Where did everyone go?

[mcts]

Oh hi.

[rachael]

29 minutes ago, Jaime said:

no.

[AngelofJesus]

I started with Phatmass when I was in my early thirties in 2004 and now I'm in my early 50's.  I haven't been around these forums for more than 15 years.  I remember Jaime, Ash, Lil Red (she actually temp banned me or put me on probation, I don't remember) :D .  I'm still true non cafeteria Catholic.  I still follow my Catholicism to the letter.  I change for my faith not vice versa. My eldest is joining the US Navy in a few days.  Just a quick update if anyone cares. 

[Birgitta Noel]

Hello all! I joined in 2003. I was The Little Way back then. I think?! It looks like my last post was in 2015 when I finished my PhD.

[Penitent61]

Hi there , thank you to dust asking if I was still alive...well yes, I resigned in as Penitent61 as I couldn't recall the details of the previous me as Penitent60. Feel free to cast that one into the outer darkness. Really and truely, passwords have become the bugbear of my generation...I do hope I am not alone with that.

 

[carmenchristi]

Ok so yeah.... I got the email and decided to come back. I haven’t really been here since highschool ahemmm 2003... then I joined the convent and was gone 7 years. Then I signed on to clear up some questions about my community. Then the community went bye-bye.... lol now I’m married. Idk if anyone here even remembers me. I was super active back in the day, but yeah it has been a while lol. 

32 minutes ago, AngelofJesus said:

I started with Phatmass when I was in my early thirties in 2004 and now I'm in my early 50's.  I haven't been around these forums for more than 15 years.  I remember Jaime, Ash, Lil Red (she actually temp banned me or put me on probation, I don't remember) :D .  I'm still true non cafeteria Catholic.  I still follow my Catholicism to the letter.  I change for my faith not vice versa. My eldest is joining the US Navy in a few days.  Just a quick update if anyone cares. 

I remember you!!! Weren't you always getting banned for one thing or another?

[AngelofJesus]

5 minutes ago, carmenchristi said:

Ok so yeah.... I got the email and decided to come back. I haven’t really been here since highschool ahemmm 2003... then I joined the convent and was gone 7 years. Then I signed on to clear up some questions about my community. Then the community went bye-bye.... lol now I’m married. Idk if anyone here even remembers me. I was super active back in the day, but yeah it has been a while lol. 

I remember you!!! Weren't you always getting banned for one thing or another?

I got banned one-time, gee. LOL!

Edited November 3, 2020 by AngelofJesus

[HisChildForever]

I’m still alive lol and very much Catholic.

[SaintOlaf]

I got an email that said this is the dope place to be. Since the last time I was here I got married, and had a kid (Theodore, he’s 14 months old). Also IANWP

 

Who has the tacos? 

[CatherineM]

I have a few more gray hairs. A few more foster kids. I did this a year ago this week. 

[Orans]

Hello phriends!

I too have been asked if I'm still alive: ALIVE AND WELL! Thanks Be To God!!!

I joined phatmas in 2008 -I had to check up my profile for that- I was already "old enough" at the time, with a long journey through several religious communities that took me to my definitive vocation as a diocesan hermitess in the cold North. I made perpetual vows in the Diocese in 2010, and I've been and continue involved in the diocesan vocations ministry.

I love the consecrated life. As spiritual director I've had the joy of accompanying young discerners to actually join their community. It's a great, great blessing to be part of that! 

I've never stopped keeping an eye on Vocation Station although I don't participate in conversation -actually I'm not in social media of any kind (normal for a hermitess, right?)- but I like to know updates on communities and things like that, which beside personal interest, help me to keep a little with the times as people I accompany discern and seek.

Let's see what comes after this "call to gathering" in this thread. 

 

 

[linnie]

I'm still lurking around but probably no one remembers me

[Credo in Deum]

I left and spent years squandering my wealth on riotous living.  Thanks to God's extreme mercy, I'm back. 

[Fr. Antony Maria OSB]

It's good to see so many familiar names (even though I didn't engage in much conversation with many of you back in the day). My username was originally NazFarmer, and I was part of the small-ish contingent of high-school youth that moved over here back in the day when the LifeTeen forum shut down (I think back in 2006 or so?) I'm pretty sure deus_te_amat was the one who convinced me to join this forum....

I'll still check in here from time to time and make a post every couple of months or so, but I haven't been very active for years. I've since graduated college and joined the Benedictines. I'm now ordained, teaching in our high-school, and serve as the house Master of Ceremonies and Sacristan, along with other odd jobs here and there.

[Brother No one]

On 8/25/2020 at 8:07 PM, cutenickname said:

The strange thing about my denomination (Episcopal) is that this is the closest thing this country ever had to a state church during the old days of the WASP ascendancy. Congregations where I live are most entirely ex-Catholics (LGBTQIA people, Latinos, Italians, and Irish) many of whom experience our Anglicanism as a kind of mournful and exhausted exile from Catholicism sprinkled in with a few WASPs. It is also an ageing and shrinking denomination in the United States.

I do actually feel that the Catholic Church is home on like a really visceral and emotional level; the same way I feel about my mom and my welita's apartments in the South Bronx. Very familiar, very comfortable, but ultimately a place I visit, not a place I see myself living. The weirdest part of my post-Catholic life has been settling on how to raise my kids to love Jesus. They were both baptized Catholic and go to a Episcopal school, but I have never quite trusted the idea of leaving their catechesis in Episcopalian hands; though I more or less agree with the doctrinal positions of the Anglican Communion, there is never any real guarantee that the people teaching religion, the priests, etc actually believe in things like the Trinity, the creeds, sin, etc. If I were straight, at this point, I'd probably move to Colorado and put them in some back to the land Evangelical school.

Interesting thing about Oscar, the Catholic Church was basically the only institution he never disrespected. It took him 30 years to actually convert, but he always said he would and in the end he did. I don't think his conversion requires an "even" Oscar was a gay man who cheated on his wife, but he was also a deeply convinced believer in Christ's work on the cross. The 19th/20th/21st Century veritably drips and oozes with straight men who were sexually incontinent, but in love with Jesus. These are common sins and if I remember John Paul II correctly distinct from and rather easier to repent of than a malignant heart.

I am on a ramble.

We now have what is called Anglo-Catholic and we do not feel any need to be Roman Or Orthodox as neither of them get to define who is Catholic. We believe in the deposit of faith and may actually be more leaning towards Orthodox in Belief than Roman but only in small ways. You might use Google or whatever your chosen search engine is and see if there are any of us strange Anglo Catholics in  your area brother. Some areas are growing still while others are in decline.