Parents really against me converting, should i continue?

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My point is, do not deviate from Church teaching simply due to unfortunate circumstances. Always do what is right in the most objective sense. Lying is objectively wrong; therefore, don’t do it.
 
Luke 12:10: Whoever says a word against the Son of Man (Jesus Christ) can be forgiven; but whoever says evil things against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.
 
thanks everyone. i understand i should continue, but would God really be happy with me continuously hurting my mother? like is there an alternative compromise or something i could do?
Could you please tell me if your parents practice Hinduism?
I have an answer for you but please let me know first.
yes, my parents do practice Hinduism. my mom’s in this cult that’s a break off schism of ISKCON, and that seems to have made her very superstitious regarding other faiths. it’s very different from traditional Hinduism.

also all of this seems like emotional blackmail…like my mother will flip if i’m not doing religious things regarding her faith, such as wearing holy beads, or doing other Hindu stuff. is it possible for me to ‘lie’ a bit, and act like i’m following those just in front of her to please her, but in private continue to practice Christianity? thanks, keep praying please.
 
thanks everyone. i understand i should continue, but would God really be happy with me continuously hurting my mother? like is there an alternative compromise or something i could do?
As I said before, YOU are not hurting your mother. Your mother is choosing to react the way she does. There can’t really be a compromise - either you believe the faith or you don’t, either you convert or you don’t, either you follow a belief system that your mom is content with or you don’t. Since you are an adult, you should do what you know to be right. The key is to be respectful of your mother. The way to do that is to be honest, but not pushy about your situation. So now that she knows, you don’t need to go over it again and again with her. You need to let her know that your love for her is just as great now as it was before, and that your desire to have a good relationship with her is just as great now as it was before. Show it in other ways, unrelated to religion. Redirect conversations away from the faith topic to topics that are not divisive. You can’t make her not feel bad, and you can’t keep her from overreacting to the point of physical ailment. That is her responsibility, and only she can decide how to react. She is more likely to cope well with this change if you don’t let her think that her reactions will cause you to change your mind - that would just be fueling the fire, and encouraging her to react more dramatically in the future. Instead, be a steady, calm, and loving presence, but be unphased by the emotional drama (at least in her presence). Don’t play the game, and it’s more likely to end.
 
Those beads hold no meaning for you anymore, right? So they are not holy beads to you. They are just beads. But if to your mother you wearing them is showing you have the same beliefs as her, then it would be lying to her. If you want to, you could tell her that you will wear them to please her, but they have no meaning to you any longer.
 
This particularly touched my heart because I have son your age. Breaks my heart to hear what you’re going through but I also would like to encourage you to continue on your journey. I too went through RCIA at the cost of criticism and judgment but it’s o.k because I know I chose the “better part” as Mary did when she sat at the feet of Jesus. I still have family members that are praying for me to come out of the church.

There is an excellent book called Boundaries by Dr Henry Cloud and Dr John Townsend. I highly recommend it so that you can base your decision making from a healthy perspective.

One of the most beautiful gifts that God has given us is free will. You are responsible for your actions and NOT the actions or reactions of others. A question I pose is what is your motivation? Is it love? You’re on the right track then. :love:

And know this for a fact…. Scripture speaks clear that our battle is not with flesh and blood…. Read Ephesians 6 You have begun a journey toward Love and the dark side doesn’t want you to come to know Christ in a more intimate way.

I’m hoping you have sufficient support there in the RCIA community. I would imagine the Team is lifting you in prayer. I as well will say a prayer for you.

Remember this, you are a child of God and He loves you even more than your mother. May be hard to believe but it’s true. He has BIG plans for your life and is with you constantly even if it doesn’t feel like it. 👍

Just curious, have you looked up any conversion stories here at Catholic Answers of other Hindus that converted? Maybe you can connect with them for guidance and counsel.
 
i’ve been attending rcia classes for the past 2 months, come from a hindu background, and am 20 years old (in college.) a little over a week ago i went back home for the weekend. finally decided to tell my parents about my decision to convert. they took it much worse than i thought, especially my mother. she was super upset, and cried a lot. which made me question if i was doing right or wrong, b/c i had never seen my mother that disappointed and upset in me. anyways, my mother told me to not go to church anymore. i told her i won’t just b/c she wouldn’t let me go back until i agreed. anyways, of course i went to church. when my mother asked me last night if i did, i didn’t want to lie, so i said yes i did. she yelled and cried a lot on the phone, said i wouldn’t be related to her and all, even though i explained everything as nicely as i could. so today i found out that she had been sick all day (blood pressure maybe) and when i talked to her on the phone today she sounded so sad and sick, and now i feel so terrible 😦 Previously I decided to join the Church after being lost in depression for several years (that my parents didn’t know about) b/c i did really bad things before, due to which i also went through drugs, alcohol, suicidal thoughts etc. now all those thoughts are coming back, and i don’t know what to do, i feel like hurting myself for all this. i mean, i’m literally hurting my parents. And am losing a little faith. what should i do, should i continue with rcia/church? also please pray for my mother to get better, and pray that my parents understand. thank you.
Some of us aren’t called to defend the faith until later in life while others like yourself are faced with this call early.

