"New" Catholic - How do I get started?

[SeekerCV]

My wife and I will soon be starting RCIA at our local parish. We were both baptized Catholic, but both our families converted to other religions later. After making the decision to “come home”, we contacted a priest at our local parish and he gave us some basic information on how we will start the process. He asked that we get copies of our baptism certificates, which we have already requested.

But we are both so eager to get started! We attended Mass yesterday and enjoyed it immensely (we, of course, did not receive Communion). But until we officially start RCIA, we want to know what we’re ‘allowed’ to do now.

What prayers can/should we recite, and when whould we recite them? And this might be a silly question, but are we ‘allowed’ to make the sign of the Cross during Mass and when we pray on our own? And is it ok that we attend Mass? Any online resources where we can find info about how to pray the Rosary?

The staff at the our local parish is wonderful, but they recently had a terrible fire and are very busy these days. I would go to them with these questions, but they’re usually hard to reach these days so if we can get this information elsewhere for now, I’d rather not bother them.

Thank you all, in advance, for your advice and consideration.

God bless you all.

sCV

 

[mosher]

You can and should do everything that you can except receive the sacraments. However, technically I believe that you can go to confession because you are validly baptized. Yes, you can make the sign of the cross, yes you should pray often, and yes you can and should go to mass at least every sunday and holy day of obligation. Continue to not receive Communion untill you have been given that permission but each mass make a spiritual communion.

 

[asquared]

first thing to do is make another appointment with the priest and the person who will be teaching your class, because if you are baptized Catholics you are NOT in RCIA-that is for the unbaptized, or can be adapted for those baptized in other denominations. What you are preparing for is Confirmation, and probably First Communion (first reception of the Eucharist, if this did not happen in childhood). You may be in a class with those who will participate in RCIA - the Rites of Christian Initiation for Adults- because you all are learning about the same things, and it is convenient and sensible to have one class, but you are NOT in RCIA and will not participate in their preparatory rites.

You also will not be confirmed at Easter when they are received into the Church, but at another time designated by the bishop. sometime during this process, before first communion, you will be prepared for the sacrament of penance and reconciliation, where you make a general confession of the sins of your past life, are absolved, and return to the state of sanctifying grace you enjoyed at baptism.

If you were not married in the Church, but married civilly, you will also have your marriage convalidated sometime before this as well. This should be fairly straightforward, assuming neither of you has prior marriages.

Please talk to the priest again, and make sure he answers all you questions. You should have lots of questions, that is the whole point for the period of preparation for these great sacraments.

Welcome home. Begin attending Mass right away and joining in the prayers, because everyone there is praying for you.

If you made your first communion as a child, you need only take care of your marriage situation, if necessary, and go to confession to return to reception of the Eucharist, and begin preparations for Confirmation. You will be required to obtain a new baptismal certificate, from the parish where you were baptized, and it will show all sacraments received.

 

[SeekerCV]

Thank you both for your gracious advice. We truly appreciate it. Already we feel Christ’s love in the advice and answers we receive from our brethren on this site. This is an exciting time for us and our new family (we have 3-month-old twins), and we look forward to growing in the Church and living as faithful Catholics. God bless you.

sCV

 

[Della]

SeekerCV:

My wife and I will soon be starting RCIA at our local parish. We were both baptized Catholic, but both our families converted to other religions later. After making the decision to “come home”, we contacted a priest at our local parish and he gave us some basic information on how we will start the process. He asked that we get copies of our baptism certificates, which we have already requested.

Welcome back home! I’d love to hear how you came to your decision to return. I am a sucker for stories about the workings of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

But we are both so eager to get started! We attended Mass yesterday and enjoyed it immensely (we, of course, did not receive Communion). But until we officially start RCIA, we want to know what we’re ‘allowed’ to do now.

What a great attitude! Humility is the first step, one that you have already taken.

What prayers can/should we recite, and when whould we recite them? And this might be a silly question, but are we ‘allowed’ to make the sign of the Cross during Mass and when we pray on our own? And is it ok that we attend Mass? Any online resources where we can find info about how to pray the Rosary?

You can most certainly pray any devotional prayers you wish, as well as cross yourselves not only in Mass but before meals and anytime you feel moved to do so, such as when hearing of the death of a person, passing a Catholic Church, before and after prayer, etc. And you can attend any Masses you wish, as well. As to what prayers to pray, it would be really good for you to start praying some form of the Liturgy of the Hours, which is the daily prayer of the Church. There are several versions for lay people. There’s “Shorter Christian Prayer,” but even that may be a bit complicated to start with. If you don’t mind spending about $40 per year there is a great little “magazine” (booklet really) that has Morning and Evening and Night Prayer along with the daily Mass readings and meditations on the Gosple reading for each day and other features. It’s called Magnificat. As for the rosary. Just do a quick google search and you’ll find oodles of resources.

The staff at the our local parish is wonderful, but they recently had a terrible fire and are very busy these days. I would go to them with these questions, but they’re usually hard to reach these days so if we can get this information elsewhere for now, I’d rather not bother them.

