What about luck?

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Youngling11

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Can a Catholic wish people “Good Luck” ? Or can a Catholic believe in “luck”?
 
“Luck” implies a random, godless world. We know better.

You can say “Blessings!”, “Hoping and praying that all turns out” or the more generic “All the best”
 
I always thought when people say “good luck”, they actually mean “All the best” rather than wishing that the person has the luck needed to succeed in a particular activity; the latter seems kind of insulting too.

Either way, Catholics do not believe in luck so I wouldn’t recommend to use “good luck”. Go with one of @po18guy ‘s alternatives.
 
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I agree that superstition is wrong and that we don’t believe in luck, however I agree with this answer here:
Most people use the phrase “Good luck” as a colloquial equivalent to “I wish you good fortune and pray that you will obtain it.” If that is the intent, one could use the phrase “Good luck” if one wishes. If one prefers, he could also say “Good blessings.”
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source: How are Catholics to view luck?
 
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Zynxensar said:
Catholics do not believe in luck
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They don’t? That is unbelievable. At a Mass celebrating the Chinese New Year, there was a large puppet dragon zig zagging throughout the Catholic Church. It was announced from the altar that it would bring you good luck if you succeeded in touching the “dragon”.
 
My guess would be that you’re associating Chinese culture with Catholicism. The year of the dragon is Chinese culture, and superstition is prevalent in China and with the Chinese.
 
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Probability is everywhere. It’s superstitious to believe that someone is “regularly lucky”, but in any individual throw of the metaphorical dice a person can either have a lucky result or an unlucky one
 
That’s because it’s a cultural superstition and has nothing to do with what Catholics believe. The entire Chinese culture is based around luck.
 
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Catholics shouldn’t believe it. Do you mean the priest announced it? or somebody else? Whoever announced it is in error.
 
I can attest to that. I come from a Chinese family (we’re from Singapore though, not China), and even though we are Catholic, some of my family members still believe in superstitions like “walking pass a black cat brings bad luck”.
 
Luck is not something physical, neither its an entity.
It all depends on how one perceives and manipulates his so called “Luck”.
Trying to establish a relationship between Catholic and “Luck” can never be a sane thing to do.
 
Some circumstances and occurrences are outside our conscious control, and seem random to us, because we don’t know all the facts of how they happened.
These events are called “luck”, or a new phrase I’ve come across, “chaos factor”.
We also can’t control everything that happens to us, but we can stack the odds in our favor for a good outcome.
For instance, if you’re buying a house, learn everything you can about the process, how to spot defects in a house, about financing, then put into practice what you’ve learned. You have a much better chance of avoiding financial disaster.
But it’s not luck.
 
“Good luck” simply means “I wish you all the best in your current endeavor” or “I hope things go well for you.” It has nothing to do with superstition. Catholics are allowed to wish good luck or talk about luck in a non-serious way, for example someone who wants to win Bingo or a lottery may wear their “lucky shirt” or carry a “lucky charm” of an elephant or something, for fun, but they don’t really believe in that stuff. They aren’t home doing spells or rituals or lighting candles for luck.

Sometimes wearing a “lucky shirt” or “lucky charm” just gives the wearer confidence to go do something like talk to a person they want to date, rather than actually bringing them luck. For things that are beyond a person’s control, like a lottery win, we realize there is an element of chance which in English people might call “luck” so it’s just a matter of hoping the chance goes in your favor.

Edited to add, I think the cultural background of the person is going to shape how seriously they take the idea of “luck” and whether it conflicts with their Catholic faith. “Luck” is taken far less seriously in European cultures than it is in Asian cultures.
 
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We hold superstitions like this too. Belief in the evil eye, a superstition of Muslim origin, is prevalent among many Lebanese and Arab Christians today. It’s not just the Chinese who are superstitious, every culture has something of that sort.
 
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AlNg said:
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michaelArc:
That’s because it’s a cultural superstition and has nothing to do with what Catholics believe.
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Then why is it announced from the Catholic altar if Catholics don’t believe it?
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Do you seriously think that every Catholic priest in the world holds perfectly to the Catholic positions on all questions?

This is a ridiculous line of reasoning. “One Catholic priest somewhere did this one thing, therefore Catholics believe this.”
 
There is no such thing as “luck”, only Divine Providence. That said, “good luck” is simply an idiom, a figure of speech. I see no problem with it, taken all by itself.
 
The Catholic priest also tailors his preaching to the culture he is in and the needs of his flock.

A priest in one area might see people spending time and money and engaging in occult or forbidden practices to increase their “luck”, so he preaches against it.

A priest in another area might say “Good luck” to the school sports team, or talk about the lucky winner of the parish fundraiser raffle, without a second thought. Because nobody went to the voodoo shop to buy candles to light for the luck of the team or to win the raffle.
 
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