Patty Bonds (former Baptist and sister of Dr. James White) to appear on The Journey Home - May 7

EWTN ^ | May 7, 2007 | Marcus Grodi

[NYer]

---

Patty Patrick Bonds Conversion

I was born and raised a Baptist. As a Baptist I enjoyed a close, intimate walk with God. I read His Word and I obeyed Him and He was everything to me. I was willing to follow Him anywhere and serve Him in any capacity. I never dreamed He would lead me far from my upbringing and to a place I would have never chosen to go.

I believed that any Catholic who had genuine faith in Christ and respected the Bible as the Word of God would follow Christ out of the Catholic Church. I honestly believed there were only a few misled Christians in the Catholic Church.

One day I came across the writings of St. Patrick of Ireland. I was looking for historical evidence of his existence, but never dreamed I would discover God’s will for my life. What I found in the writings of St. Patrick was evidence of deep devotion to Christ and a spiritual intimacy with Christ that I knew right away was true Christianity. He was my brother. Yet he was also a Catholic Bishop. This birthed in me a desire to understand Church history and when and where the Catholic Church had gone wrong (since my assumption from childhood was that the Catholic Church was apostate).

(See the Catholic Encyclopedia article on St. Patrick of Ireland )

For the next several months I read the writings of those men who had learned the Christian faith from the very mouth of Christ and the Apostles. I began to familiarize myself with the culture and time of the Apostles and realized that Christianity in its earliest days was not Bible centered (indeed most of the NT was not written yet and later was not available for the masses) but Tradition centered. I learned that when the early Christians went to Church their services were not sermon centered but centered around the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, which was not seen as a symbol but as the actual Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. It was guarded and protected as such. Not a crumb was to be lost nor a drop spilt. I was shocked to find that the early Church did not even resemble my own Baptist church.

This led to many more months of earnest study of the Catholic faith. What I discovered is that everything I had been taught about the Catholic Church as a Baptist had been erroneous. Every objection that I had been engrained with since childhood was a falsehood about the Catholic Church and was easily refuted by an honest look at Church history.

By coming to an understanding of the time and culture and beliefs of the Early Church, my Bible began to read very differently. I realized that no document, even the inspired Word of God, can interpret itself. No one comes to Scripture without a grid through which they interpret it. My grid had always been very Protestant and very anti-sacramental. But after investigating the Early Church, I could clearly see that the Bible was a Catholic book; written by Catholics, for Catholics, canonized by the Bishops of the Catholic Church and preserved for Catholics for millennia to come.

I also discovered that I was one of many Christians devoted to Christ and willing to follow Him anywhere even at great personal loss that were reversing the mistakes of the Reformation and flocking back home to the One Church Christ established on this earth. I discovered through a series of books called, Surprised by Truth, that I was one of many that were headed home to Rome. (My story has been included in the third edition if you would like to learn more).

May God grant you the openness to see Him in His Holy Roman Catholic Church.

[vladimir998]

You wrote: “The “plain words” of Jesus Christ were...
“Do this in remembrance of me.” No wizardly incantation, no magical elevation in height, transmogrifies the bread and wine into the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ.”

The word is “anamnesis”. It is poorly translated as “remembrance”. Like so many other words, anamnesis, means much more than what it is translated as.

Here is a good point about anamnesis: “In Scripture, the only other time when anamnesis is used, besides the Last Supper narratives in the synoptic Gospels and in First Corinthians, is in the sacrificial context of Hebrews 10:3 :
“But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance (anamnesis) again made of sins every year.””

http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/a78.htm

[Dr. Eckleburg]

is in the sacrificial context of Hebrews 10:3: "But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance (anamnesis) again made of sins every year."

Keep reading Hebrews 10 and you will discover what the writer of Hebrews is telling us...

"But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;

From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.

For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." -- Hebrews 10:12-14

"One sacrifice" for the sins of His people, not a perpetual mass of offering, over and over and over as if the first one had not taken effect.

You have been redeemed, Vlad. Rejoice. The offering was accepted by God. You have been acquitted of your sins by Christ standing in your place and taking on the punishment for every one of them.