Thank you all, in advance, for your advice and consideration.

God bless you all.

sCV

So sorry to hear about the fire. And you’re welcome to any help I can give you. No doubt others will have some good things to say and to offer, too. God bless!

 

[jimmy]

SeekerCV:

My wife and I will soon be starting RCIA at our local parish. We were both baptized Catholic, but both our families converted to other religions later. After making the decision to “come home”, we contacted a priest at our local parish and he gave us some basic information on how we will start the process. He asked that we get copies of our baptism certificates, which we have already requested.

But we are both so eager to get started! We attended Mass yesterday and enjoyed it immensely (we, of course, did not receive Communion). But until we officially start RCIA, we want to know what we’re ‘allowed’ to do now.

What prayers can/should we recite, and when whould we recite them? And this might be a silly question, but are we ‘allowed’ to make the sign of the Cross during Mass and when we pray on our own? And is it ok that we attend Mass? Any online resources where we can find info about how to pray the Rosary?

The staff at the our local parish is wonderful, but they recently had a terrible fire and are very busy these days. I would go to them with these questions, but they’re usually hard to reach these days so if we can get this information elsewhere for now, I’d rather not bother them.

Thank you all, in advance, for your advice and consideration.

God bless you all.

sCV

You can say all prayers at Mass. You should attend Mass, just don’t recieve communion until after confirmation and confession. You can do the sign of the cross. You can say any Catholic prayers you would like. I like the Liturgy of the Hours, which is the singing of the psalms throughout the day. You can read how to pray the Rosary at the site below. They also have the rosary on EWTN everyday so you can watch the nuns pray it and learn from them.

rosary-center.org/howto.htm

 

[Cathy_of_Alex]

SeekerCV:

Welcome Home!

I would like to recommend a few materials/things to you:

1. Catechism of the Catholic Church
2. A Catholic Bible (EWTN has a good overview of Catholic bibles here ewtn.com/expert/answers/bible_versions.htm)
3. Why Do Catholics Do That? By Kevin Orlin Johnson. A good readable book of Catholic gestures, beliefs, traditions, Sacraments etc.
4. Read this forum and post any questions you may have! Someone is always willing to help!
5. If you have a Catholic bookstore in your area visit it often. I don’t know where you live, but in St. Paul MN we are blessed with Leaflet Missal Company leafletmissal.org and St. Patrick’s Guild stpatricksguild.com/

 

[nkelly]

Hello Seeker,

I glad to hear you’ve decided to convert to the true faith.

What you’ll realise if you do some reading and spend some time on this site is that the Catholic faith is like a wonderful treasure trove. The number of prayers in existence is quite amazing but the
most important ones that come to mind are:

The Our Father
The Hail Mary
The Glory Be
The Apostles Creed.
The Rosary (combines all of the above plus some others)
The Angelus
Act of Faith, Hope, Charity, Contrition.

These can be found at catholictradition.org/prayers1.htm

A more complete list can be found at:
catholictradition.org/prayer-index.htm

But I would suggest getting a good prayer book.

There is also a myriad of devotions which you can practise e.g.
Sacred Heart, Stations of the Cross, First Fridays, First Saturdays, Divine Mercy, Novenas etc. But as my old english teacher used to say, you can’t get on your horse and gallop in all directions! So keep it simple to begin with.

Another good thing to do is to offer up all life’s trials and tribulations for the conversion of sinner and the release of the holy souls in purgatory. There are several prayer for this (of course!)

Christian life doesn’t have to be complicated but to me the main things to observe are:

• Mass and Communion
• Confession
• Pray as often as you can (morning,noon, evening,night)
• Do everything for love of God and neighbour.

On a more sober point, may converts/reverts, like myself, find that
in the beginning of your new-found journey in the faith, there’s a honey-moon period of excitement and wonder which can diminish or fizzle out as time goes by. As our good Lord advised us, we need to persevere to end. If you should “fall from grace”, get up as soon as you can and go to confession. Don’t become despondent when you fail. With God’s grace, all things are possible.

God bless you on your journey.

Noel.

 

[SeekerCV]

Della:

Welcome back home! I’d love to hear how you came to your decision to return. I am a sucker for stories about the workings of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

I was baptized in the Church as an infant. My mother converted to a Protestant faith when I was almost 4 years old. So I never really got a chance to grow up in the Catholic church. The denomination that my mother converted to was extremely legalistic: women don’t wear make-up, pants, and MUST maintian long hair and wear veils in Church. Men should never wear shorts above the knee, never be bare-chested in public, etc. I grew up hearing fire-and-brimstone sermons delivered by loud ministers.

But as I got older, I started to realize that, as much as they did preach salvation by grace, they put A LOT of emphasis on the “rules” of the religion, as though not wearing makeup was going to get you into Heaven.

