Help with non-Catholic girlfriend

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First let me say that the orange is indeed nasty. This is an easier topic to deal with if you’re not the one in love with a non catholic. But, I’ve been there. In fact, I had strong feelings for a girl who was muslim. My suggestion would be to go to this site:
fathercorapi.com/

It’s for Father John Corapi. Find his sermon on holy matrimony. They aired it on relavent radio yesterday. It’s GREAT. He points out that the the SACRAMENT of HOLY matrimony is an outpouring of grace the same as the other 6 sacraments. ANd the main job of a spouse is to get their wife of husband to heaven. If your wife cannot participate in the most important aspect of your life, then you both lose out. Of course, it’s easy to say, hard to follow through on. THe remedy for that is prayer.
 
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Powe0186:
First let me say that the orange is indeed nasty.
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You guys do know that you can change the color to blue, right? Just go to the very bottom of the screen, where you will see a pull-down tab. With it, you can change the color from “CA Desert” to “CA Sky” (which I find to be much easier on the eyes). Give it a shot.
 
When my husband and I married, you could say I was a non-practicing Catholic, and he was a non-practicing Baptist.
We both believed in Jesus, but didn’t believe we needed to go to Church to worship God.
He had no real hostility towards the Catholic church, only the attitude that no Church was going to tell him what to do.

We received a dispensation, went through the marriage prep, and were married in the Catholic Church - all because of my mother.
But we had our son baptized in a Methodist Church.

After 8 years of marriage, I came back to the Church. My husband saw the changes in me, and my insistance on always attending Mass every Sunday. I never pushed him to do anything, I simply went by myself.
Eventually he decided that he should go to church as well. For almost a year, he went to various Baptist churches, and the Methodist church. Occasionally he would come with me to Catholic Mass.
Well, he started with the RCIA class, and joined the Church 2 years after I returned.

Bottom line - You need to change yourself first, and follow the church. Your example could lead your girlfriend to the Catholic church.

MC
 
Thank you all. (Especially about the blue vs. orange screen).

I know that I need to change first. It was another in a series of epiphanies. I have no proof or rational reason to think this, but the feeling is strong–if I stick to my principles and my faith, I’ll likely lose her. Probably not right away, but soon enough.

Still, I plan on miracles. I might expect one on this. 😉
 
If she loves you as much as you appear to love her, she will give some thought to what is clearly the most important element in your life.
How about Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis? That’s what converted me to Christianity (plus the Holy Spirit).
Then I married a Catholic and started attending church with him because I thought families should be united and I figured one Christian church was as good as another. Now you couldn’t pry me out of the Catholic church.
 
Mere Christianity, of course! :tiphat: I think I still have that on a shelf somewhere. It may have survived my great Catholic book purge of 2001.

I’ve been thinking about this with more urgency and frequency than when I wrote the original post. I hardly push anything on her, and she’s somewhat open to certain things–Mass on Easter or Christmas, let’s say. She also comes to Theology on Tap with me, so that’s good. But she WANTS to do those things. I don’t think it’s unreasonable that I ASK her to read such a great book.

Thanks again.
 
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montanaman:
That’s the thing–intellectually I know the score, but realistically, being a faithful Catholic is a very lonely life.
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Tell me about it! Like you, I drifted in the college scene, but now that I’m back, I’m dying for just ONE practicing Catholic friend.
My own “nothing” husband has so-so hostility towards Christianity…but out of all the Christian denoms, Catholic is his favorite–this he discovered only after learning that the KKK was anti-Catholic, and that our town’s Main street wouldn’t allow Catholic churches to be built upon it (way back in the day, of course.)
We went through pre-Cana and got married in the Church (when he wanted an outdoor wedding), and he’s ok with NFP, and agreed to raise kids RC, and he even said OK to a chaste engagement (I couldn’t believe that one.) But when it comes to going to Mass, he refuses. He won’t even joke about it, his answer is an unwavering, flat (and painful to hear) No.
It doesn’t always bother me, it’s just when I see other young couples attending together…
Our wedding brought me back to the RCC, but I never thought in a thousand years that I would pray for my husband’s conversion…it took me by surprise when I started praying for it at Mass a few weeks ago. Don’t forget about that lonliness…and I hope you’re better at getting her to see your side than I am! Good luck!
 
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FairyMagdelaine:
Tell me about it! Like you, I drifted in the college scene, but now that I’m back, I’m dying for just ONE practicing Catholic friend.
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Isn’t it amazing that there are over a billion Catholics in the world, yet it’s so hard to find the “hardcore” ones? Keep looking though…Sometimes they turn up in the most random places.

