How can a lapsed Catholic become born-again?

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Thankfully, I met a young woman who sincerely wants to steer her life in a holy direction but she confided and disclosed in me that she cares much shame. She did not provide particular details as to why, but she admitted to previously living a unholy lifestyle that she constantly struggles to ward off. She believes the Catholic Church is the truth and is currently church-shopping if that is what you call it. She has not fully committed to being Catholic. She attends nondenominational Christian services. She has expressed a desire to be re-baptized. She was christened and confirmed in the Catholic Church though. She is hoping and looking for a church that will erase her of her sins. Apparently, her past previous has gained her very poor reputation and many do not trust her. She sincerely regrets her mistakes but I guess dealing with the consequences as she told me, can be quite overwhelming. Wasted years on meaningless pursuit of pleasure. She attends Catholic mass as well and reads her bible and prays. She cannot shake off all her guilt and shame. She is very young and she confided she wishes she were an atheist so her convictions were not so strong. Very sensitive soul with a strong sense of right and wrong.
 
I don’t know if you know this but the term Born Again doesn’t refer to a feeling. That came out of American (maybe English or Dutch) protestantism, it refers to baptism. Hence the reference to water when being born again is mentioned. If she was already baptized and confirmed she can have all her sins erased,like go to confession.
 
How can a lapsed Catholic become born-again?

‘born-again’ is a Protestant jargon. Catholic close equivalent for it is something like ‘having a rejuvenated enthusiasm for God and the Church’.

A million-dollar question. 🍿
 
Yes a catholic cannot be born again. What your friend can do is get a spiritual director, or speak with a priest to help with thier journey.

If they have shame, they should visit confession, do thier penance and participate in Holy Mass frequently.

The sacraments and prayer will increase grace as well.
 
Confession, confession, confession. No “re-dos” on baptism. Speak to a priest or spiritual director. If the person is remorseful and repentant she is well on her way to forgiveness of all sins. Jesus forgave the two criminals that died with him on the crosses. He will do the same for her. Peace.
 
She believes the Catholic Church is the truth and is currently church-shopping if that is what you call it. She has not fully committed to being Catholic. She attends nondenominational Christian services.
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Can anyone really expect to find a better Church than the one Christ created at Pentecost?
She has expressed a desire to be re-baptized. She was christened and confirmed in the Catholic Church though. She is hoping and looking for a church that will erase her of her sins.
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Christ’s Church has a Sacrament specifically for the forgiveness of sins, as you know.

Faith is not just about feelings and emotions. Losing guilt feelings may take time.
 
I have been in the same place as your friend. It’s ugly there and it takes a while (sometimes a long while) to learn to love yourself and there are relapses of self hate brought on by day to day memories. Those memories are from Satan. As I was told by my Bishop when I tried to confess a sin from long ago that I had forgotten, the Church holds firm that if one makes a sincere confession and a sin was forgotten, not concealed, that sin is forgiven regardless.

Please tell your friend, as stated above, to find a spiritual adviser, to go to confession often and as often as possible use the same confessor. To address the feelings of guilt, your friend could participate in the First Friday and/or First Saturday devotions which are specifically designed to make reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Friday) and The Immaculate Heart of Mary (Saturday) for offences committed by mankind. ( First Saturday devotions include a requirement to go to confession.)

Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is excellent for healing feelings of shame.

We are all broken. We all sin. For her to think her sins are more horrible than the next person in the pew is, well, arrogant. God doesn’t grade on a curve, He grades on how well each person kept His commandments according to their ability and whether they flew to Him for help when tempted. When she makes a sincere confession, to hold on the the feelings of shame is in a way an insult to the Holy Spirit, feeling that what she has done is too much for Him to forgive, this is from Satan.

You should probably be careful how much of the last paragraph you share with her, she may not yet be in a place she can understand it and hearing that could cause more pain. My spiritual adviser told me that after some time of the same old discussion. It was quite a shock to me.

It would also be helpful for her to realize that God in His infinite Wisdom, will take her experiences and make use of them if she will let Him. She knows the “why” to all the things adults tell kids not to do. At some point, she may be able to volunteer with the CYO and be able to tell the kids about the feelings of desolation, loneliness, confusion, and self hate that result from willful behavior and how that behavior begins with small decisions and morph into a lifestyle that is darned hard to leave.

God bless you and your efforts for helping this young woman
 
In addition, she needs to realize she didn’t walk out of that life on her own power! There were a lot of prayers on her behalf, her Guardian Angel, her parents and grandparents and their Angels, the saints in Heaven particularly those of her own family. To honor those prayers, she could begin a devotion to the Holy Souls in Purgatory especially those who suffered from the same sins.
 
