Advice for those coming back to to the Church Hey, Reverts!
Coming back to the Church and don't know where to start?
Have a history of serious sins, occultism, pornography, abortion, contraception, drug addiction, excessive profanity, or the like?
Or maybe you're just coming out of a virulently anti-Catholic religion?
Or maybe just coming back to the Church and want to do it "right"?
Well, read on! for my "Spirituality Boot camp"!
and if you're converting to Catholicism, use these steps in conjunction with RCIA.
1. Get rid of as much "stuff" as possible (you know, "Sell all you have . . . "), but also, you may have items in your house that are cursed. If there's someone in your life involved with occultism, get rid of anything that person gave you.
2. Get some Sacramentals. Don't be superstitious about it, but they do help. They are easy prayer aids, and help keep you focused. They do some good in keeping demons off. But they are *definitely* helpful in warding off anti-Catholic human visitors.
A. Minimally, you should have a crucifix on a wall in every room. Can just be a cheap plastic one, but something.
B. Every house ought to have at least one image of the Divine Mercy and/or the Sacred Heart of Jesus, one image or statue of the BVM, and some of your patron saints. Again, if all you can afford are cheap plastic statues and prayer cards, it's about the symbolism, not the aesthetics.
C. Wear something. Going overboard on medals is counter-productive. But get a crucifix, a brown scapular, miraculous medal, St. Benedict medal, or patron saint medal. Or you can get a brown scapular and hang the other medals from the strings.
D. Get a rosary.
E. Get all that stuff blessed and use it.
Now that you've turned your home into a mini-monastery, make the Spiritual exercises.
3. Find a copy of _The Spiritual Exercises_ of St. Ignatius. A good one is _Do It At Home Retreat_, put out by Ignatius Press. Now, the Exercises should ideally be done in complete retreat conditions over 30 days. But if you can just make the commitment, 30 days at home will work.
You can do it on your own, but it really helps if you can find a priest or a deacon to guide you.
The first week of the Exercises is designed to lead you up to making a "general Confession" (confessing all the mortal sins you can remember from your entire life).
Which brings me to
4. In conjunction with the Spiritual Exercises, get and listen to the following talks by Fr. John Corapi:
A. Conversion Story
B. If God is Good, Why is there Evil?
C. How to Make a Good Confession
D. Addiction
(above four compiled in _Mercy_ DVD set)
E. Immortal Combat series
5. Also, PRAY.
A. In addition to the Rosary and Divine Mercy Chaplet, some of my favorite "spiritual warfare" prayers are the Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus, the Chaplet of St. Michael and the Fifteen Prayers of St. Bridget. Say one of these every hour or two throughout your day.
B. Get a copy of _Christian Prayer_ and learn to say the Liturgy of the Hours.
C. Read the Bible for 1/2 hour a day. _Spiritual Exercises_ call for an hour of solid prayer and reflection (including the exercises), so reading the Bible in conjunction with that works.
D. Last but not least, attend Mass whenever possible. Try to spend time in prayer before the Blessed sacrament.
6. Having combined all that prayer, and the Fr. Corapi talks, with the first week of Spiritual Exercises, make a good general Confession.
7. Now that your sins are gone, you can go to Communion. Do it :)
8. If you receive Communion having gone to Confession. While you're following the above steps every day, remember to pray for the intentinos of the Holy Father every time you receive Communion.
9. Do stuff! Tithe; volunteer at your parish. If you see a person in need on the side of the road, stop to help--even if it makes you late for work. Random acts of kindness. Try to do each of the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.
10. When you finish the Spiritual Exercises, keep up your daily prayer regimen. Then read any or all of the following. People take differently to different books, so it's helpful to "sample" and see what works for you. But I recommend the following, in order:
A. _The Imitatino of Christ_, by Thomas A Kempis
B. _Story of a Soul_, the autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux
C. _Fatima: In Lucia's Own Words_ (the memoirs of Sr. Lucia, the Fatima visionary).
D. _Introduction to the Devout Life_, St. Francis de sales.
E. _Interior Castle_ and/or _Way of Perfection_ by St. Teresa of Avila.
Re: Advice for those coming back to to the Church Great post GG and sound advice.
