Young people help me out

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shell8746

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**I need some help from the 20-something Catholics. I am 23 (24 in 2 weeks). I am from a family of 6 children. My mother was raised Catholic and she raised all of us Catholic. After they had been married for around 14 years (it’s been a while, they’ve been married for 30), my dad converted to Catholicism. He and my mom are very much devoted Catholics and very active in the church. In fact, my mom teaches RCIA and is a very respected person in our parish. **
**My question is this. There are some things in the Catholic religion that I believe to be old fashioned. Such as the birth control thing. And the not living with someone until married. I had a boyfriend when I was 18. We dated for 3 years. Had I not lived with him I would never have known that he was such and abusive, physically, mentally, and emotionally, person. He showed no signs of that until about 3 months after we moved in together. I would have ended up marrying him and been one the wiser until it was too late. i thank God all the time that I got out of that relationship. **
I have attended services at baptist and methodists churches, and a church of christ (not on a regular basis, just a few times with friends). None of them appeal to me. The only church I am comfortable in is the Catholic church. And I firmly believe that the bread and wine are not just a symbol of the Body and Blood of Christ, they are. I am just wondering if there are any other young Catholic men or women who feel the same way I do.
 
+JMJ

Shell,

Just to let you know I went through the same exact thing except I was raised catholic. I did go to a baptist church for a while and still went to the Catholic Church. I also did not believe in the chruches teaching on Birth Control and living together with boyfriends or Girlfriends and at the time I accutally recommened people to do that as well as take birth control. This was until I turned 25 and I learned that people who live together before they are married have a 85% chance of getting divorced within the first 3 years and if you practice birth control while having relations you abort 3 babies a year. But I do understand where you are coming from and I do hope this help if you have any further questions feel free to ask.
 
Mperea75 said:
+JMJ

Shell,

Just to let you know I went through the same exact thing except I was raised catholic. I did go to a baptist church for a while and still went to the Catholic Church. I also did not believe in the chruches teaching on Birth Control and living together with boyfriends or Girlfriends and at the time I accutally recommened people to do that as well as take birth control. This was until I turned 25 and I learned that people who live together before they are married have a 85% chance of getting divorced within the first 3 years and if you practice birth control while having relations you abort 3 babies a year. But I do understand where you are coming from and I do hope this help if you have any further questions feel free to ask.
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**Mperea, I WAS raised Catholic. **
 
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shell8746:
**My question is this. There are some things in the Catholic religion that I believe to be old fashioned. Such as the birth control thing. And the not living with someone until married. I had a boyfriend when I was 18. We dated for 3 years. Had I not lived with him I would never have known that he was such and abusive, physically, mentally, and emotionally, person. He showed no signs of that until about 3 months after we moved in together. I would have ended up marrying him and been one the wiser until it was too late. i thank God all the time that I got out of that relationship. **
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To answer as simply as possible, the Catholic Church does not have authority to change Jesus’ teachings. His teachings do not change with the times. They are as relevant 2000 years ago as they are today.
 
Who doesn’t? We all stuggle with the teachings of the Church. But we research, reflect, and pray. When it came to ABC, I got through a lot of my stuggles by simply learning about exactly how the ovulation cycle works, and how our bodies prepares itself to release an egg during ovulation and how our uterus creates a place for implantation. It is pretty amazing just on an educational scale, never mind putting the spiritual element in sexuality.
 
Shell, I am not one of the 20-something people you want to respond to you. However, I decided to respond to you, anyway. Youth is no big deal. Neither is old age. Truth is the thing that counts.

Saying that birth control is forbidden is not old fashioned, it is very good sense. In case you didn’t know, the pill, and the patch, and the “morning after” pill, and anything else they come up with that is based on hormones, are all VERY bad for you. Besides, they all cause abortions at least some of the time. That means that they kill babies. Condoms and anything else that acts as a barrier negates marital sex. That means that husband and wife are lying to one another, saying I am only giving part of myself to you or I only want part of you - I do not want your fertility.

So you “dated” your boyfriend for 3 years and lived with him for some months. No doubt you had sex with him while you lived with him and probably for some time before you moved in with him. Now, you probably know that having sex with someone you are not married to is mortally sinful. Perhaps you didn’t, or you rationalized it so that it wasn’t sinful for you. Most people who have sex outside of marriage rationalize, if they even think of it at all. There are a number of very good reasons why God declares fornication to be forbidden. One of them is that having sex while you are boyfriend/girlfriend blinds you to the other’s qualities - or lack of them. You are just concentrating on the pleasure and the excitement. If you had been courting, instead of dating, you would have had the clarity to get to know your boyfriend’s good qualities and his faults and failings.

The Church, which was instituted by Jesus, and continues to be guided by the Holy Spirit, is not old fashioned or out of tune with the times. Unfortunately, over the past 40 - 50 years WE have lost our way. We think that we know best, and we do not want to listen to the truth.

Realize, Shell, that the devil is real and hates all of us deeply. He doesn’t want any of us to get to Heaven. He is delighted to see young people thinking that the Church is out of step, and deciding to do their own thing. He knows that this is putting them firmly on the slippery slide that leads straight to Hell.

