Liturgy a barrier to conversion

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I’m in the process of converting to Catholicism. My wife is not 100% on board but she’s come around to teachings that are typically very difficult for evangelicals to get behind. It’s the Mass she has a problem with. She’s only been to a few, but her thoughts at the end are always the same. Where I see beauty she sees something stale. Where I am moved to worship she is lost and just trying to find the right prayer in the missal. I’ve tried explaining the parts to the Mass, but she tells me that’s not it. She feels nothing while she’s there. She was raised a non denominational evangelical and is used to a worship band, contemporary praise and worship and animated preaching. This is such a curve for her that I fear she won’t be able to overcome. She’s used to having a strong emotional response to worship and she doesn’t get that at the Mass. I do, but I’ve always been drawn to liturgical worship. She never has, and even she admits that she was brought up to think this type of worship was not biblical. She doesn’t feel that way anymore, but she doesn’t see the beauty that I see.
So I’m asking if anyone has gone through this personally or know someone who has? Was liturgy ever a turn off for you and if so, how did you overcome it?
 
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Hmm.

Does she have an appetite for learning & reading? Scott Hahn’s “The Lambs Supper: the Mass as Heaven on Earth” walks through the significance and meaning of the Liturgy, and with plenty of associations to the proto-Liturgy used by the Old Testament Levite Priesthood. It’s not dense reading either: his books all have a pretty gay tone. When you dig a little deeper I don’t think it takes long to realize how the Liturgy and Scripture are organically connected in so many ways. You might ask her, “Hey, this book might help if you feel kind of lost”. Read the book yourself first or else it will be weird.
 
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@Jehu2077―I think the title of your thread was meant to be “Liturgy a barrier to conversion.” As it stands, it seems to mean something entirely different!
 
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I was going to mention “The Lamb’s Supper”. But after thinking about it for a bit, I am not sure if that is going to be sufficient; or for that matter, even relevant.

Nor do I think that an intellectual approach will of necessity, or even possibility, change her mind.

I have attended funerals, for example, in the Assembly of God church, and most recently attended a prayer session with some friends of mine (she is someone with a strong faith that integrates with a strong belief that the Holy Spirit guides her) which involved a number of people from a different Assembly of God church. And what I find is a very strong thread of the emotional in them. Not that I consider that a negative necessarily, as I have also had contact off and on with a number of Charismatic Catholics.

However, emotions such as she is familiar with don’t tend to run strong within the general population of Catholics, and I am a bit at a loss as to how one bridges that gap.

One possible thought would be to speak with the pastor (and any other priests you know) to see if they know of active Catholics who converted from the evangelical churches, and in particular, those which emphasize praise worship, and possibly charismatic worship.

Those individuals might be more of a help to her, or to you, as to how you might approach it as they have had to bridge that gulf.

And it may be, that if the two of you can make peace on your conversion and she remaining faithful as she worships, that you can maintain a fruitful and blessed marriage, in spite of your differences. It also may be that she some day may convert, but that might take a long time.

God bless you on your path, and keep praying.
 
I would suggest that she put the missal down and just listen and observe. Discreetly, she can look around a bit to observe others. I started out sitting in the very back, but gradually moved forward as I felt more comfortable. Tell her to relax and not try too hard to get it all. Listen to the words of the reading, observe the reverence. Have you ever gone to Adoration? It was powerful for me to just sit in silence in Christ’s presence.
 
I was raised in the Church of Christ, and as a non-denominational, bible only church I had no idea what a liturgy was. The first time I went to Mass I found the service dry and boring and it seemed all the responses were mechanical, without any emotion, and totally unbiblical from my perspective.
“We Worship, a guide to the Catholic Mass”, by Oscar Lukefahr, C.M. and “The Lamb’s Supper” by Scott Hahn were two books that opened my eyes to the beauty of liturgy and how biblical the Mass actually is.
 
I do have this book and read it pretty quickly. She’s reading Rome Sweet Home right now so maybe when she’s done with that I’ll suggest she read Lambs Supper. I don’t think it can hurt. I know it helped me.
 
The reason that instantly came to mind is because she specifically talked about in her religious upbringing, the liturgy wasn’t Biblical [not at all an uncommon issue], and that book tackles that subject very well.

I don’t know if it will elicit a kind of “spiritual high” out of her, but it might allow her to have greater respect for liturgy, and that’s ultimately what matters. I’ve been Catholic for 4 years and as a general rule I don’t feel energetic at Mass, but I do feel safe & secure. The knowledge that this is something happening in almost every country in the world on a daily basis, and that as a mystical Church we are all bound together with it - even with the angels and the triumphant Church in Heaven - is something that hasn’t ceased to strengthen me.
 
