“I started having a lot more questions, so my re-version was around sophomore year.” Mrs. Nina Schrimpf is a Religion teacher at Cathedral Catholic High School, but God was not always a key figure in her life, up until her sophomore year in high school.

Growing up she “loved going up to get Eucharist” and saw the experience as, “something really special.”

Coming from a Mexican family that were heavy believers in participating in the faith, especially Shrimp’s mom, she became accustomed to the mandatory Sunday services. 

Mrs. Schrimpf’s first question of faith came during her first communion when her dad stayed behind when her family received the Eucharist. Her father’s deal with her mother was to marry and raise their children Catholic, something her dad was completely comfortable with. 

But, as Mrs. Schrimpf got older, around middle school, she hated the, “Mandate that we had to do these things, and there was no other option.” 

Mrs. Schrimpf wanted to feel this rebellion from her faith, which at the time felt boring and time consuming, but it was also a way to second guess her mom’s authority. 

Closer to eighth grade, she could not wrap her head around, “Why do some people have to have some really awful experiences?” Knowing that people in the world were suffering, and the fact that they could still believe in something, baffled Schrimpf. 

She had always attended public middle school, with Sunday school every weekend, so entering a private high school opened her to a world of new questions; most without answers.

Shrimp’s freshman year she had one of the most incredible men she’s ever met in her life. Sadly, Mrs. Schrimpf did not take advantage of the teacher who, “literally marched with Martin Luther King Jr.”

Mocking him during her rebellious stage she always felt a, “lost opportunity I would have gotten.”

When Sophomore year came around Mrs. Schrimpf thought she was going into another environment that she could mock and ignore.

During the first semester, her religion teacher took a new approach to her antics, and when Mrs. Schrimpf wanted to ask time wasting questions, her teacher would always put her in check.

Luckily, her teacher wanted to engage in conversation about Mrs. Schrimpf  troubling questions.

Over her Christmas break of Sophomore year, Mrs. Schrimpf visited Rome, a place filled with churches and statues of apostles. 

During her visit to St. Peter’s tomb, her tour guide told her about him refusing to deny Jesus. She, “remembered hearing that story and thinking, there was nothing in my life that I cared about that much.” Before her visit to Rome, “Everything [in my life] was so trivial and so fleeting.”

She was able to look back on her current situation and see that, “Everything was about my friends, about my weekends, about how I wanted to spend my time.”

There was something Mrs. Schrimpf was missing, but, “Change was in some ways immediate, and in some ways gradual.”

Immediately when her second semester of sophomore year started she took her questions to class, and had a teacher that was understanding of her conflict. Her and her friends started, “talking about God, and cutting out the disrespect.”

The gradual change was with Mrs. Schrimpf  relationship with God. She needed to work on her prayer life, and focus more time on her questions.

Luckily she is the type of person that is, “never lukewarm about anything,” and once she, “likes something I’m in.”

But, Mrs. Schrimpf understands that her current students probably face similar questions and challenges like she did throughout high school. 

She wants students to, “let yourself be in that space of questioning without feeling like it means you have to leave.”

We are fortunate to attend Cathedral, and have classes where we can share our struggles with people we can call mentors. 

Mrs. Schrimpf acknowledges that we are humans with questions and concerns but, “If you think that it’s a one and done, you’re probably not doing it right.”