Church Is Still Attracting Converts

The Wanderer Press ^ | Paul Likoudis

[NYer]

When Protestant ministers encounter the fathers, they realize they were lied to and betrayed, because they were taught the Protestant Reformation cleansed Christianity of the barnacles on the Barque of Peter and the Reformers recovered ancient Christianity. Then they go back and read the apostolic fathers, especially Ignatius of Antioch who is preaching the Real Presence, the authority of bishops, and all these many Catholic things, and the conclusion is the words of Jesus, who says: ‘I will be with you always.’

You can watch The Journey Home, Monday night @8pm on the EWTN network. Or, you can listen to Real Audio files of previous guests here:

Journey Home

[NYer]

 "Most of these people have M.Div. and Ph.D. degrees, and so they are not employable in the world. It’s a difficult decision for these men to give up their work, their careers, and their livelihoods. Nevertheless, 94 this year have entered, or are on their way into, the Church."

  One former minister, Anderson recalled, gave up his role as a prominent, prestigious minister for his community to work as a greeter at WalMart. For him, the blessing of being able to receive the Eucharist more than compensated for what he had to give up.

Cradle catholics can truly strengthen their faith by listening to the witness of those who have struggled on their ..... journey home.

[Loyalist]

PING

[Salvation]

**Anderson hears from a Protestant minister every three days who has made the decision to become Catholic.**

That's nearly 130 a year!

[Salvation]

Abd the reason -----

**Most, he says, are drawn to the Church for two reasons. Either they have come to understand the dead end to which the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura leads, and they want to settle, in their own minds, the issue of authority in the Church; or they have been led to the Church by its doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and they want to receive Jesus.**

Alleluia!

[Hermann the Cherusker]

I converted from the Proestant heresy because a holy and humble priest who loved the Blessed Mother gave a wonderful talk I attended which explained why the Immaculate Conception had to occur. This ended all doubts for me.

I had been reading the Bible and praying for a year and a half to find the true Church, and my conscience kept nagging me right from the beginning, "Go become a Catholic - they are the only ones who still celebrate the Eucharist every day like the Apostles."

Once I realized the Immaculate Conception and all the rest were true, I knew that there had to be a simple explanation for my other difficulties understanding Purgatory, the Sacrifice of the Mass (I already believed in the Real Presence), Confession, and the Pope and Infallibility. This moment illustrates for me the operation of grace upon the Baptized soul - as soon as I was ready to assent to the truth of the faith infused in me at Baptism, the grace of understanding was given, and I was ready to immediately become a Catholic. I knew the difficulties I had could be resolved if only they were properly explained - i.e. I had faith in them prior to understanding them because the faith was given by God. I should say as an aside, I never had a problem with the Assumption - it seemed implict to me in the Episcopal Collect for August 15 which plainly states God has taken Mary to Himself.

I heard the talk on a Saturday in October, and after reading a Catholic Catechism over the weekend after the talk and also the book "Catholicism and Fundementalism", asked to convert the following Tuesday and immediately entered into instruction so that I could be received the following Easter.

Birth Control was a non-issue for me, as it stated in the article. I had been horrified of the concept ever since I learned of it at age nine, when my mom explained to me why I was only ever going to have one little brother. The infallibility of the Church was relieving - no more bother about endless debates on what Christ meant to teach us and just which Protestant mini-sect was right - just look to what the Magisterium said about it. The purpose of an open mind is to close upon the nourishing truth when found.

I didn't discover liturgical nonsense until I went home that summer, since my parish in Pittsburgh was the very soberly run Cathedral, and the neareast Church, two blocks away, was Holy Spirit Byzantine.

[PFKEY]

dead end to which the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura lead

I would not call the inspired word of God a dead end.

I will trust his wisdom over man's wisdom.

2Tim.3
[16] All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

1Cor.3
[19] For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.

[NYer]

I would not call the inspired word of God a dead end.

The word itself is not a dead end; the word alone is.

" What many Protestants are coming to understand, even at a time when many Catholics and non-Catholics lament the apparent breakdown of authority in the Church, Anderson explained, is that the Church’s authority "is set by God." In other words, "I am with you always, even unto the end of the world".

