Posted on 03/18/2018 9:02:06 PM PDT by No One Special
This is the story of my life.
When I was growing up, there was this door (metaphorically speaking). The door was not locked; however, I was told never, ever to go through it.
I wasn’t told why, just that, “This door isn’t for people like us.” We were Jewish, and Jews were not allowed to open the door. Apparently, something bad would happen to me if I entered it. But I didn’t know what it was.
Certainly, my family didn’t want me to open that door. And my Jewish culture didn’t want me to as well. God, I thought, might even punish me if I did. So, being a dutiful and loyal child, I never considered going through the door. In time, I forgot all about it.
While I was growing up, my house was very dark, literally and metaphorically. My parents forbade me from ever opening the curtains and letting in light. They didn’t want the sun to bleach the carpets and the pretty furnishings. My parents loved the pretty furnishings, I think, more than they loved me.
It was dark in my household for other reasons as well. My parents worshipped at the altar of modernism, proudly displaying their monthly Playboy magazine on the coffee table. They loved traveling with their friends and raucous parties, often drinking to excess. I spent way too much time alone, accompanied by my TV friends, the Munsters, the Addams Family, and the Brady Bunch.
There were many other dark aspects of growing up at a certain time in history, the 60s, and in a liberal family and place: the schools were dangerous; drugs were an easy escape; boyfriends pushed me to do things way before I was ready. It wasn’t hard for them to get me to submit; I wasn’t very strong. Maybe it was because of being deprived of all of that light. I gave in to most of the dark forces and became pretty dark myself.
When I became a young woman, I changed. I stopped all of that bad behavior. I started searching for something, though I had no idea what it was. I dabbled in religion, the Eastern kind. I meditated and went on retreats with American teachers who gave themselves Indian-style names, such as Ram Dass. I started eating mostly vegetables, and doing strange postures, like standing on my head. But even though I pursued all kinds of stuff, I never, ever considered opening that door.
All I knew about the door was from my Jewish culture — and also through the society at large. I learned that the people behind the door were mean. They were very different than me. They imposed annoying holidays on the culture, especially Christmas, with its insipid music and ecologically unfriendly trees and lights.
I never spoke to those people behind the door, but apparently, they were somber and didn’t want anyone to have much fun. They believed strange things about a God who died and was resurrected. I never met one of these people, but I could tell I wouldn’t like them very much.
And then the strangest thing happened. A few years ago, when I was already well past my prime, I met one of them. And she wasn’t anything like I had thought. In fact, she was the opposite — joyous and sweet and kind. I assumed that she was an anomaly. And then I met another one, and he was as caring as the other person.
I became intrigued by the people behind the door; I wanted to learn more about them, understand their language. They had something that I needed, but I didn’t know what it was.
I bought their main book, The Bible, although I found it very confusing. The Old Testament, the New Testament, King James, New International Version . . . I had no idea how to decipher it, but many generous Christians helped me.
I immersed myself in reading as much as I could about these people, and listening online to innumerable sermons. It was immensely fascinating. I started thinking that maybe I should open the door and see what was behind it.
One day, I went to a church. But first I sat in my car in the parking lot, very frightened. I wondered if God would strike me down dead for doing something so forbidden. But I ventured inside and stayed for the whole service. When I returned to my car, I was ecstatic; I had survived!
It was a Catholic church, and very nice, but I didn’t know what was going on. So I went down the hall, so to speak, to one of the sister churches, an evangelical one. The service was easier to understand and more fun. The band played rock music; we put our hands up in the air and swayed and sang to the lyrics on the big screen. The church didn’t have any big crosses, but it did have air conditioning, upholstered pews, and very friendly and well-behaved people. I loved it all. In fact, I loved it so much that I decided to become one of them, which I did a few months later.
Everything was going great, and the depressed feelings that I had carried around with me my whole life dissolved. But after a few years, something was missing, something more reverent and holy. I didn’t know what it was. But one day — I realized later that it was the start of Advent — I began thinking that maybe I should go back down the hall to the other side, the Catholic one.
I went to Catholic churches a few times, and found out that it was a big, fat mess, so different than the evangelicals. Everyone seemed so confused. They were battling with each other over basic doctrine. They even argued with their leaders. Their babies hollered during the service; the pews were as hard as a rock; and not a single church had air conditioning. After a few months I had had enough, and was ready to return to the nice, obedient and comfortable evangelical world, although I would stay for one more Mass with the Catholics, on Easter.
