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I'll be honest.

Saint Frankenstein

Saint Frankenstein

Wanderer From Afar
Premium Member
I've been thinking about going back to Catholicism again. I might go to Mass tomorrow. No matter what I do, I can't seem to shake my attachment to it. Intellectually, I can argue against it but on the heart level, I'm still very much drawn toward it.

I have tried Satanism, Luciferianism and Paganism and I never end up truly spiritually connecting to it. I try to pray to other gods but I never seem to get anything from it. But when I would go to Mass, pray the Rosary or read Catholic literature, I'd feel great. I'd feel that I was loved. I don't feel that from the other paths I've tried.

I have filled my head with so much anti-Abrahamic literature but I'm still drawn to the Church. It's very perplexing to me. Can I really believe in it again after going so far to disprove it to myself? I don't really know, but it keeps pulling me back. I usually run away from Catholicism when something bad has happened and I get angry and then fall into a depressive rut.

Also, I miss the beauty of the liturgy and the feeling of community. Satanism is a very lonely path and it's hard to find anything in it that approaches the same sort of classical Western aesthetic beauty that is in Catholicism. I can intellectually agree with Satanism but I don't really feel it in my heart.

I know I must seem like a flake, but this is a real struggle for me that has been going on for a few years.
 
C

columbus

yawn <ignore> yawn
I have a long standing love hate relationship with the RCC.

Decades of this.
I pick the parts I find useful and smile and nod at the rest. You might be surprised at how many of the Catholics will welcome you and giggle with you at the latest antics of the Curia.

You aren't happy. Pick something and do it.

You could do worse than the RCC. It's huge. There is a spot for everybody. Just don't expect everyone to agree with you. You must make room for the others as well.


You must make room for others. Get it?

Tom
 
Saint Frankenstein

Saint Frankenstein

Wanderer From Afar
Premium Member
columbus said:
I have a long standing love hate relationship with the RCC.

Decades of this.
I pick the parts I find useful and smile and nod at the rest. You might be surprised at how many of the Catholics will welcome you and giggle with you at the latest antics of the Curia.

You aren't happy. Pick something and do it.

You could do worse than the RCC. It's huge. There is a spot for everybody. Just don't expect everyone to agree with you. You must make room for the others as well.


You must make room for others. Get it?

Tom
Click to expand...

Well, it's nice to know that I'm not the only one. Hahaha. That's very good advice. Thanks. :)
 
Saint Frankenstein

Saint Frankenstein

Wanderer From Afar
Premium Member
CynthiaCypher said:
Have you ever tried any of the alternative or more esoteric forms of Catholicism?
Click to expand...

You mean like mysticism? It's something that really interests me, for sure. My favorite saints are St. Francis of Assisi and St. Joan of Arc and both were visionary mystics. Obviously Joan went very against the grain.
 
C

columbus

yawn <ignore> yawn
saint_frankenstein said:
Well, it's nice to know that I'm not the only one. Hahaha. That's very good advice. Thanks. :)
Click to expand...

Haha
"ExCatholic" is the biggest demographic after female maybe. Just go and experience it.

You don't have to go back if you don't want to go.
Take a chance, go outside your comfort zone. Get really wild. Go to church.

If it doesn't work, choose something else. You don't like what you have chosen so far. Pick something else.

Tom
 
Vouthon

Vouthon

Dominus Deus tuus ignis consumens est
Staff member
Premium Member
saint_frankenstein said:
You mean like mysticism? It's something that really interests me, for sure. My favorite saints are St. Francis of Assisi and St. Joan of Arc and both were visionary mystics. Obviously Joan went very against the grain.
Click to expand...

It was St. Joan of Arc's feast-day yesterday. Leading the armies of France at the age of 17, wearing men's clothing and effectively ending the Hundred Years War, being a French peasant girl and all that was quite something :cool: You are right, she was a mystic and it was her visions that spurred her on to do the incredible feats that have beguiled historians ever since and inspired people as diverse as republicans, nationalists, feminists and so forth.

