D
dzheremi
Guest
Hello All,
What, in your opinions, constitute valid reasons for switching rites? I must admit that over the past year or so I have been feeling increasingly isolated from the Roman Catholic ways, and talks with Dominican priests and brothers, an RCIA director, and fellow laypeople have not done much except to further focus my attention on the great spiritual hole that seems to have developed within me, despite my desperate attempts to maintain the idea that everyone goes through periods of low faith or spiritual isolation, so this too will pass. I have spent this Lenten season trying to develop a deeper connection to my faith, and to the extent that I have been successful it has been through fasting, not the academic sort of learning that I also embarked upon when I first started feeling so withdrawn (I thought it might help to read the reflections of some great Christians authors; it did, in a way, but that is not the same as actually feeling things within myself).
Somewhere along the way, I have come to the idea that I might switch rites. In no way do I feel that Roman Catholicism is somehow inferior to any other Church, but it does not seem as though the ways of thinking that I have been exposed to via my priests necessarily match my experience in various areas. For instance, in talking to my priest in confession about sin and how it is conceptualized, he talked about it in terms of offenses against the cardinal virtues, whereas I felt it a sort of spiritual sickness (this makes the most sense to me; I did it, and I did it not in ignorance…how can that be anything BUT a sickness?). I have long been aware that this is something more akin to an “Eastern” view, and in reading up over the Lenten season on the Maronites and other Eastern Catholics and Eastern Orthodox I have found much more that has captivated me in the Eastern experience of God as expressed via their forms of worship.
I have no roots in the East, either genealogically or traditionally (the only other practicing Catholic in my family is my grandmother, and she’s from Mexico; not exactly a hotbed of Eastern Christian thought!). I have no idea where I would have picked up any preconceived idea on any particular topic, either from an Eastern or Western perspective (especially since I was raised Presbyterian, not any kind of Catholic or Orthodox). It seems to me that I have only to rely on experience (not books or classes or any of that!), and therein lies the problem: I don’t feel like I am experiencing much in the Roman Catholic Church anymore. Just a lot of confusion as I watch other people sing “Glory, Glory Halleluja” and shake tambourines.
What does anyone think? Are there any converts here from the RC (or from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism) who can enlighten me with their own experiences? I really don’t know what to do. I have gotten a lot of advice that amounts to “ignore it” or “pray about it and it will go away”, but neither seems to be working.
What, in your opinions, constitute valid reasons for switching rites? I must admit that over the past year or so I have been feeling increasingly isolated from the Roman Catholic ways, and talks with Dominican priests and brothers, an RCIA director, and fellow laypeople have not done much except to further focus my attention on the great spiritual hole that seems to have developed within me, despite my desperate attempts to maintain the idea that everyone goes through periods of low faith or spiritual isolation, so this too will pass. I have spent this Lenten season trying to develop a deeper connection to my faith, and to the extent that I have been successful it has been through fasting, not the academic sort of learning that I also embarked upon when I first started feeling so withdrawn (I thought it might help to read the reflections of some great Christians authors; it did, in a way, but that is not the same as actually feeling things within myself).
Somewhere along the way, I have come to the idea that I might switch rites. In no way do I feel that Roman Catholicism is somehow inferior to any other Church, but it does not seem as though the ways of thinking that I have been exposed to via my priests necessarily match my experience in various areas. For instance, in talking to my priest in confession about sin and how it is conceptualized, he talked about it in terms of offenses against the cardinal virtues, whereas I felt it a sort of spiritual sickness (this makes the most sense to me; I did it, and I did it not in ignorance…how can that be anything BUT a sickness?). I have long been aware that this is something more akin to an “Eastern” view, and in reading up over the Lenten season on the Maronites and other Eastern Catholics and Eastern Orthodox I have found much more that has captivated me in the Eastern experience of God as expressed via their forms of worship.
I have no roots in the East, either genealogically or traditionally (the only other practicing Catholic in my family is my grandmother, and she’s from Mexico; not exactly a hotbed of Eastern Christian thought!). I have no idea where I would have picked up any preconceived idea on any particular topic, either from an Eastern or Western perspective (especially since I was raised Presbyterian, not any kind of Catholic or Orthodox). It seems to me that I have only to rely on experience (not books or classes or any of that!), and therein lies the problem: I don’t feel like I am experiencing much in the Roman Catholic Church anymore. Just a lot of confusion as I watch other people sing “Glory, Glory Halleluja” and shake tambourines.
What does anyone think? Are there any converts here from the RC (or from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism) who can enlighten me with their own experiences? I really don’t know what to do. I have gotten a lot of advice that amounts to “ignore it” or “pray about it and it will go away”, but neither seems to be working.