And then the most amazing thing happened. I was sitting there during Mass, a bit irritated by the parishioners chit-chatting, when I felt something so strongly, that my body seized up. It was this Force of nature, something I had never experienced in my life, never anywhere, not even with the Protestants. I started sobbing. It was all too much. I flew out of the church and into the bathroom, crying and gasping for breath. I spoke to God right then and there, “What is going on? Is that You?” And I realized that Jesus was really there in the Eucharist, and that, as much as I wanted to, I wasn’t leaving the Catholics any time soon.
I also learned why the Catholics were in such disarray. They had been attacked by a myriad of enemy forces. They had even been betrayed by some of their own people, for example, professors who taught unsound, even heretical, doctrine. Even some of those really nice people down the hall in the Protestant world had gone after them.
People did this for a variety of reasons, such as lust and greed, since the Catholic Church is the moral compass of the world. Unsavory types wanted to make filthy movies and revolting pornography or get involved in the abortion industry. And many average citizens wanted to have guilt-free hook-ups. Much of the attack was orchestrated by the anti-Catholic news media, which triggered widespread confusion and division.
And there was a spiritual battle going on as well: because the Catholic Church is the most powerful force on earth for holiness and purity, it had amassed a lot of enemies. It dawned on me that if all of these forces focused their attacks on this Church, it must be for a reason; it must be the true Church of Jesus Christ.
Although I started realizing all of this, I still tried to leave several more times. It was too confusing and disorderly over there, and, although a lot of Catholics were kind and giving, I missed the super friendly and welcoming evangelicals.
And I was scared. I can be brave, I thought, but not that brave, and I didn’t want to be smack dab in the middle of both an earthly and a cosmic war. But every time I considered leaving, the same thing would happen: I would be sitting in the Catholic church, and be overcome by this Force more powerful than anything I had ever known before. It was as though Something was taking hold of me, cradling me in His arms, and He would not let me go.
One day, I realized that I couldn’t turn back. I had reached the point of no return. As scared as I was, I had to join them.
Now I am on track to be received into the Church soon. I am still nervous, but also over-the-moon happy. I feel as though I’m taking part in the greatest adventure of all time, one in which I will be accompanied by the Blessed Mother, the saints and martyrs, and Jesus, most of all Jesus.
During my journey into Christianity, I have at times suffered from great anxiety about not just entering that door, but embracing everything that is inside of it. I’ve worried: am I betraying my parents, my ancestors, my culture? Although my parents died many years ago, I, still the dutiful daughter, fear disappointing them.
And then the other night I had this dream:
I am walking in a dangerous and dark place, like a cavern. I am tripping as I walk and having trouble keeping my bearings. My father is standing next to me, looking strong and youthful. He helps me to walk; at times he even carries me.
I look in back of me for my mother. I am worried about whether she is okay. I see a beautiful, luminous woman standing close behind me. I think that she is the Virgin Mary.
And in back of her I see my mother, looking youthful and lovely. She joyfully waves at me. I happily wave back at her. I look ahead into the darkness, but now feeling relaxed and at ease. I know that everything is going to be alright.
________________
(Note to readers: This was written a few months before I became a very happy and grateful Catholic.)
And then the most amazing thing happened. I was sitting there during Mass, a bit irritated by the parishioners chit-chatting, when I felt something so strongly, that my body seized up. It was this Force of nature, something I had never experienced in my life, never anywhere, not even with the Protestants. I started sobbing. It was all too much. I flew out of the church and into the bathroom, crying and gasping for breath. I spoke to God right then and there, “What is going on? Is that You?” And I realized that Jesus was really there in the Eucharist, and that, as much as I wanted to, I wasn’t leaving the Catholics any time soon.
I also learned why the Catholics were in such disarray. They had been attacked by a myriad of enemy forces.
Which is a contradiction of the very thing you claim. Rather than the contrivance called the Catholic Eucharist - which metaphysical misconstruance is not what the NT manifestly believed in - being a miracle food, the overall fruit of this faith is largely either cultic devotion or liberalism.
And rather than the wafer christ satisfying and keeping seeking souls Catholic. the flow by far has been Catholics leaving Catholicism mainly due to spiritually deficiency and finding life in evangelical churches.
Which type of persons testify to being far more unified in basic essential beliefs and core values than the fruit of Rome, whom she manifestly considers members in life and in death. See here .
As a former RC who become manifestly born again while being a weekly mass-going RC, thru deep repentance and evangelical faith, and who remained a weekly mass-and holy day RC for 6 years afterward, even serving as a CCD teacher and lector for some time, before being clearly led into evangelical fellowship in quick response to devout prayer, I know the difference btwn dead institutionalized religion and living faith
And that Rome is the most manifest deformation of the NT church.
