| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Diana Holberg |
Posted - 11/22/2004 : 19:44:32
[Edit: Topic renamed from "R.C.I.A." to more appropriately represent its contents.]
By request I'll post my sense of things in RCIA. Catholics, feel free to clarify things where you see I have them off kilter... I'm at a point where I don't have questions so much as I need clarification of things I don't realize I've got wrong!
Others, feel free to ask questions, but this is the Spirituality forum -- not a debate forum.
Thanks, and God bless,
Diana |
| 15 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| pamimalebak |
Posted - 06/30/2012 : 02:23:10
[url=http://www.canape-convertible.info]voir[/url]
Don't forget to look for the color for the sofa bed mattress as it makes a lot of difference.
<a href="http://www.canape-convertible.info">[1]</a>
pamimalebak
A lot of this is personal preference, and trying out different styles for comfort.
|
| astredforum |
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| Diana Holberg |
Posted - 02/05/2009 : 22:34:54
A few memories from my "between RCIAs" time:- My brother and I had a discussion around Christmastime. It seems that he and my father were very concerned for my salvation. Not that I had lost it (they didn't believe that was possible) but that I'd never had it. This was breaking my brother's heart because one of the reasons he had returned to Christianity was the light he'd seen in my eyes as a new "born again". My dad couldn't even talk to me about it at all. (They both have since come to terms with my Catholicism -- though I don't know what they've decided about my salvation, I hope they leave it in God's hands.)
- On a given Sunday, I was just as likely to watch Mass on television as I was to attend. The traditional elements shown on EWTN were increasingly appealing to me, and at that time they weren't to be found in the local parishes. And I didn't have a sense of obligation just yet -- I was of the mindset that television was an acceptable form of worship.
- I started "parish-hopping", checking out all of the local parishes just to see if they were all like the one in my county. For the most part, they were. (Today, I'm so pleased to say, there are more traditional priests, at least in the parish I belong to and a couple of others.)
- I visited Virginia and my mother, and she went with me for the Veneration of the Cross. As I've written elsewhere here, knowing in my heart (if not my head) that Catholicism was true, I fully participated -- even though my stomach was turning the entire time. I still viewed all such devotion as superstitious, but for my mother's sake I went forward and kissed the Crucifix.
- Back in Kentucky, Fr. wanted me to enroll in the brown scapular. I had similar (superstitious) feelings about it, but agreed, trusting that he would know what was best for me. (He didn't fully prepare me for the obligations which are supposed to go along with such enrollment -- if he had instructed me that there was Marian devotion involved, I don't know whether I would have been so agreeable.) I remember that I went forward and a whole group of people joined me -- Fr. was so pleased. But I was nauseous and sweating by the time I left the Mass -- my body was reacting to my conscience even though I had tried to ignore it.
- When RCIA started in the Fall, I asked Fr. about whether I should return to it. He was not fond of the parish at all, and he actually told me that if I returned he would cease my instruction because he felt that they would be "unteaching" me the things he was teaching me. Sadly, I tend to think he was right about that. So I stuck with Fr. for another several months.
[To Be Continued] |
| Diana Holberg |
Posted - 02/05/2009 : 16:30:33
Some context would be helpful I think, in communicating my thoughts during that first year. I knew it was God's will that I become Catholic, so you could say that it was a foregone thing. I had prayed about it, and though I could not see how it was possible, I knew it was His will and therefore that I would someday be Catholic. I really didn't know how to feel about that.
I had been employed at my Baptist church as their secretary right up to a few days before I attended that first RCIA meeting. So actually my first step of faith toward becoming Catholic was to resign my job.
The job that took me out of town in my last post was actually sales training -- I thought I might become an insurance agent. I attended a "sales bootcamp" in Chicago for several days. It was intensive. We were taught the art of manipulation -- how to take a reluctant customer and move them to the place where they would seriously consider buying our product. Absolutely key is believing in the product yourself -- a lot of people can smell insincerity a mile away.