[8mmMauser]

OK, try this one on for size. It is a true one all right, because I am eyewitness. I am one of those real converts.

My wife is cradle Catholic. Hardly can one fine something more classic, she was raised in the Church during German occupation in France, went to Catholic school, steeped in the teachings. As the 1960's rolled along, she drifted away, or maybe the Church drifted away from her. Happened to most of her cohorts.

I was raised protestant, mostly Presbyterian, and thought it was ok, just not answering everything, sort of like Diet Coke. In the late '60's, my wife's cousins persuaded us to take a look at the new Catholic Church. (Guitar Mass and Joan Baez look-alike.) I was shocked out of my wits, wanted to get out of this hippie place. My wife was amazed, but more polite. We simply avoided this new "Church" for years afterwards.

A decade later, I searched for a more complete "Truth", praying and trying out and finding nothing fit. My wife tried going back to what used to be her Catholic Church and kept her chin up, but remained disturbed.

The more I searched and prayed, the more I kept coming back to the Catholic Faith as the true faith. To do so meant I had to swallow my bad impressions and continue to embrace the only thing I knew as the Catholic Church. By this time we were back in France and started attending a one thousand year old church with a fine old Catholic priest, Novus Ordo. I started seriously on the road to confirmation. To me the Church I saw was little different from my old Presbyterian Church and I battled inner feelings that it was pointless to convert. Convert from what to what? Finally, inwardly I was driven to find the Faith hidden in the Catholic Church somewhere.

Note:. My desire to convert was something the parish couldn't deal with! It was a shock to the Bishop! Nobody, I mean nobody, was trying to convert TO the Catholic Church, at least to the point of confirmation!! I wound up going to visit the Bishop along with the bunch of confirmation kids, to the amazement of all including myself. We all had great fun at this anomaly.

There, we met the Bishop. We could tell because he was the guy in the sweater with the cross around his neck. He took us to the "redecorated" Basilica of St. Pius X where the inside had been cleaned out of all its old stuff, much like a train station and folding chairs served whatever use the Basilica might have. Then he answered a question from a kid who wondered why the Church was different from the one his father had described. The Bishop explained: "Think of the Church as a snake shedding its skin. Your father has been clinging to the skin but now the snake emerges from the skin and your father is simply clinging to the old skin." Great analogy. I had never thought of the Church as being a serpent before!

We also visited the seminary. It was nearly empty. A young seminarian from our parish, a conservative one at that, talked to us, explained he was about all alone in his attempts to be true to the Faith. Other rooms sported posters of famous far left heros. Just a tiny handful in this huge and once highly influencial Diocese.

Still we persisted trying to fit all this with what we both thought the True Faith to be. At one point we could stand it no longer, and by wonderful chance, came upon the large almost underground community of the traditionals. As we got to know them, old lifelong Catholics, new vibrant large families with happy well-behaved kids, we realized the Faith they shared matched what I had been searching for decades and my wife simply recognized the Faith she knew as a child.

So there you have it. I have "come home" to the Faith. But there were no "droves" coming home in this classic Catholic crucible through the Novus Ordo, just me. I came home to the Faith with the modern version of the Church as a major obstacle to pass through. For seven years now, I have been "home".

Meanwhile horrified Novus Ordo folks bombarded us constantly with polemics. I would hear such discussions constantly on French tv as well. Seemed they all were a bunch of lawyers trying to justify, to find loopholes, to find obscure canon law to explain things. Happily in our new "home" it wasn't an issue. We just worshipped and appreciated the canonized Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

It has happened to me on this forum. Shucks, it is easy to out-lawyer me and bedazzle me with convolutions, with interpretations, or with even accusations. I have no great claim of expertise in nuances of theology. For that we turn to our priests. Luckily from my perspective, intelligence and knowledge of all the laws is not a prerequisite for being a good Catholic. Simple Faith is. The purest, most saintlike Catholic we know is a nearly illiterate simple old woman who wouldn't know beans about all the discussions, simply lives her Faith. She recognizes in in the traditional Catholic Church.

