Lapsed Catholic struggling with returning

[ZenNudist]

Looking for bit of support please. Mainly about going to confession when not been for years. Im 40. Raised Catholic, strict family, alcoholic father pushed me into going to church, didn't set any kind of example outside of church. Violent, verbally abusive. Got so bad I said I didnt believe. Gave up church at 17 and didn't go back except for weddings and funerals.

Decided to Christen my dc despite dh being atheist (my parents very keen for me to do it). Then felt like i had to follow up on my promise to raise them Catholic. Didn't go to church but took them to sunday school childrens methodist church meetings run by a friend from toddlerhood to teach them concepts. Then went to Catholic school. Still avoided church but started again as they are doing first holy communion.

So ive been going for a few months. Still not going to communion. Struggling with what i do and dont believe. Want to believe but cant quite. Too much to go into here.

Today I spoke to priest about taking confession. Discussed my grappling with faith. He was understanding. Said i could discuss things with him in my own time. I said I'd take communion when my eldest does and I'd come back for proper confession.

I've sinned a lot since my last confession. I dont want to go into it all here. Its not all minor. I know i can keep it anonymous but its just not my style but its hard to talk to priest about it. I've been through examining conscience and it just leads me back to square one. There are 'sins' that i cant commit to not doing again. Don't want to talk about sex and contraception with a priest.

Would be easier to bumble on in my lapsed Catholic way. Going to chuch in state of agnosticism. Started to feel like a hypocrite if dc have to do confession so should I, but its just a much bigger thing as an adult. Even if i do go i end up being a hypocrite as e.g not going to stop using condoms, am pro-choice (though have never had an abortion myself and couldn't do that). So much to deal with that living a good Catholic life feels impossible.

Any advice? Be kind please.

Oh god. Step away from it all. I’ve worked at a Catholic School and loads of kids aren’t Catholic/won’t be doing the whole confession, communion thing. You don’t need to force you or your kids down this guilt ridden ritualistic path. If you have faith why not find a nice/Methodist/United Reformed/liberal c of e church. Trust me that will give your kids more than enough religion to cope fine at Catholic school and stop you tying yourself up in knots.

I’m a bit like you in many ways. I did my first confession in decades a few years ago. I didn’t confess to my contraceptive choices though.
I still take communion when I go to mass. I probably shouldn’t but I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in doing so.

Thing is i identify as Catholic and feel thats my heritage. The things I enjoy about mass is having a form of words i can join in with that are ingrained in my brain from childhood and I like the hymns. Plus the church and school are my community. I do have strong links with the methodist church we have been going to sunday school for years and they are much more friendly so i do more with them. Whilst I'd get on better with the methodist church I feel too far down this road to stop now. My parents are really invested in their grandchildren's Catholic faith. So do i just go along with it taking what i can from it and what i can teach my kuds within that framework? Mum describes herself as pick and mix Catholic but i think she can do that as she is secure in her faith whilst i am more doubting.

Thanks for messages. Going to bed and trying not to worry. Still need to email priest so would like help with this.

I'm Catholic and I think it's great that you're attending Mass and talking to your priest about returning to the faith. Although you might not have had the best upbringing in the faith, you clearly know and respect some of the church's teachings, like knowing you can't receive Communion and that you need to make a valid confession. I completely understand why this is overwhelming and scary.

Maybe it would help you to find out a bit more about the reasons behind the Church's teachings - I don't just mean around contraception etc, but just a bit of a "refresher" on what you might have learned as a child. You might find that having an idea of the "bigger picture" of the faith makes some of the difficult teachings fall into place. I'm a convert and it was really the clear, logical truth and common sense of the Church's teachings that even convinced me that God existed! I'd really recommend Fr Mike Schmitz on YouTube - he's got loads of videos so just find something that is on your mind. Alternatively you might find it useful to go to an RCIA class where you might be able to ask questions and discuss things - usually these classes are run by people from the parish and not always the priest, and they are for converts or "reverts" as an adult introduction to the faith.

Also, please don't worry about living a "good Catholic life" straight off the bat! The Church is here for everyone to offer support and grace to help you grow in holiness. The main thing is that you're willing to try to live according to the faith - that's all any of us can do! When we go to confession we are absolved of all our sins and also get graces to help us avoid those sins in the future. If you find comfort in the prayers of the Mass then you could try praying some prayers you are familiar with, like a decade of the rosary, and ask God to help you discern where to go from here.

I hope that helps a little and all the best on your journey!

I find it comforting but I can’t go along with it all, and it’s right to question and doubt. I actually have very abstract ideas about what God is.
How do you get on with your priest? There’s no rush to confession and it’s a good idea to talk these things through where you can.
It might be quite a long journey for you. You don’t have to unravel it all before you start.

My DS attends Catholic school and has always been an atheist. His favourite thing about Catholicism? Is Confession.

He sees it as a form of therapy. Give it a go OP, it's free, freeing and gives you food for thought. Probably not the food for thought the church were intending. But a bit of space for personal reflection, which is nearly always a good thing.

Needing to confess a 'sin' to another person is largely what turned me away from Catholicism in the first place (latterly, I came to realise that I just didn't believe in any of it). I understand your being conflicted. I also understand the cultural Catholic thing - born in west of Scotland with Irish heritage will do that to a person

Breaking away or completely returning isn't an easy decision either way. Sometimes it takes years.

Don't rush into anything, would be my advice. No one's going to force you to do anything you don't want to. There will be plenty of parents at a child's first communion who won't receive it themselves.

