I believe in God. I was born into a Catholic family, as such i am a catholic. There are many practices involved in being a Catholic. Am ok with so many of them, but so many of them are still incomprehensible to me. For example; The Fact that on a certain day, a service called the 'ASH WEDNESDAY' is done, where every one, both young and old go to church and recieves a sign of the cross on their forehead, with ASH got from the burnt palm preserved after the palm Sunday; Also that PALM SUNDAY thing is as well incomprehensible to me.
Now, this is my problem with this ASH thing, the reason given for this practice does not make too much sense to me. They said its done to remind us that we are made of ASH and SAND; i think i would have had a different view on this if what is used for this is a mixture of sand and ash. Well i do not believe that in the practice of faith; faith in God, that a physical action that has less or no connection with the spirit can be a reminder of the process of life.
Why do we need to be reminded of the process of our origin?. So that having it in mind that we are made of nothing, we will be more careful of the way we go about our dealings. The ash for me do not make me to think back on the process of my Origin, It does not make others to do that either, in fact, it's some what like a routine, we go to church on the day of the ASH Wednesday because we have to. Because we have always gone. Because our parents said we must go. Because we were born into it. Because ...... And so many other reasons we do so many other things we do without even trying to ponder on them.
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I was baptized when i was 25days old. Just imagine that. The baptism is mearnt to recieve me and formally make me a Catholic. When you are registering with any organization, especially online, at a point your asked "Have you read and accepted the terms and conditions" That's the way it is in Catholic. When i was baptized, it meant i had read and accepted the terms of Catholicism even when i could not read, at 25days old i could not have made that choice.
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In life, what i believe in and hold into a very high esteem is the golden rule "do unto others what you want them to do to you" another is a quote from the Bible it says "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Some how the latter is hard to practice, even the both, because sometimes we desire to be loved but find it hard to show love to our neighbors. But the latter is more difficult and needs somany things to work out well, but i sure know that it does not need any of those superstitious beliefs by Catholics to work out, it needs unconditional love, it needs sacrifice, it needs self control over anger and so many other virtues but not some superstitious belief in order to work out well.
Imagine what the world would be like when every one is driven by the happiness of others. It will be like; I drive joy in seeing that my neighbor is happy and my neighbor, vise versa. The world will be so sweet. And then to make the world look like a Paradise, am so remorseful about someone i have wronged, and they inturn are coming to ask for my forgiveness. I believe no one is gonna need any of those superstitious beliefs like ASH WEDNESDAY.
