Any advice for new Catholics?

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peaceofchrist

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Hello all,

I was recently received into the Church on the Easter Vigil, and I’m afraid it hasn’t really “hit” me yet! 🙂

Does anyone have any advice for new Catholics?

Thanks—
 
Loads but I think the best advice from me is just to love Jesus and if things ever get tough just remember you love him.

Albany
XX
 
Congratulations and welcome home! You’ve learned what the Church teaches. If you haven’t learned why She teaches what she teaches and should you find yourself questioning any thing she does (teach) find out why.

Pray constantly that the Holy Spirit will continue guiding you in Truth. He won’t let you down if you seek Truth with a sincere heart and mind.

Thanks for answering the Lord’s call and for being an important building block in The Body of Christ.
 
Live the reality of your Baptism and Profession of Faith – follow Jesus Christ with joy (even in difficulty…not simply meaning emotion…)…and thus be Faithful to the Teachings of the Church …living a life of prayer (lectio divina etc).

Keep reading good solid orthodox works…and take care to avoid anything not faithful to the Church…

Keep close to Pope Benedict XVI – read his homilies and Audiences and Angelus messages are a great vast storehouse of riches…

Such as these:

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/homilies/2012/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20120407_veglia-pasquale_en.html

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/homilies/2006/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20060415_veglia-pasquale_en.html

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/homilies/2007/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20070407_veglia-pasquale_en.html

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/homilies/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20080322_veglia-pasquale_en.html

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/homilies/2009/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20090411_veglia-pasquale_en.html

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/homilies/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20100403_veglia-pasquale_en.html

In Jesus Christ is our true life!

Let us rejoice!
 
peaceofchrist said:
Hello all,

I was recently received into the Church on the Easter Vigil, and I’m afraid it hasn’t really “hit” me yet! 🙂

Does anyone have any advice for new Catholics?

Thanks—
Click to expand...
Well, that is how life really works, few things “hit” you all at once. With our faith,it is a life long “call-to-holiness”. So you have to develope a prayer life, keep studying. Number one piece of advice: daily mass and daily rosary. Now, daily mass might be hard at first, so start out going 2 or 3 times a week other than Sundays. For a long time it will seem like a struggle, always having to convince yourself to go. And then one day (probably a couple of years down the road) you will wake up and find yourself going almost every day, and really not feeling quite right on the days you don’t go, and it not being a struggle at all.
 
peaceofchrist said:
Hello all,

I was recently received into the Church on the Easter Vigil, and I’m afraid it hasn’t really “hit” me yet! 🙂

Does anyone have any advice for new Catholics?

Thanks—
Click to expand...
My advice for new Catholics is to make friends and associate with other Catholics. Having a social world that reinforces your new Faith can really be the water to a young sapling, if that makes any sense. And welcome welcome welcome!!!
 
My advice would be for you to stay away from CAF. Nothing but Scrupulosity here. 🤷
 
peaceofchrist said:
Hello all,

I was recently received into the Church on the Easter Vigil, and I’m afraid it hasn’t really “hit” me yet! 🙂

Does anyone have any advice for new Catholics?

Thanks—
Click to expand...
Read lives of the saints…my first recommendation:

About the life of St. Francis of Assisi…and this book about him…The Perfect Joy of St. Francis.
 
Read, lots. Read the whole Catechism. Know what sin is, so you can avoid it where you can and confess it when you fail, and always receive the body and blood of Christ worthily. Receive it often, however often you can – I plan on doing it every day (mainly because there’s a mass offered at the chapel down the street from where I work).

Read up on indulgences, too. Good stuff. They’re remissions of temporal punishment due to sins already forgiven. When you confess your sins, you should seek an indulgence, as reparation to God. You can also remit them for the benefit of the holy souls in Purgatory, as an act of love.

Read the Bible every day. Set aside maybe 20-30 minutes. Read it alongside the Catechism if you can, or sequentially. Try to avoid falling in the Protestant pit of presuming to interpret it yourself; always bear in mind, with a humble spirit, that you are not the magisterium.