Your Mum will eventually settle down or come around to your decision. Her reaction is not mostly from genuine fear and what genuine fear there is, can be dispelled by your faith and commitment eventually. The part of her reaction that amounts to emotional manipulation will fade when it is not achieving its end of getting you to leave your faith journey through Catholicism. People don’t continue in manipulation without it working in some way.

Perhaps you could take as your holy mentor in this ordeal, Bl. Mother Teresa. She spent most of her ministry involved with Hindus and is highly qualified to intercede for you.

God bless and protect you in your call.
 
Here I am…
Dear brother in Christ,

We have to do things always in prayer and very gently if you want to have any effect in your parents. First with your mother.

I am going to give you few passages in the Bhagavad Gita and I am going to ask you to read them very carefully.

But first do this:
I want you to go here: newtorah.org/translation2.html look at chapter 12 (XII), read it all (this is the Book of Apocalypse or Revelation of Jesus Christ, which you know probably that is the last book of the New Testament). But please very careful, you want to know precisely who is this fiery-red dragon.

Then here newtorah.org/translation.html in chapter 9 (IX) verse 11 to see the name in English of the king of the Abyss.

Please, until you have everything that I am going to tell you very clear in your mind, hold yourself and do not tell anything to your mother. You have to have it very clear so that any question that she asks you, you will be able to answer with the help of God.

Here are the passages in the B. Gita:

In the B. Gita look for chapter 11, now I hope that you have the possibility to see verses.

So chapter 11 verses:

9 starts with the the seer Arjuna, having a vision of Krishna, of his real divinity form.

**23 **See how Krishna looks like. Do not idealize it, be literal an clear. It is a horrible dragon with many bellies, many heads horrible frightening teeth… you will see it more clear later on and what is his purpose.

24 Seen the vision Arjuna says that his heart shakes with terror and that his peace left him. This speak tons about the nature of this being and the revelation is giving.

27 and 29 describes human beings rushing into his jaws and going between his fearful fangs (horrible teeth) and their heads being crushed between them… and just remember that this is Krishna the Almighty God of the Hindus.

32 He reveals his name and what is he doing. His name is **destroyer **and had come to destroy all peoples and the world of men!!!

Can you now compare with what we are taught in the Bible? He is Satan, no way is anything else.

You may read nice passages in the B. Gita because otherwise no one will believe him anything. But seen who is revealing all these, one just do not want to know. You will find a mix of good and bad, and people then do not know how to discern.

33 He reveal the victory that Arjuna will have. That Krishna has doomed all his enemies to die, but that Arjuna has to be his instrument and go and killed them. HE DOES NOT HAVE ANY POWER he puts men to do evil things for him, incite them to kill, and not even to give victory as he says (he is a liar) since before we read when he reveals his name -destroyer- that he is going to destroy both sides of the battle warriors and only Arjuna will be saved!!!

Please note that from verses 49-49 Arjuna pleads Satan (Krishna) to stop this frightening vision and to show himself again in his more benign form with many arms (Shiva, if I am right). In verse 5 Krishna explains that all the Hindu gods, all are he himself: Satan.

You will ask your mother to read these passages with you and ask her to explain what she sees, make her to concentrate. You have to gently gently show her what a horrendous dragon it is. Point out to his horrible teeth and eating human beings and ask her why she wants to have that as her God? That you rather have Jesus Christ as your Lord who taught you that you can be like him if you live a saintly life: that he will be close to you.

As you can see I have study very well the B. Gita and know many other things but for your purposes I think this is enough to know: that the Hindu religion is worshiping Satan without knowing, there have been many apologetics who changed the translation to hide the bad, but they have very hard time to hide the jaws and the fangs and Krishna’s purpose to destroy all mankind.

In the love of Christ and of His Revelation.
Gloria

Please let me know if you think this is going to help you to help your parents and your friends… or going to the original language in the B. Gita you did not find any of the things that I am saying. Please let me know. If I am wrong I will never try to tell again all this to no one.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by XD1993
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gloria de G
Dear brother,
I hope you are well and I have not hear anything from you, but I am keeping you and your parents in my prayers.

