So... I’m Catholic. Now what?

  • Thread starter Thread starter mrsdizzyd
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
This might seem overly personal, and perhaps someone else has addressed it, but if you have been divorced and are remarried, that changes everything if you want to be a Catholic.
 
That is a very personal and honestly none of your business, but since you’ve brought it up in a public forum (very bad form) I feel obligated to respond.

I am married. My husband and I have only ever been married to each other.
 
No disrespect meant at all. I have seen many, many people (including a friend who is now going through it) become very excited about finding the Church, only to find out MUCH later in their journey about the annulment process.

A close friend is an RCIA director and he actually suggests that when we are evangelizing people to get that subject out in the open at the beginning. Too often and for too long, people have not been told about the annulment process at the beginning and it causes much heartache.

Was merely trying to help. Please forgive me for any discomfort my question has caused.
 
  1. Still none of your business.
  2. If you feel so compelled to bring it up with someone else might I suggest using the private message system instead.
  3. Apology accepted.
 
Friend of a friend (my best friend) personally witnessed an apparition of the Blessed Mother. That friend visited Fatima and Lourdes many times afterwards. [My friend did not SEE her but felt her calming presence,]
 
ConservativeOne said:
And, if you haven’t already received First Communion in another Faith - remember your family and fellow posters here during that First Communion…
Click to expand...
That doesn’t make much sense. How can they have received First Holy Commuion ‘in another Faith’. You can’t mean in Hinduism, Buddhism etc, so do you mean in a non-Catholic church? In which case it won’t have been a true FHC.
 
Brettbat. Good for you for trying to aide this person, her decision to be “offended” instead of thinking you for putting yourself out there to give her some very constructive advice screams volumes. Keep posting truth even when people do not want to hear it.
 
Have you been previously married and divorced? If so the process may not be able to be completed. It is really important that we Catholics let the new people know what the limitations are of being able to join the church. I came to Catholicism via Orthodoxy and am really off put by what the church requires of new people.

If you had not been previously married and divorced, you should be good to go.
 
Last edited:
You call your local parish and ask to speak to someone about joining RCIA.
 
I am in the same boat, I was confirmed Orthodox, but there is not a healthy Orthodox Church in our area so my husband and I were received into the Catholic church. The mass is lovely, but the church congregation is cold and unwelcoming, I really struggle with the Catholic issues over previous marriages or marriages before confirmation and feel that the church is woefully wrong on this subject.
 
Well, thank heavens my personal conversion to Catholicism is not dependent on you and your feelings about divorce and remarriage…
 
Wow, way to act like a christian. You were given appropriate and wise admonition and your gut instinct is to be offended and act as if you were slighted in some way. I recommend you spend some quiet time in prayer over this, and stop attacking people who are trying to give you and others ( because others are watching ) objective and sound advice.
 
You assume quite a bit. Perhaps you ought to see to the beam in your own eye before pointing out the speck in your neighbor’s.
 
Last edited:
Quote to someone trying to be kind and giving you information. Not my rafter at all.

“Still none of your business.
If you feel so compelled to bring it up with someone else might I suggest using the private message system instead.
Apology accepted.”
 
The state of my marriage is not his business or yours. Such personal questions are better handled in private. He apologized and I accepted.

What’s the problem?
 
mrsdizzyd said:
You assume quite a bit. Perhaps you ought to see to the beam in your own eye before pointing out the speck in your neighbors.
Click to expand...
That really isn’t fair. It is quite true about marriage anomalies possibly causing delays in the RCIA process. The advice you have been given is honest and balanced, and from the best of intentions. The RCIA team in my own parish lays out the situation clearly at the very start, so that proceedings to regularise marriages, radical sanations, annulments or what have you can be started asap.
 
paperwight said:
The RCIA team in my own parish lays out the situation clearly at the very start, so that proceedings to regularise marriages, radical sanations, annulments or what have you can be started asap.
Click to expand...
And, in my opinion, that is where it is best handled. In person and between the convert and the Church as opposed to a public internet forum.
 
The single biggest reason why some Catholics thrive and others stagnate is whether or not they have a lively interior life with God.

So we must use the MANY graces that the Church gives us in order to build up that interior life and to keep it alive, more…we must also gentle and naturally help others build up their interior life too as part of our constant apostolate.

What “graces”?

The Mass…we must learn how to squeeze all we can out of EACH Mass
Confession…we must learn how to get more out of Confession
Prayer life…we must learn to build up our prayer life, leading to a near continuous conversation wtih God, referring matters of our day to Him, punctuated with deliberate fixed periods of mental prayer daily.

Biographies and examples of the saints…using the “Communion of Saints” to help us during our day, bringing our “great friends” along, getting their help.

Other helps…the Rosary…more prayer.

Fasting and small acts of quiet mortification (dying to ourselves in little ways daily).

etc.

All sorts of help and graces coming from the Church, all designed to spur on our conversation with God, our love affair with Him.
 
You are in a public forum. You chose to reply to someone reaching out with information that is necessary to new people to understand, by choosing to take offense. What you fail to see is the intent of Brettbatt in bringing up the subject in the first place. Asking a person if they were previously married is in no way inappropriate nor socially unacceptable and in the context of this particular thread, very appropriate. As I stated, others are watching and could find the information useful .
 
In our church it is handled at the end and has caused a great deal of heartache, I am assuming why the topic was brought up in the first place.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top