"...Redeemer of the World"

I went to an all-boys Catholic school for the first 10 years of my schooling. When I was young, or perhaps before I was even born, my mom had promised a nun that she would raise me Catholic. She herself had had a Methodist upbringing, though, and I never quite understood how this promise came about.

School was subtle in its approach towards religion. Once or twice a week, we would have a class called "Ethics." All through elementary school, lessons were drawn from big pictorial books with brightly colored suns and calligraph typography Chinese, just like our Chinese readers. We learned the Lord's Prayer in first grade, and started reciting the Apostle's Creed in second or third. We learned that your right hand crosses over to your left shoulder first. Sometime during this period, we also started saying these prayers as part of our daily ritual. We'd turn to the cross at the left side of the room, say our Our Father In Heavens in broken Chinglish, wrap up, and get started with our 5 hours of boredom. "Ethics" class taught us that we should be good to each other. That's all I remember. Oh, and Catholicism, in Chinese, is "Sky Owner's Religion." Protestantism, I learned later on, was "Christ Religion." To this day, I still don't know how they developed this nomenclature.

One day in fourth or fifth grade, one of the kids beside me was really angry at another of our classmates. Somehow he had the impression that, being Catholic, he was barred from being spiteful. So to regain his right to be royally pissed of, he matter-of-factly declared to the other kid that from that day forward, he was a Buddhist.

He could now go ahead and punch the bejeezus out of the kid as necessary.

* * *

Around fourth or fifth grade, I also found myself being driven down the hill to St. Margaret's Church on Saturdays. I was apparently enrolled in something called catechism class. Our teacher was a gentle old chinese lady who spoke great English. She taught us about confession, and holy eucharist, and annointing the sick, and other interesting things. Father Columbo took us into his office one day to show us pictures from his trip to Papua New Guinea. I knew from looking at maps that it was next to Indonesia, where my friend's mom was from, but nothing else. I didn't really understand what he was doing there, either. After every class, Serena would sign our little books, adding the word "Serena" to one more little box on the back page.

Serena "passed away" a few months before I was supposed to be baptized. She was replaced by a white lady called Mrs. Lam. By the time I was baptized, I knew that the water was washing away my sin, and that I now had to be really good, so I could avoid getting dirty again. The baptism was a one-time thing. From here on out, I'd have to use confession.

I chose "Anthony" as my Christian name, because my oldest siter had a friend named Anthony, and I liked the way it sounded. When it came time for Father Peter to say "Jason, I baptize you," I was surprised by the warmth in his words and in the water being poured across my forehead. I received a number of crucifixes that day. My favorite was the lightest one, which, unlike the rest, came in a little gray felt pouch instead of a red box. It was 18k gold, with three little round petals at each edge. It came from the mother of one of my best friends; one who'd died a few years earlier.

I liked it, but like the rest, I put it away in my mom's desk drawer for a while; it felt weird to be wearing something around my neck, even something so light and pretty. My sister liked it, so I agreed to lend it to her. She wears it to this day.

* * *

After Primary school, those of us who'd successfully passed the Secondary School Assessment Test moved on to the bigger, older, classier main campus. This year is its 132nd anniversary. The rules changed somewhat. The cross was no longer to our left, but conveniently placed right underneath the clock. We no longer had chalk duster bricks, just a grey rag that we'd have to wet with water in order to give it the slightest semblance of cleaning power. The day started with the classic "Good Morning Mr. [insert classmaster name here]," and the automatic Lord's Prayer.

Ethics was now called Religious Studies. But nobody called it that; we all knew of it as "Arr Ess." Most of our classes were now taught in English, and instead of pretty picture books, Arr Ess gave us handouts that illustrated why dogs are unable to resist hamburgers, and book about Jews and Egyptians, and Jews that became governors of Egypt. At the end of each chapter, there was a little quotation that said something like "Gen 2." Being the smartass that I was, I guessed that it had to be related to that nicely-laminated book we kept in the space underneath the TV called "Good News Bible." I don't remember how I knew this; perhaps it's because it was the only other place I'd seen words like "Genesis."

I remember one day where I just started reading the big brick and going through the details of Mr. Adam, Mr. Joseph and Mr. Moses and Mr. Abraham. We wouldn't come to Mr. Jesus until the next year (the book that year was blue instead of red). It was fun, and Joseph sure had a good story to tell.

* * *

Starting with secondary school, we had something new called Chapel. If you showed up early enough on Wednesdays, you could forego ping pong and basketball and go up to the top floor of the Old Wing, where Allen, the tall lanky upperclassman would wave his hands and get Paullee (his name flowed better if you didn't pause in between) and others to play the same pretty songs every week. The guy in white would then get up and talk for a long time. Sometimes I listened to what he said, sometimes I didn't. Afterwards, he'd reach behind him into the secret compartment hidden in the wooden wall, and take out a cup that always had wafers in it.

