A Search for Spiritual Certainty

Sometimes it’s hard for a young boy to understand the mystery of faith

Last year I started writing a memoir. Due to other demands, I only managed to write one chapter. For my next several Current features I will be sharing excerpts from that chapter.—JF

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I sat dutifully with my family in a pew in the nave of St. Pius X church in Montville, New Jersey and heard one of our priests—maybe it was Father Meyer or Father Dennehy—say, “Let us proclaim the mystery of faith. Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ has come again.”

I wanted certainty. But the Catholic Church could only offer mystery. 

The Church taught that if I died in a state of mortal sin I would spend eternity in hell. Fifty years later, as I write these words, I wonder whether this boyhood understanding of the Catholic doctrine of salvation was correct. Perhaps somewhere along the way I picked up a warped view of things. Maybe my 1970s parish was part of an ultraconservative Catholic sect that followed some kind of medieval or pre-Vatican II view of salvation. (A quick internet search informs me it was not.) I call my eighty-two-year-old mother to ask if her understanding of Catholic teaching on the matter was the same as mine. Yes, it was. Then I pull my copy of the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church off the shelf and read in paragraph 1035: “The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishment of hell, ‘eternal fire’” (italics mine).

My catechism teacher taught us that mortal sins were “big sins” such as adultery, apostasy, viewing pornography, divorce, homosexuality, and abortion, but also included indiscretions such as lying, missing Sunday mass, envy, profanity, and anger. I committed some of these sins every day. This did not bode well for my eternal destiny. It was a lot for a ten-year-old to take in.

I was baptized in the Church, made my first communion, was a regular attendee at weeknight CCD classes, and was working toward confirmation. I can still smell the herbs and spices of the incense as the priest swings the thurible. I can still feel the drops of the holy water flying from the aspergillum as it dampens my Sunday clothes. The Church shaped me in positive ways and formed me as a moral being. Yet I lived under the constant fear of damnation. Possible scenarios filled my mind: What if I died between visits to the confessional? What if I got killed in a car accident before a priest could offer me Last Rites? What if I repented of my sins to the priest behind the grille in the dark box, and then got in a fight with my brother in the backseat of the car on the ride home? Would I need to ask my mother to turn the car around so I could confess again, just to be safe?

I would lie awake at night thinking about these things. Things were fine during baseball season. On hot summer evenings I usually fell asleep to the voices of Mets announcers Bob Murphy, Lindsey Nelson, and Ralph Kiner piping through the tiny AM transistor radio I kept under my pillow. But during the cold and dark winters I battled the anxiety that came with these eternal concerns.

One evening it got the best of me. I must have been in fourth or fifth grade. I got out of bed and walked downstairs to tell my parents that my heart was pumping so fast that I thought I was going to die and, if that happened, I wasn’t sure I would go to heaven. This was a risky move on my part. We were never allowed to get out of bed at night unless it was to make a trip to the bathroom. Thankfully, my parents, obviously aware of my disturbed state, did not respond with a lecture about leaving my room. Instead, they told me I was a healthy boy, I was not going to die, and that I should go back upstairs to sleep. Whatever they said worked . . . or at least it got me through the night. 

But still no certainty.

John Fea is Executive Editor of Current

^{Photo credit: Aleksandar Radovanovic}