It is almost like being a Traditional Catholic causes more doubts about the truth. I really have to not think about the internal disputes. I really am not wise enough to understand what is going on. But then when I close my mind that way, I say why not go to this church or that one......
Often I feel that in a way I am copping out by not going to Mass because after all, I say to myself, which Mass is valid? Its easy to get tempted.
It does drive people crazy...admit it.
It used to be that every time I came here I left in tears and was so distressed that my husband wanted to disconnect me from the ethernet.
Now I just say I am doing the best I can. If its not good enough let God be my Judge.
I have been reading history and I feel that the Traditionalists must make a clean break from the defaulted protestant conciliar church. All the independents and Tradionalist sects must come together. Like this is really ridiculous all this factious (?) infighting.
While s2srea's advice was the most practical, this post does a really good job of showing an example of what traditional Catholics really struggle with even when they do follow the advice of "stick to the spiritual life, etc".
The key is probably just to find a traditional priest, ordained by a traditional bishop just to silence any thoughts, and attend Mass there. As Darcy wrote, reading too much really does drive people insane. It's a fact. They get this and that view all jumbled up in their heads and they can't make sense of anything because it wasn't their place to investigate in the first place. (I've found it necessary to stop reading books related to the modern crisis because I don't really know enough about it to be reading that type of material and reading it just makes my mind spin. I'm not ashamed to say that I prefer to read Chinese poetry or Confucian and Taoist texts to things on the Crisis, since at least in the case of the former I don't get all confused and worried).
The internet does tend to magnify and at the same time keep these problems under control. It magnifies in that it allows us access to a vast wealth of information and dis-information, tending to inflate our pride of our perceived knowledge. At the same time, it keeps this pride under control because it offers us these forums as a place to go through our "phases" in a relatively harmless way. For example, aside from blushing with embarassment from behind my computer screen every time an old post of mine resurfaces, I can't say that expressing my views on CathInfo has really harmed me in anyway. To be honest, while reading my old posts is very embarassing, I think it does me good in away to help me remember to hold my tongue in the future.
On the other hand, the forums can be unhealthy, although not deadly, to the spiritual life. We can too easily become convinced of our progress in the spiritual life when we are always discuss lofty spiritual maxims and what not from behind our computers.
now Darcy, is it really necessary to totally "break from the Conciliar church" or whatever. I guess this depends on what you mean by that. Certainly we should avoid the ambiguity that issues forth from it, but nevertheless there remains a good deal of souls in that Conciliar church that are of good will who God has deigned not to enlighten with the traditional Faith. Why this is is a mystery because certainly there are some holier in the Conciliar church than those of us in tradition (at least this is true of myself). break from the institution, but not from the individuals.
I think we can learn a lot from the concept of
Wu-Wei, or "non-ado" as John Wu translates it.