My spiritual journey started with my Italian Catholic upbringing was the first line of my autobiography when I started writing. I quickly realized my journey should be “our journey”, God and I. My early religious experiences were uninformative and hypocritical. As a child, I attended church every Sunday (not by choice), said the Our Father and Hail Mary, and was in awe of the ornate stain glass windows and marble altar. I received the sacraments of baptism, confession, communion and conformation. I do not remember my baptism since I was less than 1 month old. I remember my pretty white dress for communion, being scared to death about the dark closet size room for confession and choosing a name and Godmother for my conformation. I do not remember any biblical significance for these “major” religions events. In my family going to church was critical to being a good Catholic yet we did not have a bible in our home, never said prayers and my dad complained the church was a bunch of “crooks” that only wanted our money.
My journey with God has gone in different directions, before arriving to Christianity five years ago. In middle school, I felt I was going through the motions with no real understanding during mass. I met with the priest of our church and explained to him I did not feel connected and found the services boring. He suggested I sit in the front pew and pay better attention as well as join some youth activities. So like a good “catholic girl” I joined the basketball
Before attending college here at Seattle University, I never necessarily thought that I would be interested in learning about religions other than my own. Throughout my life I was raised to follow the Christian faith. Everything that pertained to my life revolved around my faith. Although I do not regret being born and raised in a Christian home, some occasions have risen where I felt a sense of being “forced” into the religion. This caused myself to ultimately grow a disconnection from my faith. Coming to Seattle University with a sense of disconnection from my religion in actuality provided me the motivation and inspiration to possibly learn about different religions in order to compare and contrast their views from my personal ones, which
My experience with Christianity began in the Roman Catholic Church of St. Helena’s in South Minneapolis. I grew up a die-hard; attending every week with my mother and sister. I never understood the concept of God, Jesus and the Holy
Church, alongside its Orthodox partner, has been totally consumed by the Latin ceremony. The Albanian Byzantine Catholic Community is regulated from Southern Albania. Both Catholic and Orthodox have confronted oppression under the Albanian comrade government, and are few in number: for instance, the Albanian Byzantine Catholic Community numbered just 3845 individuals in 2010. Commitment to holy people, with the Virgin Mary as the most noticeable illustration, is a key normal for Roman Catholicism. Catholic commitments have different structures, running from formalized, multi-day petitions to God, for example, novenas to exercises which don't include any supplications to God, for example, Eucharistic reverence outside Mass, the wearing of scapulars, the love of the holy people, the Canonical crowning celebrations
Michelangelo Buonarroti lived in a time when the medieval aspects of Christianity were overwhelmed by the upheaval of the Reformation. His art portrays this change in religious philosophy by discerning the major trends and objectives of the Renaissance. "His works show us...the changing world around him" (Richmond 4). In addition, Michelangelo seriously impacted generations of artists to come.
During elementary school I decided I wanted to move in with my father who did attend church religiously every Sunday morning. Catholic mass was awful and difficult to understand. My father put my brothers and I through communion and made us participate in church bible study to further understand the religion. As I got older my views on Catholicism had gotten worse, I started hating going to church. When the nuns called my age group to have children’s church my father forced me to go, they took us to a room that had no windows and was always cold. The nuns made us read the old testament in the King James Bible version and I always had a hard time reading and understanding it because of the way it was written. This experience made me hate and
"Hello, madam, have you accepted our lord and savior, The Flying Spaghetti Monster, into your life?" the man says, a colander on his head, with a vaguely pirate-esque accent. Another annoying pastalatizer arrived at your door. What do you say? Ignore him or hear him out? Is this man insane, or does he simply see you as someone to prank? Is this a game? Well, you 're answer could be any of the above. In 2005, in a letter to a governor, a man mentioned a hypothetical Flying Spaghetti Monster, as a way to dispute creationism. This has been adopted by teenagers, pranksters, atheists, and true-believers alike. The church’s website, venganza.org states “Some claim that the church is purely a thought experiment, satire, illustrating that Intelligent Design is not science, but rather a pseudoscience manufactured by Christians to push Creationism into public schools. These people are mistaken. The Church of FSM is real, totally legit, and backed by hard science. Anything that comes across as humor or satire is purely coincidental.” It of course raises the question, "when is a religion legitimate?" It 's a matter of semantics, really. The real question is not if these are legitimate, but what do these satirical religions say about our society?. What do these do for society? They provide a view into the madness that religion itself entails, allowing us to discern the boundaries that
