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cyanheaven
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| First Name: | Callie | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | Baptist/ Bapticostal/ Baptist/ "BaptoCatholic" |
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Posted: Thu Aug 7th, 2008 07:23 pm |
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CajunRick wrote: lapsedConvert wrote: It's bad enough when your loved ones think you're nuts but when you wonder yourself sometimes...
My family has always known I'm nuts, and conversion has nothing to do with it! In fact, as I write, my daughter is trying to convince me (by IM) not to send a clown bearing balloons to her work place for her 30th birthday. Of course, for months she has hidden her work phone number and address from me, only calls me from her cell phone, etc. She knows her daddy! And the people my daughter works with are the ones who set up a 30-foot tall dinosaur for the boss's 50th birthday, so it wouldn't exactly upset the decorum of the workplace! And both my wife and daughter forbid me from singing along with the happy birthday crew at restaurants. How sad is that?
My point is that our families love us, but often question our actions and motives on so many things just because we don't behave the way they would like us to. When it comes to faith, we must go where we find the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We can only hope and pray they will join us on our journey.
For a second there I thought I was reading about my own father. 
I have a feeling after years of anticts you might deserve some of the reaction your getting in return, all in love of course! 
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JasPax
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| Location: | North Carolina USA |
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| First Name: | James | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Episcopal to Catholic |
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Posted: Thu Aug 7th, 2008 09:43 pm |
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CajunRick wrote: My family has always known I'm nuts, and conversion has nothing to do with it!
Don't worry Rick. That will pass because in a few years they can pass you off as a senile old fool. Then you can do whatever you want because they will assume that everyone else will understand and feel sympathy for them because thy must put up with you.
Regards,
P.S. I'm at that stage now. It's not bad! 
Edited to fix formattingLast edited on Fri Aug 8th, 2008 03:30 am by
____________________
James
"Abide in me, and I in you..." John 15:4
"He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him." John 6:56
RSV-2CE
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GoodSoil
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Posted: Fri Aug 8th, 2008 05:33 pm |
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OK Guys, I have a question.
So far my husband has agreed just to let me take RCIA. Sister says if I take it and our marriage can't handle a conversion at Easter Father can get permission from the Bishop to confirm me at a later date.
In the meantime, I still go to church with my husband. I do want some family unity and I do support his faith. I attend vigil anyway, so although our non-denom services are getting harder and harder to sit through, I am free on Sunday, and my dh hasn't been as anti-Cath as he would like. At the church he (we) attend(s) the communion is separate so people can go and take communion as they are able during the singing, since we are encouraged not to partake if there is a sin on our conscience or a situation where reconciliation with a br. or sr. needs to occur. Nothing would prevent me from going to the communion area with my husband and standing with him while he takes communion if I did not partake. Sr. sees this as "pretending".
I don't want to make the Catholic Church my dirty little secret, and I don't want to seem like her teaching is indefensable. But when people get into it with us about this, they really don't want to know what we believe or why. Plus my husband and I attend a "male head of the house" church (which has some female pastors. Their husbands gave them permission to be pastors, I guess?). I think the fewer fruitless emotional confrontations are involved, the better. Am I being prudent or am I being a wuss?
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Intercessor
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Posted: Fri Aug 8th, 2008 05:50 pm |
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Trish, is your husband asking you to go forward with him when he partakes?
Or is it just your idea?
