Learning the Faith – Prayers and Catechism
How do we learn about faith? The other day I asked a lady of Scottish heritage at St. Mary’s Parish (who is in her late 80’s) how she learned her prayers and catechism. What she told me was not about books, but the story of her mother, her brothers and sisters, and of a faith that was taught from the heart and lips of her mother. (The Scottish people were story tellers and passed on their customs, culture, and faith orally – the oral tradition.) I asked her if she would write down a few words, and a few days later she gave me a hand written note. I have decided to type most of it up, and to share it with you. It is a story of faith, a loving mother, of memory, and the oral tradition. Today many Catholics find it difficult to express their faith – they just don’t have the words or the vocabulary. This might help us to appreciate the ways of another era, and to learn a little from days gone by.
I learned at a very young age that prayer was top priority in my life. I came from a large family and it was at the age of 3 that we started to learn our prayers. At 3 years of age our prayer was learning to bless ourselves. I can still see my mother with my younger siblings, guiding their hands in making the Sign of the Cross. That was our first prayer, and we didn’t move on to the ‘Our Father” until we could bless ourselves without help, and we didn’t move on to the ‘Hail Mary’ until we made no mistakes in the ‘Our Father’, and so on down the line.
