Married a Christian Scientist

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Don’t despair. It took St. Monica 30 years of praying for St. Augustine’s conversion! Although I sincerely hope you don’t have to wait that long! Keep praying for her. A Rosary can be a big stumbling block to a nonCatholic. How about you suggest praying the Lord’s Prayer instead? That’s something you have in common, and straight out of Scripture and the mouth of Christ.

Something else you could do is go the Journey Home’s website: www.chnetwork.org, I think, and see if they have any conversion stories from former Christian Scientists, and see what factors led to their conversions. If there’s nothing there, a google search might unearth something similiar (“Christian Scientist to Catholic”, or something like that?).

I’ll keep praying for you (this and your new situation w/ your totally insensitive OB/GYN!).

In Christ,

Ellen
 
Thank you ALLGIRLS. It means alot to me that you would take time to respond to my posts. You are truly a blessing.

After she refues to say a HM with me, I asked if she woukld say an Our Father with me. Her response after trying to find somethinig nice to say for a few moments, “I only say that on Sundays”.???

I am lost.
 
I feel for you. You have to let go and let God. I hope you can stay strong and try to only look at what you have in common and not get taken over by your need to have your spouse convert or share any of this which is so dear to your heart. It may take until her deathbed to want to do more than pray an Our Father on Sundays, much less become Catholic. It is hard, but not really our job to force, coerce or push those who don’t share our beliefs. I know – get to heaven and bring your brother – but not hogtie and drag them screaming and cursing. Work on your own acceptance and let God be your help and comfort and soul-mate. I am so sorry you are in this situation. I’m still praying for you and for her and all my CS family and CS others.
 
bgic said:
I am starting to despair… I seriously agonize over her unwillingness to convert. I regret marrying her more and more each day.
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Why shouldn’t she be unwilling to convert? If my husband suddenly became Muslim and was praying and praying for me to convert, no matter what he did, I would be unwilling to convert. I would be defensive too, if my (hypothetical converted Muslim) husband was trying to get me to say Muslim prayers. You really have to let go of this. Your personal desire for her to convert is getting in the way of you joyfully living your vocation as her husband. Fact is, you did marry her, and she never promised to become Catholic. So you have to accept the fact that she may never do that. Even if she does eventually convert, you have to trust God to know when she is ready, and not expect it simply because you are impatient. Meanwhile, remember that she can get closer to God from any religion, and encourage her to do it in a way that is not threatening to her. If she’s willing, at night say a prayer like this: “God, please bless us and our marriage. Help us both to get closer to you, and help us to be good spouses to each other.” If she’s not even willing to do that, then you really just need to be that quiet witness - which means being virtuous without talking about theology.

I’m sorry you are struggling. I know this is hard. God bless you.
TKC
 
Your wife sounds like she is being intimidated and turned off by your focus on her faith. In the end, that is between her and God, and it is presumptuous of you to keep needling her with it. Think about how you would feel if she was constantly trying to get you to go to a CS church with her, say prayers you were not comfortable with, and so on. It wouldn’t seem loving or respectful. And she may feel that you don’t think she is good enough as she is, which will not only turn her off Catholicism if she thinks that is what it is about, but off you, or at least make her very sad.

Just be a good husband, do other things together you enjoy and are meaningful to you, and drop the Catholic conversion attempts.
 
No, I haven’t brought up converting or anything to her for over 5 years since before we got married. I have been doing my own thing and she does nothing. I attend mass regularly and teach CCD and am involved with the Knights of Columbus. She doesn’t attend C-S readings and generally does not practice any religion. She just started coming with me to church occasionaly besides Chritmas and Easter.

UNtil last night, I have not mentioned my desire for her to get baptised at least and to consider converting.
 
bgic - The best way to draw your wife into the Church is by doing what you already are doing (living as a devout Catholic and being her witness to Christ). Time may need to be the biggest difficulty you need to overcome here - it took St. Augustine a while, but his mothers constant prayres and lifelong witness were not in vain. So I would just say keep striving to be a better practicing Catholic and sooner or later you wife will begin to want what you have. Sometimes it take a while for this as people only realize the false promises of life as they get older - nothing short of the Gods promise can give a pearson lasting peace and happiness, you already know this - but others need to experience the continual shortfalls of life’s ‘pleasures’ again and again (drawn out process of elimination) before they finally come home to Rome. It seems like some people are on course to try everything under the sun before they try embracing Christ and His Church, but God has a way of circumventing that long journey if he so chooses - don’t give up hope! Your hope is your wife’s hope in a sense, just as that great church doctor St. Augustine’s hope was his mothers hope before he underwent his conversion.

Here is a way you might try to be proactive in teaching your wife from an angle she can understand:

ncbcenter.org/

The National Catholic Bioethics Center is run by Fr. Tad Pacholczyk, a very smart guy who has a pretty impressive resume in terms of medical / scientific knowledge - yet a very devout an charismatic Priest. If anything, his example may show how science and our beliefs are not in conflict and that one steeped in scientific knowledge can be a faithful Catholic.