Becky
____________________
Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials. . .the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Blessed is the man who perseveres in temptation, for when he has been proved he will receive the crown of life. . . NAB James 1:2-4,12
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GoodSoil
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Posted: Fri Aug 8th, 2008 06:15 pm |
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Becky-
It isn't forward, it's backward. Families or groups of friends if they happen to be sitting near each other get the elements from a tray and stand in little huddles at the back of the sanctuary and pray. So far, he hasn't asked one way or another since as far as he is concerned I am "just taking RCIA". I will admit, it is hard not to be antagonistic. Last week it was my turn to pray and I said "Thank you Lord for this beautiful symbol of Your Body and Blood. Please let me become Catholic so I can have the real thing." My husband rolled his eyes. He sort of treats my inclinations toward the Church as a fad I am going through (for four of the eight years we've been married!!) and affectionately says things like "You're incourragable!" (when he isn't yelling at me for 'staring for hours at a picture of Mary' or 'worshiping a freakin' cracker.') I don't see the harm in walking back there with him and standing quietly in our huddle while he prays. He doesn't understand why it should be the real prescence, so he doesn't have full knowledge, and if there is no consecration, then at that church it really is just a symbol. In view of that, I don't think he is sinning. In fact, as long as I just partake of the symbol and don't revere it as a sacrement, prior to coming into the Church I don't think I am sining. I'll take what I can get. The people in the OT puting lambs' blood on their doors were doing the best they could. If I were Catholic it would be wrong for me to take communion elsewhere, but I don't know that standing in my family huddle would be wrong. I don't know if participating as fully as I can with him is building family unity or wimping out. When I go up for communion at mass with my arms crossed I am doing it so everyone won't have to crawl over me and I can at least look at the species or get a blessing from Father, etc. I don't think that is "passing myself off as Catholic", but as not being disruptive.
In the Catholic teachings there is a principle of "not causing scandal". For ex, if a non-Cath takes communion you should let the priest handle it and not confront them, or at the very least talk to them later, not go "NO! None for you!" while you are passing out the Eucharist. So how does that apply at my husbands' church? Would I be hiding my true identity or just not inviting a bunch of "concerned" people to call my husband and harrang him about letting me wander off into "papist error". I was a Protestant when he married me. A big one. That's what he liked about me. A big argument with someone outside the marriage would be pointless. Or would the lack of one be gutless?
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Intercessor
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Posted: Fri Aug 8th, 2008 06:47 pm |
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If Dave, David, or Rick contradict anything I say to you, ignore what I said.
Trish, I'm a big believer in authority and obedience.
Right now, the closest thing we have to authority is Sister's assessment of your situation; my instincts (based on what you've described so far about how things are handled) are that you are skating on thin ice when you scoot up as close as you can get to both the Catholic and the Protestant celebrations of Communion. There is a need for complete honesty and authenticity before the Lord (and others) in this matter.
If I were you, I would have a talk with my priest about the situation in your husband's church. When I was preparing to come into the Church, I placed myself under the authority of my catechist, an experienced priest. I obeyed, to the letter, everything he instructed me to do regarding my relationship with my Baptist church, my pastors, the ladies in my Sunday School class, Baptist activities, my immediate family members, my studies, my participation in Catholic rites and activities. He assumed responsibility for my soul's care. I gave him my obedience. I wish you could have that sort of arrangement.
Am I correct in thinking that you have definitely made up your mind to enter the Catholic Church?
God bless,
Becky
____________________
Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials. . .the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Blessed is the man who perseveres in temptation, for when he has been proved he will receive the crown of life. . . NAB James 1:2-4,12
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GoodSoil
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Posted: Fri Aug 8th, 2008 06:52 pm |
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Becky-
Thanks for your good advice. I will email Father with the situation.
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Steven Barrett
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Posted: Fri Aug 8th, 2008 11:13 pm |
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I attend a "male head of the house" church (which has some female pastors. Their husbands gave them permission to be pastors, I guess?).
Goodsoil
You are indeed "Goodsoil" if you can endure all of what you've written and I'm sure some more that you'd probably like to share and add. I think we all have some additional horror stories to tell. But I'm at loss to describe what you described. The pettiness, and I mean the church's institutionalized and ritualized pettiness is So Legalistic and mean-spirited.
I would've bolted and joined anyone else, (well, not Scientology or JW's etc if Catholicism didn't exist.
