Aug 26, 2007 12:47
So it's one of those weekends where I've nothing much to do - I'm nursing a blocked nose which isn't quite the full-blown flu and I'm loathe to visit the doctor. What shall I do this afternoon?
Nothing! Joy of joys. After the past week of manic rushing I think I'll get away with not checking my work email this weekend. Unfortunately I caught my thoughts wandering back to work this morning while standing at a corner in church thinking if it was a better idea for parents not to bring their children to church just because all they do is sit on the cushioned kneelers of the pews and draw in their colouring books or play their gameboys.
No, really, would it be better to have your young children, who may not know any better, to attend mass? Then for most of the time you'd be trying to watch over them, shh-ing them to keep the noise down, and keeping them preoccupied with a soft toy, colouring book - lucky those parents whose young child is asleep.
Or the alternative, I'd much prefer - is to have a creche where parents can 'deposit' their children for one hour, go off for mass and actually have their mind focused on it.
I even think the kids will be better off for it - if in their early formative years they are conditioned to do two things during mass - keep quiet and keep preoccupied with toys while mummy and daddy are paying attention - then at what point do they switch out of this 'conditioning' and become aware of what's going on around them? Sure, they're supposed to be sent for catechism from primary one onwards and that's one way they'd be taught. But don't these things start with the family?
I'm one to talk - my first time at mass I must've been 6 - all I could do was fidget in my seat endlessly until my father relented and let me go play in the playground downstairs (there used to be one but it was demolished many years ago). And my first time at midnight mass I fell asleep on the church pew!
My father must've then given up - this precocious child will never understand how to stay still or stay awake. I never went for mass again until I was primary 4 and was enrolled for RCIC (which stands for rite of christian initiation for children), and this because I wasn't baptised at birth like most Catholics. I have a feeling it was my dad's friends who pushed him to put me into RCIC - they're now my godparents. :)
I wonder if it worked out better for me this way - I think it did - since at the age of 10 everything was being introduced to me when I had at least some inkling of understanding, and as it was almost entirely new to me, everything was more intriguing, more fascinating. Then again I cannot establish the counterfactual - what would it have been like if I was baptised at birth and compelled into attending mass every weekend even when I didn't have any understanding about it?
I recall also the few times my grandparents visited from KL and would bring me to their church in Singapore - I can't remember what name it was, but it used to operate out of the auditorium in the old PUB building, now Singapore Power, at Somerset. All us kids were ushered to Sunday School while the adults went for service. For what short glimpse I caught of the auditorium it seemed like a hallowed hall that us kids would eventually be let into, when we grow older. Was it this sense of being excluded in the beginning, lead to curiosity and therefore an even deeper sense of wanting to be included when we grew up?
There was a census conducted in all the catholic churches in Singapore today. Like an optical answer sheet, we were asked to shade the bubbles for our answers - age, gender, occupation, number of household members, how many were catholics, how many hours do we spend in church per month, do you feel that you have a parish church, what do you hope to see more of in church activities, neighbourhood prayer groups, etc.
Listening to the album leaf makes me all pensive, this can't be healthy.
All I've blabbed about so far are just the tip of the iceberg. Feeling distant yet not, my main issue nowadays is how to live my life the way I should be, and how to not let the daily annoyances at work affect the way I should conduct myself. I'll keep doctrinal questions a separate discussion for now. Living life as a Catholic Christian seemed so much easier as a student, why do things get more difficult as we grow older? Are these issues any different for non-catholic Christians in my age group? Someone enlighten me.
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In other news, I'm back into the blogging groove! Pass the salt please, I need to make my writing more flavourful.
ramblings