Several of my trainers and co-trainees were Pentecostals, and a few were former pastors who had hit upon hard times financially. We talked about the similarities between sales and preaching. They admitted that they used the same techniques to "sell" the Gospel as we were learning to use to sell insurance! I found this eye-opening. The key was there: they believed in their product.
This realization ruined sermons for me for several months. I started attending Mass regularly, not only because I knew I needed to in order to fulfill God's will for me, but also because I could no longer listen to a typical Baptist sermon without becoming cynical.
Mass was wonderful. I loved it right away. The beauty of the liturgy, the sweet simplicity of the homilies (most of them, anyway - the ones that weren't political), and of course the Eucharist! When I couldn't attend in person, I participated spiritually in the Mass broadcast by EWTN. I was surprised to discover that I enjoyed the very traditional approach just as much as I did more contemporary styles. No matter my objections to practices at other times, I always loved the Mass.
Selling insurance (door-to-door, alone, in the cold rain) wasn't very appealing, so after bootcamp and a couple of days out there I quit. [Edit: Of course I paid for all of the training -- otherwise, I would have felt obligated to stick with it longer.] Jobless, I contacted my mom and stepdad back in Virginia, who said they would welcome me into their home while I looked for employment. I contacted friends at the Baptist church to help sell all of my stuff in a yard sale, and other Baptist friends who were realtors to get my house ready to go on the market.
Then, seemingly out of the blue, I got a call from my former employer asking me if I would be interested in working with him again. I met with him and named some outrageous terms and to my amazement, he agreed to meet them. I found out later that my mentor at the church had heard about my yard sale arrangements, and had contacted him to let him know I might be moving out of state. He had been working on a contract and already intended to contact me, but her call caused him to speed things up. I signed a contract with him and that gave me employment with excellent pay here in Kentucky for two more years. Where God guides, He provides.
Another way He provided was spiritually. I'd been out of RCIA for about two months when some new Catholic friends of mine contacted me (again, seemingly out of the blue) asking me if I would be interested in meeting for individual instruction with a local priest? Of course I agreed, and that began what turned out to be about a year of instruction. That was a wonderful time. I learned so much about the Church and the Saints -- a lot of that is already posted earlier in this thread.
One of the things Fr. taught me was that some day I would have a Cross of my own to bear. His voice always got very solemn when he talked about this. I never knew what to think -- to me, my "cross" had always been day-to-day life; I'd never given thought to having a Cross given to me. It was somewhat frightening, thinking that there was something like that looming on the horizon, especially when it seemed like I had gone through a lot already. But I had long ago given my life to the Lord.
I should mention that all of this was during the time when my prayer life was completely empty. I couldn't pray [Edit: spontaneously], so I had taken up the practice of saying the Lord's Prayer on a regular basis. When I would make efforts to pray, I would tell the Lord that if it was His will that I be Catholic, I would be. If it was His will that I be put on a shelf in the meantime, I would find a way to deal with that. (I'd always been a workaholic; I didn't know how to be jobless or, much later, underutilized.)
After a time, my prayers became very simple: "Oh, help!" (Taken from The Sound of Music  )... "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner" (an "arrow prayer" I learned from an old missal my stepfather -- a former Catholic -- gave me)... "Jesus, I trust in you" (from St. Faustina's exchange with our Lord).
Life became very simple. I worked only four hours a day, spending all the rest of my time (when I wasn't in instruction) in contemplation. That was the one thing which came very easily to me during this time -- I could sit for hours on end contemplating our Lord, and I could actually feel Him at work in my soul, even though I could no longer "hear" Him speaking to me. It was a special time.
