Showing posts with label catechistic year. Show all posts
Showing posts with label catechistic year. Show all posts

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Back to Church

Today was the first Sunday of the "catechistic year." This means the period of the year in which children attend catechism. It starts in October and ends in early June.

My family is Catholic, but not particularly devout. A great many Italians (though certainly not all) care that their children receive all the key sacraments: baptism, first communion and confirmation, even if they do not themselves attend church regularly, or, in many cases, at all. We attend for the length of the catechistic year...and then go on religious vacation.

One day while I was visiting a friend, the local priest stopped by to bless her house. He asked why he hadn't seen her at mass. She explained that she was a believer, but not an attender of mass. I chipped in that my family are believers, but only seasonal attenders...during the catechistic year.

I'm not sure if that makes us hypocrites...or just religiously lazy?