As for the female pastors for an Archie Bunker church, I guess they must be the enabling (good cop) or enforcing (bad cop) Ediths. Even the boldest nuns -- and believe me -- I've met my share -- knew where the line was drawn and they were more than happy to make sure it wasn't crossed, or stepped back from by wussy Post-Vatican II-ized liberal priests. (See Commonweal 7/18/08 for a published "exchange" between Sr. Sarah Butler and Fr. Robert Egan, SJ. for a good example of what I just said. This is a perfect example of why we need more good nuns who'll even get the priests to get back in the habit of saying YESSISTER as one word. If Fr. Pacwa ever saw this he'd want to ride his Harley off into the sunset, to anywhere and hide of embarrassment.
C'mon on in everybody. No matter what the world thinks, and that's what's really crazy, we're still keeping our heads, hearts, acts and most importantly our souls together.
But don't feel bad if your kids rib you a little so long as it's in jest. (Nothing more intractably conservative in habit than a teen or young adult. God Bless 'em for that!)
When I told my son I was going back to Rome, he responded, "Dad, I don't think you're crazy because you're going back to the Catholic Church ... I always thought you were crazy.") If I can laugh at that, what can an in-law or somebody at your present Prot. church going to have over any of us?
When the Lord was warning the Apostles to not worry what the world could do to them, He must've had his married apostles in mind! And they didn't have any Coming Home Networkl back then. They had to survive the BAD Saul before they could enjoy the new and much improved Paul. But alas, no "Journey Home" show.
____________________
James Michael Curley to a young Thomas “Tip” O’Neill -- “Son, it’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.”
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GoodSoil
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Posted: Sat Aug 9th, 2008 12:25 am |
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Thanks. I don't mean to make the people at my (current) church sound like wack jobs, I think it is nice they try to preserve a biblical view of masculinity and some dignity for the father in a feminist world while allowing women to pursue their gifts in ministry. These are just the problems we face when a) there is no possibility of a woman becoming a Sr. and b) we are interpreting the scripture one congregation at a time, a kingdom unto ourselves. I am not at all worried about the actual pastors giving me a hard time, it's more the laity, since when you come to a nondenom church people have vastly different views about everything from the carpet to the Catholic Church to what communion means exactly to how one is 'saved'. RCIA seems like an awful long time, but when I consider there are exCath loved ones at that other church siting in the pews thinking all communion anywhere, including that one, is the literal Body and Blood, next to people who let their kids go in the kitchen after services and down as many leftover little cups they can as a contest (grape juice), I think a year isn't that long to make sure everyone knows what is meant by what is said. The idea is that we will not be divided by side doctrines. But what determines what is a side doctrine IS a main doctrine.
This is why I wish to avoid unnecessary "discussions". I have mentally rehearsed, worse-case, these scenarios in my mind and I am planning to go with something along the lines of "Yep. I'm going to Hell. What would you go to hell for? Want some coffee?"
No one can really argue with "You're right". I think if my unwillingness to argue or silence can make people curious about the Church-genuinely curious- they will find answers on their own. No one wins a debate. It feels beneath me, beneath the Church, to defend Her to people in that position anyway. Can you imagine the Blessed Mother having a DNA test taken to prove her story to the good people of Nazareth?! (anachronistic, I know).The fact that so many Protestants are obsessed with debunking Catholicism tells me it is always on their minds. The very spirit of non-listening rhetorical interrogation is what I wished to leave. I do want to learn apologetics both for my own sake and for any sincerely curious people I run across, but I am not going to fight about this, and less still make my husband, who shares none of my new convictions and none of my research, fight about it.
I have been in communication with my priest and will follow his advice.
Thank you for your encouragement and your reminder that it doesn't matter what other people think. I need all the encouragement I can get, and I just didn't want to make the members of the church my husband attends sound evil, just incongruous.
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Intercessor
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Posted: Sat Aug 9th, 2008 01:38 am |
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GoodSoil wrote:
Becky-
Thanks for your good advice. I will email Father with the situation.
. . .
I have been in communication with my priest and will follow his advice.
I'm very glad to hear this, Trish. This was a wise move, I believe.
God bless you.
