Losing your Catholocism

[ThreeToBe]

I posted the following on the “Ask an Apologist” forum. I hope it is OK to also post it here. I am wondering if any of you have had a similar experience or have any thoughts to share. Thanks!

"I was told by the marriage tribunal that I must seek an annulment from my first marriage because I was a baptized Protestant married to a baptized Protestant. I am now married to a Roman Catholic. I was baptized Roman Catholic as an infant, but then re-baptized in a fundamentalist evangelical church when I was in eighth grade.

This bothers me, not because I don’t want to seek an annulment. I will do what I have to do. This bothers me because I feel that I was deceived when I was re-baptized. I was a child and in no position to discern that what the adults were teaching me about Catholicism was a lie. I wanted to be “scripturally” baptized, but I had no idea of the gift of the sacrament of infant baptism in the Catholic Church. I was told it was meaningless. I am sad for the years I lost, sad for what I believed and sad because I feel that I was robbed of something beautiful."

 

[puzzleannie]

you were only baptized once, because there is only one baptism, the ceremony performed when you were older was symbolic only, as you had already been baptized. Your beautiful gift was not lost, only misplaced for a while, through no fault of your own. Rather than mourning the “lost years” thank God that what was lost has been found, like the woman who searched for the lost coin, and we your neighbors will rejoice with you.