Considering Catholic Conversion

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ambrosegirl_84

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Hi, Thanks for the add! I am an LCMS Lutheran (I grew up ELCA). My husband was baptized Catholic but not raised in the Church. When we were dating we considered both the LCMS (Missouri Synod) and Catholic churches, and ultimately chose to become members of the LCMS. I have had moments of regret not becoming Catholic, especially since we got our latest pastor.

A couple weeks ago I made my Cum Christo at our local Catholic parish. It was eye-opening, Spirit-filled, and amazing. Once again the call to become Catholic has been ignited, and I’ve been reading whatever I can get my hands on and meeting with two amazing Sisters.

My husband, however, has definitively stated that he will NOT become Catholic or switch churches, just for the simple reason that he doesn’t want to go to the trouble. He attends and is very active in our LCMS church, and said that he’d likely just quit going to church altogether if I left our current church.

Our church is fairly (okay, Very, very, extremely) conservative, and as such I do believe that my husband is to be the spiritual leader of my household. I would hate for him to abandon church should I disobey him, persay, and become Catholic. At the same time, I feel a strong pull from the Holy Spirit that something needs to change, churchwise. Our current church places almost zero emphasis on any kind of mission, sharing Christ, or outreach, choosing rather to concentrate on how liturgical and proper we can be, it seems. The local Catholic church is welcoming, fairly laid-back as Catholic churches go, and seems to have a strong youth program.
 
Hi ambrosegirl_84?

We would like to welcome you to the Catholic Church!

But, as it is only just few weeks ago that you feel call to enter the Catholic Church, I suggest you that you digger more the topic before making a decision.
You have an obligation to be carefull, since your husband disapprove this.

Becoming Catholic is not just change Churches for enter a more welcoming parish. It embraces and profess all the catholic faith, doctrine, liturgy, sacraments etc. which is a common patrimony for more than 1 billion people.
It’s for life.
Your husband was Baptized Catholic, and we cannot debaptized someone. So technically he is a Catholic who have change church denomination.
If you have been baptized as a Lutheran, your baptism is valid for the Catholic Church.

I suggest you read the Catholic Church Cathechism:
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM

There are some programm for adults who wish becoming Catholics.
 
I cannot advise you on your different with your husband.

Obviously, it’s a sort of backmail.

You have to be careful and sure before taking any life changing decision.
 
Hi! Thanks for your answer. 🙂 I am going to read the Catechism and compare it to our own, as well. To be honest, I felt a pull to become Catholic in college about 15 years ago, then again when we were searching for a church (we did begin RCIA classes back then). I’m drawn to Catholicism because it has everything our LCMS church has, plus 1500 more years of history and tradition! As LCMS Lutherans we believe in Baptism and the Lord’s Supper as sacraments where Christ is truly present, and we have the liturgy, as well, but Catholicism just seems…deeper to me!
 
MayGod bless you on your faith journey, ad may God bless your husband.
I will keep you both in my prayers.
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Your desire for the Catholic Church became a long time away!

As you have write it, Luterans and Catholics all believe in the real presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, but there is a difference. At least, when Luther conceptualized it. :blush:I don’t know what the stand In Lutherans Churchs are today. 😊
  • Lutheran: consubstantiation: that mean the substances of the wine and bread coexist with the substances of the Blood and the Body of Jesus christ.
  • Catholic/Orthodox concept : transubstantiation : the wine and bread are transformed/ converted in the blood and body of Christ. The physical caracteristics of the wine and bread remain the same.
-In France Lutherans and Reformed Churches have reunited in the same protestant organisation, one united Church. So that theological differences are perhaps not important for all Protestants.
 
It’s always good to see someone considering becoming Catholic.

While it is true that wives are to obey their husbands, this does not extend to anything that violates the law of God. Jesus Christ established the Catholic Church and wills all to enter it, and obedience to His will ought to come first. If he becomes irreligious out of spite, that is unfortunate, but one must still do the right thing even if another may take it as an occasion to do wrong.
 
Anicette, I have to offer some loving correction. Lutherans do not believe in Consubstantiation and any Lutheran who professes it is either confused, or no Lutheran.

Consubstantiation, like Transubstantiation, supposes that changes or additions happen in the ‘accidents’ and ‘substances.’ Consubstantiation essentially creates a third ‘thing’ from the combination of bread/wine with Body/Blood, while Transubstantiation essentially believes that bread/wine cease to exist altogether.

