✨️On giving up something for lent✨️
As we are now in lenten times (for those familiar with Catholicism), I'd like to share some religious thoughts.
Please bear in mind, I am an EX catholic, so if you're going to read this, do remember that and know I WILL act, and perhaps even respond, accordingly.
Religion, to me, wears many oppressive hats. When I think about Christianity, and specifically Catholicism, I think a LOT about my culture. The peoples of Latin America had religion forced on them by colonialists, and so many of their descendants and the diaspora cling to this oppressive blanket like it ever did them or their ancestors any favors.
I can't speak for everyone, but I will speak on the Mexican diaspora in the US. Unfortunately, those who do not reside in ancestral pueblos and villages and towns have lost their traditions and beliefs and folklore to Catholicism, to the "one true God," and it is reflected in the way so many young Latinos have been swayed by the right.
This isn't necessarily what I want to talk about. Again, this is about me and my thoughts on religion.
I was always a good little Catholic girl. I went to Bible study and did my first communion and sat quietly in church every weekend. I bowed my heard and sang the psalms and I was even considering joining the church choir. One time during lent, I was given a piece of chocolate despite having given up candy -- for an hour, I cried and wrestled with myself: eat the candy that was an innocent gift and be a sinner, or throw the gift away and be a sinner who also wastes food. In the end, I ate the melted candy, and was physically sick to my stomach the rest of the day.
A religion of love, they say. More like a religion of guilt, shame, and paranoia.
At some point, the illusion broke, I won't go into details. But eventually, I saw the hypocrisy and I wanted no part.
Witchcraft followed, it still does, I say fondly.
But it was muddled at first, distant, like a hard fog I could somewhat see and feel but could never really touch. It wasn't until I learned more about my culture that I began to really understand my craft.
What does this have to do with religion? Well, everything.
The Virgin Mother Mary has always resonated with me. Her warmth, her compassion, her open arms and understanding. At times, I found myself praying to her rather than God, though I did not realize this until much later.
Then, I found out that La Virgen de Guadalupe is highly respected among my culture, my people, my mother country. She is revered in a way she isn't in the states. She is the matriarch, the good in all bad "God" does, the roses in the barren desert.
In Azteca lore, Tonantzin was the goddess of fertility, life, as well as death. She is the blueprint for, not necessarily the Virgin Mary, but specifically for La Virgen. The colonialists may have succeeded in off loading their religion, but within it, the people hid their treasured figures and deities.
So, with this new understanding, I'd like to say I've somewhat found religion again, if only in La Virgen. In a way, I am reconnecting to something purer, something deeper, than the oppressive hat I was made to wear.
I am not religious, not in the traditional sense. But my witchcraft, my brujería, feels closer to home now.
To conclude, I made a joke about giving something up for lent. I think I'll be giving up my religious trauma.
Comments
Post a Comment