"I never pray for myself, I only pray for others." "I never ask God for anything for me."

I have had a number of both Protestants and Catholics make statements like that to me.  These days I usually gently suggest to them that may indicate a potential problem they may have with their heavenly Father.

Comments like that remind me of Peter when Jesus is preparing to wash the disciples' feet in John 13.  Peter in his pride and fear says to Jesus, 6b "Lord, do you wash my feet?” ⁷ Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not know now, but afterward you will understand.” ⁸ Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part in me.”  RSVCE

Or of the older brother is the story of the prodigal son, Jesus is actually answering the Pharisees and the scribes by telling a series of parables of which this story is one.  The prodigals are the tax collectors and sinners whom the Pharisees and the scribes despise.  And the Pharisees and the scribes are the older brother.

The story is really about 2 lost sons, one who wandered away into a life of rebellious living and who squandered his inheritance but finally came to his senses.  And the other older son who lived in close proximity to his father but never really knew his father or his father's heart and who probably never asked his generous father for anything but rather worked hard at being "good".  In other words, the older brother never entered into a real relationship with his father.  For if he had, he probably would have passed his father running down the road to welcome his "lost" brother and joined in the welcome home party with rejoicing.

You see if we don't ask God for anything, we are failing to see our need for what only He can supply for us.  We aren't letting Him into our hearts where He can begin addressing our fears, our wounds and our sin and changing us into the likeness of His Son.  We only open up to people we trust so if we are not open with God, it means that we do not trust Him and are keeping at a distance.  Instead we are trying to wash the outside of our cups while rotting within.

We need to pray for others but we also need to pray for ourselves.  As Jesus said in Luke 11,
^9 "And I tell you, Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. ¹⁰ For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. ¹¹ What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; ¹² or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? ¹³ If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” RSVCE

Meditations while standing in the line to go to confession.

There are two sacraments of healing in the Catholic Church.  The sacrament of penance and reconciliation (commonly known as confession) and the sacrament of the anointing of the sick.  I was going to confess my sins to the priest and receive absolution for them.  I had been doing an examination of conscience for a few days prior to going to confession but the Lord brought another area to confess to mind while I was in line so I jotted it down on my phone's notepad with the other items on there.

Standing in line with me were my fellow penitents, men and women ranging in age from their teens to their 80s at least.  Some were kneeling and praying in the pews while they were either preparing for confession or after confessing their sins.  I think they may need to extend the confession time which is one hour on Saturdays from 3:30 pm to 4:30 pm but the priests usually hear confessions until 4:50 pm, ten minutes before Saturday evening Mass starts.  The line seems to be getting longer.

The priest is there "in persona Christi", in the person of Christ, listening, responding and absolving on behalf of Jesus in accordance with Matthew 9:1-8 and John 20:19-23.  And the priest's ability and authority to do so isn't based on their worthiness and they go to confession also.  The bishops and the pope do too.

As I stood there I felt a solidarity with my fellow penitents and I felt a quiet delight to be in their company, I was in a community of fellow sinners in need of forgiveness of and healing from the sin in our lives.  And I reflected that people outside Christianity and many on the inside don't understand this facet of being a Christian.  We are sinners in recovery which is a life-long process.  And the Church is a hospital for sinners that Jesus established and it is staffed by sinners in various stages of recovery.

Many people believe that if we profess to be Christians, we are professing to be holy.  Any holiness we have comes from Jesus and He obtained it for us on our behalf.  He is in the process of healing us and making us one with Him.  So we are not hypocrites, if we confess to be sinners in need of healing and go to the source of mercy, Jesus.  We are walking in the light allowing God to reveal our sin so we can confess it and be cleansed and healed.

I am finding confession keeps my heart soft and helps me withstand temptations to sin.  It helps me combat the pride and judgmental attitudes in my heart and mind.  It helps make God's mercy and forgiveness "real" to me.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me, the sinner.  The Jesus Prayer

1 Timothy 1:15  "This saying is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Of these I am the foremost." The Apostle Paul.  NABRE

Purgatory - The final purification for all who die in God’s grace and friendship, but are still imperfectly purified.

A friend asked me about purgatory Friday so I directed her to the online Catechism starting in paragraph 1030 with these instructions on using the online Catechism.

Here is the link to the online Catechism of the Catholic Church. If you enter 1030 in the search box, it will take you right to the section on Purgatory which begins at paragraph 1030. The Catechism is extensively cross-referenced and linked so if you click on the little numbers at the end of the sentences, it will show references to other church writings and Scripture passages that touch on the contents of each sentence. The larger numbers in parentheses at the end of each paragraph will take you to related paragraphs within the Catechism.
http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catechism/catechism-of-the-catholic-church/epub/index.cfm#

I also told her that I would write some of my thoughts on purgatory in my blog.  So here goes. 

The thing I have been finding about the Catholic teachings is that they kind of get down to the brass tacks, rubber meets the road, where are you really at with God sorts of questions.  And purgatory is one of those teachings.