As far as your experience: "this Force more powerful than anything I had ever known before. It was as though Something was taking hold of me," that made you fly "out of the church and into the bathroom, crying and gasping for breath," I see that is a demonic imitation, too similar to what can be seen in occultism. Such as,
At another time, whilst sitting in meditation, there appeared before me a figure of Master K. H., bearing a child on His arm.... It was this love that was the central point in the experience. I have never before or since felt anything like it. It was overwhelming in its strength and virility, and at the same time in its softness and tenderness. It was mighty and holy and overflowingly full of life and reality and force. It was something beyond merely human capacity; mighty without violence, sweet without weakness; unique, and yet so natural.
Of course I cannot describe it, of course I cannot remember - or better, recall it. I remember that it was, but not how it was, as, in after years, one remembers that some excruciating pain was once suffered, but the pain itself does not emerge again from the past. All I know now is that, since that time, I can laugh at any ordinary talk about love, even the highest and holiest descriptions. All love that I have heard about, or read about, or have seen manifested, or have been able to feel myself, is as a pale shadow of that great Love radiating from that picture... (My Occult Experiences; by Johan van Manen, F. T. S
Despite its faults, I exhort you to find a balanced evangelical church in your area, and consider that Catholic distinctives are not what is manifest in the only wholly inspired record of what the NT church believed (including how they understood the gospels)
Really. I thought you did not simply believe it to be one of the world's great religions, but the greatest and uniquely the one true church, a provocative claim, yet to be reacted against with censure of those who dare expose her presumption.
It is one of the world’s great religions. I’m not here to convert people; obviously, you aren’t either if your nasty posts are anything to go by.
Romanism, a form of mass hysteria. The hypnotic effect may take a while, but it is psychical, and may lead to a disjunctural breakdown.
The Truth of Jesus is Really in the Holy Scriptures, He is the Personification of Them.
He is not "Really" in the wafer or grape juice.
Her next stage will be falling for new age meditation on self. If Charles Stanley’s son was not immune, she hasn’t a snowballs chance ...
The Truth of Jesus is Really in the Holy Scriptures, He is the Personification of Them.
He is not “Really” in the wafer or grape juice.
***
Being Lutheran, I have the chance to make everyone mad at me.
I am totally in agreement with the first statement and totally against the second one.
But Catholicism "Really" imagines it can define what "Real" "Really" can mean.
Sorry for your Lutheran error, passed down from the Doctor of Theology who just couldn't let go of many Catholic presumptions, like denominationalism, paedobaptism, (con)substantiation, and a priest/layman two-level polity. Although I will say I believe the sole fide approach can lead a seeker to spiritual regeneration, it is fairly clear that following Luther's dogma too closely will take one off into left field and away from home plate regarding progressive sanctification.
But thank you for your comment. I do not believe that at the point of institution of the Memorial Supper, the Jesus of Nazareth was chomping of His Own Body nor was He drinking of His Own Blood, despite what others may wish to superstitiously trust in. It was undoubtedly clear that the select disciple/apostles did not carry this impression away with them.
The wafer is just wafer, and the juice just juice which, when these elements have served their purpose of emblematically calling to mind Jesus' death, thence they have no longer any useful function except as being digested, extracting carbohydrates' calorific value, with the remains being eliminated as waste.
(Thinking of Romans 14 as describing the situation. Soul liberty, with later accountability figuring in the equation.)
The disciples I teach find from Scripture that the Word of God is spiritually nourishing, to be ingested, digested, and incorporated as applying to their growth in Christ.
"Neither have I gone back from the commandment of (H)is lips; I have esteemed the words of (H)is mouth more than my necessary food" (Job 23:12 AV; my capitalization of proper nouns).
"Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and (T)hy (W)ord was unto me as the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I an called by (T)hy (N)ame, O LORD God of the hosts" (Jeremiah 15:16 AV; my capitalization of proper nouns).
This spiritual food becomes a part of the God-possessed individual's spiritual constitution, is never-dying, incorruptible, eternal in nature, and never to be eliminated as waste.
Selah.
Thank you, LORD, for saving my soul;
Thank you, LORD, for making me whole.
Thank you, LORD, for giving to me,
Thy full salvation so rich and free!
And thank you, LORD, for your edifying Biblical doctrine.
If you are not out to convert people then you can hardly claim to have something that one needs to convert to, but are more leaving than coming in, contrary to the NT church.
While as for nasty posts, likening your Prot adversaries to being apes or descendants of the same, and telling people who do not love papal bulls to go back to the hellhole their ancestors came from, seems to qualify as nasty.
Well; so far you're battin' a thousand!
