Hello, I'm a new Protestant convert

[steve-b]

I’m new to this forum. My name is Joe, and since the spring I’ve been in the process of joining the Church. I come from a devoted nondenominational family and am struggling with a few things in the Catholic Church.

First, I cannot get myself to actually pray to any saints. I’ve heard nearly all the intellectual arguments for and against this practice and find myself agreeing with Catholics on this point. Unfortunately, I cannot get myself to feel comfortable with the practice. I think the thing which bothers me the most is the sheer lack of evidence that pre-Nicene Christians prayed to saints. Any guidance on this would help my personal prayer life greatly. I would love to pray the Rosary for real (rather than skipping all the Mary parts).

I haven’t read the other posts. If there is any repeat here just disregard.

We pray and intercede for others here in this life…right?
Since we believe that death of the righteous brings us to life with Christ, seeing him face to face and becoming like him (1 John 3:2), we still can pray and intercede for others in heaven. We are not deprived of that ministry. John saw a vision of the elders and the angels around God’s throne offering incense–not ordinary incense, but the prayers of the saints, who, as you must admit, were at one time, on Earth and are now in heaven.

If you’ve already seen this article then disregard

Why Do Catholics Pray to Saints? | Catholic Answers Tract

CampionTheChampion:

Second, I’m having trouble understanding where I fit into Catholicism. There seems to be a small civil war brewing between the traditionalists and more mainstream Catholics. I, unfortunately, met many SSPX Catholics (and a few sedevacantists D at the beginning of my journey and still have a lot of doubts with the mainstream view because of their influence. Don’t worry, I’ve since found a great non-SSPX church (they do the new mass quite well). I might ask this question in other sections on the forum, but is there anyone else who has been confused by this passive-aggressive “civil war”? What has given you more assurance? I know this is hardly a crisis when compared to other times (i.e. Western Schism). I’ll let it at that.

I really enjoy reading the forum already! You guys are the bomb.

I can’t think of a single era, in history, where everything went swimmingly well. Let’s face it, Jesus never promised that. Instead He said pick up your cross “daily”, and follow me Luke 9:23 RSVCE - And he said to all, “If any man would - Bible Gateway

Prayers ascending for you on your journey into the Church

 

[Debbie_Kono]

Welcome home Joe. I too am a convert, really a revert as another poster here mentioned. Have you listened to any sermons/teachings at Sensus Fidelium? You can find them on youtube. They’re all FSSP or ICKSP priests and are wonderful.

I’m sorry you are struggling with praying to the Saints (I cannot relate because I didn’t suffer this), but I’m confident that will change for you. Maybe, if it’s not too much, you can start by simply saying the Saints name and then say pray for us/me? The fact you desire to have a devotion to Mary is beautiful…and will be answered.

God bless. We will be praying for you!

 

[exnihilo]

I am a convert and understand your trouble. But we have to accept praying to Saints. It is part of the confetior, the canon of the Mass, and the Litany of Saints.

One thing that might help is to learn about and contemplate on theosis or divinization. These concepts are central to Catholic and Orthodox teaching. In Protestantism this, in my experience, gets ignored. If we die in God’s friendship we share in his divine life. We become something very different than what we are on Earth. We become more like God.

Protestant thought, particularly Calvanism, rejects or avoids this. They do so to protect the glory of God. For man to become more Godlike would, in their thinking, lessen God’s glory. But God is giving. He wants to share His life with us.

TigerLily-1, yes this is the kind of pre-Nicene prayer I’ve been hoping to find. I think I’ve actually read this one specifically before. But my problem is that there does not seem to be many of them. To my Protestant eyes, this is simply evidence that the birth pangs of the “whore” were becoming visible (yes, this is how many Protestants reasons away early-Catholic ideas).

I don’t mean this aggressively, but how much evidence do you need? For a lot of early Church history there is little evidence or maybe a single piece. You may not find ten pieces of evidence.

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As for where you fit in I understand this too. As I began to embrace Catholicism I saw what seeemed like two Churches: the old, rigid Latin Church and the new don’t worry about it Church. I like a lot about what I saw as the ‘old’ Church. In converting I wanted to be fully Catholic which for me meant more the old Church.

But there is only one Church. It has always had problems. It has always had various divisions. But it is one and identifiable. Some people do leave the Church because they want the Church to be their way. But the reality is they leave the Church.

Part of being Catholic is accepting that it isn’t all about you. It isn’t going to always be your way. You have to accept submission. As a Protestant you might pick a Church because you like the preaching, or agree with the doctrine, or like how they worship. With Catholicism you remain Catholic even if you don’t like the preaching, have trouble with a doctrine, or don’t like the worship.

