Hello!

[Michael Wilson]

Pray the Rosary every day and don't stop reading something about your faith every day; whether it is the Catechism; Sacred Scripture; the lives of the saints etc.

[Lynne]

This forum's posts are a great resource, for example, Good Reading List To Learn Traditional Theology: https://www.suscipedomine.com/forum/index.php?topic=3526.0

[Christe Eleison]

Someone asked about my journey to traditional Catholicism.

Frankly, one of the draws for me was the liturgy.  It felt honest, sincere, reverent.  Even at that Episcopal church they at least were reverent.  The rock-n-roll type churches (especially AOG ones) never had that reverence.  And the more I dug into things, the more reverent--perhaps one might say somber--the liturgy, the more I feel God's presence.  And nothing expresses that more to me than the traditional settings, such as music, language, prayers, etc.  I find the EF the most compelling .

Unfortunately, I live in a part of Idaho that is hundreds of miles away from any EF masses.  I've been to one when traveling, and loved it, but there are no options here.  We were fortunate to have a young priest, right out of seminary, that was very traditionally minded.  He brought back Ember days, focused heavily in Advent on the penitential nature, used incense, more traditional music, even sprinkling a little Latin into the OF.  Sadly, he was transferred just about 18mo after that, and we are back to the standard secular priest.

As for my journey, I'm trying to figure out how to make my life with the Church more traditional despite the lack of resources here.  I do have a small shrine to the Holy Family , but it tends to get forgotten far more than it should.  And my work schedule doesn't let me get involved during the week with those like minded folk, nearly all of which are retired or homemakers and have time during the day.  It is a struggle and is a desire of mine, and prayers for an increase in faith and hope are appreciated. 

Dear Suudy,
Once again, WELCOME to the forum! Congratulations on finding Tradition!

Pray for your Bishop! I believe that he has allowed, approved the FSSP (Fraternity of Saint Peter) to continue in North Idaho, without a problem. He has also approved of
a Tridentine Mass in the lower part of the State, not sure where. I always think it
is amazing that the entire state is just one Diocese. So pray that your Bishop
will allow more Tridentine Masses in other parts of the state.

If you were able to move one day to the Northern part of the state, that would be a huge Blessing. They have the FSSP with several Masses on Sundays & they have daily Masses as well. The SSPX (Society of Saint Pius X) is also in the Post Falls area. There is a Carmelite convent & a ton of other smaller options in Washington State, a short drive away from the Coeur D'Alene, Port Falls area.
You know that you have a lot of faithful Catholics in a state, when it produces a lot of VOCATIONS, like Idaho has! Praise be to God!

Since your busy during the week, how about hosting in your home on Saturdays,
(even if it is just once a month) a get together, be it a pot luck meal, or provide a cake, cookies, plus something to drink. And it can be a gathering to pray the Holy Rosary, it can be discuss a Saint, maybe the Saint of the month. Maybe select a Catholic book to be discussed at this gathering after everyone has had the chance to read it. A Book Club of sorts. But it is a CATHOLIC book club!
If it is too much for you to host this monthly, you can have a rotation amongst the different participants.

You do NOT have to be an EXPERT in the Faith to do this. This is for fellowship,
prayer & to deepen/grow in the Faith.
I bet that there are more people interested in this, but they have been too
shy to do anything about it. Do not be shy about this!
Once this grows, you have made friends with like minded people, maybe you can
speak with your Bishop, explaining that North Idaho is way too far for you to
drive to & you do not have anything else in the area.
But remember, when you get this prayer group, Bible study group going, pray for
your Bishop to have change of heart & mind!

You are fortunate to live a great RED, conservative state, where people tend
to be polite, where people still WELCOME you with a homemade cake upon
your arrival to the neighborhood, an old fashioned state for the most part (lets forget
about Boise  ) Now, you MUST pray to get the TRIDENTINE Mass in your area,
or pray that you are able to move to North Idaho!
Read the Bible daily, pray the Holy Rosary, pray the Angelus at 6:00AM, Noon, 6:00PM
May God Bless & sustain you!
You have my prayers!  

