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Thank you for answering me so quickly. I'm going to double check on your answer about the Tridentine name, but it seems that you're right, if I remember correctly.

I am a witness to both the Truth, and the Truth's effect on young people. When I mentioned young people seeking out the Truth, I was speaking out of personal experience. I've seen the curiousity within my peers sparked on many different occasions, even within the "modernist" environment we worship in. I think a lot of this can be credited to one of both of two things: a strong faith background and/or upbringing; and/or a conversion experience in their life (whether it was a literal conversion from another faith to Catholicism or divine intervention in their life). One thing to remember is that the development of a individual's faith is a constant experience.

I'm one whose had both of the experiences mentioned above. My mother is a devout Catholic, whose mother studied at one time to be a nun, and was originally from Poland. My father is a naturalized American citizen originally from the Phillipines. So on both sides of my family, I have a strong culturally Catholic heritage. I grew up being taught the traditional prayers by my parents, and going to Mass every Sunday. I received twelve years of Catholic education, most of which was on a pretty traditionalist line. As I mentioned in pst #118, it was in grade school where I was immersed in the Lenten and other yearly traditions of my parish. I was also an altar boy from fourth grade until twelfth grade. I was also occasionally a lector.

Within this soil, my faith was planted. But it was sunlight and the cleansing waters of a conversion experience that sprouted my faith. I had a pretty rough junior year in high school. I was doing poorly academically and my relationship with my father was strained. My experiences that year made me feel like I had a really low self-worth. Even though I could never think or attempt of suicide, it felt like my life was pretty meaningless and worthless. But during Advent of that year, I went on an annual religious retreat that took place at a Norbertine abbey and retreat center. It was a definitely healing experience. I "rediscovered" God's Love for me. The whole experience helped me let go, and let God take things into His hands. However, it was only the first step of my journey.

In the meantime since then, like every almost every human being, I've done some very stupid and sinful things. Another thing that persisted even after the retreat was my mediocre prayer life. I didn't really talk to God, formally or informally, that much. Earlier this year, I discovered the Divine Mercy devotion. Now, I don't know what your opinion may be of the devotion itself, but the message itself is simple and completely consistant with our Catholic faith: our God is a merciful God, and that He desires that we ask for His mercy, that we be merciful towards others, and that we put our complete trust in Jesus. While I have gotten the part about asking God for mercy down pretty well, the other two I am still working on, and I will probably be working on them for the rest of my life. But my discovery of the Divine Mercy message and devotion has caused a slow but steady change in not only my prayer life, but in my heart. Now, I pray the Rosary and Divine Mercy chaplet almost every day and have tried to go to Daily Mass (when I get to bed early and haul my lazy bones out of bed in the morning).

I am trying harder to establish a better prayer life, and at the same time, trying to turn from my more sinful ways. It's been hard, butt as a saying that I heard goes, "They never said it would be easy, but it's going to be worth it." My spirituality has picked up many things along the way in my relatively short life (it's Salesian character in particular), but I am certain that God has a plan for me. All I have to do is to put my complete trust in Him. I can't do this alone. The prayers of my brother and sisters in Christ help me to stay the course on my journey. I ask all of you to pray for me, and to pray for each other, that God's mercy and healing/saving power be upon us and on the whole world.

(PS - As you may have picked up here and on another thread, I have a fascination with the Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church, in particular the Byzantine rites. This interest was sparked again recently by programs I viewed on EWTN -they actually aired a Ruthenian Divine Liturgy on the 8th I believe. I think I'm going to take a look into this tradition to see if it's for me.)
(PPS - For those who didn't read the thread, read the posts on the entire thread for the progression of the discussion, in particular the last several posts.)

<> Thanks for your great posts. It is heartening to hear from one such as yourself. In my little area of Florida, we have both the Maronites and the Ruthenians. I have been to both of their DL's in the past and while I am partial to the Maronites, I can understand your attraction to the Ruthenians.

For what it is worth, I thought about changing Rites, but concluded God wanted me to grow where he placed me - in the Latin Rite.

I did use to have fun pointing out to our Orthodox brethern the Ruthenianas used the Filioque - but that is a matter for another post:)<>

Don't be so hard on yourself. You're probably doing a better job in faith than you think.

Overall, I think BlackElk in post 130 makes some very good points about the laity needing to take the lead in restoring the Catholic culture. I doubt there is any sort of "silver bullet" that will restore the church to the 1950's - and frankly, there are many people who will resist that with every fiber of their being (I happen to live with a few).

I honestly believe that the biggest obstacle is the popular culture. Too many people are emursed in it. Black Elk describes a home atmosphere routinely labelled "anal-retentive" in the circles with which I have a lot of contact. I had a grade-school friend who's parents were that way and they were not appreciated by everybody else's parents. If my own family, it never would have worked. Now, in my own extended family, popular culture has more influence in lives than the church does - even among the people who regularly attend Mass. Everything has to be done the easy way. Well, the hard way usually yields better results.

Even without religious education a return to old-fashioned manners would be nice. In Catholic school we were required to have manners. For a variety of reasons, mostly academic, my parents DID put us all in public school for a time. There was no thought for anyone other than self among those kids. No manners. None whatsoever. The cliques were ruthless. Due to where we were at the time, most of them were Catholic, too.

IMO, after Mass and life in the home, education is a big part of Catholic life and honestly the schools are WAY too homogenious. Kids like me and my sibs in school either made straight A's with no homework or B's which stood for bored (which is why we went to public school for a time). High school was a little better, but when your best grades are in math and science, you get pushed in that direction, and many times, that's a disservice to the kid. At 18, I no idea I'd be on the opera audition circuit. Well, now I am and I'm playing catch-up educationally. If we're going to maintain schools, there's going to have to be a few accelerated ones and learning disabilities have to be addressed. Some of us didn't know we really couldn't read until we were 22 and and found out we have nasty visual perception disorders. The other thing that happens is that non-Catholics use the schools as cheap private schools, which just creates chaos. That's got to stop.

While it would be really nice to recreate this coccoon which we all had growing up, we all have to learn to live in the larger world, too. Once out of the coccoon, we have to be ready for bombardment and I don't care what anyone says about sticks and stones, words do hurt.

Bishop Hector Youssef Doueihi, the
Bishop of Eparchy of St. Maron of Brooklyn,
Maronite Rite -- a man of extraordinary brilliance and talent -- will be Father Mitch Pacwa's guest on EWTN Live on December 11th. Bishop Doueihi has been a family friend of ours for many years.

Interesting post and comments. (I only read about half of them, though.) I have thought this before and I am reminded again of it, so I am going to ask: Have you ever considered that you might have a vocation?