Lutherans, on the other hand, simply acknowledge that Christ is really, truly, physically present in every possible way (in, with, under, around, over, behind, whatever-- it’s real, not merely spiritual, like in Calvinism) and do not attempt to explain how this happens like Transubstatiationists or Consubstantiationists. Similar to the Orthodox. Or many pre-Tridentine Catholics, for that matter.
Consubstantiation, like Transubstantiation, is a concept rooted in “substances” and “accidents.” In other words, they are based on reason:
  • Transubstantiation reasons that the entire “substance” of the bread and wine is changed into Christ’s Body and Blood, until only the “accidents” of bread (taste, consistency, color, etc.) remain.
  • Consubstantiation reasons that the bread and the wine and the Body and the Blood are united in some way that, more or less, creates some new, third substance. I don’t know of any sect today that actually believes in Consubstantiation, though even some Lutherans have been duped into using the term (but not the beliefs behind it, thank God!). Consubstantiation has been explained as:
    • As an actual creation of a third substance
    • As impanation - where the substances don’t change, but Christ’s presence is substantially stored in the substance of the bread and wine
    • As incorporation - where the substances don’t change, but Christ’s presence is mingled into the substance of the bread and wine
    • In countless other messy, over-thought interminglings of the “substances” and “accidents” in an array of almost comical combinations.
  • Sacramental Union, which Lutherans actually believe, does not attempt to reason out the miracle of the Sacrament of the Altar. It simply trusts that Christ does what He says He does; that He truly, physically gives Himself for us for the forgiveness of sins in (and with/under/in every inadequate human way of understanding) the bread and the wine.
 
Anicette said:
In France Lutherans and Reformed Churches have reunited in the same protestant organisation, one united Church. So that theological differences are perhaps not important for all Protestants.
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The “reuniting” in Europe was often down the barrel of a gun. In fact, the LCMS to which the OP (and me) belongs, exists precisely because they refused to conform to the Prussian state’s forced merger of Lutheran and Reformed. Many Lutheran pastors were jailed and hanged, but those who would form the LCMS escaped to America. Others escaped to Australia. The theological differences do matter very much to the LCMS.
ambrosegirl_84 said:
especially since we got our latest pastor.
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OP, if you’re shopping for churches because you don’t care for the pastor or you don’t “feel” spiritually alive, that’s not going to stop when you go to the next church. In fact, you may look back and decide the grass was greener when the pastor at least had some idea of your family’s names and wasn’t shuffled by the diocese every few years.

Instead of letting personalities and “feelings” direct your spiritual welfare, read the Lutheran Confessional documents (Small Catechism, Augsburg Confession, Apology, etc.). Then ask yourself; “Do I profess what this church teaches?”
  • If not, leave.
  • But if so, stay. You may be being called to assist your pastor on those things that influence “feelings.” Volunteer. Get to know your fellow congregants. What are their needs? If you have not yet, make an appointment and actually talk to your pastor about your concerns in the open. He cannot read your mind, and he will greatly appreciate your feedback. He too is a sinful, fallen human, you know.
ambrosegirl_84 said:
I’m drawn to Catholicism because it has everything our LCMS church has, plus 1500 more years of history and tradition!
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If you’ve been taught by Lutheran pastors that our faith didn’t exist prior to 1517, I am sorry you suffered such catechesis. The ancient church is claimed by the LCMS just as by the Roman Catholic Church. In fact, our Lutheran Confessions cite ancient Councils and church fathers extensively! Perhaps your pastor could offer a study on the early church?
 
steido01,
steido01 said:
Lutherans do not believe in Consubstantiation and any Lutheran who professes it is either confused, or no Lutheran.
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I do not doubt that you are no longer profess consbustantiation because you write it, but,
Luther had profess consubstantiation. He had not conceptualized himself and confess it. It’s what we learn in History classes and all books. I have check online ressources, and all agree, it’s a lutheran thinking.
So when and in what circonstances this concept disapear from lutheran theology?

And yes, your lutheran Church is different than what we have in Europe.
steido01 said:
The ancient church is claimed by the LCMS just as by the Roman Catholic Church.
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The that the “Ancient Church” at the time of Church fathers was “Protestant”, and then there is a 1000 years jup (Middle Age) for the original Church to rebirth from this ashes is just historical and theological untrue. There is a continuum.
Or to profess that the Church is always the Church and the Reformation is just the Continuum, and not a breaking, even if it create a schism and two separate Churches, and the reamaining Catholic Church became an error is also historical and theological untrue. She just stay what she was and not create something new.

