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sweetyface17
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| Joined: | Sun Mar 11th, 2007 |
| Location: | Hudson, Michigan USA |
| Posts: | 43 |
| First Name: | Mandy | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | Lutheran, Considering Catholicism |
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Posted: Tue Apr 3rd, 2007 12:41 pm |
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I've been contemplating joining the Catholic Church more and more seriously over the past few years. I attend mass, along with services at my current church. As of right now, I'm Missouri Synod Lutheran. I think I'm going to contact the parish I've enjoyed the most and start attending RCIA classes. I think that is what I'm being called to do. It will be difficult, as I have a brother who is a LCMS minister. I don't think he'll take too kindly to that. That'll make him the only Lutheran left in my immediate family... It seems like we're all becoming Catholic at a rapid pace.  Thanks for listening.
~Mandy
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brian
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| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Chicago South Burbs, Illinois USA |
| Posts: | 746 |
| First Name: | brian | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | methodist, evangelical, anglican, catholic |
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Posted: Tue Apr 3rd, 2007 01:14 pm |
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Thanks for encouraging us with your message. I find there to have been some difficulties in becoming Catholic, but I also find that grace gives more than enough to make it through, though each persons personal challenges and crosses will perhaps vary in degree of difficulty. Ultimately, I think it is a grace that gives us the resolve to follow the convictions of our heart to follow truth that gravitate us toward the church despite whatever resistance we meet within or outside ourselves.
I hope that statement is correct and not arrogant. There may be many sincere seekers who for whatever reason don't make it to the Church. I can not say why this is the case or judge their sincerity.
This forum is a great place for answers, support and encouragment and I hope it meets your needs when and if you need them.
This journey to the church has been an amazing and challenging one for me and I am very excited to see it enter its next stage this saturday night. I hope you will find peace and joy discovering the beauty of the Catholic Church.
Brian
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sweetyface17
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| Joined: | Sun Mar 11th, 2007 |
| Location: | Hudson, Michigan USA |
| Posts: | 43 |
| First Name: | Mandy | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | Lutheran, Considering Catholicism |
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Posted: Tue Apr 3rd, 2007 01:30 pm |
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| Thank you so much for your inspiring words. I don't think any of it was arrogant at all! I'm a little scared, but i think that's probably normal. Congratulations on your big day coming up. I hope it goes beautifully.
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Steven Barrett
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| Joined: | Tue Nov 14th, 2006 |
| Location: | Hadley, Massachusetts USA |
| Posts: | 804 |
| First Name: | Steven | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Catholic, Episcopal communicant, Baptist, Catholic |
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Posted: Tue Apr 3rd, 2007 01:45 pm |
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Just Do It!
(Not exactly an original thought, but I hope it'll give you encouragement!)
StevenLast edited on Tue Apr 3rd, 2007 01:46 pm by Steven Barrett
____________________
For anyone suffering from a mental illness or has a loved one with a mental illness, my book "Lead kindly Light: A Devotional For The Mentally Ill" might be of some help: http://www.lulu.com/ (Use search box at the top of page.)
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CajunRick
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| First Name: | Rick (& Kermie) | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Lifetime Catholic, Latin Rite |
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Posted: Tue Apr 3rd, 2007 02:36 pm |
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sweetyface17 wrote: I've been contemplating joining the Catholic Church more and more seriously over the past few years. I attend mass, along with services at my current church. As of right now, I'm Missouri Synod Lutheran. I think I'm going to contact the parish I've enjoyed the most and start attending RCIA classes. I think that is what I'm being called to do. It will be difficult, as I have a brother who is a LCMS minister. I don't think he'll take too kindly to that. That'll make him the only Lutheran left in my immediate family... It seems like we're all becoming Catholic at a rapid pace. Thanks for listening.
~Mandy
Our best wishes to you, Mandy, and we'll be here to support you. Meanwhile, maybe your brother will get the message...
____________________
Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
Luquette Lane
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sweetyface17
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| Joined: | Sun Mar 11th, 2007 |
| Location: | Hudson, Michigan USA |
| Posts: | 43 |
| First Name: | Mandy | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | Lutheran, Considering Catholicism |
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Posted: Wed Apr 4th, 2007 12:11 pm |
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| Thanks everybody. I don't know if he'll come around. He was raised Catholic, so , I think he's especially hostile for some reason, and all the more reluctant to show any attachment. I'm not as worried about it as I was. He'll deal with it.
