The Mistake I’ve Been Making

There are lots of them, actually.

But the one that has become glaringly apparent to me just recently is this:  Here I have been praying and praying (and feeling guilty for not praying enough) for my husband to become Catholic.

I’ve been frustrated, wondered why he couldn’t see the so-very-obvious (to me and other Catholic converts) aspects of Truth and Authority.

And then someone mentioned a third thing: Grace. And then someone else mentioned a fourth: Desire.

I have known—and been aware that I have known—since even before we got married, that my husband is simply not as spiritually inclined as I am. He is happy to go to church on Sunday, as long as the church he is going to is familiar—the Lutheran church of his youth. (Even a Lutheran church that is not like the church of his youth is unacceptable to him.) He is willing to be minimally involved—help with kids’ Sunday school, attend an adult one, be a lectern (read the Scripture verses out loud to the congregation)—but only on Sunday, pretty much. I hate to say that he is a “Sunday Christian,” because that makes it sound like he’s a big jerk the rest of the week, which is just not true. However, “If the shoe fits…..”

Back in our college days, I was involved with a Christian group on campus. I had friends there, loved the weekly meetings. My husband (then my boyfriend), when I brought him along, hated them, and I made the mistake of dropping the group altogether because of that.

In spring of my junior year, I decided I wanted to spend the summer as a counselor at a kids’ Bible camp. My husband didn’t want me to go. He said he was afraid I would come back and say I’d “grown, spiritually.” Somehow, he thought that if I did this (“grow, spiritually”), it would be the end of our relationship. In the end, he got a job at the same camp. He hated it. I spent a lot of my free time soothing his ruffled feathers. I did not “grow, spiritually” that summer. Nor did I make any friends.

Water under the bridge.

The point I am trying to make is that I have been praying for the wrong thing. My novena to St. Jude (Patron Saint of Lost Causes) back in November—completely focused on the wrong thing.

How could I have missed this?

I need not be praying for my husband to become a Catholic. What I *ought* to be praying for is that his heart would be moved towards the Lord in the first place. I need to be praying for Grace. Without it, there is no hope for him to truly become the spiritual head of our household, let alone to open his heart to Truth or to consider the existence of an Authority within Christendom.

I would say I’ve been wasting my time, praying for his conversion to Catholicism. But I know that no prayer ever goes unwasted, even prayers that aren’t quite what they ought to be. However, I am grateful to the recent experiences that have pointed me in the direction of my need to pray for the right thing.

And even if it seems to make no difference, at least it will make very good sense.