Becoming Traditional Catholic Part II

JMJ

In my last post I discussed some of the differences between the Trad world and ... basically everything else.

But that wasn't really about 'becoming Traditional Catholic'.

For those who weren't 'born TCatholics' there seems to be a common thread.

Something happened the 'opened their eyes' to what happened or was happening. In some cases it was an intellectual realization, for others it was traumatic ... or a combination thereof.

Then there is suffering during the transition.

In the case of my family, the trauma started when one of my brothers started having an uneasy feeling about our new parish priest. He went back to our old parish and ... started asking questions.

Questions that upset the parish priest to the extent that my brother was featured (under a pseudonym) in a Sunday sermon.

My brother has that quality.

Eventually, he realized that there was something before the Novus Ordo Missae ... and found it.

This was the advent of major arguments in my otherwise quiet family.

In the end, my Dad sat down and read the Encyclopedia Britannica article on Luther and the reformation. When he finished reading the article, he looked up at my mother and said:

We've been tricked.

They had a meeting with our parish priest and the discussion culminated with them asking the priest a simple question. The priest gave the wrong answer. At that point we began Church hopping, while my brother went to the Tridentine Mass when it was offered (by Fr. Yves Normandin once every few weeks at that time ) we returned to our old parish with its very ultra-conservative priest (RIP).

Fr. Yves Normandin

My brother started to notice that there were vestiges of the Tridentine Mass hidden in plain sight throughout the Church. Candle sticks, statues, side altars etc.

Eventually, we switched to the Ukranian Rite (still Traditional at that time) and then a Sunday Tridentine Mass became available.

That was the rubicon moment.

We started to go 100% Tridentine.

This glosses over the arguments and sufferings that went along with our transition.

Not all of my family remained TCatholics, some reverted to being nTCatholics. Personally, my first day was less than stellar. However, my understanding of what was going on grew fairly quickly.

Achieving a good balanced perspective did take a number of years - but 2 years of education in St. Mary's Kansas did help!

So - what the lesson?

When the 'eye opening' moment occurs - it is a moment of grace. Seize it and profit from that moment.
Be ready for sufferings, but that is how we will merit the grace for others.

P^3

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