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brian
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| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Chicago South Burbs, Illinois USA |
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Posted: Wed Apr 4th, 2007 12:49 pm |
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Any reason he was raised Catholic and you were not? Are you far apart in age or from different marriages?
Anyway, there is great power to prayer so rather than have to defend yourself to him, simply pray and maybe occasionally God will use you to show him how lifegiving and wonderful faith in the Catholic Church can be through your growth, peace, and maybe certain arguments you will learn along the way well timed and gracefully stated, if he were willing to hear them.
Of course you are right to worry mostly about staying true to what you believe and living charitably toward others and letting what problems they have with you be their issue moreso than yours are one you are causing. I have had different reactions from different family. I can say that some of them have not changed and some have become more open to hearing and appreciating the faith. My mom and sister will be at the Easter Vigil to celebrate my confirmation with me, and my dad actually heard the call and is being confirmed with me this saturday which is a great story as well. My brother will probably not come as he has some hostility against the church (we were both raised in a church with a lot of ex catholics) but he has treated me charitably and not pursued trying to fight me or change my mind, and that means a lot to me. He wants to be a pastor himself so we can still talk theology and scripture.
For me it is my girlfriends parents who offer the most tension about this decision and fear my negative influence on their daughter (who is considering and likes the Catholic Church) but they are treating me charitably as well, so thanks be to God I have no major problems, whereas 5 years ago when I was considering becoming Catholic my mom was more negative about the idea than to any other I had presented to her. Now she watches Catholic programming with me reads Ctholic books, goes on silent retreats at convents, has some faith in the real presence and threatens to become a nun. I have found this quote from Newman to be true in some ways in my own case. I would not say it has to be this way fro every convert since we come from so many different backgrounds and reasons to consider conversion, but maybe it will betrue for you or your brother or others we know.
brian
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936), a famous convert to Catholicism, wrote brilliantly about three phases of conversion, which seem to be fairly typical of many, if not most, converts:
The convert commonly passes through three stages or states of mind. The first is when he imagines himself to be entirely detached . . . that of the young philosopher who feels that he ought to be fair to the Church of Rome. He wishes to do it justice; but chiefly because he sees that it suffers injustice . . . I had no more idea of becoming a Catholic than of becoming a cannibal. I imagined that I was merely pointing out that justice should be done even to cannibals . . .
The second stage is that in which the convert begins to be conscious not only of the falsehood but the truth . . . It consists in discovering what a very large number of lively and interesting ideas there are in the Catholic philosophy . . . This process, which may be called discovering the Catholic Church, is perhaps the most pleasant and straightforward part of the business . . . It is like discovering a new continent full of strange flowers and fantastic animals, which is at once wild and hospitable . . . It is these numberless glimpses of great ideas, that have been hidden from the convert by the prejudices of his provincial culture, that constitute the adventurous and varied second stage of the conversion. It is, broadly speaking, the stage in which the man is unconsciously trying to be converted . . .
The third stage is perhaps . . . the most terrible. It is that in which the man is trying not to be converted . . . He is filled with a sort of fear . . . He discovers a strange and alarming fact . . . a truth that Newman and every other convert has probably found in one form or another. It is impossible to be just to the Catholic Church. The moment men cease to pull against it they feel a tug towards it. The moment they cease to shout it down they begin to listen to it with pleasure. The moment they try to be fair to it they begin to be fond of it . . .
All steps except the last step he has taken eagerly on his own account, out of interest in the truth . . . I for one was never less troubled by doubts than in the last phase, when I was troubled by fears. Before that final delay I had been detached and ready to regard all sorts of doctrines with an open mind . . . I had no doubts or difficulties just before. I had only fears; fears of something that had the finality and simplicity of suicide . . . It may be that I shall never again have such absolute assurance that the thing is true as I had when I made my last effort to deny it . . .
