(from Courier-Post, April 1, 2011)

Growing up, I frequently heard the phrase “holy days of obligation.”

It came not only from school — I survived 12 years of Catholic school — but also from my grandparents, one Irish and one Filipino for a double-barrel blast of fervent religious tradition.

For me, however, a long-lapsed Catholic who never attends church and identifies more as an agnostic than a believer, “holy days of obligation” has a different meaning.

I wasn’t at work Thursday, when Major League Baseball opened its season. It’s a religious holiday.

My husband and I dropped our toddler off at daycare, then enjoyed a long, leisurely brunch out, and finally parked ourselves in front of ESPN for the Tigers and Yankees at 1, the Padres and Cardinals at 4 and Giants and Dodgers at 8.

It’s a good thing I married within the faith.

We picked the toddler up from daycare between games. And sat her on the couch to watch with us.

It’s never too early for religious instruction.

I won’t be at work today, either, when the Phillies open their season against the Houston Astros at Citizens Bank Park.

It’s a holy day of obligation.

If baseball is my religion, my Christianity, then the Phillies are my church, my Catholicism. (I can almost hear my Irish Gran spinning in her grave as I write this.) And I feel compelled — indeed, obligated — to spend the day worshiping at their altars, or at least in front of the television.

As in any religion, the Phillies have begged sacrifices of me. I suffered through multiple losing seasons between stops to the Promised Land in 1980 and 2008. I’ve been lured by false prophets, prospects who were going to save the organization from mediocrity but never quite panned out.

I’ve agonized over my team’s travails the way true believers do at the Stations of the Cross. (If Gran wasn’t spinning before, she certainly is now.)

Still, baseball and the Phillies have taught me as much about life as Catholicism has. No matter how badly a game ends, you still have to come back to play tomorrow (perseverance). It wasn’t Mitch Williams’ fault Joe Carter sent that pitch flying into the stark oblivion of the Skydome in 1993 (forgiveness). Follow the rules, even when it’s hard or it goes against your nature, because there will be consequences if you don’t (I’m looking at you, Pete Rose).

Even when your team finishes in last place, there’s always next season (hope).

It’s given me rapturous feelings — the unabashed joy only a 9-year-old can feel when Tug McGraw, my childhood hero, leaped into the air in 1980 and, in 2008, the first flutter of movement from a blob in my belly that would become my daughter as Carlos Ruiz flew into Brad Lidge’s embrace.

And every opening day, every holy day of obligation, the words of John Fogerty’s “Centerfield” echo in my heart, like the chorus of a glorious hymn:

Beat the drum

and hold the phone

the sun came out today.

We’re born again

there’s new grass on the field.

Born again, indeed.