Anyway…“Mere Christianity” is another good idea. Let’s keep the advice coming, eh?
 
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montanaman:
I know that I need to change first. It was another in a series of epiphanies. I have no proof or rational reason to think this, but the feeling is strong–if I stick to my principles and my faith, I’ll likely lose her. Probably not right away, but soon enough.
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Sounds like God Himself is whispering to you…
 
I love this thread!! So true so many things that all of you are saying. Even the blue! Thanks for the tip it is much easier on the eyes. Being Catholic can be lonely, at least this is my experience. Some times especially with fellow Catholics.
Keep prayiing for your girl friend and talking and more important listening. Some times you do have to sacrifice relationships for the sake of God, his kingdom, and your religious belief. I think it is all apart of God’s plan.
My husband is not Catholic and we have struggled with this issue for years. It does not ever go away but he is extremely supportive in all that we do. He has been great with raising the children Catholic but I can see as they get older they are really wondering why Dad is not faithful enough to become Catholic. This may “haunt” us later. PRAY!
We watch EWTN all the time. It is really the only thing on t.v. worth watching and has helped explain a lot of things.
 
Here are a couple of things that I didn’t see mentioned above:
  1. When considering marriage (whether Catholic, protestant, jewish, muslim, hindu, etc.) consider the welfare of your future children. Will she want to raise the children herself, or will they be placed in “storage” for rotating strangers who may or may not share your values to raise? If you were a baby, which would you prefer?
  2. If she is “almost hostile” to Catholocism, do you really think that will be good for raising children? Keeping children in the faith is hard enough in our secular culture which constantly attacks the faith, if one of a child’s beloved parents is constantly questioning certain aspects, or letting their disbelief be known (by insisting they attend a prot. church occasionally “for balance”) then it seems very unlikely that they will stay in the faith. Our first and foremost function as parents is to do everything in our power to get our children into heaven. The Church is the best way to get into heaven. Deliberately marrying someone who will make it harder for your children to get to heaven seems to me to be counter-intuitive. Remember, Catholics don’t believe in divorce, and a new soul created by the marriage act is forever… Let’s give our children all the help we can.
Just my two cents.
 
Here is a story from the otherside. Once upon a time….I was the girlfriend you speak of (well not literally your girlfriend) hostile towards the Catholic Church, but with no real faith of my own. Oh sure, Jesus, I knew him, but I certainly didn’t KNOW him. Oh and by the way, at the time my thought was “you want me to pray to whom??? Mary?? Are you crazy, I’ll go straight to God if I need something thank you very much”. Oh yeah, and one more thing to add……I had previously been married, certainly I was damned in the eyes of the Church.

I met a man one day, a cradle Catholic trying to find his way home. Life had turned him upside down after he stopped practicing the faith some 10 years before we met. He turned to major materialism to find peace, in his struggles one day he had an epiphany. It was almost as if it spoke to him “God in the first place”. He understood it, and in his promise to himself he put things in writing, he wrote a letter to himself on the importance of God in the first place. He returned to Mass, but not to confession yet. Very soon after this I met him. It was at a time that I was struggling with faith….I wanted it, I called out to God often to find me my home, I church hopped, I had been baptized as non-denominational Pentecost (amazing the titles of churches eh?).

When we met, ohhh did I like him. I knew he was strong, he was handsome, and he had some conviction. I liked him a lot. I liked him so much, I tempted him into bed, and for a few months, he gave in. When he tried to explain to me his feelings on being chaste, I would feel like there was something wrong with me, why if he cared so much for me, would he not want to be intimate with me. We struggled with this for weeks, often ending with him giving in.

During a conversation about his return to his faith, I realized that some my views of the Catholic Church were misconceptions. It wasn’t a deliberate conversation to convert me, it was simply in passing that a comment about asking the saints for intercession was not praying to the saints. I asked why not, it was explained to me and I myself had some sort of epiphany. If I am wrong on this….what about my other thoughts on the Church? I decided to go to the local parish and ask some questions. I was invited to RCIA, it was just starting up and was in the “Inquiry” stage, which meant, I could ask questions, learn but not commit to being a Catholic.

Remember this is a time in which I had been praying for a church home.

Inquiry turned to Catechumenate (study), which turned into the period of purification……and in days Easter would be upon us. Keep in mind this was a 9 month process. The more I learned the more I loved and at some period during the study stage, I knew I would be a Catholic. I made a promise to God then….no more intimacy. If I was going to join this Church because I believe it……then I was going to do it right. I went home and told my wonderful boyfriend who had such a sense of relief it is hard to explain.

