Returned but confused

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aniavictoria

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Hello Everyone,
This is my first post on this forum. I am here to share my story and to make some sense out of what has happened to me as I am a bit lost and confused. Recently, I returned to the Catholic Church, which I,ve been since an infant. All of my life, I,ve loved God and Jesus and consider myself a God-fearing person (unlike most of my family unfortunately). There has not been a day that I have not prayed since I first learned to pray when I was about 4 years old and I have loved my Catholic faith ( I think ) when I was in high school (an all girls Catholic high school-by choice), which is when I really learned more fully about my faith and started to actually read the bible and entered a university (again in a Catholic college and even Catholic residence) with what I felt was a greater love for God and a desire to attend mass regularly. There are way too many major events that have happened for me to mention (or bore anyone with 🙂 ) here and I have just a few main things I am trying to undertstand. More recently, I believe that I got caught up in fundamentalism. Going back to high school, I recall the time in religion class when we were reading the bible and I came across a verse in Malachi that mentioned ‘the Sun of Righteousness’ and for some reason, I associated it with Sunday worship of the Catholic church and actually make me ask whether we (Catholics) are supposed to worship the sun (yes, I know it is strange…) and not the Son. I prayed on it but could not make sense of it so I prayed that I would one day be give the answer and I left it at that and went on with life, as I mentioned before. Now, here is the strange thing, last summer (after having sort of forgotten the prayer…or just left it as I understood that you pray and let it go-let god), I felt that the question or prayer was put on my heart again and I had this sort of spiritual experience-I knew that I would know the truth soon. In September, I became convinced that Saturday was the true Sabbath and that pretty much everything I had been taught in the Catholic church was false and a heresy. RIght now as I write this I am aware that that was a lie and true heresy and I have returned to the Catholic church but I am confused about what happened…I kind of don’t get it. If anyone has some thoughts I would really appreciate it. Feeling a bit fragile and I don’t want to make the same mistake again and want to know where I erred. Thank you in advance and God Bless you.
 
First welcome to the Forum. I am sure you will find many good subjects and comments and post a few yourself.

Second, questioning is a natural part of learning and coming to a deeper understanding and commitment to God.

Third, I have never heard about worshiping on Sunday as being related to worshiping the Sun and not THE SON. I’ve always understood we worship on Sunday because that was the day Christ rose from the Dead.

Fourth and more to the major point of it all. We believe in God. God is perfect and does not lie. We believe that Jesus Christ is the Living Son of God. Christ is perfect and does not lie. We can misunderstand Christ; we can reject parts of what Christ taught and did. But our limitations do not make Christ wrong and does not justify setting up our own Church. So what did Christ say and do, and do we understand it enought to accept HIS Church? Paraphrasing:
  • I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one can come to the Father except through Me.
  • Thou art Peter and upon THIS rock, I will build MY Church.
  • Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in Heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in Heaven.
  • Holy Euchraist - This IS My Body. This IS My Blood. Do THIS in rememberance of Me. {{The power to change bread and wine was given to HIS apostles who have handed it down. This power cannot be assumed by others. In fact many who believe in Christ do not believe that bread and wine can be changed into the Body and Blood of Christ. But that is what Christ did and Christ, being God, does not lie.}}
  • Receive the Holy Spirit, Who’s sins you shall forgive are forgiven. Who’s sins you shall retain are retained. {{Christ gave His Apostles the power to forgive sins on His first visit to them after He rose form the Dead.
  • I will send you the Holy Spirit and He will remind you of all I have taught.
Many disagreed with Christ when He was on earth. Some even killed Christ. ( Well at least tried, but Christ rose from the Dead.) Many disagreed with His Apostles then and to this day. Some even killed them. Even to this time. Some in the Church were confused and looked to Peter to make the call. Even St Paul looked to Peter as the head of the Church Christ established.

Is the Church Christ established perfect? No. It is made of imperfect human beings. BUT and it is a important but, on the matter of Faith and Morals, when the Pope speaks with that special authority Christ gave Peter, the Pope’s pronouncements ARE what Christ wants for us. We may misunderstand; we may not want to accept and comply. But that would be our weakness and our sin. Our imperfections do not make Christ or His Church wrong, and do not justify setting up our own church.