Since I am new in the forums, I realize that the private conversation we had here will not be post. So I would like to post it in the forum. I hope you will not mind. Please let me know.
In the love of Christ,
Gloria
yes, of course you can post it in the forum. sorry for the late reply. i read your answer on the Bhagavad Gita, and I have actually never looked at it that way before. It does make sense, and I’ll try to explain it to my mother over, thanksgiving, when I go home. However, I have never really viewed the Bhagavad Gita and other Hindu gods as satanic, I’ve just seen them as pure fiction just like the Greek gods and epics like the Iliad and Odyssey etc.
But I do not know how effective it will be, because despite how the Bhagavad Gita describes Krishna’s universal form as scary and terrible, most Hindus (including my mother) believe it to look calm and nice, something like this farm5.staticflickr.com/4018/4…9c035760cb.jpg

however i will try to explain this to her. thanks!

Many thanks,
Did you notice the dragon heads that are above the picture you sent me? That is why Arjuna asked Krishna to appear to him in the more benign form. But Krishna is very clear that all of the Gods that Hinduism have are all HE, presented in different forms, otherwise it will be very hard for him to be believe, even Arjuna was having hard time, he was so frighten even his hairs stood up! And this is what you have to stress with your mom: all are but one and the same in essence.

About the way you saw the Gods, the problem here is that Greek Gods are over thanks to Christianity, but Hinduism still worshiping them! But please **do not called **Hinduism a Satanic religion, are different things. Satanic religions worship Satan knowing what they are doing but in Hinduism I really believe they do not know what they are doing, that is why they need to be preach that.

So please be gentle with your mom but firm , and always in prayer, and study very well the passages and do not let her to take you to another chapter. I told you that the problem is that there is a mixed of good with bad and difficult to discern when one finishes and the other stars.

I am very glad that, after all, the translations I have been reading were not too bad!

Let me add something. In other days Christians have been martyr because of preaching the truth to idolaters. This is what happen when they went to preach to Rome against all their gods. May God bless you and give you the strength that you need to preach the truth about God to your people. Jesus is always with us as far as we love him and keep His commandments.
In the love of Christ,
Gloria
 
Absolutely! Continue your journey. Pray for your mother and her health. Keep the avenue of communication open with her. Eventually you and her will grow together again. And as stated in many of the other posts… It is your salvation you need to be concerned about. If that is where you heart leads you follow it.
As you will learn in RCIA… the closer you come to God the more Satan will try to devert you from your path of righteousness. Beware of those little detours.
Pray daily.
I will keep you in my prayers as well!
Peace be with you and God Bless you!
 
i’ve been attending rcia classes for the past 2 months, come from a hindu background, and am 20 years old (in college.) a little over a week ago i went back home for the weekend. finally decided to tell my parents about my decision to convert. they took it much worse than i thought, especially my mother. she was super upset, and cried a lot. which made me question if i was doing right or wrong, b/c i had never seen my mother that disappointed and upset in me. anyways, my mother told me to not go to church anymore. i told her i won’t just b/c she wouldn’t let me go back until i agreed. anyways, of course i went to church. when my mother asked me last night if i did, i didn’t want to lie, so i said yes i did. she yelled and cried a lot on the phone, said i wouldn’t be related to her and all, even though i explained everything as nicely as i could. so today i found out that she had been sick all day (blood pressure maybe) and when i talked to her on the phone today she sounded so sad and sick, and now i feel so terrible 😦 Previously I decided to join the Church after being lost in depression for several years (that my parents didn’t know about) b/c i did really bad things before, due to which i also went through drugs, alcohol, suicidal thoughts etc. now all those thoughts are coming back, and i don’t know what to do, i feel like hurting myself for all this. i mean, i’m literally hurting my parents. And am losing a little faith. what should i do, should i continue with rcia/church? also please pray for my mother to get better, and pray that my parents understand. thank you.
I’m sorry to hear that you’re going through this. I’m a convert, so hopefully I can provide some helpful perspective. I have to preface it by saying that luckily, when I announced my conversion to my parents, they took it pretty well, almost a little too nonchalantly, in my opinion. Of course, that may have something to do with the fact that I didn’t tell them until after I converted.

I think you need to have a conversation with your mom. There could be several things that are going on.
  • You need to explain to her why you’re converting.
  • She may be afraid of losing you; reassure her that she will not.
  • She fears something that she doesn’t understand. Help her understand more about the Catholic faith.
  • She may be hurt that you’re “rejecting” your heritage. Reassure her that you’re not.
  • She may be angry that you didn’t consult them before you decided to convert. Tell them that you’re telling them now. But be firm with them that you’re an adult now, and your faith is your own free will.
I think once you have some of these things cleared up, she will come around a bit, though it may still take time. Continue to have regular conversations with her; use positive reinforcement. Maybe this conversion will even be an opportunity to bring you and your mother closer. It’s all about good communication.

That said, at the end of the day, your faith is your own free will, and you need to be strong. I will be sure to say a prayer for you.
 
