What do you do if you regret converting?

[paul_c]

It’s in the works. Evangelical Catholicism is on the rise, which means more Catholics will return to traditional teachings that reinforce Catholic identity. This means a return to Vatican I and its teachings on marriage.

Stay away from Croatians!

What are you talking about? What are the teachings on marriage in Vatican I that differ from what we currently understand? You act as is something changed in how the church understands marriage post Vatican I. I don’t think that’s the case…

 

[roseofshannon]

I used to wonder why the Church seemed to prefer the celibate religious life to the married state and why there are so many religious saints and few married saints.:ehh:

After 20 years of marriage,and seeing my friends marriages and family life, I no longer wonder. :bluelite:

Marriage and family life is very complicated! It doesn’t always bring out the best in us.

My understanding (settting aside some of the more extreme statements that you’ve pointed out for a moment), is that while Holy Matrimony and Holy Orders are both sacramental paths to holiness, Holy Orders is a more sure and direct path.

My married friends have come to the same understanding, and a priest friend of mine (who is very saintly) was recently saying that he realizes that he wouldn’t have been a good husband and father after watching how difficult it is with his siblings.

With a religious, it’s just you and God and your whole life is ordered towards service to God. It’s a very simple life—(NOT SAYING IT’S EASY!), but it is more tailor made to developing virtue, prayer life, corporeal and spiritual works of mercy…etc.

Married life, also gives ample opportunity to grow in virtue etc., but it is a more difficult path. This isn’t because sex is unholy or anything, but because you have to live in the world and be preoccupied by worldly things to a greater degree. Family relationships are very complicated and it’s very difficult to unleash ourselves psychologically from unconsciously repeating the same mistakes our parents made that were hardwired into our behavior. Practicing virtue behind closed doors in heated family situations is very difficult no matter how hard you try to do it right. It’s easy to get lax. Worldly cares continually crowd out thoughts of God and we have to keep putting him back at center again. Parenting is whole 'nother ball of wax.

Perhaps this is why both Jesus and St. Paul promoted the celibate life for the sake of the kingdom as the highest calling.

When I was looking into a lay society started by a priest for married couples, the priest explained why his apostolate required no mortifications for married couples unlike the religious members. He said that married couples are mortified in their daily life, with all the trials that come at them from kids, bills, taxes…etc. Religious live a more simple life which requires some added mortifications.

It seems to me that the Church follows the same principles throughout history, while *emphasizing *certain attributes of those principles to a greater or lesser degree in different ages. While the religious life is still very much a staple of the Church, Pope John Paul II made an effort to bring more emphasis to the married vocation. He beatified many married saints and his theology of the body gives a greater emphasis to the holiness of married sex.

God Bless!

 

[valient_Lucy]

Why would you ever think that love of God is inconsistent with love of family? In fact, its just the opposite. When love grows, it covers all bases.

Lucy, a good marriage consists of both partners working for the other’s happiness. And if love of God isn’t part of that, then the happiness will be limited. True happiness comes from fulfilling the will of God for you

I think you are looking at this the wrong way. A devout Catholic man, who has a great love for God will actually show it to you, in the way he treats you, in the way he loves you, in the way he will raise both your children, in the way he leads his life-it will be Christ centered and and so your life together will be too.

The problem would be if he starts to resent me and our children because we’re interfering with his spiritual progress. I don’t know for certain that this would happen, but it certainly seems like a possibility.

 

[Mintaka]

How on earth can someone’s calling from God – ie, being a husband to his wife and a father to his kids – “interfere” with a man’s spiritual progress??

That is the spiritual progress! It’s the cross and it’s the burden that’s light and easy, both in one!

Look, I’m single but not a religious or vowed. On the scale of how difficult that vocation is, or how many helps it gives me in being holy, I’m here to tell you that obviously, both religious life and married life are both harder and more help to holiness than living a bachelor life however I please. Married life and children teach people to love their family and neighbor, outside themselves, and thus to love God. Religious life gives you more concentrated time to pray and love God, and to serve their neighbor with love.

But it’s not a competition, except in the St. Paul race sense. It’s my responsibility to respond to my vocation’s special characteristics and opportunities, not to anybody else’s vocation. It’s my responsibility to love God and my neighbor as best I can, and to bloom where I was planted by God as the kind of flower He made me to be. Unless I’m actually discerning for religious life or marriage, I have no reason to spend my time staring at how green the grass is on the other side.