Keeping these most basic thoughts in mind should go a long way in reducing confusion.
 
aniavictoria said:
Hello Everyone,
This is my first post on this forum. I am here to share my story and to make some sense out of what has happened to me as I am a bit lost and confused. Recently, I returned to the Catholic Church, which I,ve been since an infant. All of my life, I,ve loved God and Jesus and consider myself a God-fearing person (unlike most of my family unfortunately). There has not been a day that I have not prayed since I first learned to pray when I was about 4 years old and I have loved my Catholic faith ( I think ) when I was in high school (an all girls Catholic high school-by choice), which is when I really learned more fully about my faith and started to actually read the bible and entered a university (again in a Catholic college and even Catholic residence) with what I felt was a greater love for God and a desire to attend mass regularly. There are way too many major events that have happened for me to mention (or bore anyone with 🙂 ) here and I have just a few main things I am trying to undertstand. More recently, I believe that I got caught up in fundamentalism. Going back to high school, I recall the time in religion class when we were reading the bible and I came across a verse in Malachi that mentioned ‘the Sun of Righteousness’ and for some reason, I associated it with Sunday worship of the Catholic church and actually make me ask whether we (Catholics) are supposed to worship the sun (yes, I know it is strange…) and not the Son. I prayed on it but could not make sense of it so I prayed that I would one day be give the answer and I left it at that and went on with life, as I mentioned before. Now, here is the strange thing, last summer (after having sort of forgotten the prayer…or just left it as I understood that you pray and let it go-let god), I felt that the question or prayer was put on my heart again and I had this sort of spiritual experience-I knew that I would know the truth soon. In September, I became convinced that Saturday was the true Sabbath and that pretty much everything I had been taught in the Catholic church was false and a heresy. RIght now as I write this I am aware that that was a lie and true heresy and I have returned to the Catholic church but I am confused about what happened…I kind of don’t get it. If anyone has some thoughts I would really appreciate it. Feeling a bit fragile and I don’t want to make the same mistake again and want to know where I erred. Thank you in advance and God Bless you.
Click to expand...
The thing is that I am wondering whether I have been a heretic since highschool even though I felt I was growing in my Catholic faith? Is that possible? That is what I am confused about. Oh, I am so weird :S.
 
GratefulFred said:
First welcome to the Forum. I am sure you will find many good subjects and comments and post a few yourself.

Second, questioning is a natural part of learning and coming to a deeper understanding and commitment to God.

Third, I have never heard about worshiping on Sunday as being related to worshiping the Sun and not THE SON. I’ve always understood we worship on Sunday because that was the day Christ rose from the Dead.

Fourth and more to the major point of it all. We believe in God. God is perfect and does not lie. We believe that Jesus Christ is the Living Son of God. Christ is perfect and does not lie. We can misunderstand Christ; we can reject parts of what Christ taught and did. But our limitations do not make Christ wrong and does not justify setting up our own Church. So what did Christ say and do, and do we understand it enought to accept HIS Church? Paraphrasing:
  • I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one can come to the Father except through Me.
  • Thou art Peter and upon THIS rock, I will build MY Church.
  • Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in Heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in Heaven.
  • Holy Euchraist - This IS My Body. This IS My Blood. Do THIS in rememberance of Me. {{The power to change bread and wine was given to HIS apostles who have handed it down. This power cannot be assumed by others. In fact many who believe in Christ do not believe that bread and wine can be changed into the Body and Blood of Christ. But that is what Christ did and Christ, being God, does not lie.}}
  • Receive the Holy Spirit, Who’s sins you shall forgive are forgiven. Who’s sins you shall retain are retained. {{Christ gave His Apostles the power to forgive sins on His first visit to them after He rose form the Dead.
  • I will send you the Holy Spirit and He will remind you of all I have taught.
Many disagreed with Christ when He was on earth. Some even killed Christ. ( Well at least tried, but Christ rose from the Dead.) Many disagreed with His Apostles then and to this day. Some even killed them. Even to this time. Some in the Church were confused and looked to Peter to make the call. Even St Paul looked to Peter as the head of the Church Christ established.

Is the Church Christ established perfect? No. It is made of imperfect human beings. BUT and it is a important but, on the matter of Faith and Morals, when the Pope speaks with that special authority Christ gave Peter, the Pope’s pronouncements ARE what Christ wants for us. We may misunderstand; we may not want to accept and comply. But that would be our weakness and our sin. Our imperfections do not make Christ or His Church wrong, and do not justify setting up our own church.

Keeping these most basic thoughts in mind should go a long way in reducing confusion.
Click to expand...
Thank you so much, I really appreciate your feedback :). All the best.
 
aniavictoria said:
The thing is that I am wondering whether I have been a heretic since highschool even though I felt I was growing in my Catholic faith? Is that possible? That is what I am confused about. Oh, I am so weird :S.
Click to expand...
I don’t think a high schooler has the ability to be a heretic. You are at the age where you question, reject, accept, etc everything about your life. It’s normal, not heresy.

The important thing is that you are back. I pray that your journey into the wilderness has brought you closer to the church. It sounds like it has.

