Jman: I am a cradle catholic. From a family of 9 siblings and mom catholic and dad converted. As a family, we did more family gatherings on my dads side and all were of different denominations. To make a long story short, I was not comfortable when staying overnight or such. Now one said night prayers, no one did the sign of the cross. My cousins did not dress with morality in mind, Our family was told that the other denominations can be saved as well. What I would have liked as a young person, would be for my parents to take me to the side and to have a talk of the difference of our religion and why ours is correct and how the others are ignorant and how we pray for them and how to defend our faith and for the hope of conversion, something my parents never did. That way our minds, as young as they are, do not form the wrong perceptions. Young people need these talks. One time I asked my mom a question of the faith, She was acting in shock and said, you need to just believe and don't question. I said, but if you can answer me, maybe my faith would be stronger. That shocked my mom. Now, the result of 9 kids is this, I am the only traditional, 5 left completly with adultery. One is N. O. and does not encourage even that and they suffer. Another is in N. O. and can't stand it or me because he got married by a minister along with my mom to her 2nd husband(1st died). Another refused to go to N. O. after her husband was found to be ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ giving her genital herpes. How very sad. So, my family has bee upset with me for at least 15 years and refuse to speak with me, except one. That is very sad. BUT if my parents knew the ways of the devil and the perceptions of protestants of catholics and such, maybe we as a family could have defended our faith. But because my mom decided to marry a man twiced divorced, out of the church the scandal was to big and I spoke up and I did too our children. I explained how dad and I are and will not change. That this man is not your step grand dad and pray for them, for they are excommunicated and why. I noticed on one of our trips home, that my mom was not signing herself from prayers at the table. I told our family off to the side, did you notice? Your grandma does not see herself, so, next time we are at the table, before she wants you to hold hands, do the sign of the cross and fold your hands and help to remind your grandmother of where she should be. And when we did, my mom and her 2nd husband became very quiet. My mom had to follow us in signing ourselves and folding hands. Something so simple and yet is was so very important. You do what you have to do. We just had my sister over and her husband and 3 children ages 25 to 30. of the N. O. and the dad has no religion. He remarked that our side of the family was not into playing cards much. Well, I said, in the 1600s it was very popular with the protestants and so catholic had more important things to do in their faith and hidden priests had to learn how to play cards and keep them in their pocket to keep their disguise. So, that sounds wait out there, but some how we too must have our side explained. and defended!
Topic: dealing with hostile family members (Read 3267 times)