Sign me up for your camp But i'd add to the reading list:
the Catehchism of the Catholic Church
Sacred Scripture (of course)
JPII's Theology of the Body and after that his other writings..Fr Mitch covers his apostolic exhortations every Tues night at 10:00.That's a don't ever miss if you can help it!!
Confessions-St Augustine (his autobiography)
The Early Church Fathers
Most anything by Scott Hahn and Bob Sungenis has some terrif books out such as Not By Faith Alone.
There are also some great bible studies on EWTN.Timothy Gray and Scott Hahn are super!
I bet some other folks have books they would recommend too.
Timothy Gray is awesome and covers the gospels.
I've gotten so many insights from listening to his Bible study even though it's on quite late(or quite early-however you look at it).It's worth lsoing an nour's sleep over.
Nuff said.You really layed it out well but we all have our favorite books and they're all helpful no doubt.So i thought i'd add em.
sometimes in life we feel alone,but don't go by 'feelings'.We are never ever alone.He is always there!!! This doesn't require feelings-this requires trust. It may not be absolute trust all the time because we're human and we can't really fathom the dephts of His love but we can grow in this trust day by day.
God bless,
p4p
Last edited by praying4patience, 8/18/2007, 7:32 pm
Re: Advice for those coming back to to the Church Stuff, slowly been going through stuff especially books. It helps being able to read again w/out having to carry around my magnifying glass though it seems some days I still need it. Maybe that’s the astigmatism? I haven’t been keeping read up on eye stuff these days and I used to.
Have to find where I put my reflexology book unless I did get rid of that already & just don’t remember. I don’t sell the New Age junk… I’ve ripped up those books and made them not appealing & trash them. I don’t have Divine Mercy and/or the Sacred Heart of Jesus but I do have two wall crucifixes (one is real small but that’s cool).
Catholicism shouldn’t seem so foreign to me but I guess the 3 to 4 years being stuck in anti-Catholicism helped that. Do have a 1994 Catechism… again, reading… getting used to that again too but I can listen to it being read to me online so that works too (cordless headphones to your computer are cool). I can easily see double… Just undoing the junk I’ve been taking in that I shouldn’t have. Will go through all the suggestions.
Last edited by HasahZ, 8/19/2007, 3:13 pm
--- ...Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.
Amen
Re: Advice for those coming back to to the Church P4P,
Note I did have a half hour a day of Scripture in there
As for the rest, I'm going on spirituality here, not apologetics or doctrine. To fully understand Catholic doctrine, I think it's necessary to be in the right "mindset" first. There are certain attitudes involved in being a devout Catholic that don't translate in doctrinal writings, yet are really important to fully appreciate doctrine.
My 3 year old is watching over my shoulder, and she wants me to put on some emoticons, so here goes:
Re: Advice for those coming back to to the Church The main thing is just getting the anti-Catholic junk out of my head... Still doing bible in a year online but adding a book at least 2 chapters from the 'apocryphal' books a day too... in addition to trying those online A+ tests just to see if I seem good enough to try to take them now...
_
Just edited my post...
Last edited by HasahZ, 8/19/2007, 3:14 pm
--- ...Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.
Amen
Re: Advice for those coming back to to the Church i agree totally with GG about spirituality being so important.
However,i'd rather that we not lose the emphasis on cathecis.That is knowing as well as living our faith.
One of the reasons we lose folks is not only do they lose one way but they lose the other.Once you know your faith well enough the red flags go up on on the counterfeit and we're less apt to be led elsewhere.i think what i'm really trying to say is we need both.
GG's boot camp is fantastic.Wish i had signed up for it years ago.
God bless,
p4p
Re: Advice for those coming back to to the Church Well, I can listen to the catechism online too, rather, the text is there, copy it & have the text to speech reader read it to me. I obviously was a zombie in my classes.
--- ...Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.
Amen
Re: Advice for those coming back to to the Church I picked up a font. Totally Catholic. It was an online version of a place we used to go to when I was a kid.
Last edited by HasahZ, 8/25/2007, 1:39 pm
--- ...Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.
Amen
There's two on there I had ordered a few months back, first ones are free, don't know the charge after that but Prayer Time and Questions and Answers about the Catholic Faith. That second one touches a lot including Babylon.
Last edited by HasahZ, 10/7/2007, 11:02 am
--- ...Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.
Amen
