Alienation among friends

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Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I reverted back to Catholicism in late January 2013. Since then, God has graced me with a growing faith and I have become orthodox in my Catholic beliefs thanks to Him.

However, the latter has caused me a few problems in the social sphere. My friends are largely cafeteria non-practicing ‘catholics’ who either do not observe or despise Natural Law.

In recent times, I’ve been feeling more and more alienated in social situations among even my closest friends. None of my friends are observing Catholics. As is common in my age group (20-25yrs), most of my friends talk about their ‘fornicative’ sexual exploits and other grave immoral acts that violate the Sixth Commandment. When they do so, I stay silent, and when I am asked the famous question ("how’s your sex life?) I just digress and try to focus the discussion on something else. I think some of my friends might think that I’m an asexual (which I’m not in any way - on the contrary, I battle with lust on a daily basis).

In general, I’ve lost interest in the discussion of what I now see as being superficial worldly matters (ie night life, etc)

Obviously I’d never leave the teachings of Christ to avoid these embarassing situations, although I’d like some advice from fellow Catholics who face or have faced similar situations:
  • How do you cope with them? I’d never want to leave my friends, so I’d prefer to find a way to garner the courage to talk about my Faith-based reasons of WHY I don’t take part in the same immoral activities they decide to indulge in. I have been praying for this for months, and I already see some improvements. I am now able to say without embarassment that I go to Mass and follow the Church. The funny thing is that most of these friends of mine wouldn’t judge me for my Catholicism, although I always fear they would as one of my defects is an acute fear of judgement, which probably stems from a certain sense of pride I still retain (mea culpa). The latter fact probably explains why, although I do say that I go to Sunday Mass, I still hide the fact that I frequently go to Daily Mass, Vespers, etc.
  • What is the best way to help your friends understand these Truths?
  • How can you promote the True, un-sugarcoated teachings of the Church in an era when many priests and (ahem) Bishops regrettably teach very little on sin (especially sexual sin)?
I guess the main thing I want to know, from people who have faced a similar situation, is this: how did you tackle the difficulties you encountered along your path toward God in terms of dealing with friends who are more familiar with the old ‘non-practicing’ you and the new, pious and devoted you?

I am a lowly sinner and I am extremely weak when it comes to evangelizing. I prefer to stay silent when my sexual views are called into question rather than defending them as being Christ-given.

Pax Domini
 
You are better than me. When your friends talk about this stuff and ask how your sex life is going just say that you are waiting for marriage. You could also use humor like Catholic memes
 
First you need to get some new friends. Be selective by getting active in your church. I made some wonderful new friends in bible study. I am not saying to replace your friends but if you read Matthew Kelly’s books your friends should be making you a better person. Second, your current friends deal with by setting a good example and praying for them. Ask them to come to a parish event, not mass though. Take your time on that.
 
Going out on a limb, here, but this was me, 20 odd years ago.

Small-town girl voted most likely to raise, well…do ANYTHING but have a Damascus Road experience. My friends had to consistently see me living a transparent life in front of them. They saw me struggle to let an immoral relationship go, saw the hurt it caused. They saw my language change, my humor change, my ability to honor my parents as a young adult change. It helped that I had always been very honest before, if I said it, I meant it; within a few months, friends called me to pray for them when things were bad, within the year, I had friends that asked me to lead a Bible study for them. Last I heard, my best friend from that year was a missionary.

So, I guess the short answer is tell the truth. You’ve chosen to embrace Christ and the Catholic Church, and you are faithful to the teachings of Mother Church. If God is really God, He deserves every bit of your obedient, sacrificial devotion, not out of slavishness, but of love.

Yes, it does cost some pride (it’s a deadly sin, you don’t need it, anyway). You have to be willing to say the hard things, and let them see your struggle to live up to the Call of Christ. They should respect you more for it, but even if they don’t, we are told to be able to give a reason for the hope that now lives within us. Further, Jesus said that in this world we would have trouble, but to be of good courage, He has overcome the world.
 
You have my admiration and respect for the values you are holding in your life, I know it must be very difficult. Not to discourage you but I am quite a bit older than you and I experience the same conflicts amount my circle of friends, many who still call themselves Catholic. I would like to urge you to consider attempting to wean yourself away from these friends and make a new group of friends, if possible, from Church groups. In addition, I respect your silence as I have not been able to keep my mouth shut as much as I would like and I think that might be a better way to go. If you show great happiness and contentment in your life and you credit your beliefs you will win people to God and the Church simply by your existence. Pray for the strength to maintain all that you believe and I will pray for you too.
 
I sooo needed this thread!

Going through much the same.

:grouphug:
 
SurlyMermaid said:
I sooo needed this thread!

Going through much the same.

:grouphug:
Click to expand...
Me too. :grouphug:

Honestly, sometimes you just have to spend less time with these people. I was blessed (although I didn’t know it at the time) because my conversion was brought about by the birth of my first son. I had a very good excuse to not go to things all of the time (especially since they usually featured barhopping and started at 10pm.) When I did go out with them, I found I was really disappointed, annoyed, or even saddened by antics I used to find amusing. I discovered that friendships I regarded as deep were really shallow.

I am not “in your face” about my faith, but many people of our generation seem to think that ANY display of being Christian is somehow “in your face.” If you say, “Please don’t make fun of that,” you’re accused of being uptight. If you make a joke about something else, it’s “That’s racist/sexist/classist/heterosexist, etc.” Not everyone is like this, but it helped me draw some important boundaries. This past spring, right before my second child was born, the woman I thought was my best friend for almost ten years ended our friendship with me via text, and lied to me about the reason (the real reason: my faith and our friendship made her look bad and embarrassed her, but she made up an excuse about my behavior at an event over a year and a half prior - and I still am not sure what behavior she meant.)

I think our generation has really missed out on creating authentic, real relationships. We are scared to form new relationships because we kind of know how fragile the ones we already have are. I think this is why people choose to hook up instead of marry, to add as many friends as possible to FB and create artificial relationships that are “safe.” It’s commendable for you to want to save your friends, but they have to want to save themselves, first. It’s not wrong to distance yourself from them if it’s seriously depressing to be around them all of the time.

Sorry if I’m reading too much into your situation, but reading your post made me think a lot about what I’ve been through these past few years. :o
 
I think making some new friends who share your faith and values would be very helpful. You don’t have to drop your old friends unless they just refuse to respect your faith and are abusive to you about it. But you need the support from the friends with like values to help strengthen you, to occasionally vent if you need to, and for many other good reasons. Who knows, perhaps sometimes the new friends and the old can mix with you as the force drawing them together, and maybe there’s something a new friend might say or do that would help one of the old friends be attracted to Christ. :twocents:
 
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