Prayer question

[Katie1723]

I accompany my partner to his church (He is SDA) as an observer. They have a prayer circle and although I haven’t, I am curious as to whether I could/should join in. They have all "invited " me to. However I politely decline.
~ Kathy ~

 

[St.Curious]

Well, prayer is always a good thing, but with any case where the prayers may not be comfortable for you, feel free to decline. When something just doesn’t feel right, follow your heart.

Are you finding yourself being drawn to the SDA church?

 

[Fortiterinre]

St. Curious has great advice. Would you be entering the prayer circle as a confident Catholic participating in an ecumenical act, which is allowed and even encouraged, or would you have more of a tourist/connoisseur approach of looking for attractive things to make you feel more comfortable to leave Catholicism and joing your husband’s SDA church? Sometimes ecumenism is most attractive when we are subconsciously “touring,” and we have to be careful to protect ourselves and our faith.

 

[paramedicgirl]

If you join in, you expose yourself to the risk of losing your Catholic faith. By attending a non- Catholic worship service, we sin against faith, because we are professing belief in a religion we know is false.

For social reasons, however, Catholics can attend weddings and funerals at non-Catholic churches as long as we don’t participate in the services.

These are my conservative viewpoints…

 

[Katie1723]

St.Curious:

Well, prayer is always a good thing, but with any case where the prayers may not be comfortable for you, feel free to decline. When something just doesn’t feel right, follow your heart.

Are you finding yourself being drawn to the SDA church?

My goodness, NO WAY am I drawn to the SDA church ! I know where "home " is and that isn’t it. I was born Catholic and will die Catholic. I go with my partner merely as an observer and in support of HIS spiritual journey.
The Catholic church has been my rock. More so in recent years as I believe the age I am (52) brings with it a certain sense of “wisdom” and an end to “searching” I am quite comfortable with my faith and have no desire to leave it for anyone or anything. I am reading and learning everyday and intend to keep it that way.
I don’t believe attending another service as an observer is professing belief in that faith. I sit there respectfully…oftentimes praying the rosary.
~ Kathy ~

 

[Fortiterinre]

paramedicgirl:

If you join in, you expose yourself to the risk of losing your Catholic faith. By attending a non- Catholic worship service, we sin against faith, because we are professing belief in a religion we know is false.

For social reasons, however, Catholics can attend weddings and funerals at non-Catholic churches as long as we don’t participate in the services.

These are my conservative viewpoints…

Um…“sin against faith”? Simply praying with non-Catholics is hardly a sin, although of course we each have to safeguard our faith and protect it. Below is Pope John Paul’s comments, from paragraph 24 of his 1995 encyclical Ut Unum Sint (That They All Might Be One), on how visiting and praying with non-Catholics was for him. I’ve put in bold where he traveled:

1. It is a source of joy to see that the many ecumenical meetings almost always include and indeed culminate in prayer. The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, celebrated in January or, in some countries, around Pentecost, has become a widespread and well established tradition. But there are also many other occasions during the year when Christians are led to pray together. In this context, I wish to mention the special experience of the Pope’s pilgrimages to the various Churches in the different continents and countries of the present-day oikoumene. I am very conscious that it was the Second Vatican Council which led the Pope to exercise his apostolic ministry in this particular way. Even more can be said. The Council made these visits of the Pope a specific responsibility in carrying out the role of the Bishop of Rome at the service of communion.45 My visits have almost always included an ecumenical meeting and common prayer with our brothers and sisters who seek unity in Christ and in his Church. With profound emotion I remember praying together with the Primate of the Anglican Communion at Canterbury Cathedral (29 May 1982); in that magnificent edifice, I saw “an eloquent witness* both to our long years of common inheritance and to the sad years of division that followed*”.46 Nor can I forget the meetings held in the Scandinavian and Nordic Countries (1-10 June 1989), in North and South America and in Africa, and at the headquarters of the World Council of Churches (12 June 1984), the organization committed to calling its member Churches and Ecclesial Communities “to the goal of visible unity in one faith and in one Eucharistic fellowship expressed in worship and in common life in Christ”.

 

[Katie1723]

Thank you all for your comments. Rest assured that my belief in the Catholic faith will remain firm, no matter what. I know that and my partner knows that.
~ Kathy ~

 

[St.Curious]

Kathy…

Does your partner ever come with you to Mass? Has he ever sat down with you and a Priest? Let me suggest something to you.

Go out and buy him a copy of “The Catholic Answer Bible” NAB translation. This is an amazing tool for converts and people who would deny Catholic teachings. This Bible has the very foundations of Catholic doctrine and teachings on colored pages within the scripture. Each page talks about why Catholics believe in certain things and then lists the scripture where it comes from. Everything from original sin to the papacy and saintly intercession is in there.

I suggest this because I, as a Lutheran currently converting, can argue against just about anything, but when it is presented in scriptural proof, it becomes something I read and study with an open mind instead of a closed one. Perhaps he will do the same? How could he then go back to a SDA church when he realizes the truths that they deny?

Perhaps his SDA activities are God trying to call him to him? We all respond to God differently, but not all of us has Catholic partners to shed some light on scriptural truths.

I’ll pray for your partner,
God’s peace,
Bryan

 

[Tonks40]

When I pray with other non-Catholics (non-denominational Christians), I usually cross myself if I agree with the prayer! No one has questioned me about it!