Returning with a thirst

[WhiteOak]

Hi, thanks to anyone who responds. I am curious about the experience other lost Catholics have had when they return to their faith and the church. Upon my return I have described it as a thirst or a hunger for learning more about God, trying to experience God, learning more about the church. I love the bible and I have been very drawn to prayer (meditative, contemplative and vocal) and I have found prayer to be extremely enjoyable and therapeutic. I often describe it as, I have been hungry this whole time and didn’t even know it. I feel kind of like a voracious baby bird. Like I have stated, I would LOVE to know what other returning Catholics have experienced upon their returns. so, what was/is your experience? Thanks again to anyone who responds.

Dave

God Bless

 

[JimR-OCDS]

My return was back in 1976 and like yourself, I too ended up with a strong hunger to learn more about Jesus. I read the Bible daily, went to Charismatic Prayer meetings and bought every spiritual book that was out at that time, regardless of whether they were Catholic or not. I was fortunate that my wife was going through the same experience at the time. I also had a revelation of Jesus Christ deep within my soul.

A priest friend of ours, told us that if we grow spiritually, we will grow away from Charismatic Prayer. We laughed at that time and thought he was just speaking from his usual liberal side.

However, it didn’t take too long to see he was right and now 40 years later, I see how he was so right. I’m sure he’s in heaven today smiling for us.

Prayer is the key, and the way Christ will draw you closer to Him.

Jim

 

[wllmjoseph]

Hi, thanks to anyone who responds. I am curious about the experience other lost Catholics have had when they return to their faith and the church. Upon my return I have described it as a thirst or a hunger for learning more about God, trying to experience God, learning more about the church. I love the bible and I have been very drawn to prayer (meditative, contemplative and vocal) and I have found prayer to be extremely enjoyable and therapeutic. I often describe it as, I have been hungry this whole time and didn’t even know it. I feel kind of like a voracious baby bird. Like I have stated, I would LOVE to know what other returning Catholics have experienced upon their returns. so, what was/is your experience? Thanks again to anyone who responds.

Dave

God Bless

Conversion is not a one time event but rather there are a series of conversions in our life and in each conversion we draw closer to God. I came back to the Catholic Church in 1997. I had stopped going to Mass of several years. As time when on I realized that there was something missing in my life. I went through a couple of years where I was not feeling well physically and God worked through the experience to draw me back to Him. I started going to weekly Mass in the Spring of 1997. Each week I would go to Mass but would not take Eucharist for I knew that I needed to go to Confession after having been out of the Church for so long. By the Fall of 1997 I realized that I needed the Eucharist and I needed it in the worst way. Like you I felt a great thirst or hunger for Christ in my life. It was through that hunger that I was able to go to the Sacrament of Confession and to give a good confession.

It has been almost twenty years and I am so grateful. Every so often it is my thirst or hunger to have a closer relationship with Jesus that I am able to enter into a deeper and more intimate relationship with Christ. I am so grateful to be Catholic. I can not imagine not having access to the Sacraments which in turn helps us satisfy that thirst or hunger for Christ!

 

[Casilda]

In my case I will have to define ‘return’ because I never left my faith, though I was removed from it when I was a child. So I grew up Catholic outside of the church. My ‘return’ as a teen didn’t go over very well. The church had changed drastically and there were no shepherds who knew how do deal with us grown up baby birds. I did spend a lifetime (I am over half a century old) learning more about God through the only avenue afforded me, the Bible. It was not until the year spent learning about Eastern Orthodoxy and early church fathers that I missed my cradle faith. It was no where to be found, however. I did find a merciful Eastern Catholic priest who has restored my soul, a bit. I wasnt just starving, I was nearly spiritually dead.