I was lapsed for many, many years and when i came back, I never thought of myself as “born again”. What I did was spend a lot of time in the confessional!
 
I would be cautious about criticizing experiences, such as being born again or going to non Catholic Christian sources.

I believe the Catholic Church has the fullness of the Faith. There are good things in various Protestant movements, but nothing good that is not found more reliably right here.

That’s me, an old, cradle Catholic.

But there are millions of people baptized Catholic, who never experienced much Catholicism in family, school, or any kind of parish. They aren’t really rejecting Catholicism, they have little idea of what it is. (Where I live, the Church is focused heavily on parishes, and the great majority of parishes do nothing to attract young adults). **Most **Catholic young adults leave Christian faith and become secularized. But a minority of them find themselves in non denominational churches, which do lots of outreach to this generation.

If some of these young lapsed Catholics say they have been “born again”, I would respond to them positively. If some people get some spiritual relief at the Pentecostal chapel, don’t criticize that. (If a drowning person reaches for the second or third best life saver, now is not the time to point out the best possible life savers are potentially available at another source).

You can gently let them know of opportunities to re engage to the Catholic faith (the adoration chapel?) Pray for them. The biggest danger is that they will return to secularism. If they fully re connect with a faith community, it will probably be where they feel loved.
 
A Catholic can experience the term, “Born Again.” even though they received new life at Baptism when they were infants.

Being Baptized as infants did not mean you had faith, rather, you were Baptized out of your parents faith, if they had faith. Often for those born and raised Catholic, Baptism was a social event and a just in case the child died, they wouldn’t end up in Limbo.

Anyway, Baptism is a sacrament of Faith. However, for many Catholics they’re Baptized as infants and then around age 7 they receive First Holy Communion and at some point, are Confirmed, in my area, 11th grade of high school. After Confirmation, we never see them again at Mass. It’s used more to keep a child in CCD classes than a confirmation of their faith.

In between all of that, they may have been given some Catholic education and went to Mass with their parents.

However, there comes a point in every Catholic’s life where they must decide to commit their lives to Christ or not.

When they do, many receive the experience of being “Born Again.” That is, they’ve surrendered their lives to Christ and through the Holy Spirit, go through the experience of receiving a new life. They experience the presence of God within.

More and more, the Church recognizes that although we receive new life at Baptism, many do not experience that new life.

For myself, it remained dormant until Christ came into my life and filled me with Divine Light. The grace of love, compassion, joy and forgiveness are only the few words I know how to explain it. From that day, my old life was dead and I began to live a new life in Christ.

That was 40 years ago and I never looked back.

So when some one tries to tell me that being Born Again is a protestant teaching and it doesn’t exist, I can tell they’ve never had the experience and really don’t know what they’re talking about.

So, we can not be re-Baptized, but we can turn our lives over to Christ. In return, he’ll give us the experience of new life, i.e being Born Again.

Jim
 
From our conversations, she is hoping to regain squandered time or the innocence she has lost. Those things cannot be reversed. I think she believes being born again Christian will give her a new life. Here is where the temptation lies if she follows a secular life there is no shame but as a Christian there is much to own up to.
 
PelagiathePenit said:
From our conversations, she is hoping to regain squandered time or the innocence she has lost. Those things cannot be reversed. I think she believes being born again Christian will give her a new life. Here is where the temptation lies if she follows a secular life there is no shame but as a Christian there is much to own up to.
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Actually, even in secular life there are still guilt feelings, shame, regrets, etc.

As a prior poster hinted, being or feeling “born again” is not inconsistent with Catholic life. In the lives of the saints we often encounter a turning point, an awakening, decision to die to self, and “take up our cross”. The difference is that for some people this happens rather suddenly, and for others a growing awareness over a period of time. Same reality. It is wrong to over analyze this. Our minds should be focused on God, and then our neighbor; not on whether my deeper conversion happened in a week, or over a year.

In fact we all need to be “born again” a number of times. It is tempting to get comfortable, to fall back on our perceived years of seniority in the Christian life. The only time the experience or being or feeling “born again” is a problem is when people describe it in such a way:
I am born again, and you are not;
You need to be born again, not rely on man made sacraments or dogmas;
I was unsaved on December 1; Saved on December 2. I am assured of Heaven, once saved always saved.

The reality is that every time we go up for Holy Communion, that is an altar call. The fact that it becomes so mundate, or routine, for most people is a tragedy.
 
DaddyGirl said:
She sounds very confused.
She says she believes the Catholic church is the truth, but she attends non-denominational services, is church shopping, and wishes she was an atheist?
(being an atheist does not mean one’s convictions are not strong, by the way, or that one feels less shame or guilt about wrongdoing they have done).

