Crisis of Faith--what to do?

[lovegirl83]

Hello,

I am hoping to find some advice on here. I am really struggling with my current relationship. My boyfriend, who I love completely, and I were both raised Catholic, and he attended Catholic school his whole life, even through college. His whole life he was very involved with his parish, and was active in youth groups and in college, he ran his Newman Center. I have lived a similar life, and was so happy to meet him after college because we had such similar upbringings, and have so much in common.

We are very much in love, and I feel that we each have a lot to give the other. This feels like a very healthy,loving, thoughtful, generous relationship.We have begun to talk about a future together.

The problem is is that I think he is going through a crisis in faith. He has fallen away from the Church since after college and says he is not sure what he believes anymore. He only goes to church with me every once in a while. This, as you can imagine, is devastating to me, and I am at a loss because I feel totally on fire for Christ and I love the Catholic Church. I try my hardest to encourage him in his faith, to talk about his feelings and communicate with him about what he is struggling with, and he does talk about things to a degree, but he is shy and doesn’t feel comfortable discussing every point. I pray for him all the time and talk about God’s love all the time. I have even initiated a God journal, where we write our thoughts on God and pass the journal back and forth to each other. He agreed to take a personal retreat with me, where we each individually spent the weekend reading spiritual texts and reflecting. He says that I am the first thing in 4 years that has helped him to see the Church in a new light, but he is still not committed to the Church and God like he used to be.

I am not sure what I can do for him, but I would really like to help him with this. I have heard of people taking “vacations from God” so to speak, where young adults often drift away from the Church for a bit, and then eventually come back. I have never experienced this, and have always enjoyed a very personal relationship with God and my faith. I would love to marry him one day and raise a family together if it is God’s will ( he is very supportive of waiting for sex until marriage, NFP, and we have the same moral codes for marriage and family), but I worry that if he doesn’t get him out of his spiritual funk before we get married, then we will not be able to enjoy the intimacy of a true marriage in Christ. I truly love him, and see him as the most Christ-like man I have ever dated, even more so than the very strong Catholics that I dated. I have never met anyone as thoughtful, patient, loving, non-jealous, supportive and kind. I would like to help him more to come back to Christ and the Church. What can or should I do? Any advice you have is greatly appreciated, as I do not have anyone else to talk to about this.

Blessings of His love.

 

[Lazy8]

Hello,

I am hoping to find some advice on here. I am really struggling with my current relationship. My boyfriend, who I love completely, and I were both raised Catholic, and he attended Catholic school his whole life, even through college. His whole life he was very involved with his parish, and was active in youth groups and in college, he ran his Newman Center. I have lived a similar life, and was so happy to meet him after college because we had such similar upbringings, and have so much in common.

We are very much in love, and I feel that we each have a lot to give the other. This feels like a very healthy,loving, thoughtful, generous relationship.We have begun to talk about a future together.

The problem is is that I think he is going through a crisis in faith. He has fallen away from the Church since after college and says he is not sure what he believes anymore. He only goes to church with me every once in a while. This, as you can imagine, is devastating to me, and I am at a loss because I feel totally on fire for Christ and I love the Catholic Church. I try my hardest to encourage him in his faith, to talk about his feelings and communicate with him about what he is struggling with, and he does talk about things to a degree, but he is shy and doesn’t feel comfortable discussing every point. I pray for him all the time and talk about God’s love all the time. I have even initiated a God journal, where we write our thoughts on God and pass the journal back and forth to each other. He agreed to take a personal retreat with me, where we each individually spent the weekend reading spiritual texts and reflecting. He says that I am the first thing in 4 years that has helped him to see the Church in a new light, but he is still not committed to the Church and God like he used to be.

I am not sure what I can do for him, but I would really like to help him with this. I have heard of people taking “vacations from God” so to speak, where young adults often drift away from the Church for a bit, and then eventually come back. I have never experienced this, and have always enjoyed a very personal relationship with God and my faith. I would love to marry him one day and raise a family together if it is God’s will ( he is very supportive of waiting for sex until marriage, NFP, and we have the same moral codes for marriage and family), but I worry that if he doesn’t get him out of his spiritual funk before we get married, then we will not be able to enjoy the intimacy of a true marriage in Christ. I truly love him, and see him as the most Christ-like man I have ever dated, even more so than the very strong Catholics that I dated. I have never met anyone as thoughtful, patient, loving, non-jealous, supportive and kind. I would like to help him more to come back to Christ and the Church. What can or should I do? Any advice you have is greatly appreciated, as I do not have anyone else to talk to about this.

Blessings of His love.

A crises in faith can be brought on by many things; environment, physical or mental issues like stress or chemical imbalances, or even bad examples within the Church itself. In a college environment, or in internet culture, there is a strong anti-Catholic sentiment. People of faith are constantly being “challenged” (attacked) from an “intellectual” (bigotted) perspective. As we get older (hitting our 20’s), we may start to experience medical problems like (diabetes, hypothyroidism, etc.), which will definitely cause imbalances that will lead to emotional issues. I’ve met many people who left the Catholic church because they felt that people around them were too harsh, judgemental, and thus not very graceful. For them, it was a conflict of the heart, as they have always understood that we must value compassion and love. I think it’s easy for some to not distinguish between the fundamental teachings of the Church, and how it’s members might behave.

Hard to say what is causing this crises, but it would be good to have a truly open and honest discussion about what’s eating him up inside. Maybe it really is just a change in health. Maybe it’s the pressures of life and becoming an adult. Maybe he’s at a point where he needs to take his faith up a few notches, and surrender more to God (i.e., believe that God is truly with him, and will not fail him). Depression will make everything look very different. Maybe it’s a matter of putting things in perspective. Maybe he needs more exercise, or fun activities - that always works for me.

Sometimes we don’t appreciate our upbringing until we see an example of how things could be very different. When I was 18 years old, I had an experience that really made me appreciate my upbringing. We take so much for granted.

The thing about God is that each of us has our own unique relationship with Him. Sometimes we lose sight of this, and base our feelings towards God by what we see with others. Try to look at this from several possibilities. We are all still bound by our physical bodies, and it can be easy to forget that deep down inside of us is the real us (our spirit).

God bless you and your boyfriend. Keep the faith.