Go seek out ministries. These can include ministries in the Church – offer to be an RCIA sponsor next year, if they’re needed, or become a catechist if you’re knowledgeable enough, or an extraordinary minister of the Holy Eucharist, or a lector, or a cantor, etc. etc. Do them outside the Church, too: help the homeless and poor, visit the sick, bring the host to the elderly who cannot leave their homes, etc.

Cultivate a deep and sincere respect for the office of the priesthood, the integrity of the Eucharist, and the value of others.

Be mindful of sin; learn to hate and avoid it, and go to confession straightaway if you falter. (But earnestly try never to!) Make a thorough examination of conscience every time and leave nothing unconfessed if you can help it.

And pray, every day, as often as you can. Pray the rosary and the chaplet of divine mercy. Pray the acts of faith, hope, charity, and contrition. Pray St. Michael’s Prayer and the Anima Christi. etc. etc. Get a little Catholic prayer book and learn as many as you can.
 
I was baptized last year, and I had the same feeling…as though I didn’t really know what to do/where to go. I didn’t feel that I learned all that I needed to learn during RCIA, and one thing that really helped keep me on track was listening to Catholic Answers live. Also, a couple weeks ago (a little bit late, to say the least) I started praying the rosary daily, and I already feel much more in touch with our faith, because Mary is something I struggled with coming into the Catholic faith.
 
peaceofchrist said:
Hello all,

I was recently received into the Church on the Easter Vigil, and I’m afraid it hasn’t really “hit” me yet! 🙂

Does anyone have any advice for new Catholics?

Thanks—
Click to expand...
Study. Pray. Pray. Study. Pray.

Seriously.

I say “study” – because there are a whole diversity of opinions on any given subject. Just scan the “moral theology” section of this forum to verify that.

It is your job to continue to form your conscience according to the mind of the Church. To do that, you need to know what the mind of the Church is.

With your Catechism, you will find a ton of footnotes. Seek out the documents referenced in those footnotes and read them.

I say “pray” – because in the final analysis, this is all a spiritual battle. Your senses will argue with you. The Holy Spirit will enlighten the study that you do to reveal to you the truth. So “pray” – and “pray” again – and again and again. Become best friends with your patron saint (read everything you possibly can from his/her writings, his/her bio, and so on). Become best friends with your Mother and your Brother and Lord.

If your schedule is such that you can communicate daily, do so. Stay close to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Don’t let anything break that bond.

Note I didn’t say anything about community service. That was intentional. If you are disciplined in your prayer and study life, you will begin to feel an overflowing desire to perform the corporal and spiritual works of mercy out of the desire to share with others what God has given you. When that happens, you will be ready to perform authentic works. Until then…well…read what St Paul wrote in 1 Cor 13 sometime. (Speaking of St Paul, if you read about him in Acts, you will find that he did basically the same thing for a while before he started his mission – acts 9:19)

Finally, don’t take ANYBODY’s word for it. Not mine. Not anybody else on CAF. Not some miscellaneous priest. (Yes, you can trust the words of the Holy Father, but chances are that you are not going to have daily conversations with him). You will have right-wing knuckle draggers like me (mod note: I am calling myself that…not accusing anybody else) who will try to teach you the truth as we know it. You will have left-wingers doing the same thing. So part of developing the ability to have “prudential judgment” is deveoping the virtue of prudence. And that requires you to have a properly formed conscience. (See above, under “study”)

[BIBLEDRB]Eph 4:14[/BIBLEDRB]

Oh, and by the way, welcome and congrats!
 