Other protestants have joined our bunch directly, coming straight in to the traditional Catholic Faith. Once there, none of these I know of nor the cradle Catholics are searching for any more elusive truths as we had once done. We know it when we see it. We know we are home.


Deo gratias

[NYer]

So there you have it. I have "come home" to the Faith.

Thank you for sharing your faith journey with us in this forum. You are not alone in your feelings of frustration with the contemporized church. Ultimately, the seed of faith, as you have discovered, is present in the catholic church. And, it is individuals, like you, who will foster the return of a more meaningful liturgy.

May God continue to bless you on your journey!

[MudPuppy]

see this article.

You should write one yourself someday!
God Bless!

[NYer]

I searched for a more complete "Truth", praying and trying out and finding nothing fit

Think you will enjoy this true story! This is the conversion story of Marty Barrack who has appeared as a guest on Journey Home.

From his web site, www.secondexodus.com ....

 

The Catholic Church alone has the complete deposit of faith. All other religious traditions have some part of Christ's deposit of faith.

Therefore, the story of a pilgrim journey from any other religious tradition to the Catholic faith is a completion story.

A transition to any non-Catholic religious tradition is a conversion.

"A Kosher Ham Finds Christ"

As Marty phrased it .....

"I told them that as a Catholic I was really a Jew who accepted Jesus Christ as the promised Messiah and that I accepted His Deposit of Faith as the completion of my Jewish heritage. I told my family that where the synagogue has a tabernacle with the written Word of God in it, the Church has a tabernacle with the Word of God made Flesh. Where the synagogue places a red candle above the tabernacle representing God's protecting pillar of fire, the church tabernacle has the same. Where the Jewish home has a yahrzeit candle to remember the dead, Catholics place memorial candles in the church. The Catholic priest continues, as the Messiah instructed, the final sacrifice that the ancient Jewish priests prefigured. "

[ultima ratio]

Thanks for this.

[ultima ratio]

The Journey Home is designed by Protestant converts specifically to attract Protestants. Why shouldn't it do so? The Church, under the modernist heresy, is becoming Protestant. There is scarcely a difference between the Novus Ordo and a Lutheran worship service. The wonder is that despite this there are so few converts.

[Japedo]

The Catholic Church alone has the complete deposit of faith. All other religious traditions have some part of Christ's deposit of faith.

NYer, I'm not sure why you pinged me to this "story" however, As I keep expressing and insisting, "I am Nothing at all "Christian"...
In saying that, I keep trying to explain to you that their is a Huge difference between "Faith" and "Truth".

[Land of the Irish]

Thanks, for you heart-warming story. With the state of the Catholic Church in America today, my father's statement, 30 years ago, holds true:

"Converts to the Catholic Faith make some of the staunchest and best defenders of the One, True Church."

[Possenti]

I used to agree with you.

I went to a (independent) Baptist church for years, and listened to the preacher's interpretation of scripture. Whenever I visited another Baptist church, I would sometimes hear certain scriptures interpreted much differently. I would read books by other protestants (Methodists, Lutherans, etc.) and they would have extremely different views on what those same scriptures meant.

After seeing all of this disagreement among many "experts", I finally realized that there has to be some true Authority that has the definitive meaning of scripture. The Catholic Church IS that Authority. I ask that you check it out.

[Salvation]

*8The Catholic Church IS that Authority. I ask that you check it out.**

BTTT!

[Salvation]

**Luckily from my perspective, intelligence and knowledge of all the laws is not a prerequisite for being a good Catholic. Simple Faith is.**

You have the secret! Welcome home!

What a touching story. You definitely persevered.

God bless you and your family!

[PFKEY]

I appreciate your advice. Thanks for taking the time to offer your experiences.

I was raised in the Catholic church, attended a Catholic school from kindergarden until the 8th grade, served as an alter boy. I have many devote Catholics in my family.

Having started out from a Catholic perspective my views are greatly different from yours. I see the Catholic church as one being full of mans doctrines.