At a crossroads with Catholicism

[Nita]

Well there’s a long list of things, but for starters…

Lent
Clerical celibacy
Christmas - date of the birth of Christ
Missing mass mortal sin
…

Something that was a turning point for me - especially concerning regulations - was reading the lives of the saints. I was truly dumbfounded to see how much Our Lord valued obedience to those who have legitimate authority over us here on earth.

For eg. - A saint/person having visions of Our Lord.
If Jesus requested the visionary to come to the chapel at a certain time, but the visionary’s superior refused permission to go, Jesus was pleased by the visionary’s obedience to the superior (rather than following His request in disobedience to his/her earthly superior). I remember the first time I came across this type of thing I could hardly believe it. But it was not an isolated incident. Obedience just kept coming up all over the place - uncomplaining obedience even when what was ordered was unjust to the saint. With hindsight, I know it was no accident that sent me on a reading spree of saint’s lives. The importance of obeying legitimate authority in the Church was a lesson I needed to learn.

In regards to doctrine, I had no problem accepting Church definitions precisely because of Scripture. I loved Scripture and knew Our Lord would not lie (I’m referring to the Scripture passages where He establishes the Church’s authority). I did have trouble understanding some of the doctrines, but accepted them on faith and asked over and over again (whenever troubled about it) that if it was important for me to understand would He please grant me understanding. It’s been 40 years since I received my faith back, and they’ve been wonderful years of learning.

Nita

 

[dessert]

Absolutely. My priest is used to me showing up at his office, tears streaming down my face, exclaiming “I know what you’re going to say and I’m not going to do it; I don’t want to do it, so if God wants me to do it, he has to force me to do it and I will give Him permission to force me but I don’t want to do it.”

:whacky:

And you want to know something?

IT’S… ALL… ABOUT… TRUST.

Ask yourself this: do you have broken trust? Now ask yourself if there is someone in your life who can both advise you about Catholic teaching and stand in a position of trust for you.

Ani you are so cool! I wanted to save the world and the family in one day! My priest, bless his soul, sent me to a social worker in between confessions and my doctor and then worked together, it worked out really swell we all prayed I would be OK . and I was because of His mercy.
Dessert

 

[dessert]

I didn’t take my belief in God seriously until a few years ago when I really needed Him. There were issues I had which put me on my knees in prayer, and I don’t even want to think about where I would be had He not answered those prayers.

I started attending a Catholic Church every Sunday (or almost all of them). I started reading the Bible and educating myself - kind of a “Catholicism for Dummies” home study course if you will. I felt emotions and feelings for God that I hadn’t felt before.

As I went through this journey something happened along the way. There were many things I learned about Catholic beliefs that just didn’t sit right with me. And when I referred to the Bible there was just more confusion - especially when learning about obeying the church even when you don’t agree with their rules.

My question is have any of you ever been in this situation in your faith journey, and how did you go from this point to end up in a place where you are now ? In 40 years I’ve very slowly gone from being baptized a Roman Catholic to now being one who loves God and Jesus but is very skeptical of the Churches’ interpretations of the Bible. I’m just not 100% willing and able to submit to teachings of fallible human beings - to summarize, I’m stuck in Sola Scriptura mode.

I’m not looking for passages on binding and loosing … I’ve already been lectured on that … I’m just curious what some of you did to get to the point where you are 100% unconditionally submissive and accepting of everything the Church has taught you.

Thank you for your help. My image of what God really is has gotten very confusing as a result of this.

Mr. August; Start praying the rosary with some sweet but firmly disciplined little old ladies from any of the above CC.
Get a rosary CD or go to adoration and pray with any group that prays the rosary, coming back to Mary will bring you back to the Lord Jesus.

The joining of two hearts the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, it is hard to pray one without the other. Pray through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
She was 100% submissive and you can be too.
Dessert