
[/quote]

Ditto (minus the Theology Degree). Plus the blessing of the influence of a few extremely orthodox and passionately Catholic priests. And the blessing of the devout faith of my wife.

It is kind of sad really. I spent 13 years in the Catholic School and graduated from high school en route to agnosticism. I just had a conversation with one of my nominally-catholic medical school colleagues who spent junior high and high school in Catholic schools and didn't know that Jesus was "God" or that we called Mary the "Mother of God".

Catholic parents (like my own) are foo[i][/i]ls to think Catholic schools will inculcate the faith in their children for them.


Is there SERIOUSLY a f[i][/i]ilter for the word fo[i][/i]ol? You've got to be kidding me. It's not a bad word and at times an appropriate usage.

Edited December 1, 2009 by Veridicus

[Archaeology cat]

I was raised Southern Baptist, though I wouldn't say my parents were especially devout growing up. They made sure we said prayers before bed and that we went to Sunday School and such, but I wouldn't say I was taught all that much at home. As for how I learnt about Catholicism, I was introduced to it by my aunt & cousins. I learnt a lot initially, when I started seriously looking at the Church, by looking up things online, and one of my cousins told me about this site. And then I met with a priest and went to a class (Landings, not RCIA). And I've continued learning by looking at things here, and on FB, and Catholic Answers and such. I very much think parents need to be the primary source of info, and I strive to do that with my son, though I know I'm far from perfect and of course I'm still learning.

[Guadalupe84]

I have my earliest memories with my Catholic faith being fostered by my family. They were not too over-zealous, but took a more private or "gentle" approach! We were faithful to devotions (stations of the cross during Lent...Advent bible readings) and to attending Sunday mass and holy days of obligation. That fosters my "spiritual" inner faith.

Then when I was in college, I received a lot of doctrine and Church teachings. Loved it so much that I became a Theology major! The Catholic Catachism is a lot more down to earth than most give it credit for. Look in the back and it has a slew of topics that are both nourishing to the heart and the mind. Come to think about it...I think I need to touch base with the good 'ol CCC! =)

[MissyP89]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' date='01 December 2009 - 09:51 AM' timestamp='1259679063' post='2012477']
For me, almost entirely from Phatmass and good books.
[/quote]

This, and debate with a Catholic back when I was unorthodox that threw me onto my back more than once. It bruised my ego, and made me angry enough to not want to make the same mistakes again. When I learned, I was convicted, and the rest is history.

[Veridicus]

[quote name='MissyP89' date='01 December 2009 - 12:41 PM' timestamp='1259689282' post='2012530']
This, and debate with a Catholic back when I was unorthodox that threw me onto my back more than once. It bruised my ego, and made me angry enough to not want to make the same mistakes again. When I learned, I was convicted, and the rest is history.
[/quote]

It brings me hope that constancy of a Catholic debater may at times produce fruit. I feel at times as though all of my evangelicalism efforts wither on the path.

[Laudate_Dominum]

I was given infused knowledge of the Catholic Faith during my conversion. Since then I've studied with books, classes, websites and all that and it has been downhill ever since.

[tinytherese]

Channel flipping to EWTN converted me in seventh grade from being a luke-warm Catholic to being a devout and orthodox one. I learned a heck of a lot more from that network than I ever did by attending so called Catholic schools for the majority of my life.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='Veridicus' date='01 December 2009 - 12:06 PM' timestamp='1259687202' post='2012521']
Catholic parents (like my own) are foo[i][/i]ls to think Catholic schools will inculcate the faith in their children for them.
[/quote]

That's precisely the problem. We live in a consumerist society and parents think they can pass off their catechetical responsiblities to the church as long as they tithe (and by tithe, I mean a couple bucks a week...it's not like the Church employees they "hire" to [s]babysit[/s] catechize their kids actually have families to raise!). They think the Church is there like a business to offer goods and services and relieve them of jobs they would otherwise do.