u/Good_Albatross

TFW you travel from the UK to Milan to see Kneecap on your 25th birthday, and while you’re in Italy you have a life altering religious conversion to Catholicism

Sounds like a joke but I’m 100% serious. I was Protestant before, and now I’ve contacted my local parish to join the OCIA

May God bless us all, and I hope this post encourages you dirty fenians to get back to Mass tomorrow 😌

Hello

Back in 2022-2023 I was in an abusive relationship with a lapsed catholic turned new age spiritual man

He was really awful - any form of abuse you can think of, yes, including spiritual abuse

He told me he had put a curse on me and anybody who would ever love me again. And he would take their souls and my soul.

I’m trying to explore Catholicism and this is on my mind. I don’t know if it’s getting in the way of me exploring but I think it might be. Can a Priest help me with this?

I come from a pretty liberal Anglican tradition and scholarship which did a lot of queer and feminist readings of the Bible

Something we discussed a few times was the fact that it was possible a few of the Saints were gay men who gave themselves to Christ instead of the alternative. I know this likely sounds heretical, I’m not saying I agree with this now or even back then it was just a topic of discussion.

As priesthood demands celibacy, is it the case that many people who enter the priesthood are gay even today? Because I understand that the Church asks for celibacy from gay people, so the two could go hand in hand.

But I do also understand that being homosexual and not acting on it is not a sin. So would it be the case that celibate gay man would be rejected from the priesthood by the church?

I’ve tried to research this, but I can’t really find much online so I would be interested to hear from a priest

Hi everybody

I’m very new to exploring Catholicism. I’ve only been exploring the faith for about two weeks. I come from the Anglican Church

I went to my first Catholic bookshop yesterday which was amazing and there was a priest in the secondhand book section

I was buying a rosary for the first time and I wanted to ask him to bless it for me, but I didn’t know it would have been appropriate

I’m quite a naturally anxious person socially but walking with God helps me with that a lot. Would it have been okay to ask him?

EDIT: for context, he was just browsing

I went to my first ever Mass today 🥹

It was utterly beautiful, I cried three times and didn’t understand why nobody else was crying. Probably because most of them have been many times before, but I felt flooded with love and acceptance from God in a way I have never experienced in previous churches and I couldn’t stop! I’m not incredibly discerning and am a constant doubter, but I do believe it was the presence of the Holy Spirit welcoming me home.

God’s timing is the most beautiful, as the church I attended was the church of St Paul and St Peter, and I didn’t know that it was their feast day tomorrow. So the church was very well attended and it was easy enough for me to follow along with what everybody else was doing due to how busy it was. I am also taking this as a sign from God that this was the correct timing and home for me.

At some points I felt really anxious that people could tell “I didn’t belong there” (like when certain prayers were being recited) but my anxiety was soothed as quickly as it arrived. I really felt the presence of God grounding me the entire time.

My plan was to sit in the pew (as I knew I couldn’t accept the Eucharist) but the way everybody filtered to the front, it didn’t allow me to do this without causing a scene. So I went forward, my heart hammering and palms sweating, and I crossed my arms. The priest (I’m not sure if he was the priest or someone else honestly) then said “May the Lord Jesus Christ bless you, amen” - and I wasn’t sure how to respond. Does anyone know how to respond to a blessing please?

I couldn’t stop smiling when I sat back down. I felt different inside. I don’t know enough to really discern why but I felt settled, happier. I’ve felt like this for the rest of the day.

Anyway! Thank you for reading, if you got this far. And thank you to everybody who encouraged me on my last post, to attend Mass despite my anxiety. I feel utterly blessed and have prayed for God’s guidance going forward. May God bless you all 💕

I have never felt such a strong pull to conversion as I have in the past few weeks.

I’m a 25 year old (London-based), and I’ve had an… interesting life. I don’t want to overshare but with the benefit of hindsight, I have been on a perpetual search for meaning/purpose: joining a communist political organisation/cult in my first year of university, going on a Buddhist Vipassana retreat for ten days last year, volunteering in Kids ministry in the Church of England, attending Quaker Meetings for Worship, going to clubs/raving and finding alcohol and drugs, accepted abusive treatment in relationships just so I wasn’t alone, running for political office through the Labour Party… I could go on.