Going through all of this was relatively easy. I just had to take the little blue book out of the pew in front of me and follow the instructions. I'd have to coordinate it with the sheet of paper they handed out, of course, but that wasn't hard; I just had to remember to switch from the book to the paper when the book said "Intercession." Over the course of "chapel," the blue book would tell me when to stand, when to sit back down, and, at the end, when to kneel. Cardinal John Wu sure knew his stuff; all I had to do was follow the blue book, and I wouldn't miss a beat.

The songs were glorious. I found myself humming them after chapel had ended, remembering how wonderful it was to actually sing the Lord's Prayer instead of just chanting it in our Chinglish monotone. The words were kind of different, with a lot more "thous" and "arts", but that just made it cooler. When I got back down to the classroom singing "something something something O my Lord and I, something something something ... Each sheep am I", Sherman would chime in and start singing the Chinese version. Every so often, Allen and company would play a song about a God who could touch a tree and turn the leaves to gold.

"Though it makes him sad to see the way we live, he'll always say...'I forgive'."

When Paullee took over the next year, he broke out the Sister Act material, rocking the house on his piano and getting my mom to rave about how nice it was to go to a Christmas service with such upbeat music. Once a year, the whole school would go down to St. Joseph's Cathedral, and our class would be forced to sing the high part of a few songs, since most of our voices hadn't cracked yet. Paullee directed us, I think. He tweaked the words of "A Whole New World," taking out a few verses and tag-teaming with our music teacher, Ms. R. Wong, to whip us into a decent-sounding choir.

During this time, we were also being strongarmed into participating in the interschool choir. Those who participated had to give up most of their lunch period for extra practice. Failure to comply would result in a failing grade in music. Thankfully, we soon found out that the way to escape from this was to say our voices had cracked, and fake off-key singing long enough to convince Ms. Wong that we were a lost cause.

Having weathered this terror, we had no qualms singing along with her at St. Joseph's Cathedral. She sang, "I love him so." Mimicking her, we retorted, "I love K. Soooooo." Our classmate Kelvin was perfectly fine with being cast as the object of our music teacher's affection.

* * *

I didn't understand church. Back then, we didn't go much. When we did go to St. Margaret's, I was disappointed by how gloomy their version of "Our father who art in heaven" sounded. Their pews were cushioned, unlike our school chapel's. That was a plus, but most Sunday 11ams, we chose to just order Domino's and wonder if the pizza guy would be late and give us a $25 off coupon.

So I stuck with our Wednesday chapel times. Out of a school with 6 classes of 45 students in each grade level, about 30 people made it to chapel. I usually had a whole pew row to myself.

Something weird started happening. As I stood there amidst the music, I would sometimes feel a chill run down my back, as if something had touched me. It felt good, and I started looking forward to days when I'd experience it. It felt funny to have something like that show up while I went through the motions prescribed in my handy blue book. I didn't understand why it would be there on Wednesday mornings, but no other time besides that.

I felt funny calling myself a "Sky Owner's Religion" follower. One of the questions on our Arr Ess exam asked how we are supposed to pray. Being rather certain of my ability to answer the question, I calmly scribbled down, "put your hands together, kneel on the floor, close your eyes and speak quietly."

The full-credit answer to the question was to write out, "Our father in heaven, holy be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen."

Being nothing if not great debaters, the bunch of us who had failed to read our teachers' minds successfully argued for a reinterpretation of the question. The teachers decided that answers that met a sufficient quality standard would be considered on equal footing as the one on their answer key.

I got full marks for what I'd written.

* * *

Today I went to Catholic mass. It's the third time I've done so. I didn't have a little blue book to go by, but I managed to get by catching the words of the person next to me and saying them myself quickly enough so that there wasn't any noticible time delay. I fumbled my way through the songs, none of which were familiar, none of which I had time to meditate on. I shook hands with my neighbors with as much warmth as I knew how to offer to a stranger participating in a ritual. For what seems like the first time in nine years, I held an actual communion wafer instead of a bit of bread or a broken up cracker. I filled the gap times with my own quiet prayers, feeling every bit the displaced alien.

I had no answer for the friend who asked me why I was there.

CS Lewis and Sheldon VanAuken and Dietrich Boenhoffer each came to mind. One asked me to remember and appreciate the years of heritage and wisdom that had gone into the night's precisely-chosen words; another spoke of the church being one body here on earth, indivisible and steadfast; the third spoke of the church being as it is rather than as each of us would fancy it to be.

Tonight, I felt that gentle hand touch my back again, the way it has so many times over the years. I shed a tear despite not being sad, in remembrance of someone who loved me. I made the sign of the cross, pausing at each location to make sure I remembered to give up my heart, my mind, and my soul.

What a peculiar journey I have taken to get here.