I have talked about how I was born into a Catholic family and how over the last year or so I’ve really embraced my faith in a way that I never have before. While I am a cradle Catholic, I was also part of a family that wasn’t well catechized and we very much lived a cafeteria Catholic lifestyle. We didn’t attend mass on Sundays, or even on Easter and Christmas. But I knew my about my faith from a young age as my mother did teach me about why we celebrated Christmas and I was devoted to Mary from my toddler years. I attended a publicly funded Catholic school in Ontario, Canada (Ontario is the only province in Canada that has a publicly funded Catholic system) and I received all my sacraments.
In fact, pretty much all of what I knew about my faith was thanks to the fact that I attended Catholic school. I had one teacher who walked our class every week to the nearby church so that we could attend mass and who taught us to genuflect, to kneel upright respectfully in church and to fully participate in the mass in other ways. I thank God for that wonderful teacher, who touched and shaped my life in many, many other ways as well.
But, the school system can only teach so much! And there was plenty of things I didn’t know as a cradle Catholic that I now do know.
Holy Days of Obligation
All right, this is embarrassing but I didn’t know about holy days of obligation. I knew of course, that we are supposed to go to mass every Sunday, and that if you didn’t you weren’t living a good Catholic life. But I didn’t know that it was a day of obligation in the way that I now do, or that were other holy days of obligation such as Easter and Christmas, though those are not the only ones.
And what I mean by I didn’t know, is I didn’t fully understand that attending mass is an obligation. And what is an obligation: By definition is it “an act or course of action to which a person is morally or legally bound; a duty or commitment” and by using this language, holy day of obligation, it suddenly hit me that it really was a big deal when I missed mass. It is actually a grave sin. And it was the primary cause of me feeling disconnected from God, and seeking solace in worldly things. In my humble opinion. I simply didn’t grasp that concept of obligation and faithfulness because no wonder had pointed out in my whole life that God Himself requires us to attend mass, that the obligation is derived from the belief that Catholics owe something to God and are obliged to give Him the worship He is due.
It seems ridiculously self explanatory now, but because it was never taught to me explicitly, it was simply something I didn’t grasp in my youth, and didn’t recognize myself as an adult.
To Abstain from Meat on Fridays
Now, I wasn’t so poorly cathetised that I ate meat on Fridays during Lent. I knew that we as Catholics are to abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday, Fridays during Lent and of course, Good Friday. And I had heard about abstaining from meat on Fridays as well, but my understanding as a cradle Catholic was that this was no longer required. My family certainly ate meat on Fridays. Many Catholics do as there is a lot of confusion about whether or not Vatican II removed this requirement, and when I delved deeper the faith, I came to the realization that all Fridays were supposed to be days you abstained from eating meat.
Or were they? While I have decided to abstain meat on Fridays, further research has taught me that this is not a requirement after all, at least not in the United States and Canada. Why? Well, the reasons are legalistic (I think) in simplest terms. For a deeper dive into this, check out what Catholic Answers has to say about abstaining from meat on Fridays if you are American, as the Canadian bishops teaching in this matters does differ.
My understanding is that Catholic Americans are not required to abstain from meat on Fridays on pain of sin, but that Fridays remain days of penance and are therefore urged (but not required) to do some sort of penance. Previously, it was required to abstain from meat and do penance. However, in Canada, Catholics are to fulfill the spirit of penance on Fridays outside of Lent by abstaining from meat or substituting another pious or charitable act. So while we are not committing a sin if we eat meat, we are required to do some other form of piety or penance.
As a poorly catheterized cradle Catholic, I’m still a bit unsure about this and if you are too, I don’t blame you. It is confusing that Catholics in different parts of the world have different teachings about this. But frankly, I think it’s clear that Friday is a day of penance and always has been and that therefore (in my opinion) Catholics ought to be trying to strengthen our spiritual life through some of the traditional requirements of past teachings and practices.
The Catholic Bible
I really don’t know why I was never taught this in school, but Catholics and Protestants have different bibles. Imagine being a cradle Catholic and not knowing that. If you didn’t know this either, well, you aren’t alone, I think there are plenty of people who do not know this fact. Without diving into the history of the bible itself, and keeping to more recent history, the reason we have different bibles is because with the rise of Protestantism in the medieval world, some books of the Bible were removed. My own research shows me that I can’t speak too much to the reasonings as that would really require a deep dive into history and theology that this blog post cannot do justice to; however in a nutshell the books not included in Protestant bibles are considered by Protestants not to be divinely inspired.
The Catholic Church clearly disagrees and therefore those books remain. Those books are Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, and Baruch. I want to stress that these are not books the Catholic Church added, as it was Protestant reformers who first decided that these books were “unspiritual.” You can read more about this on Catholic Answers.
But if you are a Catholic, do make sure to buy a Catholic bible so that you are in possession of the bible in its entirety.
Final Thoughts
There are probably more things I don’t know about my faith and will learn as I grow more in faith. But I am glad that I have made these discoveries and now have the chance to share that change in understanding with others.