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Mandy31
Guest
Dear deborhaz,
Thank you for the swift reply. But I can’t get rid of my feelings very easily.
Mandy31
Mandy I think you worry too much. Episcopalians are Christians and she sounds like a committed Christian.Dear AlexiaMusing,
First, I want to thank you and all the other members for your thoughts, prayers,comments and good suggestions in relation to the email I sent about two weeks ago:
I am over 70, and I’ve tried almost everything I could think of to get J, my daughter back to the Catholic Faith before I kick the bucket.
J. has had a lot of problems in her two marriages. Thirty years ago after she joined the Army she met a non-catholic guy After instructions he joined the C. Church. They both wanted to get out of the Army, possibly the reason for the quick wedding. Anyway they moved to a State a long way from her Dad and me.
He was not the best choice. When he got her way off so we were unable to have much communication with them. So to make a long story short, he would go out on her and would not come back til morning.
Devastated, she called home.Our son flew out and brought J. out of
that mess. She started an annulment but didn’t complete it.
Then after a few years (while in college) she fell in love with her math tutor. They had a civil wedding, I went to it but her Dad wouldn’t.
He is disabled and in a chair. He had been baptized Episcopal. For years they didn’t go to any church, but then they joined a nearby Episcopal Church and went to their Mass every Sunday
Recently, she got a divorce. Now, she is single and could very well get an annulment. Her first husband is still alive Her disabled man lives by himself.
I have prayed to St. Monica for years. However, my daughter told me that she has made peace with God but I still worry. I still have signed up for her to get the Catholic Digest, I am still hoping she will come to Mass with me.
I have pleaded with her to come but she will not. I think she should go to confession. I am still concerned and don’t know why she will not go to Mass with me. She is still an Episcopal and does a lot of volunteer work for them.
How do I find my first letter?
Mandy31
Chris, I must thank you for such a charitable, thoughtful, and intelligent reply. I agree with many points you make. And I do not think Catholics “check out their brains at the door.” If I felt that way, I wouldn’t have returned to the RCC from Anglicanism.My advice as a brother in Christ is to put down the Catechism and try reading some Ratzinger. Specifically Jesus of Nazareth. It’s important to see that despite how easily we fall into the trap of arguing about rules and regulations and doctrines and scapulars, that the focus of everything we do is the person of Jesus.
I believe that we should all pray for the Anglican Church. The people must feel terrible without any authority they can really trust. There are some wonderful clergy in the Anglican Church and they too must have a heavy heart. Unity is so essential.okay, i did not mean for those to run together. that will definitely confuse people. sorry about that.

Deborah have you ever watched EWTN? If not then you should. I assume you are in the UK and I do believe it is available free. Here in South Africa we purchased a modem and dish and it didn’t cost much and you pay once and then of course you are invited to make a contribution if you can.yes, we definitely need to keep the anglican church in our prayers.
i didn’t realize how much the episcopal church had strayed away from the scripture because i didn’t go to church for 30 years. i left the church when i went off to college.
i wasn’t sure what you meant by SSA. that is the first time i have seen that meaning same sex attraction. i know that the priest at my old church said that they were welcome to the church as long as they were celibate.
i didn’t know any though. so i never got to hear their story. if there were any at our church, they definitely were not loud or vulgar.
there are so many different types of anglicans now that i get really confused.
there are the new age anglicans, the middle of the road anglicans and then there are the orthodox anglicans. i am not sure what the future holds, but
i pray for the people i left behind in the anglican communion. they definitely didn’t want to follow me to the RCC.

I wonder what it is about the Pope that is so off-putting? Actually I was disappointed when Ratzinger was elected (bias and ignorance) but now I think he is AMAZING! My son, who was baptized in a non-Catholic congregation used to think the Pope was the anti-Christ etc. etc (all the things some non-Catholics expound) but already during JP II he became very respectful of the Pope and is now devouring Ratzinger! It may be a matter of time!!actually, i am in the united states, not the UK. yes, we have EWTN here.
the journey home is one of my favorite shows. i try to watch it each week.
a lot of the people interviewed are ex-anglicans. they do not seem to be sorry they have left.
there are too many anglicans who want to remain protestants thought. they don’t want to have anything to do with the Pope.
that is why i am not sure what will happen to the communion.
this is a reply to Cinette. i also like Pope Ratzinger. i think he is such a wonderful, humble and learned man. i am currently reading a book called The Apostles by him. i think there will be one coming out in the fall called the Church Fathers. there is also one called Questions and Answers. i have another book that he wrote before he became Pope called Many Religions-One Covenant (Israel, the Church and the World). i haven’t read that one yet. i think when i was in the episcopal church, i thought that meant we didn’t need anyone telling us what to do and that meant we were in charge of our own faith. however, look where the anglican communion is now. i think it shows we do need a Pope to be a spiritual shepherd and the magesterium to help protect the tradition and scripture and make sure that we are following the truth of the scripture and not how one person is interpreting it.
what country was your husband raised in?
The ex-Portuguese Colony, Mocambique in Southern Africa
who was the Jewish scientiest that influenced him and what did the scientist say that made him seek out the Catholic church?
