Well it's done. At my

parishes Easter Vigil last night, I became a Roman Catholic, was confirmed and recieved communion...

It was a really joyful time, and one I won't forget.

Now, the real spiritual work begins, strengthening the existing connection between my self, mind and spirit to the Church and to Christ.

God has told me already it will be a difficult road, and I believe it....my old self the skeptic with rough speech is very close at hand...

Anguish

In Brazil, a nine year old girl was pregnant, due to a suspected case of rape by her stepfather.

The mother of this girl allowed an abortion to be performed. The mother was then excommunicated.

Was excommunication the best choice?

In an alternate universe, I would not have publicized this case...I would have had the mother through the Sacrament confess the abortion, and the little girl receive absolution since she had no way of stopping the abortion and couldn't have made a decision herself either way, and if it is found that the stepfather raped the girl, excommunicate him, because his alleged act is the act that led to the abortion.

Is abortion simply unforgivable period? No one in Brazil can recieve absolution for this after confessing it?

I'm not questioning the overall postion on abortion here...

Just the nature of the response.

Uncomfortable Paths

First, a bit of whimsy from this former Protestant...

On Ash Wednesday, I thought....

How incredibly inefficient! One cannot receive the ashes and the Eucharist at the same time.

I attend a parish with a large sanctuary so more than 700 persons had to receive both (although, to be fair, the lines for the Eucharist were shorter because they had more Eucharistic ministers, and, some of us...myself included as a candidate) are not yet permitted to partake of Communion.

And secondly...

I've made a good friend there, who has asked me to attend a healing service with her...

I'm fairly certain that this will not be the weeping and wailing dog-and-pony show of Protestant Charismatic sects, so at least I'll be spared that.

I'm going because she wants me to go.

But as a person with lifelong disabilities I loathe these things.

Ok.

Theologically speaking, if one believes in God as written in the Old and New Testaments...

One cannot limit God's power to heal. He's God. At any point and at any time he could come down and heal us all tomorow.

He hasn't....and he hasn't set up a glowing neon sign in the heavens explaining why some recieve miracles and some do not.

God does not make junk.

We are *all* "fearfully and wonderfully made."

I refuse to pine and wait for a miracle. There are things to see and do.

There are days I wish one particular impairment out of four gone, yes...

But some others are intrinsic to my person. They make me who I am. If they were "healed" I'd no longer be me.

Also for those with disabilities who *do* see their faith walk as a waiting to be healed or cured....

I feel for them, I do. Because what a profoundly difficult rollercoaster of emotion they must be riding.

God dissapoints them every week until he *does* decide to cure them, or until they die.

I am quietly pleased to have a place to settle my antsy emotions, to calm the race in my head...and a true sense that God *inhabits* that sanctuary...and gives love and mercy to those who come in....

Individually, I also get a strong sense that God loves me, as I exist now. No need for miracles or cures.

And more still, for those with disabilities who are never healed in this life...

There's a *reason* this is so. God has a reason...we may figure out what it is, we may not.

And acceptance of that means one may proceed with life without concerning oneself with miracles.

And hopefully, educate the wider world that we're people first and fine as we are.

And, God's Particular Self-Denying Task for Me

I've said earlier that the church I attend is both beautiful and accessible.

All except...

The choir loft.

I'm a lifelong singer, good at it love to do it.

and in this place, that is fitting me better and better each day.

That particular form of reaching for God is something I'll be unable to do.

Irony. Loads of Irony.

And, the Parts that are easy to believe

As I'm learning Catholic teaching, my individual journey has not had a problem with....

The Eucharist, no longer symbolic, but real.

The Divinity of Jesus

The value of the Sacraments (Particularly confession, now known as Reconcilliation)

The place and nature of Mary. (except for the one sticking point in the previous post)


Each adult convert, I'm sure has their own list of easy vs hard...

My Wrestling Points

As with any belief system, there are parts of this, I am wrestling with...and since I have not yet finished the process of becoming a Catholic, I don't feel contrarian putting these out there.

One...

The Role of Women.

Any belief system that appears to place women in a lesser status seems problematic.
By saying women cannot be priests, isn't that de facto disrespecting their ability to handle the duties and tasks of priests, should this doctrine ever change...?

But within the church, my present perception is that any individual woman *can* and *does* have the opportunity and ability to make clear that her talent, her intellect and her choice of vocation are equal to any man's, even if the single role of priest is denied her.

Learned women are more respected in the Catholic Church than in most evangelical Protestant circles I was ever involved in.

So I enjoy being allowed to be smart for a change. The rest may never happen.



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Sexuality.

I'm good with the definitions of wrong and right action for single and married people, because I've seen what happens when marriage gets disrespected, or sensation is sought out for it's own sake. (Mea Culpa on that last part. Lonesome and used is how I felt, and nobody needs to pile more bad feelings on themselves.)

That said, the drive to connect is strong enough to be overwhelming sometimes and we're human beings. We make mistakes.

I have respected acquaintances who are gay...I find it interesting that the reading and the teaching I've gotten is that it is the *behavior* of those attracted to the same sex, that is the sin, not the orientation itself. (I have some hope for other Christians as well, since the latest translation of the NIV, TNIV, makes this distinction to American Protestants for what may be the first time. Of course many American Protestant's are decrying this translation as 'heretical.')