Perhaps she needs help from a therapist?

.
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Do you think atheists regret fornication? It is not a sin for them. Suppose I confuse atheist with meaning liberal.
 
A poor sinner who has rejected God’s grace through commission of mortal sin is no longer in possession of the the sanctifying Life of Christ. They are separated from the friendship of God. Their soul is spiritually dead.
They can still have Hope in His mercy. Through repentance that prodigal child can be restored to the state of grace through the sacrament of Confession.:getholy:
 
She seems to have already condemned herself. It is must be difficult returning to the church after living a dissolute lifestyle. Sometimes I wish people elected to be happy.
 
It is difficult, but the pull by Jesus is strong and steady. We all can help the ones suffering this way with our prayers and we often do without realizing it in the General Intercessions after the Creed. As I posted before, it is not possible to return from that life all alone, Christ calls, the strength of the sinner’s resolve to return to good is bolstered by prayers. I know my mom and siblings prayed for me, knowing my mom, she probably stormed heaven and all her ancestors on my behalf. I do the same now too.

This young woman needs to understand that not only does God love her just as she is, He will also use her experiences to save other souls if she will let Him. She will grow and while the memories never go away, they become bearable as she understands why she behaved as she has done and then she can spot other young people headed down that same road. If she can help one to turn his/her life around it will be worth the trouble to come back.
 
JimR-OCDS said:
A Catholic can experience the term, “Born Again.” even though they received new life at Baptism when they were infants.

Being Baptized as infants did not mean you had faith, rather, you were Baptized out of your parents faith, if they had faith. Often for those born and raised Catholic, Baptism was a social event and a just in case the child died, they wouldn’t end up in Limbo.

Anyway, Baptism is a sacrament of Faith. However, for many Catholics they’re Baptized as infants and then around age 7 they receive First Holy Communion and at some point, are Confirmed, in my area, 11th grade of high school. After Confirmation, we never see them again at Mass. It’s used more to keep a child in CCD classes than a confirmation of their faith.

In between all of that, they may have been given some Catholic education and went to Mass with their parents.

However, there comes a point in every Catholic’s life where they must decide to commit their lives to Christ or not.

When they do, many receive the experience of being “Born Again.” That is, they’ve surrendered their lives to Christ and through the Holy Spirit, go through the experience of receiving a new life. They experience the presence of God within.

More and more, the Church recognizes that although we receive new life at Baptism, many do not experience that new life.

For myself, it remained dormant until Christ came into my life and filled me with Divine Light. The grace of love, compassion, joy and forgiveness are only the few words I know how to explain it. From that day, my old life was dead and I began to live a new life in Christ.

That was 40 years ago and I never looked back.

So when some one tries to tell me that being Born Again is a protestant teaching and it doesn’t exist, I can tell they’ve never had the experience and really don’t know what they’re talking about.

So, we can not be re-Baptized, but we can turn our lives over to Christ. In return, he’ll give us the experience of new life, i.e being Born Again.

Jim
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Fantastic post Jim, and I really do agree 100%. I wanted to quote the post because it’s so on point.

Pelagia, first off, it’s a good thread, and secondly, it sounds like you’re in a position to really help this young woman become born anew. And as Jim pointed out, being born again is most certainly possible for Catholics, and in fact is what we should each be striving for on a daily basis. Meaning, becoming freshly energized and buoyant in Christ. Our enthusiasms are a well of energy which which never run dry, and so of course being “born again” is highly desirable. For myself, reading Story of a Soul, by Thérèse Martin of Lisieux, raised my enthusiasms in the most startling and bracing way imaginable. That’s what did it for me. I say “startling” because, as someone who’s been around the block a time or two, I wasn’t expecting to relate so strongly to a nineteenth century French nun. She truly caught me by surprise! This was many years ago, and that initial shock has never worn off, and is something I’m grateful for. So Pelagia, you might give her a copy of that book, I don’t know.🤷 It hit me in a very quirky and personal, individual sort of way, and it came at precisely the right moment in my life, but it’s possible it could also ignite a fiery enthusiasm in her, too. Thérèse’s book does have that effect on certain people. Also, you might encourage her to investigate the work being carried out by modern Trappists to teach and foster contemplative prayer, which is the utterly joyous organizing principle of my own life, and which is what everything revolves around for me, personally.
 
JimR-OCDS said:
So when some one tries to tell me that being Born Again is a protestant teaching and it doesn’t exist, I can tell they’ve never had the experience and really don’t know what they’re talking about.

So, we can not be re-Baptized, but we can turn our lives over to Christ. In return, he’ll give us the experience of new life, i.e being Born Again.

Jim
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👍👍👍👍👍👍
 
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