Gerald Schroeder’s books: first, “Genisis and the Big Bang” and then “The Hidden Face of God”. My husband attended a lecture Schroeder gave in S Africa (he lives in Israel). My husband read several other books - all to do with Science and his conclusion was that Science proves the existence of God
i don’t understand why so many people see the Pope as the anti-christ?
Have you ever read Karl Keating’s book "Catholicism and Fundamentalism? You will see how there were many people who made it a career to write books condemning Catholicism. Fundamentalists especially were, and still are, unrelenting in their determination to spread outright lies about the Church
i have an ex-neighbor who was in the Catholic church until she was 50 and now she is jehovah witness. she depresses me because she never has anything good to say about the Catholic church.
I am convinced that this comes about out of ignorance. You can be in the Church until you are 80 and still not really know it. I was away for 27 years. I came back 20 years ago and am delighted. One of the things that helped me enormously was a Life in the Spirit Seminar at a Catholic Charismatic Renewal group called “Family of God” (imagine the lady who started this group did so 36 years ago - she has 9 children and 27 grandchildren last I counted - how she found the time!) One can approach one’s Faith with a very childlike manner or one can do so from an intellectual standpoint.
i was just confirmed on 7-15-08, so i am going to give it a year and see how it goes. Welcome Home! Ouch - I shall paraphrase something that St Augustine said “You have to believe in order to understand, not understand in order to believe”.
Once my husband believed in God it was easy to embrace Catholicism. He had no problem with the teachings whatsoever
i don’t have the faith that i used to have.
I shall pray for you.![]()
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Hi, Chris. I agree with you here, particularly in this regard–the danger is in forgetting that Christ is the Way, and coming, through that forgetfulness, to mistake myself (my whims, my tastes, my prejudices) for the way. When you mention boundaries or guidelines, I read, however, responsibility and relationship. When we walk the Way, our relationship to it, to Our Lord, requires the responsibility of honesty, humility, and love. The three vows of poverty, obedience, and chastity I think represent the most succinct articulation of what this responsibility entails–not as commands, but as attitudes to the world adopted out of charity, humility, and honesty.However, there is a danger to viewing the Christian life as only a pathway or a journey in which the journey of self-discovery IS the end in and of itself…]Without the boundaries or guidelines that the Church provides (through the handing down of the Apostles’ teachings) chaos in inevitable as each believer becomes beholden only to his or her own conscience (formed or malformed as it might be), or, as I’ve had Episcopal clerics put it to me: “The God within”.
Like you, I think, I don’t believe Christian mysticism and Christian discipline can be so easily teased apart. In the light of Christian mysticism, what is concrete in the Church becomes transparent, flowing, responsive to grace: “My yoke is easy, my burden is light.” In the light of Christian discipline, mysticism assumes a form conducive to grace. Even Augustine, when pressed for a definitive commandment, writes, “Love, and do what you will.” That’s not “love, then do what you want.” But “love–and if you really are loving, if love is what you are, if love is the fruit you bear, there’s no way you can go astray.” A gloss to this would be St. John of the Cross’ words written at the summit of his mystical drawing of Mount Carmel, “There is no road here, for there is no law for the righteous man.”To me, the brilliance, clarity, and truth of Catholicism is that not only does it allow for the mystical and experiential (just read Ratzinger, St John of the Cross, or St Therese as examples), but the concrete, legal, and defined (Augustine, Aquinas, etc.) Although some emphasize one more than the other and at times, one seems almost lost in the shuffle, Catholicism is a both/and, not an either/or.
Mandy, pray with **love, trust and expectation **and remember that if you worry it means you don’t trust God.
Cisette,
Thank you for writing with the good advice. I have gone to J.'s Church
several times.
I remember once was when J invited us to S’s baptism several years ago. My husband, son and daughter-in-law attended the service.
My husband said he won’t go again because he says he has a funny feeling about the Church. My son and daughter-in-law were supposed to be her godparents.
After driving not a few miles, J chose one of her Episcopal Church friends to do the honors. and my son was really upset about that mess. and was angry and disappointed for some time.
During the mass I went to communion with my daughter but later found out it is not permissible to do so. I have checked Catholic Answers and it is definely not the right thing to do.
I would go to her church if I could drive by myself. I have asked my husband if we coud go to J’s Church but he says he dose not like THAT church.
I feel really bad about this situation because, as a family, we always attended Mass every Sunday. And the kids all went to catechism after Mass.
I think one reason I feel guilty is that J promised her dying father that she would get an annulment from her first husband who is still living.
I searched the net some time ago and spoke with him by phone. In fact. J. talked to him and he told her that he was unhappy because of his actions that caused the divorce. But he wouldn’t live with him again.
My grand-daughter S. goes to chyrch with J. I wish I could go , at least once in a while. J. has asked me to go with her but as I said my husband won’t go and I dont drive.
I understand how you feel, Cisette. we did the best we knew at that time. I’ve read Vatican 11 and we are not supposed to interfere with other religions.
But sicnf you have been so kind to write, I will try not to feel guilty anymore, but, of course, that won’t change my emotions.
Mandy31![]()