Moving right along… the major reason for the “excessive” praise of virginity and the religious life in the early Church was that pretty much nobody else in the ancient world believed that virginity was any use at all, and many people felt that not having sex on a regular basis was horrible for the health. (Thus justifying prostitution, sleeping with their slaves, etc.) Especially men’s health, frail flowers that they were. As with us nerds defending our right to exist in high school by writing hyperbole about how great our friends and hobbies were, the celibate and religious Church Fathers and Church Mothers were constantly fighting for the life of their vocation.

And the situation didn’t get much better in the Middle Ages, or the Renaissance, or today. People like nuns and monks and priests, as long as it’s not their child/crush/sister/grandson.

 

[Mintaka]

Nowadays, of course, marriage needs almost the same intensity of defense (thanks to the crazy attacks on it by worldly people) which is probably why you have that impulse to declare the greatness of marriage and fear that the religious life’s attraction will overpower all Catholic men – instead of fearing that all the Egyptian men who’ve chosen to be monks will suddenly decide to go back to Alexandria and marry those women their cousins have been pushing on them for the last year. So you should sympathize with the poor ol’ Church Fathers.

 

[Kelley_Green]

I converted to the Catholic Church almost five years ago, and unfortuantely I’ve spent the last six months or so regretting it. Maybe regretting is too strong a word. But I look back on my conversion, and I realize that I believed the Church was true because I **wanted **it to be true. I ignored what my professors and my pastor said about the Catholic Church, because I wanted to believe that the Church was true, and converted in spite of what they taught.

I still think it’s possible that the Church is true, maybe even probable. But I don’t think that it’s something that we can know with any kind of certainty. It’s sad in a way, because I used to really love the Church, but I don’t think I’ll ever feel that way again. On the other hand, it might have saved me from doing something really extreme, like dying for the Church. The Catholic Church may be the greatest thing ever invented by man, but if it’s invented by man, than it’s not worth dying for

And yet, I still wish that I could believe, the way I used to believe.

Lucy what is it you believed in to begin with? Was it in the Bible? Because that Bible is still right there and what’s worthy of belief remains. Open the book to gospels and stay there for a while. Listen to the litany of questions thrown at Jesus with fresh ears. Each one of those people were trying to intellectually grasp at Jesus as if God could be owned /contained in a bottle they could covet all for themselves. It’s incredible hubris on the part of human beings. The more times change the more people remain the same.

See mistakes in parables objectively. Acknowledge the criticisms Jesus pointed out as applicable to yourself. Have you engaged in any of the behavior he would rebuke? God didn’t go anywhere. You did. Your classroom chair from kindergarten didn’t shrink. It is you that has changed only you can’t see it because your eyes face outward instead of inward. If something is missing you can resign yourself prematurely that it’s lost or seek and ye shall find. Return yourself to God and the rest will fall into place.

 

[paul_c]

The problem would be if he starts to resent me and our children because we’re interfering with his spiritual progress. I don’t know for certain that this would happen, but it certainly seems like a possibility.

I can tell you in no uncertain terms that my wife and children enhance my spiritual progress. Do you think you would stunt your husband’s spiritual progress in any way? Why would you think that. That is completely under your control.

 

[pablope]

The problem would be if he starts to resent me and our children because we’re interfering with his spiritual progress. I don’t know for certain that this would happen, but it certainly seems like a possibility.

How could you possibly stunt his spiritual progress?

When you are married, you are bound together. You will take that spiritual journey together, not by himself. Both of you will carry each other, bear each other’s burdens and joys. Both of you will share those burdens and joys…there are ups and downs in a marriage…both of you will be there for each other, to support each other.

And his devotion to God, and yours, will be there to hold you together, to guide you, and will be both your strength, your foundation to go through trials and tribulations.

As I said previously, his and your devotion to God will show in how you love each other, in how you treat each other, in how you live. It should not be a hindrance, but a blessing.

 

[BerhaneSelassie]

The point is many saints and theologians write about how marriage interferes with spiritual growth and make it very difficult to follow God. St. Alphonsus Ligouri is his writings about the spiritual life contrasts the death of a nun with the death of a wife. The nun dies peacefully because she knows she is going to heaven; the wife dies fearfully, because in all likelihood, she is going to Hell (or perhaps Purgatory.)

