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Hi Alan,
Thanks for the question.
Personally, I'm not sure we can provide much help. We are not priests or trained in pastoral care.
The best advice I can give you is to visit a Catholic parish that is faithful to the Church, like the one where you are currently going to Mass. Ask to make an appointment with the pastor.
If for some reason he's not available, try to find a monastery or convent in your area where there is a religious order priest you can talk to and get counsel from. Either your pastor or the religious order priest should have some good ideas on how to bring more Catholic friends into your life.
- Have you tried talking to some people after Mass?
They should have a whole bunch of church ministries you can participate in. This is what I always suggest to converts or reverts.
This is a calling from the Holy Spirit in your life. You should follow it and if possible tell the kids you would like them to join you at Mass.
What I don't understand is how your wife and their family can leave for the Episcopal or Unitarian church and expect you to respect their free will, but when you decide to come back to the Catholic Church, both your wife and your Protestant congregation can't respect your free will.
Any decision in your life is based on your free will, not your wife's or your congregation's free will.
Although you are responsible for working to get your wife into Heaven as her husband, your primary responsibility is the salvation of your own soul. Neither your wife, or your congregation, who are both very mad at you, will be at your particular judgment.
It will be only you, Jesus and His just but merciful judgment.
Not only was the Bible written by Catholics and their Old Testament ancestors, for Catholics,
for use in the Catholic Mass, but the very first Christians were all Catholics.
This is what St. Pacian of Barcelona says in A.D. 375, less than 345 years after Our Lord's Ascension into Heaven:
"But, under the Apostles, you will say, "no one was called a Catholic".
Grant this to have been the fact; or suppose it to have been so.
- When heresies, after the Apostles days, arose, and, under divers names, strove to tear and scatter piecemeal the dove of God, and His queen, did not the apostolic people require a peculiar name whereby to distinguish the unity of the people that had not been corrupted, for fear lest the error of a few might tear limb by limb the unstained virgin of God?
- Was it not beseeming that the principal head should be designated by a suitable title?
Suppose I entered, this very day, into a populous city, and found there Marcionites, Apollinarists, Cataphrygians, Novatians, and others of the same sort, all calling themselves Christians.
- By what name should I be able to recognize the congregation of my own people, were it not from its being called Catholic?
Come, tell me, who bestowed so many names on the other peoples!
- Why have so many cities, so many nations, each with their own description?
- The very man who calls in question the name Catholic, will he be ignorant of the cause of his own name, if I shall inquire of the origin of his name: [e.g. Marcionite, Apollinarist, Cataphrygian, Novatian]?
- When was it delivered to me?
Assuredly, that which has stood during so many ages was not borrowed from man.
This name "Catholic" sounds not of Marcion, nor of Apelles, nor of Montanus, nor does it take heretics as its authors. . . . . Christian is my name, but Catholic my surname. That names me, this describes me; by this I am approved; by that designated. And if at last we must give an account of the word Catholic, and express it, from the Greek, by a Latin interpretation, "Catholic" is "everywhere one", or, as the more learned think, obedience in all the commandments of God. . . . Therefore he who is a Catholic, the same is obedient to what is right. He who is obedient, the same is a Christian, and thus the Catholic is a Christian. Wherefore our people, when named Catholic, are separated by this appellation from the heretical name.
St. Pacian of Barcelona, (A.D. c.310-375), bishop of Barcelona, Jerome praises his eloquence, learning, chastity, and holiness of life. |
Getting mad at these historical facts is like getting mad that the sun rose today. : )
Your wife and your congregation are ignorant of secular history and are acting like spiritual children who were never taught the Christian faith. There are many like them!
- Have they read the Early Church Fathers?
I've CC'd a copy of your question to a priest-helper.
If he has time, he may be able to suggest some different advice.
Mike
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