Three things I would recommend:
  1. Do not go “parish shopping” - When I was first Catholic, the novelty of being able to go to any church I wanted to on Sunday was irresistable. I ended up going to multiple churches and finding frustration with not finding the Perfect Parish. One was great liturgy but no room to comfortably sit in the pews, one had trite homilies, one had a mass whose priest spoke soooooo slooooooooow that I almost fell asleep, another had irregular liturgy, etc. It sent me into a very tepid period in my life spiritually. I finally ended up back in my regular parish for an additional five years, with all its faults and foibles, until I was truly ready to go to a new parish for the right reasons. I’m now a happy member of an Extraordinary Form parish (FSSP), but the wait was the right thing to do.
  2. Don’t overwhelm yourself with too many devotions - When I first became Catholic, I quickly became overwhelmed with 2,000 years of history, liturgy and devotions. Do I really have to pray the Rosary and the Angelus and the Divine Mercy chapelet and every novena and Morning and Evening prayer and before and after meals and Liturgy of the Hours and and and and … I got so overwhelmed trying to pray it all that I gave up on prayer all together for a long time.
I’ve only recently gotten back into praying, and even now I often fall into the trap of the checklist mentality, praying to say the words instead of to honor God. My priest says that some basic prayers for each day are the Morning Offering, the Three Hail Mary’s devotion, and the daily Rosary. That’s a good start, and a good foundation to build on. He also says to spend a few minutes each day in front of a statue or picture, or in front of the blessed sacrament, and simply dwell on a mystery of God. It might be a subject like the crucifixion, or the resurrection, or a holy death. But finding that 10-15 minutes each day to spend time in the presence of God is a habit that will change your spiritual life. Making that time each and every day to spend time with God has helped me to know Him like no other prayer practice has done.

Here’s a fantastic homily about prayer, how and what to pray: The Power of Prayer and How to Do It
  1. Make time for holy reading by the saints and classics of Catholic literature - When I became Catholic, I knew nothing about saints except ones that were biblical. I’d go to a Catholic bookstore and get overhwhelmed with which books to buy, and I’d end up buying a ton of them but not reading any of them.
Now when I want to read, I read a classic from the Saints or a book that the saints counted among their favorites, many of which I can find for free online. I pray for the Holy Ghost to lead me to reading that will help me with the spiritual trials and struggles I am facing, and as St. Therese would say, He is a most excellent Spiritual Director. Here’s three amazing books to start with, but the list could go on and on:

Story of a Soul - St. Therese of Lisieux (I highly recommend the John Clarke translation)
**Imitation of Christ **- Thomas a Kempis (I recommend the Clare Fitzpatrick translation)
Introduction to the Devout Life - St. Francis de Sales (Free online (PDF, Text) )

And if you ever want to load up your Nook or iPad with a library of rich books by Saints, this page has the most PDF’s of excellent Catholic classics that I’ve come across in a while: Saints’ Books
 
hmm… Lets see what comes to mind…
love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself. Meditate upon that as often as you can.

Many Catholics don’t know their faith. Read and research. You should be able to trust most priests because they have devoted a good period of their life to religious study, but sometimes you get a priest who is out there… Know your faith. Just because a priest says something doesn’t (unfortunately) mean that it is true. If a priest says something that you disagree with you should do your best to understand what he is saying. Sometimes priests say things which are VERY true that people don’t want to hear.

Some Catholics are “holier than thou” and think that if you don’t practice the extraordinary form you are wasting your time. Forgive them, enjoy your life, and experience the extraordinary form with people who respect you and respect the Bishops.

Consider religious life. If you are not ready to devote your whole life to god, then you are not ready for marriage. If you are already married then do more research then you are told to about what marriage is and renew your vows.

Read the catechism.
Read some of Thomas Aquinas’ works.
Pray the rosary.
Go to daily mass.
Go to adoration at least for one hour once a week.
Find friends who are strong in their faith.
Study the bible.

Have patience.
 
peaceofchrist said:
Hello all,

I was recently received into the Church on the Easter Vigil, and I’m afraid it hasn’t really “hit” me yet! 🙂

Does anyone have any advice for new Catholics?

Thanks—
Click to expand...
Hi,

Welcome to the true faith. I would only suggest some general guidelines, such as:
•Actively ‘seek out’ God
•Receive the sacraments regularly
•Learn the Rosary (and, ideally, pray it daily)
•If you are unsure of anything ask your priest (or get initial guidance on this site)
•If at any time you fall (and you probably will, as we all do), don’t let the failure take you on a downward spiral, return to confession and other sacraments ASAP
•Pray and talk to God often
•Involve God in everything you do

God bless
 
Get involved in your parish. However, wherever you can. The more involved you become, the more at home you’ll feel and the more you’ll learn. 🙂
 
Read works written by the saints. And read the Baltimore Catechism as a more digestible complement to the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
 
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