Yes, the theologian St Paul of Tarsus in his writings to the citizens of Corinth said similar about the possibility of marriage being an impediment to holiness:

I should like you to be free of anxieties. An unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord. But a married man is anxious about the things of the world, how he may please his wife,and he is divided. An unmarried woman or a virgin is anxious about the things of the Lord, so that she may be holy in both body and spirit. A married woman, on the other hand, is anxious about the things of the world, how she may please her husband.I am telling you this for your own benefit, not to impose a restraint upon you, but for the sake of propriety and adherence to the Lord without distraction.–1 Corinthians 7:32-35

So even St Paul recognized that marriage has a potential to have a struggle for devotion between God and spouse.

As far as Abraham goes, Sarah was not the most virtuous woman. She has Abraham have sex with her slave Hagar to have a kid thru her, the abused Hagar and ran her off (Gen16:6) She laughed at the idea of having a son and sex with Abraham, then immediately lied about it Gen 18:12-15. Genesis 21:9-11 has Sarah putting Abraham in a moral dilemma (demanding he kick out Ismael and Hagar, even though Ismael seems frail) simply because she did not want Ismael to have a share in inheritance (even though original he was supposed to be her son). If anything, its amazing Abraham was able to be a righteous man despite of Sarah’s actions!

 

[valient_Lucy]

How on earth can someone’s calling from God – ie, being a husband to his wife and a father to his kids – “interfere” with a man’s spiritual progress??

Do you think you would stunt your husband’s spiritual progress in any way? Why would you think that?

How could you possibly stunt his spiritual progress?

If I marry a devout Catholic, there’s a good chance that he’s going to read enough books that state that marriage is an impediment to holiness. He’ll also discover this in the lives of the saints, which describe couples seperating to live in monasteries, or at least commiting to permantent continence within marriage. So then what? Does he file file for divorce?

If I marry a Protestant, I don’t have to worry that one day he’ll decide that his eternal salvation depends upon him divorcing me.

 

[FCEGM]

If I marry a devout Catholic, there’s a good chance that he’s going to read enough books that state that marriage is an impediment to holiness. He’ll also discover this in the lives of the saints, which describe couples seperating to live in monasteries, or at least commiting to permantent continence within marriage. So then what? Does he file file for divorce?

If I marry a Protestant, I don’t have to worry that one day he’ll decide that his eternal salvation depends upon him divorcing me.

Lucy, has it crossed your mind that men face the same thing when their wives begin to take their Catholic Faith seriously enough to grow beyond mutual mediocrity? Why do you assume that you would never place your husband - whether Catholic or Protestant - in the same situation as your propose vis-a-vis your potential spouse? I have read very many books, old and new, on the path to holiness; never once have these affected anything than to the better my marriage of almost 46 years. It seems you live in fear of “what-if” based on a gross misunderstanding of the Church and marriage and this is perverting your whole approach to the Faith you embraced five years ago.

 

[Soldier_Of_God]

If I marry a devout Catholic, there’s a good chance that he’s going to read enough books that state that marriage is an impediment to holiness. He’ll also discover this in the lives of the saints, which describe couples seperating to live in monasteries, or at least commiting to permantent continence within marriage. So then what? Does he file file for divorce?

If I marry a Protestant, I don’t have to worry that one day he’ll decide that his eternal salvation depends upon him divorcing me.

It must be noted that Augustine’s doctrine of the good (bona) of marriage — proles, fides, sacramentum — has been misinterpreted by many. Part of the problem is that he was countering Manicheism in his writings and you must interpret his works in the context of the times. The bona of marrige have be viewed by some with a rather narrow interpretation. In his teachings, he states that there are three distinct “goods” in marriage, which are the procreation of children (proles), the fidelity of the couple (fides), and the sacramental bond (sacramentum).

“In marriage, however, let the blessings of marriage be loved: offspring, fidelity, and the sacramental bond. Offspring, not so much because it may be born, but because it can be reborn; for it is born to punishment unless it be reborn to life. Fidelity, but not such as even the unbelievers have among themselves, ardent as they are for the flesh. . . . The sacramental bond, which they lose neither through separation nor through adultery, this the spouses should guard chastely and harmoniously.”

