church

Up until I was 7 years old, I believed that there were big beakers of orange juice on the altar in church. That was because the big candles in those glass enclosures were colored (for some reason) orange. I kept asking my dad what the orange juice was doing there and he thought I was nuts.

Bing

Although my family wasn't Catholic and I didn't even know any Catholics, I did know who the Pope was. When I couldn't figure out why Easter was on a different date every year, I assumed the Pope decided every year when Easter would be celebrated.

Anon

They showed a lot of rapture movies at my church when I was in high-school. For a couple of years I was really disappointed because I was totally and completely convinced that we were going to be raptured before I would have a chance to get married and have a family.

E

INWAS TOLD IF I CUT MY HAIR I WOULD GO TO HELL.

JEANETTE

When my sister and I were children you went to Catholic church with this little doiley thing on your head. I had very thin straight hair any my bobbypins would fall out. My sister told me that it was a sin not to wear it so I had to manage to keep it on. One windy day I was entering the church when a gust of wind blew my "doiley" off my head. My grandmother and sister were a few steps ahead of me and I hollered, at the top of my lungs to them, into a big, old echoey church, "I can't go in there Nana or I'm going straight to hell!" Needless to say the congregation got quite a kick out it. The priest did explain to me later that that was simply not true. I'm not Catholic anymore.

Susan

I used to believe Mr. Rogers lived in my church.

whitey

My daughter thought the phrase "for the good of all His church" was "for the good of Falls Church" (a town in Virginia) and couldn't understand why even in other cities, they would pray for Falls Church!

Muffy

I thought it was against the law not to go to church, and even more so if you were a kid. So I was deathly afraid that someone would lock up my family one day if we were discovered.

blnkfrnk

I used to believe that all nuns were bald. Something about a rite of passage for nuns was in there devotion to God they lost all there hair.....

Michelle

As a lover of animals, one time in church I was quite excited by the sermon because my mis-understanding of the minister who I swore said 'Gladly, the cross-eyed bear'

Philip

I once believed that the priest at the small country catholic church in Australia was calling apon some magical thing during the consecration of the host. Every time he said "let us pray" I thought he was calling apon "Alice spray". I had no idea who Alice was, nor why her spray might be so good, but sure hoped to have some one day.

Paul

i went to a catholic school in grade school. our church used to be between our house and my school so i used to pass by the church almost every day. one of the reasons why i loved passing by the church then was because the holy water smelled so sweet and flowery to me, i used to think it was really made that way. i would drop my rosary and my veil in it, and my hankies so i could take the scent home with me. after many years, one day i noticed it did not have the scent anymore and i told my mom.."why don't they put perfume in the holy water anymore?"..it was only then when my mother said "they never used to.." that i realized that i was the only one smelling the scent. i felt sad and happy at the sametime ..sad for losing it, and happy that i was given that small miracle while i was growing up.

aurora from manila, philippines

when we were preparing to receive our First Communion in the Catholic Church (may 8 years old) the nuns told us that if we touched the host in our mouth with our fingers,that blood would pour out of our mouths all over our white communion clothes.

Anon

Through a mental confusion of the Catholic ritual of Ash Wednesday and the bit about "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," as a kid I thought that the first time the priest smeared those ashes on my forehead, I was gonna die.

Sean

When we went to Catholic mass when I was about 8 or 9 years old we always used to sit on the front bench. At that time we weren't 'confirmed' and so didn't go up for holy communion but we listened in on those who were. The priest at our church was an old Irish guy who'd obviously said the words so often that they merged together so for years I thought that when he put the 'host' on your tongue he said 'puddy-pram' to you. A couple of years later I learned that he actuallly said 'body of christ'.

Hutch