I’m English and our education is very Protestant lensed and what I was taught about Catholicism was that it was an extremist form of Christianity that is outdated and goes too far. I carried this with me, even when I started accepting Christ in to my life about 3 years ago. I struggle with faith and am a naturally sceptical person but my heart is with God, even if my brain tries to think me out of it constantly. I always justified my disdain for Catholicism through either a moral/political lens against the Church or theologically (it’s outdated, you worship the Pope, etc etc).

Over the Christmas break last year I met up with a friend of mine who converted to Quakerism four years ago. He wanted to know where I was at on my faith journey, and I told him I was tired of putting my faith, energy and money in to organisations and Churches that I felt misled by. So many people and groups have lied to me and taken my devotion to benefit them/their organisation and I felt jaded. I still accepted Christ, but I didn’t feel safe anywhere.

I told my friend that I just wanted truth, I was sick of being misled and I wanted a safe place for my faith and devotion to be held. I wanted answers. At this point last year, I was in such a low place with my faith I’d reconciled that I was never going to know truth in this life. This hurt me even more because I’ve never been baptised or Christened anywhere and I knew it was more likely I was going to Hell as a result.

I am dating a lapsed Catholic from a very devout Igbo Catholic family and the faith of his family members inspires me, even if his own is lacklustre. However, due to aforementioned factors, even now soon to be marrying in such a family - I never considered Catholicism “for me”.

This all changed recently on a trip back from Italy (not Rome), where I saw Catholicism practiced everywhere. One specific moment sticks to mind of a young man walking past a church where a wedding was happening and he made the sign of the cross as he went by. It was such a small moment but that level of faith and walking with Christ was something I’d never seen in the UK in everyday life. I couldn’t get it out of my head.

When I returned home, I told myself I just wanted to learn more about the Church. So I started watching YouTube videos (Father Mike Schmidt!!!), talking to Catholic friends, and now I’ve started the Bible in 365 Days podcast on the Ascension app. It feels like everything in my life has always been leading me here.

I struggle with prayer at home. I always have, I wasn’t raised Christian and I’m a compulsive thinker always doubting whether I’m doing it “correctly”, but for the first time ever I want to start. (If anybody has any tips that would be appreciated!) I truly want to open my heart fully to God and let His word and His guidance direct my life.

I should be going to my first ever Mass today and I’m scared! I’ve watch countless videos on “how to attend Mass” correctly to feel prepared, because I want to do it right as it feels like everything in me is being called home to the Church. I feel a rightness and a belonging that I’ve been chasing the shadow of for the longest time. I want to pray to God to ask for answers but I really don’t know how to pray properly privately at the moment.

In my research since my heart has been opened, I’ve deconstructed my former misconceptions of the Catholic Church and allowed myself to view it objectively. It truly is the Church that God established on earth and its universality and timelessness is astounding. I used to accept that my “natural place” was the Church of England because that was the cultural expression of my faith for where I’m from. This is kind of why I walked in to the CoE almost sleepwalkingly when I first became Christian. But now I understand the Catholic Church as the universal home for all Christians which of course has varying cultural expressions country to country, bur the truth of the heart of the Church is universal.

Anyway, all of that to say that I am considering enrolling on the OCIA. But I feel really scared to attend Mass for the first time and I am hoping more than anything for Gods guidance here. God bless all of you and this beautiful faith 💕

EDIT:
For those of you who converted, do you have any tips for attending Mass alone for the first time? What do I do to feel less afraid if I’m ill-practiced at private prayer?
And does anybody have any guidance or can point me to any tools on how to pray privately please?

My last desperate attempt to find anybody else going alone to the gig in the VIP area!!

I’m sure it’ll be fun alone but just on the off chance…

I think…
• Poppy was supposed to be his daughter
• Susan was supposed to come back
• Rogue was meant to become a love interest

Let me know your thoughts on my ideas 😃

I know I would absolutely smash being someone’s personal assistant

I just need someone to give me a chance

Ethical preferable pls

I bought tickets for Norwich, Plymouth and Torquay

I didn’t really think i kinda just acted on impulse

Btw I live in fucking London hahaha

Am I screwed?

Where can we see a live update of the charts?