Getting to know other Catholics

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elohimrules

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Hi everyone, as some of you know I recently returned to the Catholic church after being away and then invovled with Protestant religion. I love my Catholic faith, the mass, the eucharist, and I feel I’ve gotten to know my priest as he has guided me back to the church, also people on this forum have been great.

I guess my question is this, how do I get to know other Catholics or have fellowship? One thing I think the protestants do well is having all kinds of cool small groups related to topics of daily life (finances, spirituality topics, etc.) which attract fellowship and people. While I believe Catholicism teaches a more accurate Christianity I have not seen any small group advertisements in the bulliten or groups that seem applicable to where I am at. There is also no coffee hour at my church. Any advice? How do you get fellowship in the church or get to know others? Thanks!
 
My parish has luncheons after mass occasionally, and there are Bible studies after mass on Sundays, and lots of groups that meet on and off church grounds. I belong to two different groups at two other parishes that meet for charity work, they are closer to home for me.
 
My family joined a new parish over two years ago. The main way I started developing friendships was by smiling at people. 🙂 It let people know that I was open to conversation. I also started waving, or saying “Good morning” to people. There are certain people that always sit around me at Church or always go the same Mass, and I started talking to them. I love joking with my sister that I have a “Church group.” because we take up about 4 pews all together and we all sing, and pray together! 🙂 Aside from anything organized, my advice is just be open and friendly and you’ll make friends! 🙂
 
elohimrules said:
Hi everyone, as some of you know I recently returned to the Catholic church after being away and then invovled with Protestant religion. I love my Catholic faith, the mass, the eucharist, and I feel I’ve gotten to know my priest as he has guided me back to the church, also people on this forum have been great.

I guess my question is this, how do I get to know other Catholics or have fellowship? One thing I think the protestants do well is having all kinds of cool small groups related to topics of daily life (finances, spirituality topics, etc.) which attract fellowship and people. While I believe Catholicism teaches a more accurate Christianity I have not seen any small group advertisements in the bulliten or groups that seem applicable to where I am at. There is also no coffee hour at my church. Any advice? How do you get fellowship in the church or get to know others? Thanks!
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Welcome home. I returned from a Protestant Church 8 years ago. As the people above said join a ministry or two. I’m in three and have made good. friends. The only difficultly I have is that we have no coffee, breakfast fellowship or Bible study along with mass on Sunday morning. This is just too large a church to consider that. Oh well I am in the right church.
 
Yes its very different in the Catholic Church. We have a coffee social after Mass the first Sunday of the month. My family and I have gone a couple times and we’ve tried to strike up conversations, but it mainly consisted of elderly folks who wanted to be left to their friends at the same table in the same chair they sit at every month!

Our parish has no bible study or anything like that and it’s a 1600+ family parish! The main problem with our parish with respect to meeting others socially outside of Mass …its a very young parish. The majority of the families are younger adults with children of elementary up to high school age. Then a big gap to the smaller group which are retired folks who don’t seem interested in doing much outside of Mass or quilting. There’s virtually nothing for anyone just out of college to empty nesters. Thankfully I don’t go to my church for that reason but it would be nice to meet and get to know others.

So I feel for you! I’m interested to see what other suggestions come up. It is definitely the one thing I can say positive about Protestant churches that I’ve been to in my life, they are very social and welcoming.
 
Yes you are caught in the middle. My church has 5000 families and a school.

I don’t know if you watch The Journey Home on EWTN network. One night the host Marcus Grodi (a former Presbyterian minister was interviewing an Episcopal Preist who had come home in the Ordinariate. At the end he and the guest were talking about how wonderful it was that those in the Ordinariate can teach us Catholics about fellowship.
I lept out of my chair and yelled “It wasn’t my imagination!”

I would love to start up a real welcoming committee like the one I co-chaired at my old church but the enormity of this church having 4000 more families than my last has me overwhelmed.

Nice talking to you,

Izzydizzydo
 
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