{"componentChunkName":"component---src-templates-article-tsx","path":"/primepaulinemiraculouscatch","result":{"data":{"primeArticle":{"slug":"prime.pauline.miraculouscatch","excerpt":"At mass, a gospel prompts Ordonez to reflect on her faith, lost in one father and found in another.","headline":"Miraculous Catch of Fish","author":"Pauline Ordonez","authorbio":"","authoremail":"pordonez@dailybruin.com","authortwitter":"","coverimg":"https://assets.dailybruin.com/images/prime.pauline.miraculouscatch/Pauline_Prime_Title_Page-ed9978fb1c27a464148e094aea9477ab.png","covercred":"Nicole Anisgard Parra","coveralt":"An illustration of yellowfin tuna fish in a school.","articleType":"article","updated":null,"content":[{"type":"text","value":"It’s my father’s birthday, Feb. 10, 2019. A Sunday. The Lord’s day."},{"type":"text","value":"After my three years away at college, my family no longer wakes up on Sundays with the expectation of my father pulling us from our sleep with his booming voice, a countdown to church. Nowadays, before my siblings and I attempt to untangle ourselves from our warm comforters, my father is gone, humming and laughing with his fishing buddies as the wind whips at his face out on the ocean. While my father plays games with the fish miles below – luring, pulling, rarely losing – we can sleep in."},{"type":"text","value":"It’s a Sunday, but I wake to the familiar sound of my father’s car racing into our driveway, resounding in the street outside my window. He’s back several hours early – the boat must not have gone out today. So, he picks another venture: Mass."},{"type":"text","value":"Nowadays, he slips away on Saturdays to vigil Mass, with or without us. But today is his birthday, so we don’t protest, we don’t hesitate. We are ushered silently by my mother onto the leather seats of the car, then onto the wooden pews of the church. I easily fall into the rhythm of the service – sit up, stand up, kneel, recite this prayer, sing this psalm – only stirring out of my automation during the second reading from the book of Luke, the story of the miraculous catch of fish. In the story, Jesus instructs four fishermen to recast their nets. Incredulous, one fisherman answers, “We have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net.”"},{"type":"text","value":"The fishermen are rewarded for their faith. While the person reading voices the fishermen’s astonishment at the sight of their overflowing nets, I think about another fisherman at my side – my father – attempting to reconcile his lost fishing trip with a visit to Mass. I realize this religion was always about some sort of comfort to my dad, who returned to the high ceilings of the church for solace. We no longer go to Mass weekly as a family, but we went for my sister’s last Mass before moving away or for my baby cousin’s safe delivery. Not even a month after I was born, my parents returned to church to have me bathed in holy water. This early baptism was not only customary – it was reassurance. As my grandmother explained to me, to have the baby baptized as early as possible was to protect them."},{"type":"text","value":"I am not that baby anymore. Nor am I Catholic, despite my parents’ pledge at my baptism. I was baptized because my father inherited his Catholicism from his pious parents and reasoned his children would too. My baptism was a great precursor to my journey through the church; I cried through most of it, feeling perpetually young and vulnerable as the waters of faith engulfed me."},{"type":"image","value":"{\"alt\":\"An illustration of Pauline as a baby being baptized, with the droplets of holy water transforming into small fish.\",\"url\":\"https://assets.dailybruin.com/images/prime.pauline.miraculouscatch/IMG_1448-4d3d93573bb83fef880b33be130f10a2.PNG\",\"credit\":\"Nicole Anisgard Parra\",\"caption\":\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"Teachings began when I was in kindergarten, every Sunday, with gentle women in long skirts and wrinkles softening their faces. Weekly catechism continued into elementary school and junior high. The teachers were still warm, welcoming, but the instruction gradually became cold, damning."},{"type":"text","value":"Scripture was no longer just impressive tales of God’s power, but foretellings of my punishment. I dreaded catechism – sessions that reasserted my fear of being unworthy. Along with my classmates, I read passages of small script on thin, delicate pages, intimidated by the volume of God’s word. For reconciliation, my first sacrament since baptism, I sat ashamed in front of the priest, confessing my sins in whispers. For my first Holy Communion, I ate the body and drank the blood, my guilt festering as I swallowed. In high school, during the two years it took to be confirmed, I often clung to rosary beads, anxious for my repetition to be heard."},{"type":"text","value":"All those years, my father was the one to drive me to and from church. In the passenger seat, I felt my resentment grow for him as the driver, intent on delivering me to this place I found stifling. Perhaps I could have voiced my reluctance, stopped my bitterness from festering for so long. But my father was at the wheel, grip unwavering, and I was just the passenger. So I stayed quiet."},{"type":"text","value":"I was doubtful. I can admit that. I felt like the penance was never enough. I was told I would be forgiven, was told I would be heard, was told I was fortunate to be loved despite all my sins. I was told during every Mass, every class. But I was never able to overcome my doubts, never able to embrace the faith I saw my father so ardently return to again and again. In my sophomore year of high school, I completed my confirmation – what would be my final sacrament in the church. I felt relief, not because the sacrament flushed away all my culpability as intended, but because my father was happy."},{"type":"text","value":"After confirmation, my faith was my responsibility. Without my father driving me to weekly catechism, my Bible remained closed. All the intimidation, the shame, the guilt stayed tucked away on a bookshelf."},{"type":"text","value":"I told myself that I was forgiven, heard and loved – but by a father nearer than I thought."},{"type":"text","value":"For too long, I clenched my fist around this grudge against my father, holding him responsible for my unhappiness in this religion. But I can sit in the pew and sing hymns with him because I am his daughter, participating in this custom for the family, not the church. I can trust now that he intended to impress on us morals and discipline by putting us through all those years in catechism. If only I had relented my bitterness earlier, shed my reluctance quickly like those fishermen in the story, I would have been able to relish in the fruits of that trust, the fish, sooner."},{"type":"text","value":"Trade the net for a fishing rod, and the story aligns; my father is a skilled and blessed fisherman, so our refrigerator overflows with filets and whole fish. I, not Catholic but still a daughter, take my communion at the dinner table at home, over the shared meal of fish."}]}},"pageContext":{"term":"winter20","slug":"prime.pauline.miraculouscatch"}},"staticQueryHashes":[]}