Not Being (spiritually) Fed? Questions

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My husband is a convert from protestantism. He was received at Easter vigil and his excitement bubble soon burst. The pastor had encouraged him to talk to the director of religious ed to be a catechist. She wouldn’t give him the time of day. During the summer the church shuts down no Sunday school, no Bible study, nothing. New members are left wandering empty halls. Luckily, he searched online for an apostolate that needed his expertise and joined. He has been able to travel to other countries, and has met bishops, abbots, cardinals.

The local church is just a cold stepping stone. Find an apostolate.

Here is but one up an old protestant’s alley. This is not the one My husband joined, he works to restore fallen away Catholics, similar, still a tough sell.

 
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I’m sorry to hear about that. I feel his pain and understand his struggle.

I’m in a really isolated part of the world where options are very limited. I am also low income so traveling for me isn’t an option. It just adds to the struggle you know? But I’m glad your fellow found something that works!
 
CAF Bible study! I’m not sure if that would be glorious or terrifying. Haha! I’m down though. 😛
 
Well there’s this “gathered around the Apostles” thing that people keep hoping is a sign of Christian Love and Unity; people who long for family (perhaps blood relations have gone awry) and people who are used to the warmth of small Christian community specially feel the vacuousness of business of Catholicity: go to Mass, do some communal prayer, study, repeat.

Catholics, as sad as it is, do not open their hearts and homes to other Catholics as a matter of course; yes, it is aspired–but the practice is far removed from the reality.

Maran atha!

Angel
 
Casilda said:
Here is but one up an old protestant’s alley. This is not the one My husband joined, he works to restore fallen away Catholics, similar, still a tough sell.
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Wow!

This is exactly what is needed of the Laity; we must not stand around waiting for the sky to fall so that we can sound the alarm: ‘the end of the world is coming.’ It is wonderful to hear of such stories as your husband’s!

Maran atha!

Angel
 
hergratefulchild said:
could we not start out own virtual Bible study group using Google video hangouts? 😀
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That’s also a great idea!

Find a niche and invite families, friends and acquaintances–yeah, and those who are in the fringes!

Maran atha!

Angel
 
I am not stating that it does not exist; just that it is not the normalcy–most parishes I’ve visited have the same group of people in all of the parish’s activities.

Parishes as yours should create a template and bring it to other parishes… I’ve yet have not found a parish that has a welcoming committee that is committed to welcoming and maintaining that “family” environment for both the seasoned members and the new members in the parish’s community.

I’ve met people (raised Catholics, Catholic converts, non-Christian wonderers) whose main experience has been “the cold shoulder.”

I’ve even met a lady who had frequented a parish (for years) and felt that I (just a few months visiting that parish) was the most welcoming person she had encountered there–I’d even started praying the Rosary with her in an effort to give her some support; we would meet before Mass and stayed a few minutes after for closing prayers…

The solution is there–perhaps exporting your parish’s experience can help bridge the gap/s.

Maran atha!

Angel
 
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jcrichton said:
I’ve met people (raised Catholics, Catholic converts, non-Christian wonderers) whose main experience has been “the cold shoulder.”
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Just had to repeat that.

What Catholics do not understand is when a protestant comes into the fullness of the faith, they stand there before the altar of the Lord, naked and bare. Your family rejects and belittles you, your friends abandon you. You feel an exhilarating joy and an agonizing loneliness. On top of that, getting the cold shoulder from your ‘fellow’ Catholics might be what sets all sorts of doubts about your conversion.

The local church may be dead spirituality, but the church Catholic is still alive. You can rekindle their fire. Join like-minded doers. The other recent converts, lol. They are the ones that March for Life. They volunteer to feed the homeless. They get together and go on spiritual retreats. They are not the mainstream Catholics but they are it’s vital undercurrent.
 
When my sister and her husband converted they outright told the parish that if not for the Truth of the Church they would have never returned because of the coldness of the parish people. They were shunned when they arrived, the Church refused to give them RCIA until there were enough people to make it ‘worthwhile’ (they had to wait two years to be brought into the Church). They both work very hard to be active members of the parish but they have not been shy about addressing the obvious problems that go on in some parishes. This particular parish (that they attended) was very small and had a ‘clique’ mentality. They didn’t like or want outsiders.

Yes, this happens in Catholic Churches. And when those same people run the parish committees and groups you get people wanting to convert who are told; “We don’t have enough time. You’ll have to wait until it’s more worth our while.”
 
Casilda said:
What Catholics do not understand is when a protestant comes into the fullness of the faith, they stand there before the altar of the Lord, naked and bare. Your family rejects and belittles you, your friends abandon you. You feel an exhilarating joy and an agonizing loneliness.
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I don’t doubt that this is true in many cases, but it is not true of all Protestants.

I saw my dad convert, and his relations with his immediate family who were all Protestant and remained so, did not change one iota.

I saw my husband’s uncle who converted out of a Presbyterian family to marry his Catholic wife and the two of them stayed Catholics their whole life with zero rejection from the family. His older sister had already not only converted but had become a nun for a while before she quit the convent.

It depends on the family. I agree that maybe Catholics could be a little friendlier, but Protestants aren’t all automatically shunned by their families and friends for joining the Church, that is what I am getting at.
 
I’m glad your dad had that experience. As well as your husband’s uncle.

My entire family on both sides are aggressively anti-Catholic. It wasn’t my experience. My Protestant friends were 90% anti-Catholic. To the point when I chose to convert the one aggressively tried to ‘save me’ with Jesus and others demanded I explain how I could support a Church with paedophile priests.