Easter came, I became a neophyte, welcomed into the Church with open arms. I was clean and pure with my first confession, confirmation and first Eucharist. My boyfriend, who by this time was now my fiancé, went to confession the following weekend, for the first time in 12 years. What a wonderful experience that was for him. I swear I could see Grace glowing on him as he came out.

It’s been hard to keep clean, and at times even harder to get to confession to “wash up”. We had our challenges, I had to go thru the annulment process….and oh what a process. It was long, 2 full years, but oh so worth it to be married to the man of my dreams, my Catholic husband, in our parish church, knowing that we followed the laws of the Church, and knowing that our marriage was the will of God.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, miracles do happen. But only God can make them happen. I had plenty of people praying for my conversion, but it was my husbands attempts to put God in the first place that helped me to see Christ, God did the rest. I can tell you right now, if I had not found my way Home to Rome, we would not be married. The intimacy was putting a huge strain on us….much more than we would ever admit. Grace abounded when we made the choice to abstain……

Please realize, only God can convert, but your prayers are never wasted. Follow in the laws of His Church, and you will follow in His Will.

Oh, and one last thing…we are hardcore Catholic. I would have never dreamed that I would be Catholic…let alone a conservative “LOVE MY FAITH” Catholic. My none catholic family calls me a zealot…but I know they admire the strength to live my beliefs. I’m hoping they see Christ in my love of the Church.
 
Schana,

I just lost my response to your post so this will be short. Here’s the main points:

Your post nearly brought me to tears. I know EXACTLY what your husband was going through. I’m going through it right now, but my girlfriend just seems disinterested. She’s not anything in particular, and she makes a point of showing her boredom or distaste when these issues come up. I don’t evangelize, but I try to stand up for what I believe. It rarely goes over well.

It’s going to take a miracle, but in my experience miracles are unreliable. The “miracle” is likely to be a long, painful breakup. I’ll go back to church, confession, all that. Through our mutual friends I’ll here about what a great time she’s having–her new business is successful, she’s dating musicians. Me? I’ll be alone again with no interest in either the “Catholic” girls in my world or the non-Catholics.

It sucks, but I’ve been here before. I’ll deal with it.

One thing that kept me interested in your post (because it was long and I have the attention span of a gnat) was that your profile says you’re from Montana. Whereabouts? I lived in Missoula. (For a second, I was horrified that you were talking about me).

Alright. Let’s see if this posts…

MM
 
Montanaman –

I’ll keep the Montana detail for the end…in an effort to expand that gnat attention span of yours 🙂 .

I really do feel for you, I know it’s got to be so very hard. Love, it’s crazy isn’t it? :mad: I mean why on earth would God allow us to love someone who truly isn’t interested in us, or what’s important to us. Don’t know the answer to that one….probably never will, not in this earthly life anyway.

Here’s something to consider. Love is great, anger is at least an emotion, heck, anger to the point of hate is at least something, but disinterest………how can you deal with disinterest? Disinterest is a lack of caring. Love me, hate me, but please show you care in some way. Making a point of showing her boredom and distaste is actually just plain selfish. I’m not all that particularly interested in Orion’s Nebula, but when my husband points it out to me on a starry night, I look, and even find amazement in God in the particulars of it.

Don’t give up on miracles, but don’t expect them. I’ve learned a valuable lesson from our Blessed Mother. Pray pray pray…and when you think that you’ve prayed enough on it….pray some more. Spend some time in Adoration, get to Mass more often (daily mass), even just adding one more a week can help, and make it to confession regularly. My only sanity is monthly confession. Oh, and why make the break up long and painful….well painful is a given, but why long?

Sure, she may think she’s having a good time, dating musicians, living a life that sound oh so wonderful, but oh so lacking in any true meaning and peace, and you know full well the tears that will be shed in the darkness of the night when she is alone and searching for some sort of meaning and peace. I know……I had gone thru a really “great” time in my life when I was having so much fun, but so damn alone in the crowd.

It will suck….don’t just deal with it……meet it head on. Use some of the tools listed above to deal with it. By the way, I’ll be praying for you and for your situation, and I’ll offer the Mass I go to today for you.

Ok, onto the Montana stuff. We live in Billings. We just moved here in September of last year. My husband grew up here and has family here. We moved here from Seattle. I grew up in Alaska, and quite honestly, Seattle was wearing on my last nerve. Montana is much more like “home” to me. I love Missoula! We have friends there, and we visit often. I call them our “heathen” friends as they have no faith, but we love them and pray for them often….and try to live an example. But we LOVE Montana….Billings is far different in terms of terrain. It’s much more dessert here with bluffs instead of mountains. I miss the green of the pacific northwest and the mountains of Alaska, but the people make up for it so much.