[Howdy there]

Famous Homosexual Italian Author Returned to the Church Before Dying of AIDS

Now there's a keeper.......

[marshmallow]

I just said the Bible does interpret itself. Men compare Scripture with Scripture and thus learn God's meaning. God gave us ears to hear and quickened minds to understand in order to rightly discern His word. Some will get it right, by the grace of God, and some won't.

So that's all that Jesus Christ left us in the Scriptures? A riddle? A mystery to be solved by some and misunderstood by others?

Sorry. My Redeemer is far more provident and caring than that. He left us an authoritative guardian in the form of His Church, whose teaching on the true meaning of Scripture is there for any who wish to avail themsleves of it. He didn't just say "go figure".

And if the Catholic Church isn't right, then who is? You? Benny Hinn? Ken Copeland? The Methodists? The black dude in the storefront down the mall? I don't know of anybody who thinks their understanding of Scripture is incorrect. Everyone believes that their own meaning is the true one.

History has shown us clearly over the past 400 years that your recipe for understanding Scripture simply leads to a confused proliferation of customized churches. Clearly , the Bible doesn't interpret itself. That is utter nonsense.

Jesus Christ is not a God of confusion. He didn't create a dozen, two dozen or two thousand Churches. He created one. God is one and there is one Church based on one truth.

[adiaireton8]

and forget every word these men wrote was supposed to be founded on Scritpure

Ironically, that itself is not found in Scripture. That contradiction should concern you deeply.

-A8

[Salvation]

You mean that you never accept prayers from anyone?? Or that you never ask anyone to pray for you??

You just read scripture??

[Salvation]

There are Holy Scpripture references in thos Early Fathers threads also. Too bad you didn’t check it out.

[Campion]

perpetual mass of offering, over and over and over as if the first one had not taken effect.

You don't "get it" at all.

It is not "as if the first one had not taken effect".

It is the first one, made present to us in our time. When a Catholic goes to Mass, it is literally equivalent to being transported back in time to Calvary, because Calvary is eternally present in eternity, and so are we.

(The same is true of the Orthodox Divine Liturgy.)

And if you understood Hebrews 9 and 10, you'd see that. And if you read the fathers, you'd see that they believe it too.

[Campion]

Which of them heard anything from the very mouth of Christ???

Did you hear Christ, when he said to the men he commissioned, "Who hears you, hears me"? (Luke 10:16)

[vladimir998]

You wrote: “Keep reading Hebrews 10 and you will discover what the writer of Hebrews is telling us...”

And that’s the same sacrifice WE’RE talking about. What is presented on the altar at Mass IS THE SAME SACRIFICE as on Golgotha. It’s not a new sacrifice. It’s the same sacrifice.

“”One sacrifice” for the sins of His people, not a perpetual mass of offering, over and over and over as if the first one had not taken effect.”

One sacrifice offered up again just as the Bible said it would be: Malachi 1:11. “For from the rising of the sun even to the going down, my name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and
there is offered to my name a clean oblation: for my name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts.”

“You have been redeemed, Vlad. Rejoice. The offering was accepted by God. You have been acquitted of your sins by Christ standing in your place and taking on the punishment for every one of them.”

I know. That’s EXACTLY why I believe in Christ and His Eucharist.

I noticed how you completely ignored anamnesis. You didn’t know about that did you?

[Uncle Chip]

Did you hear Christ, when he said to the men he commissioned, "Who hears you, hears me"? (Luke 10:16)

But that was said to the Apostles who He commissioned, and those who would go on to write scripture. And she says she didn't get her new faith from any of them.

[HarleyD]

typical response, the ‘lack of intellect’ of the convert

Today there is more emphasis on "feelings", "traditions" and "emotions", than on good, objective study. Saying one has become a Catholic because the Church is based on "tradition" is kind of a silly reason in my mind.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for sharing your insights and thank you for the excellent Scripture choices!

We ought to meditate on Jesus' Name, i.e. Word of God

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life. - John 6:63

But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. - Matt 4:4

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. - John 1:1

And he [was] clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. - Revelation 19:13

[Terriergal]

Why would you think any of this surprises him?