Last September I eagerly joined RCIA and jumped right into the coursework. I started planning my Catholic name, picking out my confirmation dress, thinking out my first confession, and was ready to join the Catholic Church. By January, I withdrew from RCIA and haven't been in a Catholic Church since.
Why?
Even I ask myself that. I was so sure last year that I was going to be Catholic. I remember when I started this journey a few years ago I wanted to be sure by age 40. It was going to be my 40th birthday present to myself. And even so, I still defend the Catholic faith! So, why did I walk away?
Perhaps the biggest reason is that there are still some key dogmas that I haven't gotten to a point where I can agree with them and commit myself to them. In some ways, if I were single, I could just go ahead an accept them in faith, anyway, but some of them would be hard to commit to with such a different family dynamic and culture.
If I could be Catholic and not have to actually vow to all of the dogmas 100%, then I could join. In most protestant churches you can still be a member and not agree with all the dogmas, so long as you at least believe the Gospel message and agree to respect what the church believes and not make waves or argue.
Even as I wrestled with the above, I was trying to slog ahead with the plans to join the Church, but I realized my motive wasn't a good one, and one I had escaped from evangelicalism! I had Catholics invested in me. They were excited and eager for me to join the Church. They had spent their own money gifting me with Catholic things for my journey. I felt pressure and obligation to join for them. I realized I couldn't make vows before God to make other people happy or fulfill others' expectations or hopes. This is between God and me.
The division within my immediate family was difficult to navigate. I got plenty of words of encouragement that this would be my cross to bear and I got lots of testimonies from others saying that if I join my family is sure to follow....eventually. These rubbed me the wrong way. This is the same "prophetic" nonsense I got in the evangelical world. I followed those paths for years, decades, only to not see the fruit promised, but, instead, wasted years of rot where growth could have occurred if I only listened to my instincts rather than follow everyone else's hoped-for prophecies. I got those Bible beatings about my voice being deceitful, but I had never once considered until a few years ago that deceit can come cloaked in holy words from others, too, and that the Holy Spirit lives and dwells in me and I can heed Him and discern Him, myself.
While my husband is supportive, the lack of unity in my family was my greatest sorrow. As we discuss our beliefs and the paths we've navigated, I've discovered that our married spirituality has been a dictatorship of my own making. I have to fall back and acknowledge my husband and his walk with God. We need to discuss this and see where God takes us as a family. We need time to navigate the spirituality of our family, what is important to each of us and to our unit.
There was no way I could fully and forever commit to Catholicism while leaving so much broken and undone and unresolved in my family. I am sad that they've come to see Christianity as mom's dominion and control, and naturally they've bucked against it. We need unity of some sort.
The big problem, though is that we can't seem to find a church, otherwise!
We both like more traditional churches, but many of the traditional ones are steeped in legalism or politics.
I blatantly refuse to attend a church that has those horrid purple and blue lights, casual rock-n-roll worship music, and rely heavily on emotion.
So many of the more mainstream classic protestant churches have deeply liberalized and compromised. Remnant ones are mostly run by elderly women who rule the roost.
Others lack families and children-peers. Others are full of broken women from broken marriages and homes and lack strong male peers for my husband.
We also don't want to travel outside of our community. We were attending a church outside of our community, and we liked it, but, after years of being there, we just couldn't seem to plug in. It was very local community-based, which is great, but we weren't a part of that community. Our schedules didn't align.
I also prefer a church with organization and leadership, checks and balances. In my opinion, it is unsafe to join the churches created by a person or a non-denomination. Theologies and dogmas must be established and canonized, not re-interpreted over and over again by whomever decides to see it differently and preach on it.
Community is important to me. I don't want my children part of a fringe church that separates them from their community peers. I grew up being the weirdo in school. Kids thought I was part of a cult! I think of how I could have been better connected with friends, seeing them in church and in school and establishing closer relationships, rather than feeling separated. My kids are already largely friendless because we haven't been able to establish community easily.
I get encouragement from local Catholics, but I've been attending Mass for 2 or 3 years now and have yet to establish any connection with other youths. Right now the only offering is Faith Formation, which preps kids for confirmation, but my kids don't want that. The youth group is defunct. There are 3 other youth groups in other denominations, but 1 is my old denomination and I do NOT want my kids back in that. The 2nd is a non-denomination, which gives me pause. It's too modernistic and unchecked. The third is Baptist, but I fear the church is too political. They've had running politicians come in as guest speakers on Sundays during their campaigns. The whole church is very much about Trump, which is fine for personal politics, but when it gets affirmed in worship it isn't good.
What's left? I admit, we feel lost and lonely. Covid has only made this so much more confusing. Winter has added even more the burden. Losing two vehicles has heaped even more difficulties into the matter as the kids and I are stuck at home all the time, now.
But, I also don't feel like it is my fault or even my burden to bear. I'm in the midst of the fall-out of what happens when individualism and opinion takes over Christendom. The constant splitting and rehashing of the Word of God along with marketing churches to try to draw in the apathetic has created a huge mess in America. Our families didn't survive the scandals and poor catechism of the 60's - 80's, otherwise we would be Catholics. We are victims of post-modern, post-Christian, constant division, Americanism, revisionism, progressivism, and confusion that has been heaped on the church culture for decades, even centuries. You can't blame christians for feeling lost when you constantly set up ever-changing mazes for them to navigate. The path to Christ is singular. Lord help us.
