I need help explaining

[Gabe63076]

I am new to the group. I have just recently, within the last year, become interested in Catholicism. I was raised Christian, Southern Baptist, but started going to mass with friends on my last deployment. I have done some reading and I feel lead by the spirit to come to the Catholic Church. I have shared these feeling with my wife and she is opposed. While I was deployed she joined a Bible Study with her friends at a local church, and she likes likes that form of worship. Its very charismatic. I recommended one of the books I read, Rome, Sweet Rome by Scott & Kimberly Hahn. She did not like the book. The reason she did not like it were pure emotional.
She has several reservations about Catholicism. I believe she can’t get past the Pope being infallible, the veneration of Mary and she keeps bring up the church’s history in the political affairs in the past. She is uncomfortable with a lot of the ritual/traditions of the Catholic Church. She likes the for of the other form of worship. She also claims through here prayer she feels lead to go anywhere other than the Catholic Church. She has had no experience with the Catholic Church.
I am in a difficult spot here. I believe the family should worship together. I get the impression my wife is not going to give Catholicism an honest try. I feel the Lord is calling me to the Catholic Church. Is there anyone in the same situation or a similar one. Any advice?

Gabe

 

[Tezza]

Hi Gabe.

God bless you in your journey. I think you will find your situation 100 times over. People risk disrupting marriages (especially if it’s a second marriage), losing friends and family, losing jobs, etc. I was so moved by the witness of those who came into the Church under such extreme circumstances, that I re-examined my lukewarm Catholicism and am now uber Catholic:thumbsup:

Will your wife stand in the way of your entering the Church with the understanding that you would still attend services with her and not pressure her to join? It’s hard not to be obedient to the Holy Spirit if He is summoning you into the Church. It may be your witness as a person who is transformed into a better husband/Christian because of the sacraments that might soften her heart. In God’s time. I once heard Scott Hahn speak before Kimberly entered the Church. He asked for all of our prayers.

I don’t think your wife would be interested at this point, but there are charismatic Catholic prayer groups out there, as well as conferences, seminars, and retreats. Maybe in the future…

You are in my prayers,
Teri

 

[chris_molter]

Gabe,

First, God bless you in your service and sacrifice to our country!

Second, it’s not going to be easy. Anti-Catholicism is a difficult thing overcome for people who have lived with those presuppositions most of their lives. Probably the best thing you can do is to continue to pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit and read read read!! I’d also recommend finding a solid Catholic spiritual advisor. If you have a local Catholic Chaplain, that may be a good place to start, or your Chaplain, if not Catholic, could recommend someone.

Try not to get into debating with your wife or arguing. That won’t change her heart or mind… what you CAN do is try to gently correct misinformation if you hear it. Of course, the only way to do that is to keep educating yourself on what the Church teaches and WHY the Church teaches what it does!!

Anyway, Scott Hahn’s books are good. So are Mark Shea’s. I’d also highly recommend Pope Benedict’s “Jesus of Nazareth”. Even my uber-evangelical friends really loved that book, and it gave them a better insight into how we Catholics approach the life of our Savior!

 

[ChadS]

God bless you on your journey to the Church.

When I was in the process of converting a few years back I had to work through the traditional Catholic teachings that Protestants typically disagree with. I also had to realize that what I thought the Catholic Church taught and what it actually taught were two different things. Once I did that I found all of my objections disappear or slowly melt away. Perhaps you could help your wife that way see what the Church teaches about something like the veneration of Mary or infallibility. I would recommend reading Karl Keating’s “Fundamentalism and Catholicism.” It bases its explanations of Catholic teachings around objection fundamentalists and Protestants in general have about Catholicism. It isn’t “emotional” like the Hahn’s book may be.

Other than that recommendation I’d say pray and then pray some more. God won’t lead you astray and he won’t abandon you either.

Chad

 

[CarolinNC]

My two oldest daughters and I joined the Catholic Church two years before my husband and three sons. My husband was raised Southern Baptist and we both joined the Mormon Church together (we left the Mormon Church together also, for the same reasons).
It was very scary to join the Catholic Church without him, as we had always been so close in our service to God, but I felt I could not deny the fullness of faith I found here. My husband told me on several occasions that he would never darken the door of the Catholic Church, and he didn’t want to hear anything about it, so I kept quiet about it and attended Mass daily with my daughters. Soon he was asking me questions, then started going to Sunday Mass with me. I joined the choir, he soon joined also, even though he was not yet ready to commit, then he began RICA, just on a whim, he said. Then he joined the Church and we have been happy Catholics together for 20+ years.

So you see by not putting any pressure on him and living my faith, he made his own decision. Miracles do happen.

God bless.

 

[Kay_Cee]

There’s a book, *When Only One Converts, *by Lynn Nordhagen. I haven’t read it myself, but you might want to check out the reviews at amazon.com. You can also read an excerpt of it there.

Looks like it’s a collection of stories from people in the same situation as you.

Hope this helps, and God bless you on your journey!

 

[Scoobyshme]

The first thing I would recommend is prayer, fasting, and alms giving, before you approach her. We always go to God about man (or woman, in this case) before going to man about God.

Second, if she’s more of an audible learner, you might have her listen to some of the conversion stories of other Protestants from the following link:

alabamacatholicresources.com/conversion_stories.html

This website also has many other useful .mp3 files that are free to download. No registration or anything is required.

God bless!

 

[ChadS]

I wanted to add another recommendation to my previous post. I would suggest taking a look at “The Catholic Controversy” by St. Francis de Salles. It was written as a series of tracts and pamphlets by the saint when he was trying to convert a region of France that had gone over to Calvinism. When he was finished the area had been returned solidly to Catholicism. I’ve read bits and pieces of the chapters and the same objections he was encountering 400 years ago are many of the same we see today. I would highly recommend it.

ChadS