What Does the Church Mean to Me?

What Does the Church Mean to me?

As I continue to grow and mature both physically and intellectually, I have developed a better understanding of the things surrounding my life. One of the things is church, which will always be a big part of both mine and my family's lives. I have attended a Catholic school my entire life; the grade school being St. Margaret of Cortona School in Riverdale. Throughout grammar school, my perception of church was a place that all Christians were required to attend in order to receive recognition and purity in the eyes of God. The priests in our parish would remind the oblivious children that in order to go to heaven and be absolved of all of our wrongdoings, we were obligated to attend mass once a week and live a life modeled by the ten commandments. However, the years have passed, and I now have a different way of viewing church and its influence on my life. Unfortunately, the more knowledge I have gained on church and religion, the less appreciative I have become of the church. I feel that though I attend mass, it does not have a great meaning in my life. Yes, I know that the church is the universal sacrament of God's grace, but no, I do not understand the significance it has been given throughout the years. We are obviously no longer in the Puritan days where not attending church was punishable. The church, to me, has had extremely degenerate and immoral time periods, from wars to corrupt scandals contradicting its preaching. To add on to this, we do not know anything said in mass for fact. Mass attendees have no way of relating or empathizing to the things said at mass, which is why I believe people do not attend it as much anymore. For most people, church is no longer a priority. Also, most teenagers probably attend mass either because they are forced to by their parents or just to keep a trend that started so early in their lives. I have attended masses where people