Thanks, NYer, for this interesting post. It was interesting to read about how someone innocent, without an agenda, viewed her various experiences with many types of Christians. A child just soaks up impressions.
Her instincts told her something was wrong; she was looking for bedrock that didn’t change (just as God does not change). She finally found it— but it was sad to read that so many threw obstacles in her way. How many Christians feel the tug to the Church and fight it because they’ve been taught that the Church is evil? It reminded me of how the Apostles, who did believe in Christ, tried to keep the little children from getting closer to Him.
That’s how I see other Christians who work overtime trying to discredit Christ’s own beloved Church: they are believers but they are preventing God’s children from having a truly close relationship with Christ. They are keeping those children from touching Christ, and having Him touch them, through the Eucharist. They are obstacles, holding the innocent back from Christ because they think they know best what that relationship should be like.
Christ said no. He wanted to touch the children physically and hold them close. All signs in the Gospels point to Christ’s habit of using the tangible physical elements of this world to reach us. He could have created out of thin air, but He used the homely things of this world to help us SEE. He touched, He healed, He used mud and spit, He laid hands, He raised, He used bread and fish and wine. The Eucharist is just another, and the greatest, tangible way to touch us and hold us close. And the most amazing gift of all is that He set the tangible embrace on Earth for all eternity by instituting the Holy Eucharist. We consume Him and love for Him consumes us.
It’s no accident that His first and last miracles involved a banquet with wine. One was a wedding banquet where He chose to publicly enter into a New Covenant with us; the other was a Passover banquet where He sealed the New Covenant and gave us eternal, continual salvation in complete unity with Him.
Catholicism is the most beautiful, unified, whole fabric, incredible religion there is. (But, of course; look who started the Church!)
....That’s how I see other Christians who work overtime trying to discredit Christ’s own beloved Church: they are believers but they are preventing God’s children from having a truly close relationship with Christ. They are keeping those children from touching Christ, and having Him touch them, through the Eucharist. They are obstacles, holding the innocent back from Christ because they think they know best what that relationship should be like.
And thank you, Melian, for pinging just me to your post and the thread. It's clear that someone has an agenda, otherwise they would have labelled Denice Bossert as a former Wesleyan Methodist too, instead of just a former Presbyterian. Your convert showed great theological depth in commenting that (all) Wesleyans kneel in prayer, talk often about holiness and sanctification, and attend camp (revival) meetings in the summer - and (all) Presbyterians don't. It's very interesting that her Wesleyan pastor father only baptised adults in a river, instead of infants at a font. It's even more interesting that he never taught his congregation, let alone his own daughter, the Lord’s Prayer or the Apostle’s Creed until he became a Presbyterian.
Nope, no agenda here. Presbyterians bad, Catholics good, Wesleyans get a complete pass and a poorly educated girl gets 15 minutes of fame on cable TV for saying so. Move along, citizens.