IN OLD Catholic tradition, prayers are recited three to seven times a day. I would like to refer to it as an old tradition because everything is so modern now — education, affection, belief.
Many seem to lean toward agnosticism since religion is viewed as limiting and is often imposed upon people.
I was born into a strict Catholic family on my paternal side of the family. Religion is a bit more lax on my mother’s side. Still, since the head of the house is religious, the beginning years of my life included Sunday masses and rosary prayers.
Whenever the story of Jesus was taught in the old Catholic school I attended during elementary, seldom were the times His Mother was mentioned. Fascinatingly, a mother’s story in the real world is often buried, never to be fully excavated from how deep it has gone.
I do not pray. In almost 20 years of my life, perhaps only half felt like a rosary recital and gatherings that required attendance. The moment I reached my teens, I found no reason to pray at all. I strongly believed in relying on actions rather than mere prayer. That time, I developed a profound interest in philosophy, and many philosophers question the existence of God, which made me question Him too. I would not consider it atheism, though—it was just something I did not fully believe in.
This change went unnoticed by my family. Until now, my father has bombarded me with questions about what I believe in.
“What do you believe in, then?” he would ask. I had no definite answer to that question whenever it came, but it was only recently that I was able to come up with one.
My mother went through some kind of medical procedure and had a biopsy a couple of months ago. It was actually the first in a long time that I prayed.
Before we knew that my mother had to have surgery, I was already starting to lose all the anger and pain I harbored from her when I grew up. When my sister told me that my mother needed it, I realized that I had barely shown her my love. I thought it would be unfair if the time we have left is suddenly cut short.
However, my mother was never big on expressing her love. Oftentimes, I jokingly asked my father if my mother had ever made the first move to express her love since she was as stoic as one can get. Funnily enough, being stoic is an inherent trait of mine. The word “love” is lost whenever it reaches the tip of my tongue, and any warmth from intimate contact sends shivers to my spine — like how my mother’s tongue is also tied and how foreign it feels to have her skin against mine.
How do I let her know I love her? How do I drag the feelings out of my heart, fold them neatly into paper planes, and let them fly in hopes they reach the palm of her hands? The most I could do was go home whenever classes were not on-site so I could exist under the same roof as her.
One time, I passed by our local church. I remembered how the Church is referred to as a “her” in particular Bible verses. Theologians and ecclesiastical leaders also viewed the word to be feminine— a female figure, something that is deemed to be a partner of God.
I like to think now that my mother is my very church, and all of her prayers stand as a witness to the love she had a hard time expressing. All the love unsaid becomes a lingering matter in her prayers as if it is blown through the wind in the direction of where I am.
And whenever that wind blows and combs through the crevices of my body, it all softly comes together. My mother is not overly religious in practice like my father, but she believes in prayers — and she prays for me. She always will.
If my father asked me what I believed in again, I would think about all the times my mother had scolded me yet still cooked my favorite meal afterward. I would think about all the times I felt discouraged because of her, but still received messages at random times of the day to ask me what I was up to whenever I was not home.
Philosophy may lead me to think more critically and make my brain more active than my heart, and I may never fully understand religion, but I have one absolute belief: my mother’s love.
It is not a question of “what” but rather a question of “who”— who do I believe in?
I believe in my mother. Because my mother prays, because my mother put her faith in God, then I shall do the same: have faith, not in Him, but in her. F