[To Be Continued] |
| Diana Holberg |
Posted - 02/04/2009 : 18:17:30
When Astralis first asked me to start this thread about my journey, I was in such a vulnerable place that I really didn't want to write about my own impressions and feelings. Plus I didn't want to offend the Catholics here at Spero. But now I'm in a better place, and I think I can reflect on those experiences and maybe help to put them in perspective for others who may be on the "road to Rome" but are struggling with a lot of what they see in their local parish.
The first RCIA group I attended at a parish just south of my current parish, I just showed up on a Monday night because I'd seen a mention of it in the parish bulletin. I got there, and it was a group of about four inquirers (all previously baptized Christians) and -- oh -- about 6 or 8 Catholics. Some of them were members of the RCIA team and some of them were sponsors.
The group had been meeting for two months at the time I started attending. They were led by the Pastoral Associate of the parish who was (and is, as far as I know) a Sister -- a woman in a religious order. But when I walked in, I didn't know that, and since she was just wearing an ordinary sweater and skirt, I just thought she was a parishioner... until everyone started calling her "Sister". Being Baptist, I was used to referring to my pastor as "Brother Bob" so calling her "Sister" was not too unusual.
The second week I attended, the parish priest was leading the group. That was the week we learned about the Sign of the Cross. Boy, was that an uncomfortable experience. The whole time, I was thinking, what if this isn't of God? What if the Church really is the "whore of Babylon" and here I am, imitating these worse-than-heathens? What if I misinterpreted all of the signs and signals pointing me in the direction of the Catholic Church? What if I'm letting those Spero guys manipulate me into something I'm just not ready for? And on and on went the questions. (Told ya I was in a vulnerable place!)
The third week, I don't remember what we were celebrating, but Sister took us into the chapel and had us all light candles. We processed down the center aisle and when we got near the front of the room, we stopped and she began reading a blessing. She had us raise our candles in the direction of North, and recited a blessing that went something like, "We call upon the Spirit from the North, that we would remember those who are cold and suffering. Bless them and us with your comfort." Then we raised our candles up to the South, and she said something like, "We call upon the Spirit from the South, that we would remember those who are poor and hungry. Bless them and us with the water from which we never thirst." And so on for "the Spirit from the East" and "the Spirit from the West".
Now, I certainly hope that it was the Holy Spirit she was invoking in each of those cases -- to this day I can't say for sure. But I can tell you that at the time, it sure sounded to me like we were invoking four separate spirits from the four directions, and I never felt more like a Pagan in my life! I was really horrified by this experience, and even today it offends me to think about it. It was just way too much to foist on to Inquirers, in my opinion.
After the third week, I met with Sister. She kept talking about how my baptism (meaning, my re-baptism in the Baptist church) was not a Catholic Baptism, and so I really needed to just observe for the first year. Again I was offended -- what I was reading in the Catechism and elsewhere was that any Trinitarian baptism "counted" just like a baptism in the Catholic Church. But I didn't want to make waves, so I just kept quiet.
Things progressed pretty uneventfully for another two or three weeks, and then my job at the time took me out of town so I wasn't able to attend for a few weeks. I took advantage of the lapse and dropped out of the group altogether. I was so frustrated. I wanted to believe that the Catholic Church was what it claimed to be -- the Church established by Jesus Christ, but I was having such a hard time with the blessings and the rituals! Oh, I forgot that somewhere in there was Epiphany Sunday, and we were told to take chalk and inscribe some kind of equation: (20 C+M+B 05) over the front door of our house. What kind of superstitious stuff is this? was all I could think.
Looking back on those first several months, I think it's a miracle I'm Catholic today.
[To Be Continued] |
| Diana Holberg |
Posted - 11/09/2008 : 15:12:57
quote:
Originally posted by Astralis
Excellent update. You are a blessing here.
Thanks quote:
I'm glad God is in control. How often will you meet with your spiritual director? In general, what do you look forward to discussing with him?