I urge you to make up your mind that the Church knows best in these things. Re-package your virginity, making up your mind never to have sex again until you are married. And learn about NFP - a wonderful way to understand the workings of your body, and an excellent way to either help you become pregnant, or to postpone pregnancy for some time.

Yes, I know - you didn’t ask for advice from old fogeys like me. I just celebrated my 35th Wedding Anniversary (yesterday) - what would I know. Well, Shell, it’s only the body that gets old. The mind and the spirit remain forever young. Inside I am only 25!

God bless.
 
I’d say Joan nailed it.

And if it matters I’m 24 in RCIA, converting form Methodism, married for 4 years, and have 2 kids so far. 🙂
 
Shell:

Praise God! You have a lot going for you. You know that Jesus is truly present in the Blessed Sacrament. And by attending these other denominational churches, you are aware of the gift you have in being able to worship in the Catholic Church. Thank God for that! It’s a great place to build from.

Suggestion…pick one issue you have with the Church’s teaching and investigate it. Look into it deeply. Read what the Catechism says about it. Read some of the tracts on Catholic Answers, and talk to a holy, orthodox Catholic Priest. Stick with it and exhaust your discovery, I tell you what, you will be amazed at what you discover.

But, take your time. Don’t rush it. And don’t get frustrated if it takes some time to understand.

Grace and Peace
 
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Trelow:
I’d say Joan nailed it.

And if it matters I’m 24 in RCIA, converting form Methodism, married for 4 years, and have 2 kids so far. 🙂
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Awesome, Trelow! 👍 May God prosper your marriage and your family!
 
Joan M:
.

If you had been courting, instead of dating, you would have had the clarity to get to know your boyfriend’s good qualities and his faults and failings.

Yes, I know - you didn’t ask for advice from old fogeys like me. I just celebrated my 35th Wedding Anniversary (yesterday) - what would I know. Well, Shell, it’s only the body that gets old. The mind and the spirit remain forever young. Inside I am only 25!

God bless.
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Congrats on your anniversary! What do you consider the difference between “courting” and “dating”? I didn’t think there was a difference. Also, just for clarification, can you tell me what NFP is? Thanks
 
Natural Family Planning. Ever noticed that discharge from your vagina inbetween you periods? (Sorry for being graphic) That’s cervical mucus, as your body prepares to ovulates it increases and becomes lubricate and your cervix opens up and becomes soft. After ovulation it dries up again, your cervix becomes firm, and you have a normal hormonal shift indicated by a rise of your basal bodily tempature. This observation of cervical mucus with cross referencing body temps and the positioning of your cervixs, allows a woman to know if she is potentially fertile or not. Oh what they don’t teach you in sex ed.

I’m not an advocate of courting, even though I understand the concerns. Too much parental involvement in the realtions of adults concerns me. Seen a young woman go through a big Catholic wedding, only to separate on the honeymoon because the parents pushed it, and the two adults didn’t know how to say “no” to their parents.
There are some things you just never learn about your spouse. I never once saw my husband throw his underwear down the stairs to the laundry room when he lived with his parents or when he lived in the dorms, but since he doesn’t live with his parents or 5 other guys he thinks it is perfectly fine to do it now. 😉
 
Well- I am 27, so I guess I still get to be young :D, which is nice when your stomach is all stretch marks from 3 kids 😉 .

I too, struggled at one time with the Church’s teachings on certain things.

You are very fortunate that you recognize the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, that will bind you to the one true Church.

I agree with the previous poster who suggested taking it one issue at a time and really researching the reasons behind the Church’s teachings (they aren’t just to stop you from having fun 😛 ), I think after much research you will come to a peace about the Church’s wisdom. It is through questioning that one develops a deeper faith.

I will say a prayer of thanks to God for keeping you out of an abusive marriage, it is through Him that that happened.

Best wishes on your search for understanding, and just keep on going to Mass and being a Catholic, don’t give up on what you do believe in while you figure the rest out.

God Bless,
Patty
 
Hi, I am 27 years old and have been married for 5 years. I am not Catholic, saw nothing wrong with premarital sex or living together (and did both), and used the birth control pill, condoms, and anything else so that a baby wouldn’t “inconvenience” me.

Then something wonderful happened…

I met an amazing Catholic man. He is not perfect and still struggles with some issues of his faith. But the most important thing I have learned from him is that you can’t pick and choose which of Jesus’ teachings you want to follow. It’s all or nothing.

So after much learning and praying, I have recently gone off of the pill (finally realizing just how wrong it is on so many levels), am learning to practice NFP… and just have a whole new attitude about God and life. I lam learning to take the focus off of myself and put it on God. I am looking into the teachings of the Catholic Church one by one with the help of my hubby and this group… I am learning the “why” behind each teaching. All I can say is wow! I grew up believing that the Catholic Church was a controlling, political, outdated mess. I mean, just look at all of the scandal (both recent as well as down through history).

But I am beginning to see the reasons for all of the “controlling rules” and now understand that Jesus doesn’t want to control and limit our choices… He wants to protect us from ourselves.

