Mar 18, 2023 09:56AM threetree wrote:

"Catholic - ish" here. I'm from a "mixed-marriage". My father was raised a Catholic (Irish Catholic heritage), was an alter boy, etc., but said that the horrors of war he witnessed first hand during WW2 and the Korean War caused him to take some serious pause. He never went to church during my lifetime unless it was a funeral or something. My mother was raised an Episcopalian (old Maryland English/Scottish heritage) and took us to the Episcopal church when we were young. We were never baptized anything. She was an off and on church goer, and stopped around the time I was in jr. high, then never went again until she was in her 60's. Then she got real regular again until she died. When I was married my husband (who was raised an Episcopalian) and I took our kids to the Episcopal church for a while, basically with the idea that they should be "exposed" with the idea that they could then make up their own minds in due time. We also let them go to any church with any of their friends when invited, again with the idea of "exposure" so they could decide for themselves.

Anyway, the point of my post here has to do with the metal/plastic rosary thing. I had never thought about this sort of thing, until my recent bone scan and the tech asked me to take anything metal out of my pockets, etc. Well, I told him I did have a couple of "good luck charms" in my pocket that were metal, and that I hated to have to put them in my purse. Interesting and coincidentally, he had been born in Belfast and was of Irish descent also. I told him that one of my charms was a shamrock (the other is a "non-denominational" guardian angel). He said it was all something his mother had been into also, but that he didn't put much credence in it all, and that he thought I would be totally fine. Well it really wasn't all that big a deal to me, but I had never thought about how those scans would all go for someone who wanted to have a rosary with them. I can see where that would be a real issue, and what a wonderful idea to use a child's plastic one. Maybe I'll find myself a plastic shamrock and/or guardian angel that I can keep in my pockets while I get scanned (smile).

I'm actually all over the map religion wise and can go from being an outright atheist one hour, to an agnostic, to a believer at the switch of a button depending on what I'm thinking, reading, or experiencing at any given time. Sometimes I think I might be a bit of a pantheist. What I really am drawn to are the commonalities that are in the bare bones and nuts and bolts of almost all religions, e.g. "do unto others". Even "secular humanists" and bona fide atheists seem to agree with the rudimentary basics.

Mar 18, 2023 02:20PM tld2017 wrote:

ElaineTherese, thanks for your prayers, so grateful for that! Yes, it seemed the harder I tried to breathe calmly, the more nervous I got and literally had to specifically pray for help controlling it! And yet here I am at this moment perfectly capable of breathing normally, but not so much in that MRI machine yesterday! :) I got through it...eventually! :)

Mar 19, 2023 07:26PM threetree wrote:

Hi Wendy - Yes, the Episcopal Church, "Catholic Lite", and/or as you heard it, "the thinking man's denomination". I am so glad to hear that you found what works for you, and that the Catholic Church gives you so much of what you need. I work in social services and I can't believe how many clients and others I've run into over the years who were engaged in self-harming behaviors, but then found themselves with church. Especially people with alcohol problems. I knew one gentleman who'd been in that situation and he told me, "All you need is AA and the Bible!". I've heard many others echo that sentiment too; including an extended family member who is a very devout conservative Catholic (always from a very devout and conservative Catholic family; not a convert). I totally agree with you about the ritual. I love the ritual and both the Episcopal and Catholic Churches have a lot that is wonderful. When my husband and I were going to church and taking our kids for their "exposure", we went to the local Episcopal Cathedral that had a fairly "high church" service. Holidays had fabulous organ, brass, and choir with lots of incense and everything else that goes along with that. I just loved it. During those same years, I loved watching the Christmas Eve service from the Vatican on TV every year. We would put our kids to bed and then get out all their Christmas stuff and put it under the tree for the next morning, then my husband would go off to bed, and I would just sit out in our living room by myself with the tree lights on, a little glass of port, and that Christmas Eve service from the Vatican on TV. I'd just be in my own private little heaven there at those times.