[Christe Eleison]

The Angelus Prayer

V. The Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary.
R. And she conceived of the Holy Spirit.

Hail Mary, full of grace,
The Lord is with Thee;
Blessed art thou among women,
And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
Pray for us sinners,
Now and at the hour of our death. Amen

V. Behold the handmaid of the Lord.
R. Be it done to me according to thy word.

Hail Mary. . .

V. And the Word was made flesh.
R. And dwelt among us.

Hail Mary. . .

V. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God.
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Let us pray: Pour forth, we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy grace into our hearts, that we to whom the Incarnation of Christ Thy Son was made known by the message of an angel, may by His Passion and Cross be brought to the glory of His Resurrection. Through the same Christ Our Lord.

Amen.


Ideally this should be done at 6:00AM, Noon, 6:00PM
Read the Bible daily, pray the Holy Rosary, pray the Angelus.

Read the lives of the Saints, I really like the books by Mary Fabyan Windeatt,
I love them all, but mostly Saint Dominic, Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, The Miraculous Medal, The Cure of Ars, Saint Louis de Montfort, Saint Hyacinth of Poland,
Saint Catherine of Sienna, Saint Benedict, etc.
What I like about her books is that they can be read by people of all ages.

The link that LYNNE provided above is an excellent source.

In addition please try to follow the advice Mr MICHAEL WILSON, posted above as well!

God Bless you!

[Christe Eleison]

Bernadette & Lynne posted about this in another part of the forum:

TAN books is having an ebook sale this month. All ebooks $5
Hope that this helps you!

God Bless!

[Melkor]

Hello and welcome!

[The Curt Jester]

Greetings!  Glad to have you here at SD.  I too was on CAF before any of the trad forums, but not for long.  I found that many people there were actually hostile to Catholicism.  I got banned for saying the SSPX were not in schism and posting sources for my reasoning.  So far so good on SD!

[Frank]

Pray the Rosary every day and don't stop reading something about your faith every day; whether it is the Catechism; Sacred Scripture; the lives of the saints etc.

Excellent advice.
"If you say the rosary you are on the team" to slightly mis-quote Marshall.

[sleepybluebird]

...So I bought this book called _Handbook of Denominations in the United States_. I wanted to find churches that had the liturgy. I found the Lutherans, Orthodox, and Catholic church. Of course the Catholic church was right off the list, you know, the whole "Whore of Babylon" and all that. So I started reading a lot about the Lutheran and Orthodox churches. I even started going to the local LCMS. But as +Newman said, "To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant." It started to dawn on me that the Catholic church isn't quite what I thought it was.

So, I joined the LCMS confirmation classes in parallel with RCIA at the local parish. The LCMS classes were going ok until we reached a point about discussion of the saints. I had read enough and asked the pastor (Yep! The pastor himself taught the class!) about if we'd pick a confirmation saint (as I had read about the Catholics doing). He replied that the saints were a nice piece of feel good imagery to remind and call us to holiness, but picking a saint's name wasn't necessary since they had no influence on us. This kicked off a discussion about prayers for the dead, asking the dead to pray for us, etc. None of the answers were satisfying, as I felt that certainly God would not cut us off from those that had come before us. This started me down the path of denying LCMS.

My baptism and confirmation were through the LCMS, and I remember that sense of smugness they had about the saints and basically anything remotely Catholic.  The LCMS pastors are well-read but they deny their congregations the full history of all of our shared faith.  So that quote is really accurate, and the more you see what's been kept from you, the more you want and need it.  In college, we had to read the book "Here I Stand," and throughout it I kept thinking "why Luther, did you have to go so far; if you could only see what happened in later years, would you have made the same decisions?"
It's awesome you have been Catholic for so long! In a couple of years, you will have your 20th anniversary!
Hopefully you can find a Latin Mass somewhere there; without finding a traditional church, as well as covid shutdowns making churches post their Masses online, I would probably still be on the fence about converting.

[GiftOfGod]

The Book of Common Prayer is filled with beautifully written prayers.

You shouldn't read or use prayers from that book. The author wrote that book with the intent of destroying the Catholic Church in England. Treat it as you would prayer book written by Martin Luther. For more information on this, read Cranmer's Godly Order by Michael Davies.

While you're at it, discard John Paul II's Catechism of the Catholic Church, forget everything RCIA taught you, and enroll yourself in a traditional Catholic catechism class.