I used to follow you, Robin, on American Thinker, when you wrote articles there, hoping that the LORD would draw you nearer and nearer to Him!
Wow!
Great words of encouragement, BB!
You are VERY special, Robin of Berkeley. Remember your Christian friends as you watch the fog roll in over the GG Bridge at sunset . . .
"Will this be the day when He descends in a cloud to snatch us up to Him, away from this world, forever?"
I see you are keeping your amateur mindreading skills exercised.
But you seem to be a bit hesitant to write your diagnoses in stone.
How can you know that pink is “real” if you are blind to it?
Now now...
It's not nasty to be nasty if one is pointing out nastiness in others.
Yet not as a body "sensible, visible, tangible, or extended, although it is such in heaven," but under a "new mode of being,"(John A. Hardon, S.J., Doctrine of the Real Presence in the Encyclical "Mediator Dei") so that the Eucharist being "the true and proper and lifegiving flesh and blood of Jesus Christ," "the very body which he gave up for us on the cross," etc. does not mean the bread and wine are literally transformed into actual literal human flesh, thus "If you took the consecrated host to a laboratory it would be chemically shown to be bread, not human flesh." (Dwight Longenecker, "Explaining Transubstantiation")
For it is imagined that at the words by the priest of the “consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood,” thus becoming the “true Body of Christ and his true Blood,” (CCC 1376; 1381) having been “substantially changed into the true and proper and lifegiving flesh and blood of Jesus Christ our Lord,” being corporeally present whole and entire in His physical "reality.” (Mysterium Fidei, Encyclical of Pope Paul VI, 1965)
Thus for all their talk about actual partaking of Christ in person, hence literally, they do not literally consume the actual bloody flesh as manifest in the incarnation, which manifest physicality John emphasizes in contrast to a docetist or gnostic Christ who appears to be something he is not, as is the case with the wafer and wine christ, in contrast to the Christ of the incarnation, "which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; For the life was manifested, and we have seen " (1 John 1:1,2 ) And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one. (1 John 5:8)
While within Docetism and or Gnosticism it seems they had the belief that what Christ looked and behaved like, as manifestly being incarnated with a tangible real body of flesh and blood, was not real (Christ being a sort of phantom but looking human), in Catholicism you have the belief that (in transubstantiation) what Christ looks, feels, tastes and would test as (bread and wine), is not the reality (Christ's corporeal body and blood only looking like and otherwise materially evidencing themselves to be bread and wine). And conversely, that the bread and wine is no longer real but only looks, feels, tastes, etc. like the real thing. A Knights of Columbus article asserts (in its sophistry), "the Most Holy Eucharist not only looks like something it isn’t (that is, bread and wine), but also tastes, smells, feels, and in all ways appears to be what it isn’t." (The Holy Eucharist BY Bernard Mulcahy, O.P., p. 22) "Every theological explanation which seeks some understanding of this mystery, in order to be in accord with Catholic faith, must firmly maintain that in objective reality, independently of our mind, the bread and wine have ceased to exist after the consecration, so that the adorable body and blood of the Lord Jesus from that moment on are really before us under the sacramental species of bread and wine." - Pope John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 2003
Which hosts looks smells, and taste and would test as being bread and wine, yet which actually has ceased to actually exist at that point, being transubstantiated by the real body and blood of Christ, fully in both, even to subatomic particles ("the substance of the bread cannot remain after the consecration: "Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ Article 2 "On the altar are the body and blood of Christ; the bread and wine no longer exist but have been totally changed into the body and blood of the Saviour... - https://www.ewtn.com/library/Doctrine/EUCHCHNG.HTM), Until the non-existent host shows decay. (CCC 1377: "The Eucharistic presence of Christ begins at the moment of the consecration and endures as long as the Eucharistic species subsist." "...that is, until the Eucharist is digested, physically destroyed, or decays by some natural process." ibid, Mulcahy, p. 32) At which point it seems that neither the decaying bread or wine nor the body and blood of Christ really exist in that time and place. (Summa Theologiae, Question 77)
Which is the "literal" understanding of the Lord's supper. More by God's grace.
It is about The Lord's Supper and the best I've ever seen on the issues.
You people show up like herpes. You take interesting threads and dirty them up and expect people to come running to your religion.
You take interesting threads and dirty them up and expect people to come running to your religion.
Really? Take an interesting thread about a "Force of nature" driving her out of "of the church and into the bathroom, crying and gasping for breath" which is claimed to Christ who looks like a wafer, and affirms Catholicism, and i am the one who begins evangelizing?
As for "dirty them up" that is because it seems you view pure truth which refutes you as dirty, while those who love the wholly inspired Truth concur with it.
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