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Jehu2077 said:
So I’m asking if anyone has gone through this personally or know someone who has? Was liturgy ever a turn off for you and if so, how did you overcome it?
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My husband came to Catholicism via a few years in a Lutheran church. The kind that still kneel for communion and cross themselves, wear vestments, follow the liturgical year, etc. He did not like mass. He did like the Eastern Orthodox/Catholic Divine Liturgy. He does like the Roman High Mass in Latin, but he discovered that after converting to Eastern Catholic.
 
I’m a convert from an evangelical baptist church and I love the liturgy, I appreciate the quiet and reverence of the mass. I never liked all the noise and emotion of the evangelical service, it was hollow because it was missing the Blessed Sacrament!
 
She has been to an EOC liturgy before. She felt much the same about that too. I think TLM might be too much right now but she definitely at least appreciates the reverence. The Mass we went to today is about as “traditional” as any OF mass ice ever been to. Lots of chant, a bona fide pipe organ, etc. She still just doesn’t get that “feeling” from it I guess.
 
While it’s not my own liturgical preference, there are Catholic Masses with rock music and drums. Finding one may be a bridge to help her become more invested in the Mass. Sometimes it takes baby steps.
 
Jehu2077 said:
I’m in the process of converting to Catholicism. My wife is not 100% on board but she’s come around to teachings that are typically very difficult for evangelicals to get behind. It’s the Mass she has a problem with. She’s only been to a few, but her thoughts at the end are always the same. Where I see beauty she sees something stale. Where I am moved to worship she is lost and just trying to find the right prayer in the missal. I’ve tried explaining the parts to the Mass, but she tells me that’s not it. She feels nothing while she’s there. She was raised a non denominational evangelical and is used to a worship band, contemporary praise and worship and animated preaching. This is such a curve for her that I fear she won’t be able to overcome. She’s used to having a strong emotional response to worship and she doesn’t get that at the Mass. I do, but I’ve always been drawn to liturgical worship. She never has, and even she admits that she was brought up to think this type of worship was not biblical. She doesn’t feel that way anymore, but she doesn’t see the beauty that I see.
So I’m asking if anyone has gone through this personally or know someone who has? Was liturgy ever a turn off for you and if so, how did you overcome it?
Click to expand...
Emotion. That said it. She was brought up in a tradition where emotion plays a great part in worship.

Liturgy is not about emotion though sure, we can be emotionally affected during it. It is more about carrying out worship following what Jesus told us and believing it in faith.

In the ancient days, a faithful brought animal sacrifice. It was a duty, an obligation for him to atone for his sin before God where God accepted it and forgave his sin.

Today we do not do animal sacrifce anymore but we have the unbloody sacrifce, the mass. Similarly it has to be performed by a priest following some ritual to make it being done properly.

I would suggest she still has to understand what the mass is. Getting a handbook on the mass will helpful. Does not matter whether she believes or not, but at least she has the right knowledge about the mass.

From that on she can think further about what’s happening in the mass rather than expecting some emotional raection to it.
 
Ask the priest if he can pray the 4th Eucharistic prayer as the language is more in line with protestant ways of expressions (even though the prayer is from an Eastern tradition). My parish priest doesn’t mind when I have asked him and he said that he likes to pray the different ones depending upon feast days, mass with lots of children or simply to focus on the prayers and continue in the rich tradition the Catholic Church comes from.

Some protestants that I have met during the years before I converted were looking to get “spiritually high full of emotions”. A service wasn’t good if they didn’t. God is not an emotion as some would “believe”. Silence can be threatening when you aren’t used to it and know how important it is for our spiritual lives. Being alone with your own thoughts is scary for some while others crave silence.
 
We’ve been to a guitar mass. Even my wife thought it was out of place. I thought it (the guitar) was pointless, though not necessarily irreverent.
All of that makes sense in an evangelical context, but even evangelicals like my wife who crave that kind of worship see it as out of place in a Catholic context.
 
What about just spending some time together in adoration? I’m glad she sees the necessity of reverence in the Mass. That is positive. Another thought is that Holy Week is coming up. It may be good to experience the whole Triduum, or at least the Easter Vigil. Nothing gets my spirit more roused than a beautiful, Easter Vigil. I love when the priest sings the Exsultet.
 
If your wife is more visually inclined, would it help to “visualize” Mass as sacrifice at Calvary?

There is so much that goes on that we just cannot see and perceive — we are simply required to have faith. I can’t remember to whom Jesus said this but (paraphrased), if we knew what actually went on during Mass and the love present at Mass, we would die of joy.

(Stole this image from another post)

https://sjc6.discourse-cdn.com/cath...a24c6947f56ca2f2c14efacf511dd33_1_314x500.jpg
 
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