Mysticism could be a good area for you to plough further into. There are so many strands and traditions in Catholicism: Franciscan, Dominican, Carmelite, Carthusian, Victorine, Hesychasm (in the Eastern Catholic Churches), Augustinian, Cistercian...Its practically an endless list of possibilities. Surely, there will be something in that encyclopaedic variety that will just click with you?

Here are links to quotations from some Catholic mystics that I and others put up on wikiquote:

John Ruysbroeck - Wikiquote
Angelus Silesius - Wikiquote
Catherine of Genoa - Wikiquote
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin - Wikiquote
Meister Eckhart - Wikiquote
John of the Cross - Wikiquote
Jacopone da Todi - Wikiquote

There are many more if you check this category:

Category:Mystics - Wikiquote

Consider the definition which Douglas Jacobson, a sociologist who specializes in "the World's Christians", describes Catholicism as being like in academic terms:

"...Enormous diversity exists within Catholicism, including many different schools and sub-schools of spirituality. Rather than forcing members to choose between one style of faith or another, Catholicism has typically opted to be a tradition of 'both/'and'. Whatever is seen as having spiritual merit and value can be incorporated into Catholicism, even when the opposite emphases are also present within the tradition...Catholicism's both/and stance has also allowed it to adopt and adapt various ideas and practices from other Christian traditions...This same commitment to catholicity has allowed Catholicism to welcome and appreciate spiritual insights and practices of many non-Christian religions and cultures..."
Click to expand...

We're a big tent, not a monolith.

I always remember what the former Pope Benedict once said:

"...How many ways are there to God?

Pope Benedict XVI :

As many ways as there are people. For even within the same faith each man's way is an entirely personal one. In that respect there is ultimately one way, and everyone who is on the way to God is therefore in some sense also on the way to Jesus Christ. But this does not mean that all ways are identical in terms of conciousness and will but on the contrary, the one way is so big that it becomes a personal way for each man..."

- Pope Benedict XVI, Salt of the Earth, 1997 (when he was Cardinal Ratzinger Head of Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith)
Click to expand...

Catholic means "universal". Just be 'Catholic' in your own way, is my suggestion if you do decide to return, and respect other peoples' differences with the expectation that they likewise respect yours.

Otherwise, follow the dictates of your conscience and keep searching in other faiths and traditions. Seek and ye shall find ;)
 
C

columbus

yawn <ignore> yawn
0ne-answer said:
When will you consider Islam :D


Never mind I will leave the thread :D

:canoe::canoe:
Click to expand...
You shouldn't leave the thread if you believe.

Give us a reason to believe what you do, if you can.

Not the reasons you believe. The reasons I should believe. Or saint frank.

What reason do I have to believe?

Tom
 
Sabour

Sabour

Well-Known Member
columbus said:
You shouldn't leave the thread if you believe.

Give us a reason to believe what you do, if you can.

Not the reasons you believe. The reasons I should believe. Or saint frank.

What reason do I have to believe?

Tom
Click to expand...

Well I do believe but I don't think saint frank care about what would I say anyways.


Well actually concerning you, I think there is no better than reading this. Basically at this point this is what I would be saying, if I had to put it in my own words.
 
Sees

Sees

Dragonslayer
saint_frankenstein said:
What planetary alignment?
Click to expand...

I don't know really...my wife mentioned something about a planetary alignment making people more emotional lately. Maybe more likely to follow your heart/be guided by emotions than intellectual side. I think it is a good thing now and then.
 
Saint Frankenstein

Saint Frankenstein

Wanderer From Afar
Premium Member
Sees said:
I don't know really...my wife mentioned something about a planetary alignment making people more emotional lately. Maybe more likely to follow your heart/be guided by emotions than intellectual side. I think it is a good thing now and then.
Click to expand...

Ah. Very interesting. Well, that's certainly how I feel right now.
 
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