As a Protestant, I believed that when I died that God would take me wherever I was at and instantaneously complete the job of my conversion on the way to heaven so when I appeared before God I would be like Jesus in holiness.  At least that is the impression I got.  Bing!  Instant holiness.  He would override my remaining unholy desires and besides I would be covered by the righteousness of Christ through faith.  Well, Jesus did pay so I could have a restored relationship with God and approach Him through the righteousness of Jesus by faith in time of need.  That is very true.  But to be in heaven before God in the final state, one still has to be actually holy, pure.  Our will has to be wholly in line with His.  We have to be one with Him.  And we have to choose that.  We can't be like Lot's wife looking wistfully back as we are entering heaven.

As the Catechism puts it in Paragraph 1030, "All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven."

So purgatory is kind of God's finishing school in holiness for those of us who still have some unholy attachments to the things of this world.  Martyrs usually go straight to heaven because they chose heaven over their life in this world.

So I am okay with purgatory if I need some of that to get to heaven.  God is the one doing the purifying and I trust Him.  There are Scriptures such as 1 Corinthians 3:11-15 and 1 Peter 1:7 that touch on it.

And actually the purgation process has already begun on us in this life, in case you haven't noticed.

And the Catholic Church also teaches that we can help the souls in purgatory with prayers and such.  It is part of the communion of the saints, the all for one and one for all, the no one left behind solidarity.

Why did I become a Catholic? I noticed that they took a lot of the passages I didn't understand literally.

Once I took these passages literally then they made sense and it also validated the Catholic teachings.

One example I have already mentioned is that Mary, the Mother of Jesus, is also the Mother of all Christians and is Queen in heaven as the mother of the King of Kings, standing on the moon with a crown of 12 stars.  Revelation 12:1 and 17.

Another example is baptism (I am still working on my posts for that topic).  I laid some of the Scriptures and some of the Catechism out in my two posts on that topic so far.

Another example that I will be writing about is the Eucharist or communion.  It is how Jesus gives us His flesh and blood to eat in order to give us life in a literal fulfillment of what He said in John 6.  He lost most of his followers as well as ticking off the religious authorities with that message.  So much so, that He even asked the Twelve, "Are you going to leave me also?"  Peter replied, "Lord, to whom shall we go, you have the words of eternal life."  There have been many times in my life as a believer when I was at a crossroads because of some hard lesson from Jesus when that question has come up.  And then I remember Peter's reply and say it to Jesus and choose His path.

You will notice Jesus didn't back down and soften His message in John 6.  He didn't say, "Hey, come back, folks.  That was just for dramatic emphasis, I didn't really mean it.  I was just talking in "spiritual" terms."

Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life.  He is the ultimate reality.

 

Why did I become a Catholic? Adopting a view on baptism vs believing in my baptism Part 2

We left off last time with my realizing what great desires and aspirations my parents and my grandfather had for me as they had me baptized as an infant and what it meant to them as Presbyterians.  They wanted me to become part of the Body of Christ, His Church, and they wanted to place me under God's care, protection and guidance.  Indeed that is what most Christian parents desire for their precious children.  So much so that even most Christian groups that have done away with infant baptism have replaced it with dry baby dedication rites where the parents publicly present their children to the Lord in church and promise to bring their children up in the Lord.  It is instinctive.

So let's start with some Scripture.  I will be using the New American Bible Revised Edition which is available online.  http://www.usccb.org/bible/ezekiel/36  But you can look them up using other translations that you like

First there is Ezekiel 36:24-28 in one of the Old Testament restoration of Israel/New Covenant passages where God indicates that He is going to change His people from the inside out.  Notice verse 25 which is one of the steps God will take.

24 I will take you away from among the nations, gather you from all the lands, and bring you back to your own soil. 25 I will sprinkle clean water over you to make you clean; from all your impurities and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put my spirit within you so that you walk in my statutes, observe my ordinances, and keep them.  28 You will live in the land I gave to your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God.

Okay, now let's take a look at the Baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist.

Luke says the following about John the Baptist's baptism in chapter 3 of his gospel.

1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the desert. 3 He went throughout [the] whole region of the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,

Matthew records the response in chapter 3 of his gospel.

5 At that time Jerusalem, all Judea, and the whole region around the Jordan were going out to him 6 and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins.

Then Matthew records the baptism of Jesus in detail in the same chapter. 

13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. 14 John tried to prevent him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you are coming to me?” 15Jesus said to him in reply, “Allow it now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he allowed him. 16 After Jesus was baptized, he came up from the water and behold, the heavens were opened [for him], and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove [and] coming upon him. 17And a voice came from the heavens, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

I am letting you look at some things here in preparation for what is to follow.  Be patient.  And as we go through these passages and teachings, remember that God is merciful and that He takes into account what we know and what we don't know and because Jesus became one of us He understands us and what it is like to be one of us.  There is more to come and I will write as quickly as I can as time allows.  So prayerfully consider these Scriptures. There are more Scriptures to look at and then I will present what the Catholic Church believes happens at our baptisms.