Augustine goes on to say regarding marriage, *"…it is proper to inquire for what reason marriage be good. And this seems to me not merely to be on account of the begetting of children, but also on account of the natural association between the two sexes…" *

He also goes on to say, “Now in good although aged marriage, even if the vigour of youth between man and woman has faded, the order of charity [meaning love] between husband and wife remains in its fullness.” In addition, Augustine states *"…the bodies of the married too are holy, when they keep faith to one another and to God." *

In fact, Augustine views marriage as a blessing for those within marriage, *“Let these nuptial blessings be the objects of our love: offspring, fidelity, the unbreakable bond. . . . Let these nuptial blessings be praised in marriage by him who wishes to extol the nuptial institution.” *

So, we have an early Father clearly extolling the virtues of marriage, its sacremental nature and its permanence.

 

[paul_c]

If I marry a devout Catholic, there’s a good chance that he’s going to read enough books that state that marriage is an impediment to holiness. He’ll also discover this in the lives of the saints, which describe couples seperating to live in monasteries, or at least commiting to permantent continence within marriage. So then what? Does he file file for divorce?

If I marry a Protestant, I don’t have to worry that one day he’ll decide that his eternal salvation depends upon him divorcing me.

Lucy,
Has it occured to you that marrying a devout Catholic may make YOU more holy? In fact, that is the goal of marriage: to make both partners more holy, as well as their offspring.

By the way, divorce is not an option in the Catholic Church, so there is no way a truly devout Catholic man would divorce you. And by the way, very,very few married Catholics have ever separated to live apart in monasteries. Those are exceptional people in exceptionl circumstances.

Truly, you are very mislead on the nature of Catholic marriage. When you find the right devout Catholic, you will find you have nothing to fear and much to rejoice in. I have been married for almost 24 years now and I can attest it is the best thing that ever happened to me and I can further attest that it has made both of us more devout and holy ( an no, neither of us is packing up to join a monastery).

 

[Nathan_Wagar]

Try this link out. $5.50 for an mp3 download by a leading Catholic theologian on marriage based off of sciptural exegesis of Saint Paul. I have many of his sets, they are all excellent. It may help you re-think you conceptions on Catholic marriage:

catholic-productions.com/store/audio/pitre/wives_cd.html

 

[valient_Lucy]

Thanks for everyone’s advice. I was reading through it again and it was very helpful, and answered a lot of my questions.

I’ll check out the talk listed just above this post.

Thanks again.

 

[brb3]

You can’t prove that the Catholic Church really was founded by Christ, or that it’s never erred in its teachings. It’s just something you have to accept. But it’s so difficult.

“Faith is believing in things when common sense tells you not to.”

Actually, a fair reading of history gives very good ‘proof’ for Christ founding the Catholic Church.

Faith doesn’t necessarily confront our ‘common sense’. Actually nature and science cry out in support of a Creator, supporting our ‘common sense’. God will provide us all sufficient evidences in our lives to bolster our faith. Daily ‘mini’ miracles happen in our lives … to attest to the graces of God to us. Thomas desired some evidence … and Christ provided him with the evidence. Paul would never have converted, except Christ appeared to him in a ‘personal’ way. The presence of the promised Holy Spirit to the believers … is more than adequate proof to keep our ‘common sense’ satisfied.

 

[cskaggs]

Lucy. Do you love your father? Prove it! If your can not prove it, it is by Faith alone. How can anyone understand how much you love your father. Can you measure it? Can you put it into a box and weigh it?

 

[paul_c]

Lucy. Do you love your father? Prove it! If your can not prove it, it is by Faith alone. How can anyone understand how much you love your father. Can you measure it? Can you put it into a box and weigh it?

I think Lucy has already recieved the help she needed… did you read her post of May 14 before responding?

 

[valient_Lucy]

I think Lucy has already recieved the help she needed.

That’s correct.

 

[Heather777]

"… if this plan or this undertaking is of men, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. (Act 5:38-39)

All institutions of merely human origin will eventually fail.

One of the strongest arguments for the divine origin of the Catholic Church is its persistance and growth in the world despite the attempts of those outside the Church to destroy it, the attempts of those within the Church (heretics and schismatics) to destory it, and the sometimes widespread moral corruption of its members and its leadership.

That is not proof that the Catholic Church is the only True Church. Islam is growing and spreading too.