At age 15, I’d had enough. I stopped attending Church and never went back. When I was 27, I started to have lots of spiritual questions and feeling the seperation from Faith and from God. A friend invited me to a non-denominational church in Los Angeles. After my first visit, I was hooked! The music was pumping and contemporary (a modern day R&B sound), the congregation was young and fahion-saavy, there were flashy lights and a glitzy stage. And the sermon was so uplifting. I felt GREAT when I left. I thought for sure that God had led me here to quench my thirst for the Truth, for His Word. But it was all a farce.

This Church simply made it ‘easy’ to be a Christian. It took 2 solid years of member ship in that Church to realize that I never once heard them talk about sin. They never took a stance on any moral issue. They had a number homosexual members and were basically very accepting without ever addressing the sinful nature of the lifestyle. And the only time they TRULY quoted the Bible was to support their requests for offerings and tithes. The sermons? Nothing more than self-help seminars. I was crushed.

I looked and looked for another church but found much of the same. The ‘Purpose Driven’ model of Rick Warren was spreading through evangelical churches like a cancer, serving only to fill seats, but not to change hearts and lives. I wanted the Truth.

I never once considered the Catholic Chuch. All I knew about the Church is what non-Catholics spread. My mom, having converted from Catholicism after being raised in the Church from birth, had nothing but negative things to say.

But in my searching, I began stumbling onto information on the internet. Eventually it dawned on my that I can only find the Truth here. Finally, I found the Church, who unapolegetically defines sins and has expectations of us to live a moral life. All the other churches I found were afriad to take a moral stance and speak Truthfully of sin for fear of losing members.

I know I am a sinner. I don’t need a weekly pep talk. I need to know God in His true form, I need to be the receipient of Truth, and the whole of what God expects from me. My wife feels exactl as I do.

And that’s how we got here. Our families aren’t happy about our decision, but we’re staying the course. We’ve prayed about it and we know that this is were we belong. This is were we want to raise our babies. We’re excited and happy to be home.

sCV

 

[SeekerCV]

I just wanted to say THANK YOU ALL, again. You’ve all given us so many great resources that we’re already combing through. We are blessed, truly blessed to be a part of this community. You will all be in our prayers, and please keep our family in yours.

Chris

 

[Vonier]

Welcome home! You’ve already recieved a basketfull of good (name removed by moderator)ut, but let me suggest one more avenue.

Go to your local library and/or bookstore and get your hands on and read anything by Scott Hahn.

 

[Marilena]

SeekerCV:

My wife and I will soon be starting RCIA at our local parish. We were both baptized Catholic, but both our families converted to other religions later. After making the decision to “come home”, we contacted a priest at our local parish and he gave us some basic information on how we will start the process. He asked that we get copies of our baptism certificates, which we have already requested.

But we are both so eager to get started! We attended Mass yesterday and enjoyed it immensely (we, of course, did not receive Communion). But until we officially start RCIA, we want to know what we’re ‘allowed’ to do now.

What prayers can/should we recite, and when whould we recite them? And this might be a silly question, but are we ‘allowed’ to make the sign of the Cross during Mass and when we pray on our own? And is it ok that we attend Mass? Any online resources where we can find info about how to pray the Rosary?

The staff at the our local parish is wonderful, but they recently had a terrible fire and are very busy these days. I would go to them with these questions, but they’re usually hard to reach these days so if we can get this information elsewhere for now, I’d rather not bother them.

Thank you all, in advance, for your advice and consideration.

Congratulations, first off! There are alot of online resources for the Rosary. Yes, you should make the sign of the cross like others do at Mass. Especially when you pray on your own! Everytime you pray, make the sign of the cross. My husband just joined the RCIA in October, and he is really enjoying it! Here are some links about how to pray the Rosary.

rosary-center.org/howto.htm

medjugorje.org/rosary.htm

 

[MStreeter]

Welcome back! We’re glad to have you in the family again. I hope you stay the course.

God Bless,
Mark

 

[m134e5]

asquared:

You also will not be confirmed at Easter when they are received into the Church, but at another time designated by the bishop. sometime during this process, before first communion, you will be prepared for the sacrament of penance and reconciliation, where you make a general confession of the sins of your past life, are absolved, and return to the state of sanctifying grace you enjoyed at baptism.

Everywhere I have been, the candidates (people who were already baptized before starting RCIA) have been confirmed at the Easter Vigil who had already been baptized before attending the RCIA classes.

 

[SeekerCV]

MStreeter:

Welcome back! We’re glad to have you in the family again. I hope you stay the course.

God Bless,
Mark

Thank you!!! It’s such a great experience to come back!!! And with communities like this to support us and God’s help, I know we’ll stay the course.

Chris

 

[asquared]

m134e5:

Everywhere I have been, the candidates (people who were already baptized before starting RCIA) have been confirmed at the Easter Vigil who had already been baptized before attending the RCIA classes.

it depends on what the bishop orders. the priest who baptizes adults at the Easter vigil automatically has the faculty, and indeed is required to confirm them at the same time. He does not have the faculty to confirm baptized Catholics, and he does not have the faculty to confirm other baptized Christians unless specifically granted by the bishop.