My Apostasy of the Catholic Faith

Just two weeks ago, I had my oral defense for Literature. I was late for my chosen schedule because I arrived around three minutes late. Ma'am Temple only allowed four minutes. According to her watch, I am late. But I made an arrangement so I was able to defend at a later time.

As replecement for the final written exam, she asked as weeks before to read the book 'The Prophet' by Khalil Gibran and make a final paper on it. We were asked to choose the most appealing chapter and discuss five lines of thought from it. I chose the chapter on religion. After proofreading it, I just realized that I am starting to abandon the Roman Catholic Church.

Below is an excerpt of the final paper that attests to this.

Among the chapters of The Prophet, the one ‘On Religion’ is my favorite because it relates to my personal struggles with my religion – or rather, the religion I was involuntarily baptized into. Although I cannot decipher all the figurative lines as in all the other chapters, I have understood most of the ideas in this chapter. The following are my choice lines of thought:

Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his beliefs from his occupations?

Who can spread his hours before him, saying, “This for God and this for myself; This for my soul, and this other for my body?”

I think this clearly means that true faith should be whole and undivided. Faith cannot be practiced only for a particular period of time. One may divide his time between observing religious values and being free to do anything, including breaking the principles of his religion. But that doesn’t make his religion his real faith. Let me provide a real-life example that can concretize this thought.

I had a nun for an RS teacher in my freshman college year. She was stern and terrifying. She is especially strict with punctuality. One day, she narrated to us her experience with a student girl who passed a reflection paper after the deadline. The girl handed the late paper to the enraged nun in front of the school chapel just after she attended a mass. Her response was something like, “Ya saka ya lang yo el papel! Paquimodo man? No puede yo reganya kun ele kay estaba yo na misa! [I just took the paper! What can I do? I can’t scold her because I just came from the mass!]”

So it seems to me that the nun thinks that you can be merciless except during and a few hours after a mass. But shouldn’t mercy and forgiveness be practiced by a real Catholic all the time, mass or no mass? Personally, reprimanding late students is not wrong. The point is that she allotted time for Christian kindness. That doesn’t make her a faithful follower of the religion she preaches.

He who wears his morality but as his best garment were better naked.

The wind and the sun will tear no holes in his skin.

This is one of my favorite ideas elegantly expressed through metaphors in The Prophet. I figured it says that one’s moral standards should be worn like one’s ‘skin’ in which the “wind and the sun will tear no holes.” It means that your moral beliefs should be followed by heart. With that, you are not easily swayed to break them. Wearing them instead like your “best garment” I think means that you are forced to obey them. Perhaps it’s because you think it is the righteous thing to do, because your religion demands it and/or because of your blind fear to your God. If so, then one’s morals can be abandoned as easily as taking off one’s garments.

This thought is actually related to the previous one. Therefore I can use the grumpy nun again as an example. She was wearing her ‘Christian garment’ during the holy hours of the mass. Later, when she takes it off (figuratively!), she reveals her true ‘skin’ - her true convictions, including her aggressive opinion on punctuality. It’s fine with me. She can nag against tardiness for all I care. I just don’t like that she has to put on this ‘garment’ and pretend that she faithfully conforms to the Christian virtues. If she can’t turn her garment into her own skin, then I suggest that she throw away that garment, quit the convent, and be her real self.

Your daily life is your temple and your religion.

Whenever you enter into it take with you your all.

I believe this means that your true religion is the things to which you are devoted. After all, religion is about devotion. You may be devoted to material things, to your personal beliefs and perspective of the world, to your lover, to a religious affiliation – all of these are part of your daily life, which is, as Gibran wrote, your religion. For me to be a proper Catholic, my daily life should be Catholic. Therefore all my deeds and, most importantly, my thoughts should be Catholic. Honestly, I can’t do it and I don’t want to, for numerous reasons. Basically, it conflicts with my instinctive as well as reasoned opinions.

So what then is my religion? Based on Gibran’s philosophy, my faith is unaffiliated. I have my standards of morality, my own way of life, my own God and my method of worshipping Him. These comprise my daily life, which thus makes it my religion. I do agree and accept that. Actually, I think there are only a few committed followers of the existing structured religious systems. I guess most of us are not devoted, which means that most of us have their own religions. But I think few, including myself, are aware and serious about that.

And if you would know God be not therefore a solver of riddles.

Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children.

Here, Gibran may have meant that since God is part of our daily lives, He mingles with us. He’s not just up there sending down judgment and punishment with all His wisdom and might. He is here with us – as the Joy playing with the children, as the Wisdom that aids in decisions, as the Pain that makes us stronger, and as the Love that keeps the people together.

I have been raised in a Catholic household that sees God as a person. That’s why I’m having a hard time depicting Gibran’s idea of God as the force itself that stirs things up in the lives of the people. But I think it’s a good alternative depiction instead of the usual God as a being that controls these forces as separate entities. The conventional idea shows that God is one being that has a grasp on all creation. Yet my high school religion teacher said the He is everywhere, which was hard for me to imagine. With Gibran’s God, who is the events that people experience, it’s easier to think that He is around us

This line of thought also relates to the next.

And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the cloud, outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in the rain.

You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees.

This is one piece of evidence that Gibran has pagan beliefs. In a detailed biography of the author, I’ve read that after reading one book given by Fred Holland Day, Gibran declared his religious belief for the first time. He uttered, “I am no longer Catholic; I am a pagan.”

In most religions, God is personified. But in those religions, God is believed to create everything. So it implies that nature and the universe are creation of God. But in the lines above, Gibran sees that nature itself is God. It’s a very pagan and primitive, yet it shows a benevolent and powerful God. Nature provides most of human needs: trees for lumber, plants and animals for food and clothing, rivers for water, the earth to walk on, the air to breath, etc. It is like a mother that nurtures us. However, if she is abused and hurt, she retaliates with storms and drought that can cause floods and famine.

It’s as if nature has a mind of its own. Such is enough reason to consider it God, along with the intangible phenomena like love, death, and emotions. The idea of God not only as the creator of the universe but as the universe itself suggests that He contains us and everything else. Therefore we are part of Him and He is our daily life. It’s up to us on how we perceive Him so that we can comprehend Him better.

A full text on 'The Prophet' is available on: http://www.columbia.edu/~gm84/gibtable.html