1

Jordan Fiedor

Confession of Faith

21 November 2017

Confession of Faith

Sitting in my Faith, Religion, and Society class for the past three months, it made me

think about my beliefs, faith, and religion in a whole new way than I have ever in the past four

years of my life. The way I started thinking about my beliefs, faith, and religion was more on a

deeper level and truly understanding my relationship with God. Also, it seemed I was just going

through the motions in the past couple of years, so now, I have a whole new perspective on my

views. The course forced me to answer questions that I never thought about and may not have

the answer to until I could truly understand the meaning of it.

I grew up in a Catholic household where my parents took my religion seriously but at the

same time had some slack when practicing Catholicism. When I was young, my family would go

to church every Sunday we had the chance to. Also, we would go to every “holiday” event

during the year because those masses are more important but at the same time just as equal as the

other masses during the year. I would go to other religious activities outside of just mass alone. I

went to bible school during the summer that lasted a couple of weeks at St. Bruno’s. I attended

religious education or CCD at my church, St. Paul’s, on Saturday morning and when I was older,

it would be in the afternoon on Sunday. I was forced to go until the age of 9 and from there I

never went again. I do not know why I never went again but it was after I had my holy

communion in the second grade, but I think it had to do with having older siblings who had

swimming events in the evening on Sundays. After my communion, it was just the regular

Sunday morning mass when we were able to. These events religious affairs taught me the basics
 2

about Jesus and God and who they are and what they did but it did not teach me how to have a

true relationship with them.

When I was a child I did not truly understand the whole idea of God and Jesus and what

they did for us. All I knew that God sacrificed his only son Jesus to be crucified and die for our

sins so we can all go to heaven if we follow a righteous path. So, my age is what stopped me

from believing and having complete faith in God. By attending church about every week, I

would hear three different readings a week that contained a certain message for people to learn

from previous mistakes or experiences Jesus had encountered. My mother and father were able

to guide me by teaching what the meaning of the scriptures from mass meant. Also, they were an

influence on me because they knew so much information about him that it made me want to

learn as much about him as possible. Learning about what God did for us and what Jesus had

sacrificed, convinced me to have complete belief while strengthening my relationship with God.

My mother was able to witness me learning and developing a better relationship with God

because I join a group called Fellow Christians in Action (FCA) and joined a bible group with a

bunch of friends that met on Sunday nights. I feel my mother was proud of me because I was

taking charge of my religion at such an early age of 13. This made me believe that my own

family and friends prayed for me to develop the right, best, most healthy belief system in God

and Jesus because we would all look out for each other and pray and hope for the best to come

for one another.

Having this belief that there is a God and Jesus is his son, created some type of

relationship that I still wonder about this day. It is not a physical friendship where I am able to

interact face-to-face with him every day, but it is more a trusting relationship that I know well

with my family. I would pray to God growing up because I learned that he is always watching us.
 3

So, I would talk to God through prayer to hopefully get the answers I would need through little

things throughout the day. I know when in need God will guide me to the right path or have

some involvement. I believe and trust that he will help me instead of doubting God and thinking

he is against me when life is not going my way. Instead, it is a test and you must face hardships

to realize how amazing the relationship with God truly is. I have complete faith that God will be

there for me and will never turn his back away from me even if I would turn my back from him.

He will always, always be there for me because he wants a loving relationship with us that

requires sacrifice and trust.

Obviously, I believe in God through influences from the church and my family. I believe

in God through a traditional sense because I grew up going to church, CCD, and bible camps and

studies. So, I learned all my information strictly through the gospels and people teaching me

about God. But there have been personal experiences that prove there is a God in my mind. A

small example would be when I could not find my earbuds for over two-three weeks. Then, I

said a little pray for God to help me find my earbuds and not even 15 seconds later I was able to

find them in a spot I thought I checked on multiple occasions. Another example is when I was a

little kid, I would pray and pray for a cat but my grandmother said, “stop praying for a cat, God

does not give you animals!” Then, the next day coming home from school, a cat approached me

and came right into my arms and I was able to take my new cat home. These personal

experiences made me come to believe more in God than ever before even if some of the

experiences are small.

My belief in God came early in life because I grew up in a Catholic family and continued

to practice Catholicism as I got older. You must remember that being a Catholic means you must

have blind faith. Blind faith is believing in something you are unable to feel or see. Catholics
 4

must believe in what you are told at times and not question it or else you may be led astray from

this certain religion. With being a Catholic there are many ways God interacts with us in our

world. The altar in church represents the place where heaven and earth come together in our

world. The priest stands at the altar during mass and consecrates the bread and wine into the

Body and Blood of Christ. Even though I don’t understand why this happens I truly believe that

this is real.

Blind faith has also made me come to believe in angels. I believe that there are angels

protecting us every day from danger and looking over us with God to help make sure we are

safe. Now, being safe is different from free will. Someone can have the free will to do a lot of

drugs and increase their risk to die. But a personal experience with angels keeping us safe

without us noticing it is when I was driving my car and lost control of it because I hit black ice.

My car went flying off the side of the road and into a little field and lucky no damage was done.

While that occurred, another car flew into my line and may have killed me. So, I believe in

angels and that they are always watching over us at all times.

God has given us free will to do whatever we want and when we want but at that same

time that free will can determine our fate. I believe everything happens for a reason and there is

no way of stopping it because God has a plan for you that you will one day understand if you do

not at the moment. At the same time, you can ruin your fate by stupid mistakes that you get

involved in because as human we have free will to do whatever we choose without rules. But

some actions people choose can have serious consequences. If you are person who follows God

and does whatever you can to help and are a good person I believe you enter the gates of Heaven.

If you are a sinner, although we are all sinners in some sense, and do not care you are sinning

then I believe you can end up in Hell if you do not ask for forgiveness and have mortal sins when
 5

you die. But if you die and are not completely pure with no mortal sins, then I believe you end up

in Purgatory where you wait till it is decided that you end up in Heaven or Hell. I do not believe

in reincarnation because Hell would not exist. Also, if there is such a thing like reincarnation,

then why do we only remember this current life and no other. That person would continue to

‘redo’ life until they are worthy of entering the gates of Heaven.

In conclusion, I feel that God and Jesus are a constant positive presence in my life. From

an early age, I was taught the morals for the Catholic Church and I feel that these morals are

something that I will carry with my entire life and into the next. This class and assignment has

really made be actively think and write about my beliefs as a Catholic.