Also, I find a lot of Catholics worry about and focus too much on the Holy Father and the latest from the Vatican. It’s like they expect the Church to fall apart at any moment. I’ve tried to somewhat ignore these issues. I do the same with news. If your focus is half a world away on something you have no control over you aren’t doing things locally where you do have control.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Part of being Catholic is accepting that it isn’t all about you. It isn’t going to always be your way. You have to accept submission. As a Protestant you might pick a Church because you like the preaching, or agree with the doctrine, or like how they worship. With Catholicism you remain Catholic even if you don’t like the preaching, have trouble with a doctrine, or don’t like the worship.

Amen to that.

This is also why we tend to get very wound up over any sort of schismatic behavior. Simple criticism, however, is not schismatic behavior, at least not to me.

 

[Teek]

I think it helps to understand our interactions with the saints by getting to know one of them. Find one that speaks to your struggles, or to your strengths, and learn about the life of that Saint and read what they said or taught.

As you come to admire that Saint’s virtue or valiant witness or whatever it may be, you often encounter a profound unlocking of some aspect of the faith that hadn’t been apparent to you before, or they say something that resonates so deeply with in you that it is like part of your reality just had words put to it and now you know what it was that was there in your mind but not yet brought out… In essence, they teach you, just reading their stories, of a deeper interpretation or an authentic response to God’s love that you didn’t have access to before.

Then you can begin to understand why the Church would put them forward as persons who we should imitate, as persons who can inspire us. And as your admiration deepens, and you read their prayers of their hearts, you start to hope they will pray for you, too. For example, when you learn that Padre Pio would say that if he agrees to mentor you spiritually he will not stop praying for you until you are in heaven…well, you immediately want to ask him to pray for all of your loved ones, and you, and the whole world.

As Catholics who know the faith deeply enough, it seems so obvious that we don’t pray TO the Saints, and we get sloppy in our language when referring to prayer with the saints. We sort of take verbal shortcuts that confuse people who have not developed our nonchalant certainty that the Church is right even if we can’t bother to learn why or explain it clearly.

When I was in middle school, a kid on my volleyball team asked me if I pray to Mary. I said, “Yes, I am Catholic.”

She said, “Worship is for God ALONE.”

I said, “Right. That is true.”

“But you just said you pray to Mary!”

“But we don’t WORSHIP her! That would be idolatry!”

“Praying to saints is idolatry and people who do it will go to HELL!”

She could not see that we were saying the same thing. And I could not yet articulate it. So I confirmed her in her belief that we worship the saints while being absolutely certain that we would NEVER do such a thing!

 

[CampionTheChampion]

Welcome home Joe. I too am a convert, really a revert as another poster here mentioned. Have you listened to any sermons/teachings at Sensus Fidelium?

Thank you! I’m glad you’re back in the Church too. And yes I have seen them before, but I think they weirded me out at first. I’ll take another look.

It’s like they expect the Church to fall apart at any moment.

This is exactly the vibe I’ve gotten. It doesn’t help when you’re trying to join the Church either. “Hey, little Protestant, did you know the Catholic Church is right…but btw, She’s about to collapse, BUT DON’T WORRY!” Hardly comforting.

As Catholics who know the faith deeply enough, it seems so obvious that we don’t pray TO the Saints, and we get sloppy in our language when referring to prayer with the saints. We sort of take verbal shortcuts that confuse people who have not developed our nonchalant certainty that the Church is right even if we can’t bother to learn why or explain it clearly.

Sorry, I don’t buy that. To be honest, I see that as a blatant apologetic coverup as to the actual practice of Catholics. We pray/ask saints to pray/ask God for us.

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Thank you, everyone, for the warm welcome and replies! If I can close this thread I will, but I’m not sure if I can. Just know I most likely will not respond to this thread anymore. I’ll be in other parts of the forum for sure though.

Joe.

 

[Teek]

Sorry, I don’t buy that. To be honest, I see that as a blatant apologetic coverup as to the actual practice of Catholics. We pray/ask saints to pray/ask God for us.

I did not mean that as an apologetic cover up. I meant it as a confession of sorts. It is a sad situation that a lot of Catholics know what we do but sometimes not why, at least not well enough to explain it well. When you are very comfortable with your faith, sometimes it doesn’t seem imperative that you are able to explain it to others. It just seems right. It should always be imperative, because we are all called to spread and defend the faith.

I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic schools and I was completely shocked when I went to public school that people in this time would believe we worship statues, but I was challenged on that. Or that we call the priest “Father”, or that we “added books to the Bible.” Even though I knew my faith I did not know how to explain or defend it.

That isn’t an excuse or a cover-up. That is deplorable and I wish I had done more in all of those chances I had to explain the faith to others.