My priest is a kind man and not severe. I feel like i could talk to him about questions of faith but dont want to talk about my private life that is in any case long in the past. He said to only talk about what I am comfortable with. The long list of sins is just too long. Im a realist. I am not going to jump straight to living a simple holy life. I live a normal modern life. Some of the teachings around sex are just arcane. My kids are too young to worry about any of this stuff. I'm not sure how most of the people I know reconcile their faith with their actions. Maybe I am over thinking it.

I agree with what @zzzzz wrote about not going to communion until i do full confession. Maybe I just need to do an anonymous one.

@GruciusMalfoy thanks. This is the other option. Stop putting pressure on myself to take holy communion at same time as my eldest. Im not going to stop going to church now weve started. Still I'd love to resolve this now rather than spending years feeling miserable not in and not out of the church.

My parents are really invested in their grandchildren's Catholic faith.

What do you want, and what your dc want? You turned away from the church after a childhood with a violent, abusive father. The tone of your messages sounds like you're still trying to please him now. If you feel more comfortable in methodism, perhaps your discomfort comes from trying to force your faith to please your parents?

Stick with it.

I second polarisation's thread.
Quite often you find many adults have only learnt about religion to a primary school level. (That might not be you OP). We need to keep learning on an adult level. So dive deep, read, listen, watch, learn.
There are more than 2000 years of philosophy, theology, history and science behind all these beliefs.
You will never learnt it all or answer all your questions.
None of us will, but every question you have will have been asked before, and there will be plenty of answers to help you think about it. (Even if ultimately you decide you don't agree)

Also, we are all sinners. Though for different people, the main sins will be in different areas. However we all struggle with sin. We all know how you feel about that!

The important thing, is to pray, build your relationship with Jesus.

What NC4now said!

I was always of strong faith but can't bear going to mass in the past few years. The cover ups and abuse. I have christened my children catholic.
It is my heritage and I like the idea of being catholic (I know this makes no sense at all).

I wish I had a faith. I really miss it.

I think your priest sounds nice op. Ours is very old school and maybe trying confession and advice here will help.

Thats really good food for thought @tribpot and @zzzzz.

I don't want "faux reconciliation" I think I just want to "do Catholicism right" but I can't. And then beating myself up about that.

My relationship with my dad has an awful lot to do with it he really is the voice in my head about religious instruction generally.

I've wandered into this fairly unthinkingly and got my children into a faith education because it didn't seem like the alternative was appealing. I wanted them to have the same cultural framework as I grew up with. I think I was working on the basis that it's not done me any harm.

Now I'd like to participate in the church more fully but I've just not got the conviction behind it. I need to do some more thinking and it helps to hear from other people that I can give myself some space and time to think about this. Thank you.

So I posted my last message based on some posts at 7:30 in the morning. Then all the ones after that came up. They're all really helpful thank you. In particular @chilledout11 I've been crying since. I seem to be having a really strong reaction to my conversation with the preist yesterday and thinking about all this stuff.

I don't work on Monday so I'm going to go and have a swim and try and calm down. Thank you all.

I think I just want to "do Catholicism right" but I can't.

I think you want to want to "do Catholicism right" but you don't. Is there an aspect of this about not having to defy your parents by choosing a different branch of Christianity? So as with the schooling, it was the path of least resistance.

Id declared myself atheist prior to being confirmed but my parents put me up for confirmation despite my protests and then i just went along with it. Afterwards i felt bad that i couldn't make more effort being that it meant a lot to my grandma who i wanted to please.

So my parents were overjoyed i got the dc christened but did remind me what that meant in terms of raising them Catholic.

So no not now trying to be Catholic for them. If anything id rather keep it to myself.

I feel conflicted too. I am really unsure about a lot of it, but not having the DCs baptised just wasn’t an option. It made me anxious and I felt I wasn’t doing the right thing if I didn’t. The schools are better academically and like you, I wanted them to have a moral framework.

I think a lot of what ‘God’ is, is actually love, morality, self reflection and outwardly doing good for the world, forgiveness, charity, etc. And I can do all that. With the areas I struggle with, I just do my best. Everything is open to interpretation.

Swimming is a great way to get your head together. I hope you feel better for it.

Feeling a bit less wretched about it all. At least this thread has helped me see that i cant rush back into communion. Need to sort out what is being done out of obligation and whats really driving this current questioning. Church is a link to my past and makes me emotional but not out of religiosity. At least its good to think about right and wrong and trying to be better. I seem to be thinking about it more than my son!

Please, don't be so hard on yourself. No one gets 'doing Catholic' right. That's the whole flippin' point - every human is fallible and doing their best and getting some stuff wrong and some stuff right. 'All have fallen short'

I'm going to guess there's a crucifix in your church, or maybe a statue of the Sacred Heart? Here's my left field suggestion - take twenty minutes out of your week some time and go and sit in church. Take a look at Jesus presented there and really dwell on the fact that the heart of Christian belief is the devoted love God has for you. Everything flows from that.

It's not about having all your ducks in a row, ticking every box. Yes, we're all asked to pursue being holy - to keep getting better at being good people. But there is a solid understanding that not only is everyone at different stages of that, we're all going to cock it up.

I really wish you peace in this, whatever you end up doing.

Aye, agree so much with Floralbuntings very wise post.

In fact, the last time I went to confession (more like a regular adult conversation with a highly intelligent Dominican monk) he basically said the same thing! In response to me expressing serious doubts/failings he said (1) ""chill out" and (2) that the central tenet of Catholicism being forgiveness meant that also should apply to oneself!