Wife's interest in New Age

[MattNZ]

I’m interested in forum members advice on an issue with my marriage.

My wife and I recently got married (about 1 year ago). We had a Catholic wedding and both decided that the faith would be part of our lives. We regularly go to mass, pray at mealtimes and both believe strongly in God. The trouble is that sometimes I think we may be going on different trajectories - I’m becoming more and more interested in the Catholic faith (reading books, talking to priests and other people, etc) while my wife is also quite interested in a lot of New age spirituality (The Secret, law of attraction, positive thinking, yoga, some diet and health practices, etc).

To be honest, my gut reaction is that this new age stuff is that it’s a load of rubbish and I don’t trust it. At superficial level, it seems pretty harmless (think positive thoughts, improved fitness and health, organic eating etc), but I’m worried that it may cause some conflict between in my marriage. At some point, I can see that Catholic faith and the new age stuff just isn’t compatible. How can I deal with this problem? Does anyone have experience with this in their marriages?

 

[Julia_Mae]

I’m interested in forum members advice on an issue with my marriage.

My wife and I recently got married (about 1 year ago). We had a Catholic wedding and both decided that the faith would be part of our lives. We regularly go to mass, pray at mealtimes and both believe strongly in God. The trouble is that sometimes I think we may be going on different trajectories - I’m becoming more and more interested in the Catholic faith (reading books, talking to priests and other people, etc) while my wife is also quite interested in a lot of New age spirituality (The Secret, law of attraction, positive thinking, yoga, some diet and health practices, etc).

My suggestion is to find a Charismatic Mass of some sort to both go to or any kind of healing Mass so your wife knows there is a much richer tradition of spirituality in the Church than she will ever find outside of it. You also could sponsor her to a retreat week-end on Lectio Divina, Contemplative prayer or another spiritual practice. Google Catholic retreat centers.

Then you both read Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus. (you first) Be a big help in the future with these sorts of issues.

 

[JRKH]

Great Advice Julia…

My advice is to not overreact.
Consider the missionaries going to foreign lands and learning the culture and beliefs of an area. If they were/are smart, they look at these things seriously and incorporate what they can into how they approach the people and present the Gospel. This can be true of the “new-age” stuff as well.

As you say - on the surface there are some good things. So the thing to do is to look around and discover these tings in our Faith. Julia’s advice of a Charismatic group is a very good one. Another - if she is looking into things like meditation and such - might be the mystic saints. St Francis is a great beginning in this area.
The rosary or the divine mercy chaplet provides a wonderful way to meditate. The prayers - truly glorious prayers - replace the nonsense babble associated with some eastern meditation.

I’m sure there are other things that can be easily “connected” so that what she sees in some of these “new age” ideas can easily be found within the Catholic Church.

So be at peace…

And congratulations on your marriage.

Peace
James

 

[gh4]

(The Secret, law of attraction, positive thinking, yoga, some diet and health practices, etc).

These are simply my opinions, not any more than that.

I had to look up “The Secret” and it probably is more new age than Christian, but I’ve not seen it or read it, but now I might check out the video to see what it’s all about.

Also had to look up “law of attraction” and to some extent, I think that some of it might be somewhat right, but again, I don’t know much about it, and it might be ‘deeper’ than I realize. But yes, I believe negative people attract other negative people and positive people do attract other positive people, that’s kind of the way it works. I think no matter what you think and want, that the phone bill is going come every month no matter how much you want it to be a check though.

Positive thinking isn’t a bad thing, many ministers and priests have written great books on being positive. Not sure how that can be taken badly.

I’ve been to a number of yoga classes, and it was great exercise and nary a one every got into religion or anything remotely like it. Simply breath in and breath out and stretch, I really can’t find much wrong with that, though I know some people think it’s evil. My experience has been very positive. Wish I were still limber enough to take a good class.

I’ve known a lot of “new age” people, also “wiccan” and “pagan” people, and they tend to pretty much eat the same stuff I do, and some better and some worse and some vegetarians and some junk food crazy and some just normal foods, so I’m not sure what new age has to do with diet.

And as far as health goes, I don’t really know of new age doctors. Herbalists, yes, Eastern Medicine, yes, and so forth, but none are what I would consider evil and I bet you’ll find a lot of folks here go to all kinds of different practitioners for their health. Some of the alternative medicines are very very good.

Have you talked to your wife about what she believes?
Now see, I’m not a bit charismatic, so I would not recommend that. If you think you have a problem, why not have a chat with your priest and see what he thinks.

 

[VirtusTransitus]

Catholic Answers Live did a great segment in the past 30 days on New Age. If you have a smart phone or an iPod, download the podcast. I’ll try to find it and post a link. Very good information from a person very high up in New Age circles. Eye opening. I’ll never take any of it seriously after listening to the information from that podcast.

Edit: Not sure how to find archived podcasts (iTunes only carries last ten for Catholic Answers Live) but here’s a link to the lady that was on the show.

catholic.com/radio/shows/the-new-age-deception-7687