Family Divisions

[Ellenita]

Isn't one of the hardest things about converting the divisions that sometimes happens in families? My immediate family have been generally OK about my conversion - they don't understand it, but they have respected my decision and they all came to the Easter vigil.
However, it was really painful at Christmas....they didn't want to come to mass with me because they couldn't receive communion and they said there was no point in me going to the anglican service as I wouldn't take communion there....it really broke my heart.

[Sojourner]

I agree that family divisions -- and friend divisions -- are quite painful.

I've visited my old Prot. church a couple of times and had to pass the communion plate by. It really drives home how deep the split is in the church.

I guess I've come to see it as a good thing, though, because I never felt the pain of the brokenness of the church until I became Catholic. I just thought that was the way it should be -- so many denominations, all with slightly different versions of 'truth'. Now that I know the Truth, those divisions are clearly wrong, and I know that things aren't as they should be in the church.

[homeschoolmom]

The division is painful-- in fact it's the worst thing about converting. I have to go into our old church twice a month for co-op meetings and it's horrible. It feels weird. Like if you were invited to hang out at your high school for a day or something.
Everything's so familiar and yet you don't belong there...

[cathqat]

I have been very fortunate in the positive way my family took my conversion.

When it came time to tell my parents I was becoming Catholic, I sat down with them and talked to them about how much I appreciated the Christian education and upbringing they had given me, and how much their faith had formed mine. Then I said that I had been thinking about it a long time, and I had come to the conclusion that "the best way to stay Episcopalian now is to become Catholic." My parents were very supportive.

It was my grandmother I did not tell. Most of her family was Catholic, and despite being very close to Catholicism herself, she harbored some very anti-Catholic attitudes. So I just didn't tell her. She was concerned when I went to get a degree at a Catholic university, but my mother told her I should make my own decision about which school was best. Finally, about a year before she died, my grandmother just asked point-blank whether I was Catholic, and we told her the truth. But she didn't seem bothered by it then; perhaps because she'd had so much time to consider the possibility and figure it out herself.

[jezic]

It is sad that there are divisions like this. I think one of the worst things is when you are close to siblings and one converts and the other doesn't understand.

More than anything, that was one of satan's greatest works. he marred the church forever. We can only hope that someday we will all be reunited as one in the truth, the whole truth. (and nothing but it

[phatcatholic]

[b]Mat 10:35-36[/b]
[b]35 [/b]For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
[b]36 [/b]and a man's foes will be those of his own household.

[Sojourner]

That's been a very helpful verse in my journey, phatcatholic. Christianity isn't about making people feel warm and fuzzy. It's about following Jesus.

[Ellenita]

Yes, we were never promised it would be warm and fuzzy.....

[phatcatholic]

word

[marielapin]

I was thinking about this topic yesterday after I got off the phone with my mom. We were talking about a friend of mine from college that dated my sister for a while and she mentioned... "yah, he thought you were just crazy for becoming a Catholic."

thanks mom...she mentioned this so casually...how many times have I told her how much this stuff hurts. I know the division is there but still.....I actually thought he supported me. He had told me as much to my face.

Sometimes I feel like a foreigner in my own home. Actually I am...and it hurts.

[marielapin]

[quote name='homeschoolmom' date='Jan 25 2005, 11:20 AM'] It feels weird. Like if you were invited to hang out at your high school for a day or something.
Everything's so familiar and yet you don't belong there... [/quote]
That's a great description of the feeling.

I don't mind being back at the old church as much (although sometimes its worse than others), its listening to my family talk that makes me the most upset/uncomfortable.

[phatcatholic]

in a sense i understand, even tho i and my family have always been catholic. i can relate b/c my family is "luke warm" in their faith, whereas my twin and i are very much on fire. this makes me feel like a foreigner in my own home, which is probably even more of a shame then what you experience b/c we supposedely have the same faith! i think that my younger bros and my parents view matt and i as these extremist zealots who are hardlined and have no compassion for people w/ differing views. its like, i am such a hard-ass b/c i believe that missing mass is a mortal sin, and acting on homosexual desires is gravely disordered, and women should not be priests, and even b/c the bible is reliable and true! my bro once said that we can't trust the bible b/c it has been translated and copied so many times. my mom wishes i would "quit doing so much church stuff." these aren't my novel ideas...........its what the Church teaches!! sometimes i just want to go off and be like, "if you don't freakin like it, go be a protestant...." of course, i don't say that, but i would certainly like to!!!

its all quite absurd..........