So please take into account all of the great advice in all of the posts so far. My contribution for you is “think outside of yourself”.

I hope this helps a little bit.

Finella
 
Hi–Strangely enough, I am also 27 and have been married for 5 years. We just had our first baby August 30th! :dancing:

I would pretty much say ditto to the previous post. We were pretty cavalier about the Church’s teachings when we were dating and first married. In retrospect, I think the one thing that caused the most stress and sadness in our first year or so of marriage was contraception: my wife was on Depo-Provera, which completely fouled up her cycle (not to mention causing her to gain weight like mad). We were afraid that we had destroyed our ability to have children biologically and were actually filling out paperwork to do fost-adopt when she got pregnant (coincidentally ?] only a week or 2 after finishing a novenna asking for St. Gerard Majella’s intercession to get pregnant). I don’t care to think about how many babies the chemical birth control may have “prevented from implanting” in the meantime.

Anyway, the great thing is that God is all about second chances. We learned how to use NFP and think it actually helped us achieve pregnancy, since it’s all about fertility awareness (while not trying to prevent pregnancy we didn’t go all out with the mucus sign, though–just relied on temperature monitoring). That process has been great because it really helped us learn more about why the Church teaches what it does on life issues, and how integral they are to the rest of the whole wisdom of the Church. Our relationship has grown stronger all the time.

I guess my point is that we were in about the same place as you regarding “private” issues of sex, marriage, and children, but experience has proven the Church right… and educating ourselves on the reasons for those teachings has strengthened both our faith and our marriage.
 
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shell8746:
Congrats on your anniversary! What do you consider the difference between “courting” and “dating”? I didn’t think there was a difference. Also, just for clarification, can you tell me what NFP is? Thanks
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Thanks, Shell. We’ve had good years together - through thick and thin, good and not so good.

I think “dating” is when young people just want to go out, alone, with the person of the opposite sex that attracts them. They may be looking to “fall in love”, perhaps, (these days, frequently they are just looking for good sex!). “Courting” is also going out, perhaps alone, with the person of the opposite sex that attracts them, BUT there is something different - you are looking at the person in an objective manner, also, to determine if this might be the person you could spend 50 years or so of your life married to. So you are not quite as much concerned with his buff body and his georgous smile (you are attracted to them, but remember that buff bodies can become fat and unattractive very easily, and false teeth do not look so good, either!!), and you spend more time talking, finding out each others interests, values, dreams for the future. You also find out how his father treats his mother, since he will have learned what marriage means from living with his parents. Dating is more self-centered without too much thought for the future, while courting is finding out if this person should be part of your future. I don’t know if I have explained it well. Did the best I could.

NFP is Natural Family Planning (NOT the Rhythm method, which was very much guess work). There are at least two methods, which observe bodily signs that tell you when you will be fertile, and so should abstain from intercourse if you would prefer not to become pregnant right now, or should have intercourse if you would like to become pregnant now. With NFP you are cooperating with God, even when not wanting to become pregnant, (at the same time, accepting that God might want to give you the gift of a baby, anyway), since you are using the workings of your own body to give you information. Periodic abstinance also helps your marriage. Only 2% of couples who practice NFP divorce, while the average is 50%. The intimacy involved and the understanding gained into the marvels of God’s creation in the human body bring the couple closer together.

God bless
 
I just turned 20.

I was raised in a Catholic home…
…but my parents left their faith to practiced on Sundy. They do not believe in Bible reading/saying grace/praying the rosary I took my faith much more deeply than they did.

I do not believe in sex outside of marriage.
Its a dangerous attitude towards sex, guys who get used to “getting some” especally who carry this attitude through their teen years into their twenties are just creeps. (unless of course, they reform) I think this openness of the twenty-year olds also encourages boys to try to get girls. Teenage boys who try stupid stuff and could end up ruining their own life or someone else’s.

I do not believe in birth control
If birth control drugs had worked on my mother I would not be alive.

I do not believe in living together before marriage
Its pretending and setting up false pretences for what married life will be like. Also how could you date someone for three years and never noticed their inner personality? Perhaps it took three months of living together to realize that it was there all along. A good pre-marriage program would of helped you figure that out. Living together you really learned the hard way.
 
shell8746 said:
**And the not living with someone until married. I had a boyfriend when I was 18. We dated for 3 years. Had I not lived with him I would never have known that he was such and abusive, physically, mentally, and emotionally, person. He showed no signs of that until about 3 months after we moved in together. I would have ended up marrying him and been one the wiser until it was too late. i thank God all the time that I got out of that relationship. **
Shell,

I am 23 and converted to Catholicism from the Baptist denomination. Basically, you lived with your boyfriend both when he was abusive and when he wasn’t. You can’t assume that you wouldn’t have learned of his abusive nature had you not lived with him. If you had observed his abusive nature immediately after moving in with him, then I could see linking the move-in and the abusiveness. But the fact is that you lived with him for three months before you observed signs of abusive behavior, indicating that it was an issue of time and not of living together.

Peace
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