Is finding Catholic friends really that hard?
Hey there SSPX folks,
Just sending out a "howdie" to my fellow SSPX folk who took the courage and time to join this site and try it out. If it worked for you, by all means, please share. I'd like to know.
This current state of the Church is - mildly put - "inconvenient" for a Traditional Catholic who is just trying to follow what Holy Mother Church has always taught through the centuries, and at the same time finding friends with common ground. I'm talking about both religious and secular common ground.
You have people out there who have been Traditional Catholic all their life and lived a life that fostered a Catholic environment. And then comes school. Or for some that did home schooling, then comes college. What do you do with that, right? You get to use your social skills - or LEARN social skills - and finally find people that understand you and like to hang out with you. You all thrive in that common area. But then there's religion. So you do your part in "restoring all things in Christ" and answer moral/ethical/religious questions the best way you know how. In the process, you lose a few friends along the way but then there are the ones that stick with you in the name of "modern ecuminism" (though they won't outright say it) and everyone will get along as long as we don't discuss the R-word.
And then you have the Traditional Catholics that came on board later. Maybe they came when they were adults or at least in their teens. They've been in the world for a little longer than the homeschooler, but they also want to live a life that is pleasing to Our Lord and Our Lady. But many-a-time they feel like an outsider in the parish because they can't really relate with their homeschooled counter-parts. There's a bit of small talk after Mass, but it doesn't really amount to much. They, too, have "secular" friends but their connection only extends to where religion only begins.
To both, praying grace before meals is almost a "show" infront of friends, going out is definitely a time to keep your guard to anything that is an occasion of sin, and the depth of conversations only reach the level of natural level.
And then there's dating. In the end, you find yourself dating someone in your circle of friends. If your social time is 85% with non-Catholics and 15% with Catholics, chances are, you're going to be telling your loved one about how Catholicism is THAT important to you and you can't bring yourself to have premaritial relations. The relationship is rather bitter-sweet.
What to do, what to do? Is it that hard to find Traditional Catholics? Till next time......
- I think that you make alot of good points, Seattlite. The very existence of these websites proves that it's hard to meet traditional Catholics this day and age. Think of the popularity of singles websites for seculars like Match.com and E-harmony and all those other ones, we live in a fragmented society. Even for secular people, it's hard for many people to find others to date and socialize with. For a faithful Catholic, it's even more difficult. It would be nice if we were in the Pre-Vatican II days when Catholics were much more on the same wavelength, and it were easier to find good Catholic friends and dating partners in your parish or town. There's probably only a handful of traditional Catholics in my whole city of 100,000 people. Like you said, there's the issue of finding traditonal Catholics, and finding people you enjoy talking too and spending time with, and melding the two. It makes life much harder, but I figure that that's the cross we bear, and that we must bear it courageously and practice patience and even heroic virtue in seeking our future spouses and even closest friends.
- It really is difficult talking with people who think that everyone goes to Heaven when they die, except for mass murders. It seems like anything goes in this day and age and people just don't care. A lot of people find movies like "the Da Vinci Code" or "Doubt" to be wonderful. What insults to Jesus, his mother and the church. And a lot of working environments are bad too. People cheat on their spouses, have 3 or 4 children with 3 or 4 different partners, hop into bed with those that they aren't married to, get married and divorced and remarried several times (like it's normal and a marriage is over, because the government says so), drink all of the time and use drugs. People like that assume that everyone else is the same. And what really bothers me most about the changes in the church is the way that Holy Communion is passed around in hand, like popcorn. I never talk about priests, because Our Lord said that we shouldn't and we should pray for a priest if we feel that he is wrong. What bothers me is what is being taught and carried on to people. There has got to be some kind of Divine intervention soon. Things have gone on long enough. I really hope that the SSPX grows even larger and Tradition comes back very soon.
Yes, sometimes it is very difficult to deal with people, especially those of this world. God bless our youth. It really is hard out there.
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