Advice for this Catholic catechumen

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amcintosh

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Hello, I am new to this forum although I’ve browsed a little bit before.
My name is Aidan McIntosh and I am a sophomore at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., originally from Massachusetts. I am currently in RCIA (Rites of Christian Initiation for Adults) and have been since September; I will be baptized into the Catholic Church, then receive Confirmation and First Communion on April 11 of this year. It’s hard to believe that it’s really only 60 days away, and I hope it goes quickly!

Everyone else in my RCIA group (luckily my extremely Catholic school has a great program) either grew up Catholic but never received Confirmation, or they are converts from various denominations of Protestantism. As for me, my parents stopped practicing years before I was born, so I never received baptism, religious education, and was raised without religion being a part of my life for 17 years. I can go into great depth about my reasons for finding Christianity and specifically converting to Catholicism at a later time - I hope to eventually write a book about it - but alas, forums are not the places to form essays!

I am mainly posting here to hear advice on how to keep developing in my faith every single day up until I am received by the Church and how to continue being faithful to the Holy See after that wonderful day. In the past two weeks, I have decided to integrate one major act of faith development a day: Mass, Eucharistic Adoration, volunteer service, or if I can’t do one of those three, then to do at least an hour of intense and serious prayer (not narrow because I can conduct prayer in different, wide-reaching ways). I have also started to pray before bed each night, usually in a spot in my dorm or in the Chapel in my residence hall, and last week decided to stop making excuses to not do Morning Prayer, so that’s another thing I’m working on.

I feel like this is helping, but obviously for one who has suddenly transitioned into a radically different life (secular vs. traditionally Catholic), it is a lot to work on and there are definitely some times where I feel like I am praying but not feeling natural or called to prayer; ex: it doesn’t feel like part of my routine or schedule yet, and I understand the goal of prayer should be to feel natural, authentic, and not burdensome.

Please, keep me in your prayers that I may stay safe now until I am received and cleansed of original sin and give advice on ways of healthy and consistent development in my faith!
 
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Welcome! I will pray for you! I think a great place to start for developing your faith daily would be picking up a copy of this month’s The Word Among Us, which has reflections on daily scripture readings along with some other articles. A lot of parishes I’ve been to give them out with a recommended donation of $1. The Laudate app is also a great resource to support daily habits. God bless you!
 
Hello, I’m happy you are joining us in the Church. It’s awesome that you have such zeal for developing in your faith life.

I’m mostly concerned that you sound like you are about to start trying to take on way too much at once. I think it would be better for you to develop a “prayer rule” where you say certain prayers every day and make it a routine, and then make a plan for when you can realistically during the week attend Mass, Adoration, volunteer etc. It might be just once a week for each of those things rather than trying to do an activity every day.

I know from my own experience having been Catholic for many years that when life gets busy, it can be a challenge to just make sure one does a reasonable amount of prayer every day (like a half hour, perhaps split into 15 minutes morning and 15 minutes evening) and adding things beyond that is likely to be more challenging than it looks when one is setting up the schedule. It’s better to do one thing and do it consistently, than try to juggle 4 things when you’re new at it. And the thing you really need to be doing daily is prayer, which can be done from anywhere.

Just don’t overplan yourself. You run the risk of getting overwhelmed and it becomes more about checking off stuff from your list than actually spending quality time with the Lord.
 
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Best decision you will ever make. My advice is to make sure you read a bible verse each day and don’t be afraid to pray to God as you go about the day as well as in intentional quiet ‘prayer time’. You could join in the prayer intentions here on the forum if you feel led to. It’s great to see God answering prayers as we all support each other. Welcome back!
 
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I should have clarified this because while a lot of people on this forum have probably heard of CUA, I would guess that most people do not know much about the school.

Daily Mass is not a difficult thing for me and I quite like it. There are numerous locations within a mile to celebrate Mass every day; Tuesdays and Thursdays I go to a 5:10 PM Mass in the building next to where I finish classes that day, and it’s a way to relax and spend time in prayer with Jesus after finishing class to gain strength and motivation to study/work later in the day. Wednesday nights I combine Mass and service at the place where I have been consistently volunteering at since the beginning of freshman year.

Adoration and Mass are not difficult to get to and I don’t feel overworked, and no Mass is a bad Mass. I also go to those celebrations with my friends who I chose as my godparents and Confirmation sponsor because I do very well with group prayer and faith-based discussions. If I were at another school without tons of chapels and a huge Basilica next to campus, I can see why I could be overworking myself, but this is a form of leisure that is more fruitful for me than video games or social media.
 
