Advent Calendar: religion

Advent Calendar:

Dec 6
Because you think of Puerto Rico as a Latin country, it surprises a lot of my friends to find out that my mother and her siblings (as well as my step-father and real father) were protestants. Mami wasn't "spiritual". Even if it was just her way of playing along with her cultural background, she professed a belief in all sorts of spiritista nonsense. Her core belief was an abundant confidence in some sort of ethereal goodness and her sence of righteouness. And it was always grounded in the practical. I remember her telling the nuns, "You educate them and their souls are yours." That's how we became Catholics. Our mother sold our souls to the Sisters of Charity. When Sundays rolled around, conflicting with some family junket, she'd meet my protests that I had to go to mass or suffer damnation with the solution: go to confession on Friday. "But what if I die before then?" "Do you think God is really going to punish you for that?", she'd say. "Besides, tell him I made you. Now get in the car." It worked for me.