The attacks were nonstop followed by a complete rejection. That’s why my friends are exclusively atheist and agnostic now. They were the only ones who accepted my decision.

It’s hard for me to imagine Protestant converts not experiencing that alienation. It might be a regional thing? Perhaps some Protestants are less anti-Catholic but the ones I knew were extremely volatile.
 
somecanadian said:
They didn’t like or want outsiders.

Yes, this happens in Catholic Churches. And when those same people run the parish committees and groups you get people wanting to convert who are told; “We don’t have enough time. You’ll have to wait until it’s more worth our while.”
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My story about the difficulties of coming back into communion with the Church is here on CAF. We meet these demons in real life and online. We tried over half a dozen parishes. I actually gave up. My husband found that one, holy priest at an Eastern Catholic church. It’s the only way he became Catholic. And what does he do now?!? He seeks out fallen away Catholics and tries to restore them to their cradle faith. We found out most of our ‘Christian’ friends actually were cradle Catholics.
 
Casilda said:
What Catholics do not understand is when a protestant comes into the fullness of the faith, they stand there before the altar of the Lord, naked and bare. Your family rejects and belittles you, your friends abandon you. You feel an exhilarating joy and an agonizing loneliness.
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This is a grueling experience for those who live through it. Catholics should embrace every convert–not just claim that we are the Body of Christ in its Fullness but actually Live Christ in the Fullness of Faith: Love is Demanded… words are cheap; that’s why St. James Compels us to be Doers of the Word not just listeners and St. Paul Tells us to:
11 For which cause comfort one another; and edify one another, as you also do. 12 And we beseech you, brethren, to know them who labour among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you: 13 That you esteem them more abundantly in charity, for their work’s sake. Have peace with them. (1 Thessalonians 5)
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Casilda said:
They are not the mainstream Catholics but they are it’s vital undercurrent.
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Exactly!

Converts bring into the Church that desire to Serve, to Share Christ, to Evangelize the world through both Sharing of the Gospel and the various parish Ministries.

These, I suspect, are the ones spoken of by Christ as the ones who are last but Become the First!

Maran atha!

Angel
 
Maybe it’s regional, but more likely it depends on the family, the community, the overall situation.

There were a couple of aggressive anti-Catholics in my dad’s family. One was his father, who had died years before Dad got engaged, so no problem there. His mother liked my Catholic mom and didn’t care about the religion thing; his two sisters didn’t care either. There was one elderly great-aunt who was huffy about it from what I remember.

In my husband’s family there have been Catholics and about 3 or 4 kinds of Protestants and people leaving the Catholic church to marry Protestants and leaving the Protestant church to marry Catholics and Catholics having mixed marriages and all kinds of wack stuff. I think by the time it reached uncle’s generation and our generation, everybody had kind of thrown up their hands and wasn’t interested in arguing about it. The whole community there in general is also very ecumenical. I was just told a story about how one of the very Baptist in-laws was actually baptized Catholic with his Baptist parent’s permission because he got very sick as a baby and was taken to the Catholic hospital. The nuns and nurses thought the baby would die and asked permission to baptize and the Baptist parents (the Baptist dad was a minister) said sure go ahead, whatever you want, just save his life. Baby lived and is now a nice grown up Baptist husband and father…but baptized Catholic.
 
<3 That’s so awesome. Good for him!

My sister ended up becoming Eastern Catholic too!!! 😃 I was lucky. The parish community I found when I converted was better than that but I moved and this new parish is a lot harder to get used to.
 
Funny story (kind of) about why my dad’s family is anti-Catholic. When my grandma was a little girl a Catholic girl was mean to her once. Since then she has firmly taught all her children and grandchildren that Catholics are evil and mean. ROFL! Kind of silly when you think about it.

This was, of course, exacerbated by the local Protestant communities. You can walk into almost any Protestant Church in this area and they have these booklets teaching the horrors of the Catholic Church. Jack Chick type stuff. Those are the kind of churches my aunts attended growing up.

When I was going to school the local Catholic School and Secular School had a horrible territorial fight going on. And I mean kids would attack each other in the streets for going to the ‘wrong school’. At recess I used to stand at the line separating our playgrounds (yes, the schools were side by side) and we’d hurl insults back and forth at the Catholic kids.

I mean… I’m pretty sure THIS is a regional thing. As in the community where I live is VERY Protestant and very not happy about the Catholics having weaseled their way into the area.
 
somecanadian said:
Church refused to give them RCIA until there were enough people to make it ‘worthwhile’
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somecanadian said:
And when those same people run the parish committees and groups you get people wanting to convert who are told; “We don’t have enough time. You’ll have to wait until it’s more worth our while.”
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It is as if they have never internalized the Word!

…as if they have never heard Jesus Speak about God’s concern for the lamb that has gone astray; how He seeks out the lost and carries it on His Shoulder…

No wonder Jesus chastises and rejects those souls that claim to be His because they are so full of it (spirituality, knowledge, history, practice); Jesus simply rejects them as workers of iniquity (St. Matthew 7:21-23). These can be compared with the Pharisees and Sadducees who were scolded by Jesus because they not only did not enter into the Kingdom but kept others from being able to enter:
13 But woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you shut the kingdom of heaven against men, for you yourselves do not enter in; and those that are going in, you suffer not to enter. (St. Matthew 23)
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May the Holy Spirit have Mercy on all of us so that we may open our hearts and minds to His Guidance!

Maran atha!

Angel
 
somecanadian said:
not happy about the Catholics having weaseled their way into the area.
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…which is quite interesting since the experience of the non-Catholic groups have been missions to convert Christians (Catholics) rather than pagans.

Maran atha!

Angel
 
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