For a long time as a freshman I was a bit uncomfortable with group prayer or letting my friends know about prayer intentions and then this year it’s been one of my favorite parts about the community on campus. I will definitely be checking the forum out because prayer intentions in a devout and welcoming Catholic community is one of the main reasons why I finally decided that the Church was the right way to facilitate my love for Jesus. The daily Bible verses are important and I’ve been wanting to do that, so I will try to institute morning/night scriptural readings.

Although when I look at Scripture, I do a lot of analysis and comprehension because my mind is always geared towards academic analysis, so I will probably spend a lot of time on the verse, which is usually good.
 
I knew that I was interested enough in Catholicism to apply to 7 Catholic colleges out of 9 total (the only non-Catholic ones were a state school, because it’s relatively inexpensive and great academically, and a mini-Ivy League), but I think that CUA and Providence College were the only two I applied to that are serious about their Catholic identities and are very good for serious faith development (although I’ve heard that Assumption College is pretty Catholic, but not as strong as the other two). So I’m glad I came here because this has been the best exposure to Catholicism and Her wonders that I could have received.
 
Considering that I can’t receive the Eucharist i’m kind of surprised at myself for striving for Daily Mass 3-4 times a week but also proud, it’s a fun time and it’s also good going there with the people who will be my godparents in two months (and the sponsor). Luckily Daily Mass is pretty common at this school and you don’t get solely retired people like at home parishes.
 
amcintosh said:
Luckily Daily Mass is pretty common at this school and you don’t get solely retired people like at home parishes
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Yep…us ‘solely retired’ folk sure are a nuisance. Not to worry…we tend to die off that much sooner than you young uns 😉

PS: Welcome to the Forum
 
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I converted in 2013, and last night I made my confession after about 3 years of being away. So I want to tell you some of the things that I’d do differently.

If I could go back, I wouldn’t load myself down with more prayers, devotions, an other practices than were good for me. I would be a daily communicant and say the Rosary, and keep it simple. I wouldn’t pretend that I knew better than everyone who attended the Novus Ordo or thought different from me. I’d not only just go to confession with one good Priest and reveal my soul to him there, but I’d get further direction and be obedient to him instead of reading moral theology manuals or works that made me more scrupulous than I already was. With the help of said Priest I’d fight like a berzerkr at rooting out my predominant vice, and I’d be less external and more true in my devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and Our Lady. I’d do my day to day duty at all costs, and not try to live some imaginary saintly existance that I hadn’t achieved.

I don’t know if this helps or not but I was itching to post something about coming home. Happy for you!
 
nah it’s more that I don’t like being the only young person at Mass but then again daily Mass at my home parish is much harder to get to than daily Mass at school
 
Welcome home, JohnWithFries!

I totally agree with your idea about “Keeping it simple”. Our Lord says that we need to become “like little children” in order to enter Heaven.

I really don’t think reading moral theology manuals is good for anybody unless the person is training to be a theologian or similar, and if you’re going to do that then you need to be very secure in your faith and your beliefs first. It is not something I would recommend to a new convert unless he was a theologian or a philosopher or an apologist already before conversion, for example like Scott Hahn or Richard Neuhaus.
 
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I have already bought many books on theology but more because I am pursuing a B.A. in Politics and Theology & Religious Studies and am interested in a Master’s in Theology. Ministry is something I can see myself doing.

Also, I don’t know if I would be the same devout (almost) Catholic as I am today without reading Confessions from Saint Augustine.
 
amcintosh said:
nah it’s more that I don’t like being the only young person at Mass but then again daily Mass at my home parish is much harder to get to than daily Mass at school
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Only tweaking your tail, Aidan…it’s what us old uns do!
 
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Thank you! I agree with you 100%. I think it was the fact that I was super-scrupulous. I had no business reading that stuff!
 
It sounds to me you want contemplation.
I think something that will help is to pray constantly. Some people try to pray the Jesus Prayer to do this, but I think the method posited by (I believe) St Francis de Sales to pray while doing things is very helpful. You don’t even need to use words, meaning we can pray while reading, writing, and thinking through logical arguments!
I’m terrible at describing things, but essentially, go inside of yourself and be refreshed as a swig of water does refresh your mouth, in silence open up your heart to God. In the saint’s words:
https://www.catholicity.com/devoutlife/2-12.html
https://www.catholicity.com/devoutlife/2-13.html

Remember what your baptism means: dying to self, rising with Christ, and entering into the Church. And aspire, awaiting the sweetness of this great moment. God bless.
 
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Welcome to the Church and the Forum !

All I can say is, keep Christ at the center of your life and trust in him.

There is a lot of controversy in the Church which is in crisis right now.

But as St Teresa of Avila said when asked about the crisis in her day, she said; “in times of crisis, our job is to be better Catholics.”

Be sure Christ is the center of your faith. Religion will follow the faith you have,
 
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