Becky
____________________
Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials. . .the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Blessed is the man who perseveres in temptation, for when he has been proved he will receive the crown of life. . . NAB James 1:2-4,12
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Truthseeker
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Posted: Sat Aug 9th, 2008 01:52 am |
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Hi-
I have not read all the responses - my eyes are so bad the words just blend and blend.
But, I wanted to address one thing, in regards to not feeling like you're sinning if you receive communion in your husband's church, based on the fact that you're not worshiping it as Jesus.
The reason why you would be sinning is this: In the Catholic church, communion is not something that "draws us together" (even though it does). Catholic communion is something that we take to show that we are already drawn together. When we receive communion, we are saying that we believe in the presence of Christ there, as well as the beliefs of our church.
If you receive communion at your husband;s church, you may not believe Jesus is there (which he's not), but you would be performing an act (communion) that shows you are one with that Body (church) and it's beliefs.
In Catholic theology, communion is the sign of already being committed, just as the marital act is the sign of already being committed in marriage. There's lots about this comparison.
God bless you. It's hard, I know.
Love, Laura
____________________
Lord, please make my will your Will!
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GoodSoil
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Posted: Sat Aug 9th, 2008 03:03 am |
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Thanks Laura and everyone.
I haven't become Catholic yet. Father said that as long as I am not Catholic yet and have not officially broken fellowship with my present church body I am not "objectively" commiting a sin if I receive communion with my husband, although I must be sensitive to God and my conscience. (Father talks a lot about "objectively" and "subjectively" and the Church Law and how God takes our circumstances, maturity, duress, etc. into account, but that we can't judge others and sometimes it is hard to decide even in our own case, so, if in doubt it's always best to follow the Church laws explicitly. So, he would say, subjectively I might feel Catholic and God sees my heart, but objectively I am not a member of the Church and am free to take communion with my husband.)
He said, once I do become Catholic it will be a sin for me to take communion anywhere else, but it will be OK to stand in the "family huddle" while the others take communion as long as I do not take communion or in any way affirm those other views of communion. (There is no set prayer so I would not be put on the spot to say "Amen" at any point or anything like that.) If my family understands that I am just being in the huddle out of love for them (which they will if I join the Catholic church and stop actually receiving with them) I would not denegrating my faith just to stand there quietly near them.
Father is ever so slightly to the left of me on a lot of stuff, and God bless him, he is a pragmatist down to his little black socks, but perhaps that is God's will. I have at times been "too idealistic" At any rate, my husband would never force me to take communion with him. I don't want him to feel in competition with the Church and I would like to stay as connected with him as possible while we make this transition. I just have a hard time finding the line on some things. And of course, anything EWTN-connected is a bit to the right of average Catholics, which is why I looked you all up.
I appreciate your communion/marriage-sex analogy, and in fact a year or two ago I had my husband listened with me to a CD of Christopher West's teaching on the Theology of the Body. At this point, I have had to fight tooth and nail to get him to let me take RCIA and he still has not agreed to tolerate my joining the Church at Easter, we need to find some sort of counseling. Father and Sister are aware of my situation.
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Sat Aug 9th, 2008 04:10 am |
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Trish, might I offer a point which I’ve seen come up time and again when someone is “in transit”?
Right now, you are still among those investigating the Catholic faith, what we call an inquirer. If you continue to move toward the Catholic viewpoint, there will come a day when you will not be able to take communion in your old church. Your conscience will not allow you to go there any more. This is when you begin to be truly a Catholic believer.
The point of this is that so long as you have not arrived at the point where non-Catholic communion is unthinkable, you are not, in my opinion, “Catholic enough” to worry about it being a sin to receive.
David
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GoodSoil
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Posted: Sat Aug 9th, 2008 01:56 pm |
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| Thanks David. Your response sounded much like Father's. I have reached out to you all in hopes of becoming "Catholic enough". It is hard to get there without that emotional support. Even now I am realizing that if I join the Church I could not be buried with my husband if I die. What about our child(ren)? This has never seemed like enough of a reality for me to really consider the changes and separations that will come. I am not as far along as I thought, I guess. But it isn't something I could do alone. Thanks for your support.
