Help for an RCIA candidate
Please offer any suggestions you might have for this reader in the comments!
I came upon your blog e-mail today – quite timely. I would like some suggestions from my Catholic on-line friends. I have dismissal with our RCIA candidates this weekend. I have been “forewarned” that one of the gals wants to discuss Baptism. Background – she is in her early 30’s and has been raised a Jehovah Witness. She is very concerned about Baptism, or actually any other rite that calls for her to come forward in the sanctuary. In her church – to be called forward was an admonition. People “came forward” to repent and there was deep shame involved. If she does, indeed, continue toward entering the church she wants to be Baptized privately – which in my understanding is contrary to the reason for the sacrament – that, plus being washed clean of origial sin, Community, proclamaiton, etc…those are what I would like to stress. She is an injured lamb – hurt badly by her former association with church. Any suggestions on a way to gently bring her to an understanding about going in front of others in a good way?
Just stumbled across fructusventris.com, and hence your question.
I, too, was raised a Jehovah’s Witness, and I’m 32. My mother, very unlike any other Jehovah’s Witnesses I ever knew, never censored what I read or discouraged thinking for myself. I began to have a yearning for the Catholic faith when I was about 17. But because I didn’t want to alienate my mom, and was understandably afraid of the repercussions should anyone at the Kingdom Hall find out, I felt it better to suppress my interest. I came back to it years later, after my mother had died of cancer, and my return to the church of my upbringing afforded me a true — and very ugly — picture of the hypocrisy and heresy on which it is built. Thankfully, God brought me to his Church through my husband, who had not attended Mass in 15 years. He’s been reconciled, our marriage has been convalidated, and I’m starting RCIA this evening. (I attended most of the last RCIA, but came in a bit late due to my husband and I finishing up our Paramedic class.) I am LOVING my Catholic experience!
Perhaps the best thing your friend can do is speak with a Priest with whom she would be comfortable discussing the failed expectations and spiritual injuries she experienced as a Jehovah’s Witness. Perhaps the greatest impediment to her progress isn’t necessarily involving baptism. It’s that, according to the religion she was raised in, she would, through the act of baptism in any other church, become an apostate, condemned to eternal destruction. As a Jehovah’s Witness, you are taught to never question anything about the Watchtower organization, to never even indulge an interest in any other religion, and to never, ever leave, lest you suffer annihilation. It is a very brutal, unforgiving theology, and many who leave it do so quietly, and remain imprisioned by it, believing that God has no love for them. I went through this for more than a year after I’d left, unable to even pray for fear that God didn’t want to hear my voice. Leaving the Jehovah’s Witnesses takes courage, and it is a great leap of faith when you can allow yourself to explore issues of faith and spirituality independent of it. I know this comes late for you, but perhaps it will help should you ever have another RCIA candidate with this religious background (or should I say, ‘baggage’). I wish you and your RCIA candidates the very best, and may God bless you all! I am convinced that there is no richer spiritual experience that faithful Catholicism.