Helping a Friend

I am having trouble accepting the action of a very good life-long friend. She just told me that she converted to Catholicism a few years ago. She was hiding it from me because she knew I would be upset, which I am! She said she was missing something from our religion, and is attending church services weekly. I don't want to discard our friendship, but I am bursting with anger!

While I appreciate the swirling emotions that you must be feeling right now I wonder why you should be angry. I would have thought that anger has no place in the way that you feel. What is there to be angry about? If your friend says that there was something missing from her Judaism then it is clear why she felt that she had to do what she did. It seems to indicate someone who has very little understanding of her own heritage and instead of investigating properly she has reached out to the wrong belief system instead. As opposed to being angry I think that you should look at your friend as being uneducated and unsure of her own identity. Instead of being angry why don't you suggest that she come with you a Gateways Retreat to get some first-hand experience and knowledge of what it is that she is turning her back on. If she "converted" to Catholicism that seems to indicate that she is a spiritual person - let her see the beauty and true spiritual dimensions of Judaism and then she can reevaluate how she feels about herself and her Nation.