Just like I remember having my first feelings of crushes, I happen to remember today that I am not a 9-year old... It's because when I was 9, I noticed something different regarding a particular schoolmate. At that time, I notice my friends taking about this thing called "crush", this feeling of being in love. At that time, I scoffed them. In my miniscule mind, I don't know yet what they meant.
But somehow at that back of my mind, I knew what I felt towards a particular girl to be different. It felt like flowers are blooming around, not that there were flowers in that Roman Catholic private school I was enrolled in at that time. At that time, I never noticed but I realized that love can be deep.
Although I had my first feelings toward a girl at this time, it was also at this time that I realized that there are deeper forms of love that go beyond just adulation. It was at this time that I began to feel religious, and found myself liking it. I was a devout Roman Catholic kid, who went into the private corners of my house praying my rosary in secret, though ironically we were all Roman Catholics. At that time, I had thought that if I stop praying the rosary I would go to hell. That was not a conceivable thought to me at that time.
At this age also, I bought my own scapular. The nuns who ran that Roman Catholic school I was in preached that keeping the scapular assures the wearer to be in heaven, but once removed there is no assurance that I can go there. At that age, I found myself liking the feelings of being religious. I remembered that I washed my dinner plate for once, when I deeply resent doing this before. Everything tasted good in my earlier days of being religious. I could say that this is my first time of being in love to the feeling of being religious. But like all feelings, this didn't last long, not even a month.
I still prayed to the rosary at that time. The scapular, it has become an integral part of my neck for a time. At that time, I remembered the 15 mysteries of the rosary, divided into 3 groups to be taken 1 group of mysteries a day. I can still remember that, at that time, the Joyful Mysteries were prayed every Mondays and Thursdays, the Sorrowful Mysteries every Tuesdays and Fridays, and the Glorious Mysteries every Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. At that time, I remembered the sequences of mysteries of the rosary and even the "pray for us" part of the rosary.
However, I'm not the 9-year-old me anymore. I do not pray the rosary anymore, understanding that "holy" should not even apply to the rosary, because I figured out that the rosary was originally inteded to be a statement of declaration against the heresies existing in the early centuries of the church. I do not believe that the scapular can save you from hell, because that is not in the Bible. The rosary and the scapular, I now believe, could not get you to heaven; these are not the way to the Father. I have come to believe that Jesus Christ is the only way to the Father, as this is directly stated in the Bible. Not the rosary nor the scapular. Because of this change of beliefs I forgot every mysteries of the rosary, save 2 mysteries. These 2 mysteries I do not want to forget because reminding myself of these remind me also how these 2 mysteries contradict what Jesus said about the first and greatest commandment. These mysteries are the ascension of Mary to heaven, and the coronation of the virgin Mary as the queen of heaven and the queen of earth. Added with these titles of Mary, the official Vatican Council II document Lumen Gentium also mentions that Mary is also the queen of all the angels and the queen of all the saints.
Lately, I found out that the late Pope John Paul II modified the rosary to include the addition of 5 more mysteries, forming a new group of mysteries called the Light Mysteries. Apparently, the late pope also changed the 5th Glorious Mystery to only "The Coronation of Mary." Knowing that the popes do not want to contradict each other, I still take it that John Paul II's change does not change the claim of titles they gave to Mary. So, she still is the Queen of All The Angels, the Queen of All The Saints, the Queen of Heaven, and the Queen of the Earth. By the way, these are just the least of her titles.
These are the beliefs I currently held at the moment of this writing. Because I am not a 9-year-old anymore.