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Sat Aug 9th, 2008 08:05 pm |
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I have reached out to you all in hopes of becoming "Catholic enough".
Yes, you told us that in your first post. And I think you are making good progress toward that goal.
Even now I am realizing that if I join the Church I could not be buried with my husband if I die.
Why not?
What about our child(ren)?
This is the big one. Often the children are trampled in the matrimonial tug-of-war when the parents are not “together” spiritually, morally or ideologically. They end up “opting out” and spending their lives in the secular Never-Never Land and sometimes in trouble either emotionally or with the law.
I am not as far along as I thought, I guess.
I believe you will find yourself better than halfway, Trish. It’s just that some complications are beginning to make themselves felt. Working your way through them will take some time, but probably not forever.
David
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GoodSoil
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Posted: Sun Aug 10th, 2008 08:21 pm |
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Even now I am realizing that if I join the Church I could not be buried with my husband if I die.
Why not?
Before he got sick and retired God Squad Father said that non-Catholics can not be burried on Catholic ground, neither can Catholics who married a Protestant. He said that Catholic cemetaries are for those who've made peace with the Church and are in communion. But if someone who married a Protestant asks for a priest while dying the diocese may consider that evidence of reconciliaton and start digging. Now:
Who is going to spend their last breath repenting of marry the person that they love?
If they did, the priest isn't allowed to tell anyone they did, or anything a person reveals in cofession
and
Where to bury the Protestant spouse, assuming he/she does not marry again?
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Sun Aug 10th, 2008 09:29 pm |
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Trish, what this priest said may have applied before the law was changed in 1983, but it isn’t what is done now. Here are the criteria for burial in a Catholic cemetery for the Archdiocese of Chicago:
Who May be Buried in a Catholic Cemetery?
The church expects the burial of Catholics in Catholic cemeteries. To avoid breaking close family ties, non-Catholic members of Catholic families may be interred in a Catholic cemetery. In the Archdiocese, Catholic burial, including the funeral Mass, is permitted for a baptized non-Catholic who might reasonably be presumed to desire or prefer Catholic burial services. Such a decision would be appropriate where the non-Catholic party worshipped regularly at the Catholic Church or identified with the Catholic Church more than any other.
Even if your husband refuses to be buried in a Catholic cemetery, this does not mean you have to be buried in one apart from him. There is no rule stating that you cannot be buried in another place, beyond the fact that it is the preferred method. Even cremation is now an option under the new code, as stated on the same web page linked above.
David
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GoodSoil
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Posted: Sun Aug 10th, 2008 09:48 pm |
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| Thanks! I can die happy now. Well, maybe I'll wait a few years.
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GoodSoil
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Posted: Thu Aug 14th, 2008 12:32 am |
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Hi guys.
I am reasearching angels and saints. How do they work differently? If my patron was St. Rose of Lima, she could understand my plight having gone through something similar. On the other hand, St. Michael could kick some demonic behind. So would an angel (who is also a saint) make a better patron? Or does a saints "power" come from their ability to relate and their having been human and overcome whatever issues you are presently trying to overcome? How do they work differently? Which would be a better patron?
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Thu Aug 14th, 2008 01:07 am |
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Hello again, Trish. Since you posted your question here, I’ll answer it here, although it really belongs in the area for Mary and the Saints. We like to keep things categorized because it makes topics easier to find. If several topics are attached to the same thread, the software does not allow us to detach the off-topic posts to move them elsewhere, so they will remain forever “off topic” and, for most people, unfindable.
