St. James Cathedral

My mother is a pious Catholic. She attends Sunday mass and goes to Novenas every week. She has a list of things she implores God to grant her each time she recites the rosary. It irks her to no end that I refuse to go to church with her. She consistently bemoans the fact that we do not pray together as a family. She is also a Buddhist, like my father. They kneel at the temple and believe that their prayers are heard through the smoke that rises as the incense burns. Perhaps they think that the more gods they pray to, the better the chances are that they’ll be heard and granted.

Is there a God? I grew up a devout Catholic, not by choice though. I was sent to the best private school in the city, where baptism was an entrance pre-requisite. I knew the Bible by rote, especially the parables and the four gospels. I did not question my faith. The intellectual suspension of disbelief imperative to truly believe was never an obstacle. And then I relocated.

Uprooted from familiar surroundings and adapting to a mixed climate of agnostics and atheists, I reveled in a different perspective and a new approach to theology. Do I believe in God? It’s a spiritual conundrum. I am a non-practicing Catholic, i.e., I don’t go to Church or attend Mass. I respect the power of faith and the strength religion gives to people. When I watch the sky at night and lie still under the stars, I sense the divine. I’ve met people of different beliefs and realize one thing is universal—faith. Some pray to Jesus, some go to Mecca, some of us turn to science. In the end it is all the same. We are all applying arbitrary methods to understand and search for the truth—that there is something greater than ourselves. I take comfort in this assertion: life has meaning and I am grateful for the power that created us.

The last time I went here I felt a deeper sense of understanding and I was one with myself and my beliefs.