Time to decide

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As many of you many know, I have a Protestant wife and my kids are Protestant, and I am approaching my second anniversary of entering the Catholic Church. For two years I have been going to both services, first the Catholic then the Wesleyan, and the anti-Catholic sentiment is still alive and well in my wife. For many in my situation, it can be dealt with. For me however, it is becoming very emotionally and spiritually taxing, and I fear I have to make a decision…either the Catholic Church 100% or my wifes tradition, which i was a part of for over 30 years, 100%. Either decision I make will be painful, either for me or my family. Any advice, brothers and sisters, would be greatly appreciated!!
 
First, you have my prayers. It is not easy to live a life divided 😦

Second, I’d ask you this: Do you believe that the Church IS the one true Church? Do you believe in the Eucharist?

Contact your Priest. Tell him where you’re at. He will be able to guide you better.

I have a million things to say, but your heart, your prayers, and your priest will have better answers.
 
Pardon me for saying but I think more is going on here than just a squabble over what church to attend…I suspect it could be a red herring for deeper problems and issues…God bless
 
That’s incredibly hard and I have no solution for you but I would strongly encourage you to speak with your Pastor or heck, perhaps even the Bishop for something like this. This is the type of situation which can easily disrupt your entire life. Do you forsake the Church you believe to be God’s true Church which you swore an oath to? Or do you forsake the wife you swore an oath before God to?

You have my prayers and I wish you God’s abundant blessings!
 
You will be in my prayers as well.

I had to make a couple of immediate decisions recently, such as choosing not to move in with my girlfriend before marriage as well as choosing to go to school part time in the fall so that I can attend RCIA. I know that they are not the same situation that you are in, but my motivating factor was this:

I knew what the church said, and I knew what was right. Though I’m not Catholic right now, I believe that they are the church that Christ established. If I die after intentionally choosing what went against my conscience and God, how would I explain that to God?

Jesus said that we must love him more than ourselves, more than our family. We must be willing to follow him whole-heartedly.

So in your situation, I’d say that you must ask yourself one question: what is more important? Choosing to leave Christ’ church to save your temporal family relations which would result in a serious blow to your eternal relationship with the Father? OR, stay with the CC, pray, pray, pray, and allow God to work in your family so that they too will come to the Church?

I will pray for you and your family.

God Bless
 
Consider the redemtive nature of suffering.

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking 14 in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church, (Colossians 1:24)

What you are suffering has redemptive value for all of creation, for all members of the Church, and for those to whom you choose to apply the merits of your suffering, provided you unite your suffering to that of Christ on the cross. Consider that by your suffering, perseverance and endurance, you may be all that is standing between your wife and Hell.

Consecrate yourself to Mary. Give her your full trust and willfully renounce any merit your suffering might have gained for you, instead offering it to Mary and asking her to apply that merit to your wife and family, if it be God’s will.

And pray to St. Monica who tearfully prayed to God for years and years that her son, St. Augustine, be brought to the Catholic faith. Look where her prayers got her son! Pray to St. Monica and make a novena to St. Jude. I will pray for you and your family in front of a relic of St. Jude this Thursday evening and ask God that you be given the strength to trust Him.

-Tim-
 
t68ware said:
As many of you many know, I have a Protestant wife and my kids are Protestant, and I am approaching my second anniversary of entering the Catholic Church. For two years I have been going to both services, first the Catholic then the Wesleyan, and the anti-Catholic sentiment is still alive and well in my wife. For many in my situation, it can be dealt with. For me however, it is becoming very emotionally and spiritually taxing, and I fear I have to make a decision…either the Catholic Church 100% or my wifes tradition, which i was a part of for over 30 years, 100%. Either decision I make will be painful, either for me or my family. Any advice, brothers and sisters, would be greatly appreciated!!
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The comments above are good. I just thought I’d add, any good Protestant would tell you to look to Holy Scripture for answers, wouldn’t they? Well, as it happens, Jesus spoke very clearly about how to weigh family life and harmony with others versus right worship and one’s status as Jesus’ disciple. I’m sure you know where it is:
I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.
And again:
If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.
So you have my prayers with you too, because these situations are never easy, as Jesus warned us.
 
You don’t really need our advice. No one here will tell you to leave the Catholic Church to please your wife. You must decide which faith tradition is for you and your wife must respect your choice.
 
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