The little Catholic School Girl

“We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves”.  This quote in John Berger’s Ways of Seeing book really made me think about our church trip to St. Paul’s Cathedral.  When first walking up to the church my first thought was “dang this church is huge.”  I not only was thinking about how big this church was, but was also thinking about how much bigger this building was compared to me.  In the quote above Berger explains that we are always looking at the relationships we (ourselves) have with the things we see.  I compared my small self to the huge church the second I saw it.  When I walked into the church I was in shock because I had never seen such a big and beautiful church before.  I automatically started thinking about my church back at home and how it is nothing like St. Paul’s.  My church at home is a small Catholic church that is not nearly as beautiful as St. Paul’s Cathedral.   I looked up at the ceiling and was in awe looking at all the beautiful art it had; I could have looked at it for hours.  I remembered my church at home and when I was bored in church, I would count the ceiling tiles.  Everything we see always makes us think about how it affects us personally.  Whether it is a past event, something we want or something we believe in.

When the mass was going on, I kept forgetting that I was not in a Catholic church.  The way the mass went was very similar to the one at home, so it was hard for me to wrap my head around the fact I was in the Church of England.  I compared everything I saw and heard during the mass to my church at home.   Even when I went up to receive communion, I could not help but think that I was still at a Catholic mass.   The music the choir sang reminded me of when I used to sing in the church choir back in elementary and middle school.  We even learned to sing in Latin, just like the choir at St. Paul’s did.  Berger says in his book that the way we see things is affected by what we know or what we believe.  I have been a Catholic my whole life.  From preschool to middle school I went to a Catholic school.  I know the Catholic religion backwards and forwards, and that is why I compared everything in that church to what I know about the Catholic religion.