At the last moment of all, the convert often feels as if . . . he is look through a little crack or crooked hole that seems to grow smaller as he stares at it; but it is an opening that looks towards the Altar. Only, when he has entered the Church, he finds that the Church is much larger inside than it is outside . . .
There is generally an interval of intense nervousness . . . To a certain extent it is a fear which attaches to all sharp and irrevocable decisions; it is suggested in all the old jokes about the shakiness of the bridegroom at the wedding . . . He wonders whether the whole business is an extraordinarily intelligent and ingenious confidence trick . . . There is in the last second of time or hair's breadth of space, before the iron leaps to the magnet, an abyss full of all the unfathomable forces of the universe . . . That anything described as so bad should turn out to be so good is itself a rather arresting process having a savour of something sensational and strange . . .
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Darlene
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| Joined: | Mon Oct 9th, 2006 |
| Location: | Pocono Mountains, Pennsylvania USA |
| Posts: | 868 |
| First Name: | Darlene | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | Christian, trusting His love and forgiveness |
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Posted: Wed Apr 4th, 2007 01:29 pm |
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Brian,
G. K. really expresses the Catholic journey well. I can relate completely! In which book of Chesterton's can this quote be found? Thanks for posting this.
Darlene
____________________
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. II Corinthians 13:14
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brian
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| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Chicago South Burbs, Illinois USA |
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| First Name: | brian | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | methodist, evangelical, anglican, catholic |
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Posted: Wed Apr 4th, 2007 02:55 pm |
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I believe it is called the Catholic Church and conversion. Not sure if it is part of a larger work or book. here is a link where you can read the chapters online if you want to see more.
http://www.smart.net/~tak/Chesterton/convertoc.html
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sweetyface17
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| Joined: | Sun Mar 11th, 2007 |
| Location: | Hudson, Michigan USA |
| Posts: | 43 |
| First Name: | Mandy | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | Lutheran, Considering Catholicism |
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Posted: Thu Apr 5th, 2007 11:27 am |
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Any reason he was raised Catholic and you were not? Are you far apart in age or from different marriages?
Both. My mom married his father when she was 17, according to her parents wishes. He was violent and adulterous, and she began to fear for her life and for her children, so she got a divorce. She was told (not sure by whom) that the Church did not see this as valid cause for divorce, and that she could no longer recieve the sacrements. She was very upset, as she had always been a devout Catholic, so she became Lutheran. There's a 23 year gap between my brother and I. I think my brother's hatred of the Catholic Church stems from the experiences our mother had with it. He was about 12 when she converted, so he was old enough to know what was happening.
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brian
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| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
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Posted: Thu Apr 5th, 2007 12:34 pm |
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wow, that is intense. I would think there are grounds for anullment in there somewhere, I wonder if maybe it was just a different time or she received bad counsel, or if there is more I am just unaware of. Rick would know better than I. Anyway, I thought you said your brother would be the only non-Catholic in your immediate family. Does that mean your mom came back to the church, or is she still alive? So I guess your brother is older than you to the point that you would have to b ecareful to not come off like you know better than him. It may take more time for him to take your views as serious as he would your own. (though I don't know him so I could be wrong) So maybe you should slowly and quietly learn and pick your spots if a question were to come up, but mostly work on your own conversion that he might see a positive example of someone interested in the Catholic Chrch to start to wash away some of the negative experiences in the back of his mind.
Forgive me for giving advice you didn't ask for, or probably already knew. Are you attending mass anywhere? Still a while before RCIA starts up again.
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sweetyface17
Member
| Joined: | Sun Mar 11th, 2007 |
| Location: | Hudson, Michigan USA |
| Posts: | 43 |
| First Name: | Mandy | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | Lutheran, Considering Catholicism |
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Posted: Thu Apr 5th, 2007 12:48 pm |
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| It's ok. I like advice. My mom is only technically Lutheran. She doesn't really even like it. She still says the rosary, attends mass with me, serves Dominican nuns, wears a St. Christopher medal, the list goes on. Her heart never strayed. I keep telling her to just make it official, as her ex-husband had the marriage officially annulled without her involvement years ago. It's a long, confusing story. I'm attending mass a few times a week at a parish about 30 minutes from my house. I don't plan on making waves with this immediately, as I'm also a Sunday School teacher at my LCMS church. I don't think it would be fair to leave to kids until break.
