Maria Bustillos, a lapsed Catholic, shares a poignant memory from her grandfather's funeral:
[I]n advance of a Catholic funeral a rosary is read, which, a rosary is this necklace of beads and each bead signifies a prayer. But it's just the same two prayers, over and over: Aves, or Hail Marys, and Paters, or Our Fathers. Ten Aves, one Pater. You do this fifteen times. And during each decade of ten Aves you are technically supposed to be contemplating a specific joyful, sorrowful or glorious Mystery, such as the Annunciation, or the Resurrection; there's a set order to it… well anyway, there is all this stuff you are meant to be thinking about. But who is to know what you are thinking about as you repeat these words? And they're really easy words to remember and repeat because you've known them all your life and magically everyone gets right out of your face and it's quiet in your head, finally.
There is murmuring like doves, a rustling stillness, and suddenly instead of hating on all these people to an almost unbelievable degree I realized it was my grief, sadness and rage that had been making me feel so uncharitable, and that I really was (and not just "should be") grateful to these people (any of whom might indeed have known and loved my grandfather as much I did, at some stage in his long life) for coming all this way to participate in this sad occasion with my family, when they could have been home making pancakes. That was the first time a religious ritual had really worked for me—like a charm, in the event—and though it didn't alter my essential lapsedness I felt a pang, that I had been so summarily dismissive about this thing that had, clearly, its uses. For a lot of people.
Never again did I express scorn or open disbelief in any kind of spiritual practice, after that day.
(Photo by Flickr user Miqul)
The Dish 