All that said, and for all my love of the music, ritual, tradition, art, etc., I cannot just accept things on "blind faith"; "faith alone". I am a natural skeptic and have never been able to "give myself" fully to any church or religious belief, although I find religion fascinating in an academic sense. I also enjoy reading the "Atheist" thread on this site too, and as with this one, I can totally understand where the people who post are coming from. I can totally understand and appreciate how so many find religion so very helpful, especially at a time like this with cancer, and on the other hand, I can totally understand the people who say they are flat out atheists and cannot see how there could be such a thing as a loving God, if all this suffering is going on with people. I can personally fluctuate between these two extremes at any given hour of any given day, depending on what I'm thinking, reading, and hearing out there in the world. There are times when I really wish I was a bona fide "true believer" and could have the faith that some do, because like you, so many who are unquestioning believers do seem to get so much comfort and have like you said, the support of all your church friends and associates. I would love to have that too, but I just can't get to that sort of place with myself and don't think I ever will. My old childhood "bestie" who lives in another state now is dealing with stage 4 lung cancer, and she told me that she now considers herself an absolute "believer". Like me, she grew up without really going to church very much, and didn't on her own as an adult. Her family background was actually Pentecostal (very different from mine), and her mother's father was a Pentecostal minister. He and his wife had been missionaries somewhere in Asia if I remember, but churchgoing never really stuck with their children and grandchildren, although they always maintained a respect. Now with her cancer, my friend is back in "church mode" and I think she said that she was going to an Episcopal Church these days.

Mar 20, 2023 08:00PM redemptivesufferer wrote:

Great discussion here! I'm a convert who sought truth and found it in the Catholic Church. Not all Christian "flavors" and religions - or even non-religions - can all be simultaneously true. They can all contain elements of truth, but can't all be true at their core. When I understood the meaning and significance of Christ giving Peter the Keys to the Kingdom, based on Old Testament scripture, that was it for me. I think of all the martyrs who died for their faith ... I want that kind of enduring faith. Not a convenient one. Not an "it suits me" one. But one that serves as an anchor during all of life's journey, because it's true and worth dying for.

God bless everyone here!

Mar 21, 2023 11:20AM threetree wrote:

MCBaker - I found your comments very interesting. Years ago I became very fascinated with St. Ignatius and the Jesuits. At that time, I actually related a lot of St. Ignatius' meditations to what I was reading about Buddhism. It was one of those "universal commonality" sort of areas that I find fascinating about religion.

Also, your comment about being raised Catholic, but in a traditionally Mormon area. I read a book many years ago called, "Four British Folkways in America" by David Hackett Fischer. I'm a bit of a genealogy nut and it was on a list of recommended books I came across in my genealogy research. He had a basic theory that there were 4 main religious groups that came here from England and settled in various parts of the country: Puritans from East Anglia to New England, Quakers from north central England to the Delaware Valley, Anglicans to old Maryland and Virginia, and now I can't remember the 4th. His claim was that all of those related cultural and religious traditions basically remained in, and colored, the respective regions for centuries. An example is my father's Irish Catholic family from Northeast Pennsylvania (originally settled by Quakers). That family was part of an Irish immigrant community and everything was "heavily Catholic" by their standards. Well, my father relayed a story to me once about a time when he was about 6 and he and his father went to visit cousins in Philadelphia. They stopped in Wannamaker's (old dept store) to get a gift for the young girl cousin they would be visiting. My father said that as a boy, he only thought of getting things like trucks for other children, but his father said, no this was for a girl and that girls liked things like dolls, so they went to the "dolls of the world" display at the store, where there were many dolls all dressed up in different costume. My father saw one that looked like a nun, and told his father, "We are Catholics, so we should get her the nun doll." He said his father then said, "Oh, no, no no. We just 'think' we're Catholics, but we are really Quakers, because they originally settled here and what we see, do, and believe is heavily influenced by that." I think my father said they got her the Quaker doll. My father's version of Catholicism was always very "played down", "plain" and he never went for all the high ritual, expensive church trappings type stuff, and he was always dismayed and disgruntled by Catholics who were "showy", etc. I really wonder if that wasn't because Catholicism in Northeastern PA was strongly influenced by the original Quaker culture and values. (To top it off, his mother's family were from a long line of New England Puritans with similar values, so I think his upbringing was very much influenced by all that.)

I live in the Puget Sound area and Seattle was originally ("officially") founded by the Denny family from Boston. They were of old Puritan stock and came here with a party of others who were also descended from Massachusetts Puritans. Decades (over a century) later, I grew up in this area with all sorts of "Sunday Blue Laws", "banned in Boston" type laws on the records, and only during my lifetime did some of those laws begin to change. Again, the prevailing culture and values for a very long time, was that of the original Puritan founders.

Since Mormons originally settled your area, it is no surprise to me at all that the Catholicism in that region also reflected some of those cultural values. I would imagine it's something like that in Catholic communities all over the world. It would be hard to pinpoint just what a "real" Catholic community might be like, because they are all so influenced by every other group around them.

Sorry this was so long, and maybe rambling, but your post really got me to thinking about a lot of things. Did getting cancer have anything to do with your shift from, "If I'm good, God will be good to me", to the focus on a heavenly reward? Just curious as to what moved you in the different direction. Thanks!