But I will not convince you.
 
Anicette said:
I do not doubt that you are no longer profess consbustantiation because you write it, but,

Luther had profess consubstantiation. He had not conceptualized himself and confess it. It’s what we learn in History classes and all books. I have check online ressources, and all agree, it’s a lutheran thinking.

So when and in what circonstances this concept disapear from lutheran theology?
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No, you are mistaken. It is not now and never has been Lutheran teaching. Not to Lutherans, and not to Luther. The term is not found in any of Luther’s writings, nor in any Lutheran Confessional documents.

The term was made up by Crypto-Calvinists hoping to confuse Lutherans into adopting the Calvinist view on the Supper, and has been likewise wrongly applied by many folks who’re ignorant about actual Lutheran teaching, including some Roman Catholics who, sadly, label any Real Presence belief that isn’t expressly “Transubstantiation” as “Consubstantiation.” A definition from the negative is not a definition of anything.

I’m happy to provide a mountain of Lutheran sources, should you require it. I challenge you to find a single quote of Luther or the early Lutherans supporting Consubstantiation.

I’d suggest not trying to tell a Lutheran what Lutherans and Luther actually believe. Saying we believe in Consubstantiation is similar to saying Roman Catholics worship Mary. It’s just false.
 
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Anicette said:
Or to profess that the Church is always the Church and the Reformation is just the Continuum, and not a breaking, even if it create a schism and two separate Churches, and the reamaining Catholic Church became an error is also historical and theological untrue.
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That is the Roman Catholic view and I would neither expect nor convince you to depart from it. But it is not the Lutheran view. As the Orthodox believe Rome to be the erring party, Lutherans believe the same. The question for us is: where do we go from here?
 
ambrosegirl_84 said:
My husband, however, has definitively stated that he will NOT become Catholic or switch churches,
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This jumped out at me. Your husband IS Catholic, has been Catholic since baptism, will be Catholic throughout eternity. He may not practice the Faith, but, he is Catholic.

Take this one step at a time. God wants you to come into full Communion. He will make a way!
 
steido01 said:
Anicette, I have to offer some loving correction. Lutherans do not believe in Consubstantiation and any Lutheran who professes it is either confused, or no Lutheran.
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It is right here in their own document
https://www.lcms.org/document.fdoc?src=lcm&id=1097

The Lutheran church rejects and condemns incorrect
understandings of the Lord’s Supper,such as the view that the
sacrifice of the Mass delivers man from his sins,or that the
substance of the consecrated bread and wine is actually
changed into the body and blood of Christ.We also reject and
condemn the view that in the Lord’s Supper the true body and
blood of Christ is not received by the mouth of the communicants,
under the bread and wine,but is received only spiritually
in the heart by faith,or that the bread and wine are only symbols
of the far-distant body and blood of our Lord.
 
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What you are quoting describes Sacramental Union, not Consubstantiation.

Look, I’m an LCMS Lutheran at an LCMS seminary — I assure you, I know what my church professes and has historically professed on this point.

The LCMS Christian Cyclopedia:
View, falsely charged to Lutheranism, that bread and body form 1 substance (a “3d substance”) in Communion (similarly wine and blood) or that body and blood are present, like bread and wine, in a natural manner
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Here are dozens more proof texts:

 
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Actually, the section on the Eucharist was written back in the 1970s, and the LCMS was a full participant for that round. The document rightly refers to the Lutheran understanding of Sacramental Union, using those exact words, and never once wrongly identifies it as Consubstantiation.

This is a marvelous work of ecumenism, as far as it goes, in that it identifies the actual beliefs of both sides, the misunderstandings that resulted in divisions, and clearly marks a path forward that does not compromise.
 
I didn’t know that specific part of the treatise had that history, thank you for updating me.
There are quite a few sincerely held points of faith that differ between Catholics and Lutherans. The basic view of the Eucharist isn’t one of them.

Edit: I showed that full work to a well-educated friend, who smiling agreed with our side’s stance. She pointed out reading it was like watching amorous hedgehogs. It’s all very careful, hesitant and more than a little prickly.
 
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That’s not a bad way to describe it. There certainly isn’t total agreement, but it’s significantly closer than many polemicists and either side wish to admit.

Lutherans don’t deny that Transubstantiation might very well be the way God chooses to make real his presence, but do not make it a dogmatic belief because it lacks Scriptural proof and is based on human logic. It’s easier, to Lutherans, to simply take Jesus at his word, and not ask how it happens.
 
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