My struggle to be a non-Catholic

Because of that thing that happened that I’m not ready to talk about yet, I decided to once and for all, drum rolls please…quit my faith. Nope I’m not joking. It’s no laughing matter. I’ve thought about this through and through and did some hard core introspecting.

It’s just that I’ve been struggling to be a Catholic since birth and I thought why struggle? I chose to just give up and totally quit. I don’t want to do something just to please anybody or because I’m supposed to. I also don’t want to do something against my will. In fairness I really explored my faith, read books, attended retreats, listened to talks and made an effort to strengthen my relationship with God. I look up to Bo Sanchez and read Kerygma and other publications. I am basically a good person. I “loved one another” and never made an enemy. I sin every now and then and asked for repentance. There are instances in my life that I felt God’s grace. I can be a good preacher if I want to. I can convert a non-believer if I want to. But I still feel empty. There’s something missing. I feel like a fake.But how does one quit their faith? Should I submit a resignation form? I’ve heard of conversions, of people transferring from one religion to another. But I’ve never knew anybody who quit from any religion. Also there’s the question of what do I call myself? Atheist? No because I still believe in the existence of God or some Supreme Being or Source. I surfed the net and came up with Agnosticism. Sounds like Jason and the Argonauts
 

Agnosticism is the philosophical view that the truth values of certain claims—particularly theological claims regarding the existence of God, gods, or deities—are unknown, inherently unknowable, or incoherent, and therefore, (some agnostics may go as far to say) irrelevant to life.

So anyways, I’ll research more on that term but I guess for now it will suffice to say that I am a Catholic no more. However I realized that you cannot quit your faith just like that. It takes a conscious effort to do it. Here are some of my “struggles”, there’s that word again!

8:00 am -I have to restrain myself from making the sign of the cross when I left home. I do it because I’ve been used to doing it. Or maybe to get across my destination safely maybe or for blessings.

8:15 am-Again, I have to restrain myself from bowing every time I pass by some church. I do it to acknowledge the establishment we Catholics deemed as Holy.

4:30 pm- I realized that it’s a Thursday and it’s St. Jude’s day. My officemates and I have completed this 9 day novena to St. Jude a few months ago and we decided to make it a habit to attend mass on Thursdays. So I sent YM messages to my friend and reminded them of our pledge. When I got to the church, I suddenly realized, “What the hell am I doing here?” But since I’m there already I proceeded w/ the mass looked around the people around me and wondered about their faith.

7:00 pm- I was about to go home but when I stepped out of the office I discovered was raining heavily and I forgot my umbrella. I called up the Security Guard and asked him to hail a taxi for me. As I was standing there cold, hungry and impatient I keep on muttering, “Lord sana may taxi na”. I realized that in hopeless situations like these which are beyond our control we tend to ask for some kind of supernatural help. It’s like calling for Superman to save us from whatever danger we are in. I think we do this to avoid accepting defeat and to avoid feeling hopeless.

I realized that Catholicism is deeply ingrained in me that it comes naturally like breathing.
I realized that I’m struggling against struggling and that in my desire to avoid struggling, I struggled some more.
I realized that free will can be both a curse and a blessing.
I realized that like some of the other things that are beyond my control and that I can’t totally fathom, I’ll just laugh this one off and say “whatever”.
I realized that I think too much and that I have this tendency to understand everything and I’ll continue to do so until they cart me off to the nearest asylum.

I realized that sometimes to be a Catholic is to stop being one.