I suppose the frequency will depend on the person. When Fr. Steve was my spiritual director, we met about once a month to discuss my spiritual walk, any struggles I was having, and what God was doing in and through my life. He gave me lots of advice about prayer, Scripture reading, and even free reading and leisure time. So basically we talked about anything and everything that seemed worth talking about, with the goal of smoothing the way whenever it got rough. Spiritual directors are a great source of encouragement and wisdom. |
| Astralis |
Posted - 11/09/2008 : 11:20:01
Excellent update. You are a blessing here.
I'm glad God is in control. How often will you meet with your spiritual director? In general, what do you look forward to discussing with him?
quote:
There is more going on too but I'm not at liberty to discuss that just yet -- looking forward to the day when I can!
God is good.
quote:
I continue to be thankful for our Spero family and the support of your prayers. No matter how much things change, I'll never forget the help I received here during a time of need.
You're very welcome. "Always changing, always the same." |
| Diana Holberg |
Posted - 11/09/2008 : 10:52:07
Okay, it's been a relatively long time since I've posted, but that's not because life hasn't been eventful! My parish has a new priest and our (female) pastoral associate has left, my boss resigned to take a position down a couple of floors, my step-mother has been housed in assisted living, and my brother is getting re-married in a month.
God is doing a lot of housecleaning in our lives. Praise and thanks be to Him!
Regarding the depression, it is much better under medication (150mg Effexor with 7.5mg Abilify per day), and thus far the seasonal changes have had little impact, which is a good thing.
Spiritually, I meet with my priest this week regarding finding another spiritual director.
There is more going on too but I'm not at liberty to discuss that just yet -- looking forward to the day when I can!
I continue to be thankful for our Spero family and the support of your prayers. No matter how much things change, I'll never forget the help I received here during a time of need.
God bless,
Diana |
| Faith_at_Large |
Posted - 07/05/2008 : 18:46:48
Try a journal to note how you are feeling over the course of the year and whether the days are sunny or not. This is good for no matter what ails you, but may provide some interesting information to share with your doctor (over the course of time, not immediately). My mother says that the special light does help although it is not a panacea. I figure that we are all affected to some degree with the amount of light we get, it part of our physiology. |
| Diana Holberg |
Posted - 07/05/2008 : 15:13:37
Thank you for your prayers, as always.
As for the complaint, if you're referring to MDD, as far as I'm concerned it's one doctor's diagnosis... I still tend toward SAD as being more accurate. But giving one label or another to my symptoms doesn't change anything -- who I am is no different as a result. It has been interesting to observe the differences that a label makes in the way casual acquaintances treat you. Sometimes it can be amusing; most of the time I find it sad. I'm grateful that those closest to me know better than to attach that much importance to a label!
But if you're referring to the tinnitus, you're right -- I am complaining about that. Today it's back with a vengeance, and it's SOOO distracting. Makes it very difficult to focus.
Otherwise, no apparent reaction to the Abilify, as far as I can tell -- I read that it takes 4-6 weeks to take effect. |
| philial |
Posted - 07/05/2008 : 01:58:55
I really feel for anyone who has this complaint. You are in my prayers. |
| mikejuli |
Posted - 07/04/2008 : 04:45:24
ditto |
| alcovey |
Posted - 07/03/2008 : 22:01:11
Yes, Diana, God bless and keep you. You are in our prayers. |
| Theophilus |
Posted - 07/03/2008 : 18:40:40
God bless you, Diana. |
| Diana Holberg |
Posted - 07/03/2008 : 17:04:12
Oh, and by the way, I was able to link my tinnitus (ringing in my ears) to Prilosec OTC. Apparently it is a side effect which occurs in only 1% of people, and it may or may not be reversable. I've stopped taking that drug and will try to control my digestive troubles with diet and antacids for the time being. The ringing is quieter but not yet gone, but it's been less than a week so it's too early to tell. I do think the ringing has contributed significantly to my sleeping difficulties and added to my overall anxiety level -- I pray regularly that the Lord take it away or give me the grace to be able to ignore it. |
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