If you have not already, go to confession and have a talk with the priest. They are a wealth of information. You can even go to the church two towns over if you’d like some anonymity.
 
Well said, fermat.

Here is a bit more I took from the Encyclopedia on this web site regarding Heresy. I simply shortened it and put in in spaces so it can be read easier:

St. Thomas Aquinas defines heresy: “a species of infidelity in men who, having professed the faith of Christ, corrupt its dogmas”. "The right Christian faith consists in giving one’s voluntary assent to Christ in all that truly belongs to His teaching.

There are two ways of deviating from Christianity: the one by refusing to believe in Christ Himself, which is the way of infidelity common to Pagans and Jews; the other by restricting belief to certain points of Christ’s doctrine selected and fashioned at pleasure, which is the way of heretics.

The believer accepts the whole deposit as proposed by the Church; the heretic accepts only such parts of it as commend themselves to his own approval. The heretical tenets may be adhered to from involuntary causes:

· inculpable ignorance of the true creed,
· erroneous judgment,
· imperfect apprehension and comprehension of dogmas

**in none of these does the will play an appreciable part, wherefore one of the necessary conditions of sinfulness—free choice—is wanting and such heresy is merely objective, or material. **

On the other hand, the Will may freely incline the intellect to adhere to tenets declared false by the Divine teaching authority of the Church. The impelling motives are many:
  1. intellectual pride or exaggerated reliance on one’s own insight;
  2. the illusions of religious zeal;
  3. the allurements of political or ecclesiastical power;
  4. the ties of material interests and personal status;
  5. and perhaps others more dishonorable.
Heresy thus willed is imputable to the subject and carries with it a varying degree of guilt; it is called formal, because to the material error it adds the informative element of “freely willed”.

**Obstinate adhesion to a particular tenet is required to make heresy formal. **
**For as long as one remains willing to submit to the Church’s decision he remains a Catholic Christian at heart and his wrong beliefs are only transient errors and fleeting opinions. **
 
aniavictoria said:
Hello Everyone,
This is my first post on this forum. I am here to share my story and to make some sense out of what has happened to me as I am a bit lost and confused. Recently, I returned to the Catholic Church, which I,ve been since an infant. All of my life, I,ve loved God and Jesus and consider myself a God-fearing person (unlike most of my family unfortunately). There has not been a day that I have not prayed since I first learned to pray when I was about 4 years old and I have loved my Catholic faith ( I think ) when I was in high school (an all girls Catholic high school-by choice), which is when I really learned more fully about my faith and started to actually read the bible and entered a university (again in a Catholic college and even Catholic residence) with what I felt was a greater love for God and a desire to attend mass regularly. There are way too many major events that have happened for me to mention (or bore anyone with 🙂 ) here and I have just a few main things I am trying to undertstand. More recently, I believe that I got caught up in fundamentalism. Going back to high school, I recall the time in religion class when we were reading the bible and I came across a verse in Malachi that mentioned ‘the Sun of Righteousness’ and for some reason, I associated it with Sunday worship of the Catholic church and actually make me ask whether we (Catholics) are supposed to worship the sun (yes, I know it is strange…) and not the Son. I prayed on it but could not make sense of it so I prayed that I would one day be give the answer and I left it at that and went on with life, as I mentioned before. Now, here is the strange thing, last summer (after having sort of forgotten the prayer…or just left it as I understood that you pray and let it go-let god), I felt that the question or prayer was put on my heart again and I had this sort of spiritual experience-I knew that I would know the truth soon. In September, I became convinced that Saturday was the true Sabbath and that pretty much everything I had been taught in the Catholic church was false and a heresy. RIght now as I write this I am aware that that was a lie and true heresy and I have returned to the Catholic church but I am confused about what happened…I kind of don’t get it. If anyone has some thoughts I would really appreciate it. Feeling a bit fragile and I don’t want to make the same mistake again and want to know where I erred. Thank you in advance and God Bless you.
Click to expand...
One thing that happened is that you got in with some people who don’t understand poetry and figurative language. There are hundreds of poetic names for Christ and “sun of righteousness” is one of them.
You don’t have to like all of them. It might help you to read a Catholic book on biblical interpretation or “how to read your bible” in order to understand that some of it is poetic, was poetic, and has always meant to be poetic, and not literal.
 
Hi,
Actually, I never talked to anyone about it-not then-only recently I talked to my aunt about it. Guess, I am trying to say is that this questioning or doubt on the biblical passage (if you can call it that- I never felt that I doubted my faith only) came from my own heart and was not based on outside influence. As for interpretation, I did think that the rest of the bible, is and was both literal and figurative ( I actually studied English in University ). Thank you for your response and I do understand what you mean to say.
 
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