Hi everyone,
This post has been very insightful, thank you all for your advice. I too am struggling with the exact same issue. I know that as in Luke 14:26 and 12:52-53 we are to choose Jesus over any person, relationship or religion, but the hurt, especially to my mother in this case, is difficult. The difference in my case however, is not a conversion to Catholicism, but away from it. I am a 56 year-old cradle Catholic and have struggled with theological questions about the Church for years. I tried to talk to my dad about it when he was still alive, and to my cousin (a priest) as well, but they both seemed offended that I should question anything. I tried talking to a parish priest, and now am all but shunned by him. The more I was rejected, the deeper and more numerous the questions became. (There is one Monsignor at Kenrick College (the diocese seminary) that has met with me and is still willing to do so) I haven’t said anything to my mom about this, since my father just passed in March (she doesn’t need anything else on top of that), but it weighs heavy on my heart. My wife has threatened divorce if I leave the Church, but I only attend out of obligation and don’t go to Communion. The last 5 years have been very difficult for me and my family (we lost our oldest daughter, both of my wife’s parents and my dad as well. We are teetering on the edge of divorce, and my wife is at odds with our other daughter, to the point of courtroom opponents) My faith in Jesus is much stronger through all of this, but I have given up on Catholicism. Mom is the only reason that I am still here, and now I see that I must face this as well. From what you all have said, I will not make some grand proclamation, but will quietly move on with what I see as the inevitable. Thank you for your advice, have a Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year.
 
Thank you for your advice, have a Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year.
I can see that you do not know how things work here.:confused: But this thread is not for your own problem!
It is for someone else and looks solved.

You need to open your own thread, I tried to send you a private message but you do not have e-mail. So send me a ‘private message’ by clicking on my name (at the top left of this post) and I will send something for you to read that is going to help you, believe me.

In the love of God and of His Church,
Gloria

.
 
Hi everyone,
This post has been very insightful, thank you all for your advice. I too am struggling with the exact same issue. I know that as in Luke 14:26 and 12:52-53 we are to choose Jesus over any person, relationship or religion, but the hurt, especially to my mother in this case, is difficult. The difference in my case however, is not a conversion to Catholicism, but away from it. I am a 56 year-old cradle Catholic and have struggled with theological questions about the Church for years. I tried to talk to my dad about it when he was still alive, and to my cousin (a priest) as well, but they both seemed offended that I should question anything. I tried talking to a parish priest, and now am all but shunned by him. The more I was rejected, the deeper and more numerous the questions became. (There is one Monsignor at Kenrick College (the diocese seminary) that has met with me and is still willing to do so) I haven’t said anything to my mom about this, since my father just passed in March (she doesn’t need anything else on top of that), but it weighs heavy on my heart. My wife has threatened divorce if I leave the Church, but I only attend out of obligation and don’t go to Communion. The last 5 years have been very difficult for me and my family (we lost our oldest daughter, both of my wife’s parents and my dad as well. We are teetering on the edge of divorce, and my wife is at odds with our other daughter, to the point of courtroom opponents) My faith in Jesus is much stronger through all of this, but I have given up on Catholicism. Mom is the only reason that I am still here, and now I see that I must face this as well. From what you all have said, I will not make some grand proclamation, but will quietly move on with what I see as the inevitable. Thank you for your advice, have a Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year.
Dear Friend in Christ!
I sincerely sympathize with you, you present life situation is really difficult and painful.
At the very moment, I also have my own “small cross” and to me it also seems very heavy. This cross сonected with my conversion to Holy Catholic Faith. I am cradle semi-ortodox who in process of time became practical atheist, but thanks to God’s Mercy and loving intercession of Our Heavenly Mother I understood true Church and true Faith and now is so strongly convinced in what God gave me to understand that I am ready with the help of God give my life for it. At the moment I cannot imagine my life without Mass, Holy Communion, without Rosary. But there were times when my faith was undermined by lots of things but mainly because of my neglect of Sacrament of Confession and prayer. Nut when some time has passed I clearly realize that neglect of prayer, Confession and Holy Communion was main reason of my fall.
I do not know your style of life but I think problem is here. One more reason for your spiritual stugnation may be lack of good fervent priest. I also met such a problem, but I can reasure you that if you ask God to send you His good servant He will surely do it. (Such was my case).
But in any case do not hurry to make decision. Pray to Our Lady and Holy Gost and you will understand that outside Catholic Church THERE IS NO SALVATION. I sought Truth and I found God, I sought God and I found Him in Catholic Chuch. And I more than believe in it I DO KNOW it.
As to your marrige, I suppose you know that Sac of Mar is sacred, I would advice you do your best to save your family for the sake of your soul first of all and for the sake of your children as the second reason. St. Padre Pio used to say that God most severely punish sins against Sacrament of Marriage - think over it!
May God bless you and your family! Tomorrow I will attend Holy Sacrifice of Mass and will recieve Communion in your intention!
May Jesus in Blessed Sacrament illuminate you!
 
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