So many pastors I've heard clearly couch this as an 'unforgivable' state of being, that just the fact of being gay is enough to make them forever outside the community and all it's positives.

It may seem like hair splitting to some, but to me the Catholic reading on this issue gives me hope.

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Celibate Priests:

Whatever. I just know I couldn't do it.

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Mary's characteristics:

Hmmm. I'm glad to have her as an intercessor. Makes me pleased to have a woman to reach out to in some of the prayers (Some say we don't pray to Mary...

Um, if we don't then what does "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of death, Amen" constitute?)

(But as an historian who has read contempareneous records--not to mention Scripture! that delineate 'other children' after Jesus.... I'll be honest, this is the part that I will have the most trouble with...not the big stuff above.

Contraception.

It has been called a 'lesser evil' in some situations. I'll go with that and say no more.

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On Healing

There appears to be quite a tradition of miracles in the Catholic Church.

Thankfully most of them appear to lack the showy questionable spectator sport quality of the Charismatic 'faith healers' that are high in the councils of American Evangelical Protestantism.

But...

I believe that if God meant for me to be spontaneously miraculously healed of my impairments, He'd have done so by now...I believe that God thinks I'm fine just as I am. That Me-With-Impairment exists for a reason that is at present unknown.

I don't think I need that sort of healing, don't request it, and will try to find a thousand graceful ways to decline the process if approached by fellow parishioners.

I *do* need spiritual, emotional and mental 'healing' on a number of fronts, and will pursue those through both the mechanism of the Church and present medical intervention.

If people believe they need a miracle so much that they make a pilgrimage to Lourdes, or elswhere, and their journey is rewarded...that's cool and amazing to me...but doesn't make me envy the healed. They are healed for a reason. I am not healed for a reason. It's all the same to me.

First the Prequel...

I've a professional education, and no longer work due to my impairments.


I'm the widow of a Protestant pastor, a hemophiliac expelled from his pastorate for nondisclosure of his HIV status....He felt called to the ministry, but I never did...and knew I'd be a woefuly inadequate Pastors Wife...sloppy, lousy at cooking and entertaining...

It broke his spirit and he lost his life to HIV disease six months later. (I did not contract HIV from him)

My perception at the time was that both that church and his home church, where he had been raised had specific expectations of how I should grieve and how my widowhood at 31 should proceed.

Some people fall from grace. I parachute jumped. Metaphorically slammed the door on faith, and went on to do my will for myself, which resulted in some serious sinning big and small (I'm beginning to understand Mortal vs Venial sins a bit better now...)

It is now 16 years later. My disabilities have made me less and less mobile as time has gone on.

My first reasons for seeking out a faith community were, I'm not ashamed to admit, completely pragmatic. Persons with disabilities need to discover pragmatism, else their lives are not as full, complex or interesting as they might turn out to be.

I am mostly homebound now, and realized I had to set up a social and support network for myself when it became clear to me that my roomate, my only caregiver at present....will within the next decade be unable to care for me.

One accessible church told me my faith wasn't strong enough, and that was why I remained disabled...didn't stay there long.

Wonderful downtown churches, only partially acessible, were places I spent time in but questioned some or all of their doctrine as suspect. I decry Protestant Fundamentalism, since intellect and learning is discouraged, particularly among women. but also question the "believe what you want to," at the other end of the theological spectrum.

The nearest Roman Catholic Church to my home is a modern, beautiful edifice with the main sanctuary, many of the classrooms and the parish hall completely accessible to someone with a manual wheelchair or electric scooter. That is where I am presently pursuing R.C.I.A...will make my first confession soon (Yikes for anyone that knows me. Just Yikes)...and hopefully be recieved into the church just after this year's Easter Vigil.

The first time I went to a service there, I thought...."How great is it, to give another human being the title of "Father," without having the word twist with ambivalence on my tongue, as it did when I thought of my biological father, flawed, addicted and long gone.

And before I'd even gone there, the witness of Pope John Paul II's papacy, his willingness to meet with youth and leaders of other faiths...and particularly the fortitude he displayed in his last days.... piqued my interest.

I've no 'roots' in the Catholic tradition, just two very good friends who seem to exemplify all that is good about practicing their faith.


So there was my beginning.

So, what is this place?

This place will be a journal of my journey to convert to the Roman Catholic Faith...
I'm still the same rough and willful person I was before this journey started....

And, I'll freely discuss the pragmatic reasons that drew me to the building in the first place...that led to a decision to embrace the faith inside more fully.

Thirdly and lastly this place will *never* degenerate into a place to point fingers, pronounce judgement... or tread the unsafe line of religious 'fervor' that can too often translate into a dangerous fanaticism.

In my prior traditions much was made of public confession, public destruction, private mockery and gossip about church members (from the perception of their very human fellow parishoners.

Not here. Not even about the parts of Catholic teaching that I wrestle with daily. No condemnation of those who see things differently.


For the first three months, no comments will be allowed...links yes, comments no.

It's my journal.