A saint’s or angel’s “power” comes not from any creaturely attributes, but from God. The saint’s or angel’s knowledge comes from the same source, because it is through the vision of God that all things are communicated to those in heaven. God, being infinitely intelligible, allows all things in heaven and earth that concern any of his intelligent creatures to be known through his own knowledge of these things.
i don’t think it is necessary to compare the powers of saints and angels, since the differences are individual rather than according to nature. Natural differences don’t matter in heaven, since everything is known and done supernaturally through God. The one natural difference between them that might make a difference is that the human being has a body and therefore has experience of material creation from that standpoint. Through that experience, a human saint could perhaps be seen as more sympathetic to a person’s material hardship.
David
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GoodSoil
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Posted: Thu Aug 14th, 2008 01:14 am |
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| Thanks David! You're a saint. Or an angel.
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GoodSoil
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Posted: Sat Aug 16th, 2008 02:27 am |
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Hi guys. Made it through my first RCIA class. Everyone was very nice. We had to get into discussion groups and answer "What makes Catholics Catholic?" the ladies in my group said things like "They accept all people. They try to help people like, what are those people from Mexico called?...immigrants. And children. And they accept all beliefs. Buddhists are good and Muslims are good and all people are good."
I asked Sister "There is a difference, isn't there, between accepting people of all beliefs and accepting every belief as true, right? I mean, as Catholics there are specific things we believe?" She said she didn't understand the question. But I said I had heard people in Catholic circles say things like "However you define God..." and that sounded to me like it didn't matter what you believe or like Jesus is "just what we call it." She said no, she does not agree that it doesn't matter what you believe. She said we believe the creed. That made me feel better.
I also asked whose relics are in churches with Marian names and she said that we don't even do relics anymore, it's macabre and many people in the past just sold them to make money and our altar doesn't even have a relic.
All in all it was a much better experience than last time and I think I will be able to continue. I still felt like I was on a totally different plane than my classmates, not to be conceited, just, differnt things matter to me. Father popped in and made some small talk with some of the people in the class and somehow slipped in a general comment about not getting too deep into complicated things. : ) I think I will be OK.
God bless!
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Truthseeker
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| Joined: | Wed Oct 4th, 2006 |
| Location: | Costa Mesa, California USA |
| Posts: | 457 |
| First Name: | Laura | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | lapsed and returned CATHOLIC!!!!!! |
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Posted: Sat Aug 16th, 2008 09:49 pm |
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GoodSoil wrote: And they accept all beliefs. Buddhists are good and Muslims are good and all people are good."
I asked Sister "There is a difference, isn't there, between accepting people of all beliefs and accepting every belief as true, right? I mean, as Catholics there are specific things we believe?" She said she didn't understand the question. But I said I had heard people in Catholic circles say things like "However you define God..." and that sounded to me like it didn't matter what you believe or like Jesus is "just what we call it." She said no, she does not agree that it doesn't matter what you believe. She said we believe the creed. That made me feel better.
hI-
Here is the way I have absorbed this idea of accepting other's beliefs (which really means accepting that they believe it), and realizing that there is actual truth (which is different than their beliefs), and acknowledging that those who belive differently (Muslims, Mormons, JH's) can still go to heaven.
Firstly, whatever a person's beliefs are, whether they believe in Christ or not, they are still only saved through Him Who died that they might live. So, one might not be a Christian, but is still saved by Christ, just like everyone else.
Secondly, Christ wills that all be saved. It is possible to turn your back on Him, but I think that one who is never introduced to Him - or who can never understand Who He truly is- is judged with far more Mercy. Imagine all the "doomed" people from places like the jungles of Africa, the deserts of Egypt, Native Americans, lost tribes of anywhere - throughout thousands and thousands and thousands of years. Can God abandon the all?
Thirdly, and this is my own personal opinion - I just think that it is so pleasing to God when a person worships Him to the best of their ability. I think, even if it's in error, good faith worship is "saving" through Christ's Mercy. If someone is taught, all thier lives, that Christ is a great prophet (and nothing more), but does their best to live by His mandates, and loves Him, and trusts their salvation to Him (possibly by their works - which they think is required), then I can't see how Christ would forsake them simply because they don't truly understand who He is.
Love, Laura
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Lord, please make my will your Will!
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GoodSoil
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