Also, there are a few pod casts on this website on Science & Religion that may help her take that leap, or at least understand that Catholics can and do have an immense knowledge of science - after all we gave the world the University system 🙂
 
So, my wife’s grandmother (a devout christian scientist) sends my wife and 1 yr old son some propaganda-filled, christian scientist disguised children’s book.

My wife and I have agreed that we are raising our children Catholic. The grandmother knows I teach CCD!

What should I do? Conveniently drop the book in the dog’s water bowl? Throw it out? Write an email to the grandmother and let her know that I will be the one responsible for the religious education of my son? Let it slide and forget that we have it and hope it never will see the light of day again?

Thanks:banghead:
 
Beautiful post Miss Cilantro.

Keep praying. Christ does the converting, not us.
 
Throw it out and send her some books on the Blessed Virgin Mary, Pope JPII or other nice book. No words necessary, and she just may read it!
 
bgic said:
So, my wife’s grandmother (a devout christian scientist) sends my wife and 1 yr old son some propaganda-filled, christian scientist disguised children’s book.

My wife and I have agreed that we are raising our children Catholic. The grandmother knows I teach CCD!

What should I do? Conveniently drop the book in the dog’s water bowl? Throw it out? Write an email to the grandmother and let her know that I will be the one responsible for the religious education of my son? Let it slide and forget that we have it and hope it never will see the light of day again?

Thanks:banghead:
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Why mess up the dog’s bowl? Just throw it out.
 
Just toss the book out and send Dear Grandma a Christmas card. Ingoring Grandma’s insulting behavior is the most Christian thing you can do as far as Grandma goes.
 
As Kindness said keep praying and live a good loving Catholic life. It took my Dad 20+ years to convert (I am is Godfather and his oldest son). My Grandmother (his mom) was a very devout Baptist who help start a church in her area but he never really practiced any religion that I can remember. It took him to find the one priest that he connected with and could answer his question in a way he could believe. My mother did not even know he was talking to this priest so when he said he was thinking of becoming Catholic it took my mom by complete surprise. You never know how God will work so prayer is your best option.
 
Life has been great as of late. My wife and I have been having the best relationship ever. The last time we fought was about religion (months ago). Since then I have not said a thing about christian-science. I have just gone about with my own religious life. I was starting to actually sense that my prayers were starting to turn my wife’s heart too.

When I saw the book, I didn’t say a thing. I just said, “that was nice of her to send the book.” By the way, it took everyting in my soul to have such a huge under-reaction from me like that.

I want to throw the book away but do not want to confront my wife about it. I don’t want anymore religious strife in my house.

I wish the grand mother could just stop intervening in our religious lives!

Should I trash the book and not tell my wife? Should I ask her to send the grand mother an email explaining that we are raising our son Catholic?
 
Put the book on a high shelf or toward the back of one but do not throw it away (at least not yet) and get a Catholic book or two that your child will like maybe even a DVD for children but do not mention the book. I would not have your wife say anything to her mother because it will place her in a bad position. Continue to pray for your wife but also for her mother made God will bring them both together into the True Church of Christ. I would recommend leaving some nice little Catholic books on the early fathers and/or teachings of the church laying around that your wife might pick up and read while you are busy elsewhere. I would not make them too hard but books on what the early fathers believed about the Eucharist I think would be a good one.
 
She doesnt tries to convert you away from catholicism, she does not make a fuss raising your son religious. She doesnt seems to want to convert you DESPITE what her mom wants. She respects you and your religion. So why don’t you have some respect for her like she is?
 
I have not tried to convert my wife. I have said twice in 9 years that I would love for her to convert.

She agreed to raise our kids Catholic.

Her family is more uncomfortable with me being Catholic than I am of them being C-S.

And as far as respecting her “religion”: Are you serious? There is a profound distinction of C-S and Catholicism. C-S is a cult.
 
bgic said:
I have not tried to convert my wife. I have said twice in 9 years that I would love for her to convert.

She agreed to raise our kids Catholic.

Her family is more uncomfortable with me being Catholic than I am of them being C-S.

And as far as respecting her “religion”: Are you serious? There is a profound distinction of C-S and Catholicism. C-S is a cult.
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From what I have read C-S do not believe in Christ (at least not the human part) this is again an old heresy of the early Church in fact Arianism was based on this belief, I believe. This make Jesus death mean nothing in our salvation and forgiveness of our sins. Again old heresies seem to live on when people interpret the bible without the church guidance.

I do not think he said respect her religion but to respect her as your wife and her acceptance to bring your child up Catholic. I know it is hard to deal with this (with the family) and I am not sure what the response should be but remember it should be with true love of Christ.
 
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