I have Catholic converts in my background. My Lithuanian grandmother left the Catholic church to marry my Grandfather in 1928. It seems my grandfather's family still gave her a pretty rough time for being a Catholic, even though she no longer practiced after her marriage. It was always hard for me to see these sweet senior citizens (in their 60s and older once I got on the scene) as being cruel and teasing, although even in their older years they did have a certain twinkle and loved a good joke, even at someone else's expense. On the other hand, I remember my grandma as being a tad on the sensitive side as well, so maybe the combination of the two made for a lot of hard feelings on both sides of the line, with my grandfather smack dab in the middle.
My grandparents had two children, my mom and my uncle. About the time mama was a senior in high school, my grandmother decided that she wanted to go back to her Catholic faith. The story goes that a stream of visitors, aunts and uncles all siblings of my grandfather, made the trek down from upper Michigan to convince my Grandfather NOT to convert with her. I guess even my great-grandmother came down, but in the end she is remembered to say that she didn't really care where they went to church, as long as they went!
So on Sundays, my grandpa would drop my grandma off at mass, and then proceed to The Church of the Brethren for services. Eventually, my mother decided that she wanted to start going to mass too and my uncle followed suit. So the usual routine on Sunday Mornings was for my grandpa to drop his family off at Holy Redeemer Catholic Church, and the proceed on by himself to church alone.
My uncle and my mother took instructions in the Catholic faith by the pastor of Holy Redeemer church, something that I always thought was amazing, but I guess it was quite usual at the time for a priest to give individual instruction. They both became entered the church formally. Eventually, so did my grandpa and the family was united in one faith once more.
Now one of the criticisms of converted Catholics is that they are worse than reformed smokers! I think that means... they tend to be enthusiastic and that certainly was the case for my mother, uncle, and grandfather as well as my reverted grandmother. A new church was being built closer to their farm and my grandparents worked very hard in raising funds for the new church. Their names are on a memorial plaque there to this day! My grandpa was a welder, and he welded metal signs directing visitors to the church, the school, the rectory, the convent etc. My grandpa worked at the fish fry every Friday night. He ushered at the 7:30 a.m. Sunday Mass for at least 25 years or more! My mother and grandmother participated in the choir and played the organ. My mother eventually was playing organ for daily masses for something like $5.00 a week... Those were the days!
My uncle, because of a birth injury, was somewhat limited in ways he could participate. Nonetheless he was a regular mass goer, followed in his missle, prayed his rosary and participated in other aspects of the Pre-Vatican II church life.
And they loved their new life as Catholics. This entire family conversion happened in the late 40s. By the time I could remember such things, 20 years later, their love and enthusiasm for their faith was still evident to my child's eye. I suppose it might have been annoying to my grandfather's siblings, but to this day they see Catholics as people of faith and they have never made an anti-Catholic remark in front of me or my sister. They attended our weddings, and they came and worshipped at my grandfather's funeral in 1986, in a Catholic Church! So the enthusiasm of these newly converted Catholics bore fruit! Fruit of tolerance, fruit of love, fruit of good example for new children, fruit of service and probably more that I'm just not aware of.
When my mother went to college, she went to St. Mary's, the little sister college of the great Notre Dame. This was when both institutions really were bastions of the true faith. She learned Catholic devotions from the sisters, and she learned about church history and more about her Catholic Faith. To this day if I have a question about something that I can't find on line, in the catechism, or some other source, my mom usually knows the answer or at least where to start looking. The fruit of knowledge!
One of the other criticisms I have heard from online bloggers is that it is very arrogant of Catholic Converts to come into the church and then try to teach us old cradle Catholics about our faith!! My bemused reply to that is, thank goodness someone is!!
Here's an analogy. When Mr. Pete and I moved to our new town in Ohio, the names of the streets and towns intrigued us. There was Perkins Street, and Perkin's Mansion, Buchtel, Spicer, Cuyahoga Falls. We wondered about who these people were, what did Cuyahoga mean? Where were the falls in Cuyahoga Falls? So I would ask people that I worked with or met at church and most people just looked at me with a glazed over look. This was their town, most of them had lived here all of their lives, and none of them had a clue who Spicer was, or who was Buchtel? or what did Cuyahoga mean? So I bought a book on the history of my town, and I did some reading at the library. In time I became a font of knowledge on the history of this town and when I told my new friends what I had learned about their city they were very interested! Not one of them accused me of being arrogant or prideful. No one said, "How dare you move here and live for less than a year and presume to TELL ME about my town!!" Nope. They were interested and some of that caught on. My work partner in particular took her family to re-visit sites in town that she hadn't visited since childhood, because she just had come to take them for granted.
I think sometimes, in our Catholic Faith, it takes the enthusiasm of a newcomer to show us some of the treasures we have forgotten about, ignored, taken for granted, or simply not dusted off in a while. Yea, it's annoying but I think that annoyance should be directed at ourselves for not appreciating the richness of our faith all along!
The second gripe I hear from folks about Catholic Converts is that "they can't ever get what it is to be a cultural Catholic as well as a religious Catholic." Frankly, I think that's a plus. Too many Cradle Catholics in my opinion have mushed together some of the superstitions, family traditions, and outright misunderstands of their family or ethnic community into what Catholicism really is. What the convert brings to the table is a fresh look at what the church really is and what it really teaches, free from familial or cultural prejudices and disillusion. And why should a convert "get" what it means to be a cultural Catholic? If being a cultural Catholic includes error, painful memories and a distortion of church teaching who needs it anyway?
The last 15-20 years or so has seen a wealth of converts to the faith from all types of faith traditions! I think they have been a breath of fresh air and they certainly have strengthened my cradle Catholicism and made me thirst for what the church really teaches and the history and the theology behind it. And I think anything that makes one study, contemplate and re-examine their faith in a positive way is a good thing!
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