For Easter this year, as many people do, I went to church. But the service I attended wasn’t like any other that I’d experienced before. The lively band, complimentary coffees, and colorfully lit stage felt fully celebratory, fully welcoming with chatter and close friends. Perhaps it was especially vivacious because it was Easter, but it mainly stood out because I was brought there by my friend Karis. She’s a member of that Presbyterian Church; I’m a Roman Catholic.
My journey to end up at Redeemer Presbyterian Church began 40 days prior with the start of Lent, a stretch of time before Easter when Catholics are asked to make a sacrifice or better themselves to echo Jesus’s endurance against temptation on his 40-day walk through the desert. For my Lent resolution, I decided to consistently attend church, since my attendance at mass had been rather sparse since the 2020 pandemic.
After years of hardly attending Catholic mass, my first time back, alone and awkward, was ridiculously anticlimactic. My nervousness to re-enter the church by myself lasted for the whole 30-minute drive and then some. But when I left afterwards, there was no immense sigh of relief after completing something stressful; rather, I felt quietly content as the familiarity of prayer and faith seemed to return to me.
Eventually, my weekly trips to church became something I looked forward to, even though it was a total of two hours (commuting and mass) that I spent alone on Sunday mornings. For me, returning to my faith after years was something that I was finally doing for myself, for my own growth and confidence, instead of obligation.
My journey back to religion wasn’t linear, and now that I was doing it for my own soul and not just to attend with my family, I wanted to explore a similar yet very different Christian experience. Hence, when mass ended on Easter morning, I joined Karis at the Redeemer.
Both church services that I attended on Easter served me well: they both reminded me that I can find a welcoming community and be a part of something bigger, that I can overcome my fears to seek out connections when I want to, that I can apply the teachings of church to be a better daughter, friend, and person in my own life, and that I can choose independently to seek out these beautiful things, without obligation.
I didn’t and don’t plan to choose the one religion to best fit me. Rather, I cherish the little gifts that I can gain from each experience. So far, I’ve found that the Roman Catholic Mass has most greatly revived my faith, while the Presbyterian service gave me a greater understanding of how I can integrate the Bible into my own life. I plan to continue exploring, not as a disloyal Catholic, but as a human in search of trust in myself and faith in the important things that I cannot see: love, empathy, acceptance, and forgiveness. I want to be a better person, and although there are many ways to do so, the one way I’ve deeply embraced is religion.
And so, although I’m still seeking guidance from many people, books, and churches, it will never get redundant. Because I am human, I will never do life 100% correctly. But, I can always keep trying. And if I seek more direction in how to do so, I believe an open mind and religious curiosity can be a beautiful place to start.