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CajunRick
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| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Houma, Louisiana USA |
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Posted: Thu Apr 5th, 2007 12:52 pm |
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sweetyface17 wrote: Any reason he was raised Catholic and you were not? Are you far apart in age or from different marriages?
Both. My mom married his father when she was 17, according to her parents wishes. He was violent and adulterous, and she began to fear for her life and for her children, so she got a divorce. She was told (not sure by whom) that the Church did not see this as valid cause for divorce, and that she could no longer recieve the sacrements.
That was bad advice.
Divorce never keeps one from the sacraments. The cause of the divorce is irrelevant. A person who is divorced and remarried without a Declaration of Nullity cannot receive the sacraments, but the divorce itself is no reason to stay away.
You have given only a brief sketch, but it sounds like she may have married under duress (pressure from her parents) which is sufficient grounds to have the marriage declared null by the Church, in which case she could have her current marriage validated and return to the sacraments. (There may be other complications not evident from your message.) But the fact that she was divorced is not, in and of itself, enough to keep someone away from the sacraments.
I was present at the deathbed conversion of a woman who had been divorced four times and widowed once. No annulment was needed because she was not currently married. The same would have been true if she had not been dying, but she would have needed to have all four marriages declared null before she could marry again. But even four divorces were not enough to deny her any sacrament but Matrimony.
I posted her conversion story as the first entry in the Conversion Stories topic area. You'll find her story at http://chnetwork.org/forums/forum11/46.html.
____________________
Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
Luquette Lane
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sweetyface17
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| Joined: | Sun Mar 11th, 2007 |
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| Posts: | 43 |
| First Name: | Mandy | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | Lutheran, Considering Catholicism |
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Posted: Fri Apr 6th, 2007 06:30 pm |
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Okay, thanks, Rick. That clears up a lot. She's currently widowed, and her first marriage was declared null (without her knowledge). She got married again after she had left the Church. Will any of this be a factor? Thanks again for your help. You guys are great.
~Mandy
Last edited on Fri Apr 6th, 2007 06:30 pm by sweetyface17
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CajunRick
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Posted: Fri Apr 6th, 2007 07:33 pm |
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sweetyface17 wrote: Okay, thanks, Rick. That clears up a lot. She's currently widowed, and her first marriage was declared null (without her knowledge). She got married again after she had left the Church. Will any of this be a factor?
Based on this information (first marriage nullified, second marriage ended in death) she has no problems at all and is free to be married in the Catholic Church or even to pursue a vocation in religious life.
She may be asked to provide paperwork to prove that the first marriage was nullified and in the second she is widowed should she wish to be married again. That would also likely be necessary for a civil marriage, so it shouldn't be a big deal.
____________________
Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
Luquette Lane
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CajunRick
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Posted: Fri Apr 6th, 2007 07:40 pm |
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sweetyface17 wrote: Will any of this be a factor?
In re-reading this thread, something may be unclear so let me restate it in more simple language so there will be no doubts.
Based on the information you have given, there is nothing standing in the way of her return to the Catholic faith that the Sacrament of Penance can't fix. If she goes to confession, she will be free to receive communion and fully participate in the sacramental life of the Church. This has been true since the moment her second husband passed away. The Declaration of Nullity for her first marriage doesn't affect her relationship with the Church in any way, but it does free her to be married again or to pursue a religious vocation. But even without the annulment, all that keeps her from the Eucharist is a good confession.
Any information she was given to the contrary was wrong.
Is this clear? This is really such a simple, open-and-shut case (based on the information you've given) that I don't want to leave any doubt whatsoever. And I'm looking forward to you telling us she returned to the sacraments.
____________________
Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
Luquette Lane
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sweetyface17
Member
| Joined: | Sun Mar 11th, 2007 |
| Location: | Hudson, Michigan USA |
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| First Name: | Mandy | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | Lutheran, Considering Catholicism |
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Posted: Sun Jun 3rd, 2007 02:21 am |
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| Thanks. Sorry it took so long for me to reply. She's planning on going to confession next Saturday. I don't know what I'd do without you guys. Thanks again.
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