I was about as perfect a little Catholic boy as one could find anywhere. I can say that now, in retrospect, although I had no awareness of this at the time. I prayed fervently, took Communion on Sundays, and gave my coins to the Missions (in exchange for time off in Purgatory, I must confess).
In fifth grade I learned the Latin Mass by rote and became an altar boy. Apparently even a star altar boy.
I say so because in that first year in this elite young male crew I was selected to be one of the four boys serving at the Easter Sunday Midnight Mass. I was the only fifth grader on the altar with the older boys at one of the two most important and heavily attended masses of the year (the other being Christmas Midnight Mass).
I never felt closer to God than when serving on the altar in my altar boy garments: the black, floor-length cassock topped by the white surplice with the billowing sleeves. They even had a distinctive smell redolent–to me at least–of the Holy.
I imagined becoming a priest, and even a pope. The Church and its teachings had completely caught my imagination.
So much so that soon I experienced losing my mind. Continue reading “How I Lost the Faith and Found the Spirit: Part I”
