need help and advice

tonyheaney

I'm Irish and my wife is Chinese. our daughter is getting communed in June.

My wife's friends whoa re both Chinese are getting their 8 year old son christened in a few weeks so he can do his communion and as I am RC I will stand for him. But my wife comes to the meeting with myself and her friend and the nun is always asking my wife questions. and looking for answers.

what can my wife ask the nun to feel part of the group? what questions can she ask as she is interesting in learning about the easter vigil and the process of christening

solodeogloria

tonyheaney wrote: »

I'm Irish and my wife is Chinese. our daughter is getting communed in June.

My wife's friends whoa re both Chinese are getting their 8 year old son christened in a few weeks so he can do his communion and as I am RC I will stand for him. But my wife comes to the meeting with myself and her friend and the nun is always asking my wife questions. and looking for answers.

what can my wife ask the nun to feel part of the group? what questions can she ask as she is interesting in learning about the easter vigil and the process of christening

Good afternoon Tony and thanks for your post!

There isn't a whole lot of detail to work with in this post but I'll try my best.

Why is the nun asking your wife questions? (Don't worry if you can't answer this, I don't want to pry!)

Is your wife a Christian? This may be a concern because the church may expect that you and your wife are both Christians. At a baptism you will often have to make promises before God that you will raise your child as a Christian.

Maybe some of the Roman Catholic posters can help me out here (I'm an evangelical Protestant).

Much thanks in the Lord Jesus Christ,
solodeogloria

Manach

There are some good resources to assist in general knowledge of the Faith.

A friend who works in an outreach capacity has mentioned the Youcat booklet for general knowledge (http://www.youcat.org/home/). The "The Catholic Church"by the journalist John L. Allen is a neutral-positive interpretation. For general news within Ireland, I'd recommend the Irish Catholic newspaper whilst the Catholic Herald is more international in its coverage.

tonyheaney

solodeogloria wrote: »

Good afternoon Tony and thanks for your post!

There isn't a whole lot of detail to work with in this post but I'll try my best.

Why is the nun asking your wife questions? (Don't worry if you can't answer this, I don't want to pry!)

Is your wife a Christian? This may be a concern because the church may expect that you and your wife are both Christians. At a baptism you will often have to make promises before God that you will raise your child as a Christian.

Maybe some of the Roman Catholic posters can help me out here (I'm an evangelical Protestant).

Much thanks in the Lord Jesus Christ,
solodeogloria

Hi solodeogloria

Why is the nun asking your wife questions? (Don't worry if you can't answer this, I don't want to pry!)

My wife has no religion and the nun seemed to think it was her that wanted to have our children christened. She went so far as to tell us perhaps we should choose another religion, or if we insisted on continuing with the christening, to start up our own group. which was very odd. Odder still thing was when her eyes popped out when I said my kids were already baptised (in the church we were standing in), That I was RC and that it wasn't "this Chinese" person (my wife) but the 2 sets of Chinese parents and the 5 sets of Chinese kids between them. I was shocked when she suggested that it may not be possible for them to become Christian or RC.


I persisted and won out as I have accepted to be all 5 children's Godfather.

we have weekly meetings with the nun who sits with the 3 families mine included and we discuss the role of becoming RC but for some reason she put the questions to my wife instead of the two mums. The two mums husband are not at the meets as they have businesses to run.

Is your wife a Christian? This may be a concern because the church may expect that you and your wife are both Christians. At a baptism you will often have to make promises before God that you will raise your child as a Christian.

No, my wife is not religious but I was brought up as a roman catholic, both my children were baptised together 2 years ago.

tonyheaney

what i am really looking for are some open ended questions my wife can ask the nun so that she can better engage with her

Mrs OBumble

Does your wife has better English than the other mothers? It may be that the nun is just asking your wife to translate, so getting the other mothers to be part of the conversation would be a good idea.

Some questions she could ask are:

"what does the fire at the Easter Vigil mean?"

"what else happens at the Easter Vigil?"

"what does it mean when someone is baptised?"

"How can I help my children to learn about Jesus?

In short, anything the nun talks about, ask questions about "why" or "what does it mean".



If you can work Jesus into the conversation, it may help the nun to be re-assured that the children are being baptised because they want to be, rather than because the want the money that Irish children get as presents for making theircommunion.

georgieporgy

If your wife is interested in understanding the whole question of faith /religion a really good book, clear and easy to read with good solid content is "The Faith Explained " by Leo Trese.
She will end up teaching the nun.