So this past Sunday, I became a member of FAPC. What am I supposed to feel right now -- pride, accomplishment, fellowship, belonging, salvation or perhaps some other state of mind that I fail to understand or simply remember? Am I now a Presbyterian or a Catholic going to a Presbyterian church? Does any of this matter?
At least I know that it surely doesn't make me a better person at all. Another thing I can say is that I like the concept and ideology of the Reformation of the Church.. As a child growing up Catholic, I had trouble understanding several concepts like saints and those prayers that you'd repeat whose meaning is practically lost after repeating several times. Considering that Catholics should pray every night at least "Our Father" and perhaps "Holy Mary" since the age of three (more or less) a person would repeat each at least 2,556 times by age ten, at least 6,209 times by age twenty and so on. Since most people live at least to the age of 75, a person would have repeated the same set of words (prayer) at least 24,471 times, which most likely by this time has lost its meaning. At least in the Reformed tradition, a person would thank, ask, talk or at least interact in some level directly with God with his/her own words coming from the heart rather than repeating another person's prayer as a broken record caught in a loop.
