Thanks to all the great advice I received last week on Cathinfo...I am turning to you all again. I know saying this may make maaany people do this:
and this :smash-pc: and this :heretic: and this :shocked: .....but I was attending the N.O. as recently as three weeks ago, I believe. Unfortunately, I had (and have) very little, if any, trust in the priests....not to mention HUGE doubts about the sacraments and just terrible anxieties about even attending because it felt so, so wrong to me.
Last week I attended Holy Mass with Fr. Hewko. What a gift! After prayer and reading and listening to plenty of online sermons....I really feel as though satan was luring me under false obedience.....urging me to submit to something very ugly and vulgar and altogether opposed to the Kingdom of Christ.
As I have said plenty of times...I live with my parents, my brother, my pregnant sister-in-law, and their five young children. All N.O.ers.
I want to be a good example to all of them, especially the children.....but they are just seeing now that "their aunt is staying home from church".
I teach them Catechism sometimes and I try to just make sure that they adore the saints (which made me love tradition, Thanks be to God.)
Do you think..should I stand up for the True Catholic Faith vocally to them (although a girl, I do have courage and fight in me :dwarf:)...or should I do this quietly, and try to win them over by example (prayers, devotion to Our Lord and Our Blessed Mother, and also by loving hardship and sacrifice....though I'm working on that =). Please, if anything has been effective for any of you.....let me know!
God has opened my dad's eyes, somewhat, to the crisis in the Church....and he is the one who drove me 2.5 hours to go to Fr. Hewko's Mass (and said that he would definitely drive me again).
Now I must pray and wait until I am able to receive Our Lord again (torture!)
The last advice that I seek is what to do on Our Lord's Day...
Should I just read through the missal, pray the rosary, and make some prayers of spiritual communion? I just wonder what anyone else does. It could be weeks or months until I get to another Catholic Mass and I feel a lot of guilt for staying home, but I also know it will save my faith. Surely it is not helpful to my soul to attend a N.O. church and sit in contempt and despair for 1.5 hours. The only thing I love is staring at the crucifix and I can do that at home, without participating in a false mass.
I am so grateful for all advice.
in Jesus and Mary+