Born and raised in Marion, Iowa and into an evangelical church, my parents “Baby Dedicated” my life to christ. At age 5 my family moved to New Covenant Bible Church. When I was young I didn't think much of church, it was just something you did and was merely going through the motions. But when I hit middle school my parents made me go to church every Wednesday and Sunday. Key phrase, made me. At this point in my life I didn't like church, at all. As I grew older, I wanted to be at church less and less. And I dreaded going every time Sunday morning rolled around. I had the mindset that the world had more to offer me than Christ did. And so I made excuses and put up fights and soon I rarely went to church. My family went but I stayed
During the 16th century, Protestantism emerged as a new sect of Christianity. This process was not calm or peaceful in the slightest. Protestant leaders like Martin Luther and John Calvin fiercely attacked and denied traditional Catholic beliefs, causing much controversy and debate upon religion. Many regions of Europe as a whole were converted to Protestantism, and many more Protestants emerged in areas where Catholicism remained the state religion. The Catholic faith became less and less appealing to people as the abuses of the clergy were now publicly addressed by reformers and a new, personal approach to religion was offered in Protestantism. In addition, rulers favored Protestantism as a state religion because it meant that no power
By the late 1500s, Christian denominations had been popping up all over Europe. This was in response to the reports of indulgences (selling of freedom from purgatory), clerical immorality, abuse of money, along with many other bad actions that were rampant among the Church. It was these problems that Luther and others rebelled and created their own religions. With the rising of these Reformation movements, the Church needed to make some reforms itself. These reforms took the form of educating the clergy, opening monasteries, the Inquisition, and the organizing of councils. In fact, even though Protestant attacks brought these reforms, many of these reforms were needed anyway. The problems in the Church were so bad that the Church would not
The Christian Church was absolutely instrumental in the art of the Renaissance. It was the driving force behind every inspiration; without the Church, there would have been no art. The Church was the only institution powerful enough to be able to support the commissions of all of the artwork, and it was the only institution, in which people had enough faith and devotion to spend so much of their time and money creating pieces that—although beautiful—were not necessities. The role of religion in art actually began during the Byzantine era. During this time, all artwork was religious in nature, and most of it was done in a consistently similar style so that figures from the Bible could be easily recognized by everyone and so that people
Italy is an European country. Italian is its official language, and 93% of the population is native Italian speakers. Its ethnic background includes small clusters of German-Italians, French-Italians, Slovene-Italians, Albanian-Italians, and Greek-Italians. With various clusters of people come various beliefs in religion. Religion has influenced the culture, artists, and national treasures of Italy in various ways.
At first sight the Sagrada Família is awe inspiring and breath taking and with this has become recognized as the universal symbol for Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain's capital city, and is unmistakably one of the most magnificent structures ever erected in this region. Spain is embedded with cultural tradition and it is believed its rich history is traced back somewhere within four hundred years of when Rome was established. Thus, setting forth the foundation and importance of history and the conviction of this culture to wrap their hearts around the place that has become what Barcelona is recognized for. The Sagrada Família's design was perfected by Antoni Gaudi, an architect, who was innovative and forward thinking in his creations and who
My faith journey, began when I was born I was basically born and raised to be a Christian going to church every Sunday. To praying every night, to accepting the body a blood a Jesus, to understanding that all the holidays weren’t just for the gifts but it was meant for my savor Jesus Christ.
Education: noun the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university
The world has more than one billion Catholics and with the ever growing population, it will only get larger in number. To be a Catholic means to have complete faith in God and his divine grace. Having God's divine grace means to obey it and keep it holy as it was created by God and given to his people. The religion itself is based on this and the people take it very seriously. Catholics believe that all people are of good nature but when one commits a sin it not only hurts that one person but the people and the Church.