I think our eastern diocese is in crises here….a good amount of liberal priests, which isn’t a good thing, and a Bishop who is afraid to “lay down the law”. BUT this may be why two hardcore Catholics ended up here….maybe to help make a change.
 
Schana,

Thanks again. There’s oh so much more to this story, but I just wanted to say I know the tools work. They were working just fine during our last break-up. (fourth time, by her reckoning). I was going to nearly daily Mass, bi-monthly confession, and I felt real faith for the first time in my nearly 30 years of Catholicism. Then, one night I saw her at a wedding of mutual friends. We were hostile toward each other, yet we couldn’t stay apart. Long story short, she and I wound up together for the night. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t let anything get near that far, and I even practiced my “no, I don’t think so lines.” However, I didn’t even get to the “no” part…

Now, about five months later we’re saying “I love yous” and I’m in this predicament. But, I’ve noticed a “cooling” on her part that she blames on the stress of running a new business. I don’t think so. I’ve seen it before.

So, who knows. I think it’s about to run it’s course for the final time. In a way, that’d be a blessing.

Thanks again. 🙂
MM

p.s. Oh–one more thing. Last night I prayed the rosary for the first time in about five months, too. I read somewhere on here that a skeptical woman did so and was granted her request pretty quickly. Sounds like a plan to me. I even petitioned Joseph, too. I figure as my Confirmation patron, he ought to do SOMETHING for me…😉
 
p.p.s. I’ve been to Billings a few times. Went to an EXCELLENT wedding there–it was outside and everyone camped out in tents afterward.

Still, though, Missoula and Western Montana is the place for me. 👍 Just can’t live there…
 
MM –

Sounds like a pretty destructive relationship where the hostility is the attractor. I’ve known relationships like that…”I can’t stand you, but dang I wanna kiss you”.

Are you a reading sort of guy? If so, there is a good book that I would suggest to you, The Catholic Warrior by Robert Abel. It talks about the spiritual warfare going on all around us, but more particularly how we can “armor up”. He specifically talks about a novena he used to “get the girl”, and how it turned out (not good by the way) because he was using the novena more in hopes of a for sure thing, instead of remembering to keep open to the whole “yet, let Your will be done” thing. Anyway, it’s a pretty good book about how he “re-converted” in his life, which is what it sounds like you’re doing.

So what has you in DC and away from Montana anyway?

Schana
 
Eph 5:
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     Let   women be subject to their husbands, as to the Lord:

       

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     Because   the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church. He   is the saviour of his body.

       

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     Therefore   as the church is subject to Christ: so also let the wives be to their   husbands in all things.

       

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     Husbands,   love your wives, as Christ also loved the church and delivered himself up for   it:

       

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     That   he might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life:

       

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     That   he might present it to himself, a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle   or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

       

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     So   also ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his   wife loveth himself.

       

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     For   no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, as also   Christ doth the church:

       

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     Because   we are members of him, body, of his flesh and of his bones.

       

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     For   this cause shall a man leave his father and mother: and shall cleave to his   wife. And they shall be two in one flesh.

       

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     This   is a great sacrament: but I speak in Christ and in the church.

       

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     Nevertheless,   let every one of you in particular love for his wife as himself: And let the   wife fear her husband.


   

     As a Catholic man thinking about marriage, you should work to understand what God has in mind for the husband as written by Paul. The passage I quoted is a start. I strongly suggest that you obtain copies of "Casti Connubii" (Christian Marriage). You and your girl friend read it together, a paragraph at a time, and then  discuss what you have read. At the end of it, the two of you will be able to decide the next step. God Bless
 
The message I just posted is filled with code because I cut and pasted from an Internet copy of the Bible. Sorry for the mess.
 
Thanks, folks. Both those books sound great. And yes, I’m most definitely a “reading kind of guy.” 😉 Aren’t all Catholics? I don’t understand how one could be Catholic and NOT be a voracious reader–at least of Catholic stuff…

Why D.C.? Long story. Basically I finished school in MT and every company I worked for there went under. I had some friends out here, scored an internship, and the rest is history. I’m now a low-level editor with one of the papers in town. The pay is terrible, but at least it’s interesting. (The other day my boss showed me a picture of her and some friends at a table with Reagan. Also, while still as an intern, I gave Al Gore a fake-out handshake in the airport. It was unintentional, really, but it’s still a good story. Heh heh.)
 
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