Here are some more.

From Matthew 28.

18 Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.  And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”

And when Peter finished preaching his message at Pentecost, look at this exchange between Peter and his audience in Acts 2.

37 Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and they asked Peter and the other apostles, “What are we to do, my brothers?” 38 Peter [said] to them, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is made to you and to your children and to all those far off, whomever the Lord our God will call.”


So, in brief, here is what our baptism accomplishes in us from the Catechism.

1279   The fruit of Baptism, or baptismal grace, is a rich reality that includes forgiveness of original sin and all personal sins, birth into the new life by which man becomes an adoptive son of the Father, a member of Christ and a temple of the Holy Spirit. By this very fact the person baptized is incorporated into the Church, the Body of Christ, and made a sharer in the priesthood of Christ.

1280    Baptism imprints on the soul an indelible spiritual sign, the character, which consecrates the baptized person for Christian worship. Because of the character Baptism cannot be repeated (cf. DS 1609 and DS 1624).

 Baptism is powerful.  But this post is bound to raise questions so feel free to ask them.

One other item to consider is the phrase from the Nicene Creed from the 4th century.

I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

There are many other sources both from Scripture and the writings of the early church but I wanted to be brief.

So what difference has the Catholic teaching on baptism made in my life?

Well, many of the things that I assumed happened when I had my "born again" experience at age 20 actually happened when I was baptized as an infant according to Catholic teaching even though I was baptized in the Presbyterian Church.  They basically would agree with the Presbyterian understanding but they add a lot more.  And they recognized my baptism since it was documented (it can be either by a written document or witnesses) when I was becoming a Catholic.

And when I look back on my life, I can see the influence or mark baptism had in my life.  I always believed in God even when I thought He was irrelevant for a time.  I believed that Jesus was the Son of God.  I believed that the Bible was God's written word.  What I didn't understand until I was 20 was that I was a sinner in need of a Savior.  And that is when I asked Jesus into my life.

But after that "born again" experience, I didn't really understand what God was aiming for in my life.  I sort of hoped for a close relationship with Him but I lived like what I really thought He wanted was for me to be "good", grow in holiness and righteousness, stop sinning, with His help of course.

But as I looked into the Catholic teachings, I saw that God really wants a close intimate, honest relationship and I was also taught how to pursue that relationship through prayer and the sacraments.

More later.


 

Why did I become a Catholic? Adopting a view on baptism vs believing in my baptism

Another milestone in my journey towards the Catholic Church was adopting a view on baptism.

As I studied Eastern Orthodoxy in Oregon and then Catholicism in Colorado, I discovered that they believed that the sacraments actually confer what they represent or signify, that they are channels or means of God's grace and baptism is just one of seven sacraments in those churches.  So the Eastern Orthodox and Catholics believe that God faithfully works through the sacraments to actually change people's lives!  Most Protestant churches and groups only observe two of them, baptism and the Lord's supper or Communion.  Some don't observe any, such as the Quakers and the Salvation Army.

Protestants have a wide range of views on baptism as to the mode (sprinkling, full immersion, pouring), timing (infancy and believers or believers only), what it signifies, what it accomplishes and whether it is necessary or not.

I was baptized twice, once as an infant in the Presbyterian church by sprinkling and once as an adult by full immersion in water in order to join an American Baptist church after I had become a "believer" through a "born again" experience.

After my conversion experience at the age of twenty, I sort of rejected my Presbyterian roots which regarded baptism as an equivalent to circumcision, a sign of the New Covenant to be applied to the children of believers, incorporating them into the Body of Christ, the church.  They point to the households being baptized in the New Testament for Scriptural support as well as the practices of the early church in the first centuries after the New Testament period.

When my wife and I wanted to join an American Baptist church a few years after my conversion and they required a believer's, full immersion (dunking) baptism, I consented to be baptized again and more or less adopted the Baptist view for convenience sake but not because I was convinced of it.  It was a public profession of faith but really didn't do anything according to their view.  A lot of non-Baptist churches hold the post-conversion, by-immersion, profession of faith view as well.  And so for quite a few years, I considered my 2nd baptism to be the valid one with a kind of pragmatic "whatever!?" attitude.  I mean I knew the doctrinal arguments of the various Protestant groups and could argue them convincingly to others but I sort of placed myself "above" them so to speak.

This "whatever" attitude is very prevalent among Christians today. 

Some adopt this attitude because they don't really want to learn and wrestle with concepts, issues, doctrines and the like.  They have sort of a "hakuna matata", "no worries" philosophy.

Others adopt the attitude because they believe that if we believe something strongly we are going to fight with others who don't believe it.  And it is true, it does happen and it can be violent.  We probably have all experienced this truth in our own lives and we see it in history.

Others adopt the attitude as interested but uninvolved, uncommitted observers.  I always wanted to be like Spock in Star Trek and cock one eyebrow and say "interesting" but without getting worked up about things.  So I gravitated towards this group and way of relating more than to the other ways.

There is another way however and that is the way of Love.

During my time searching for a people, a way of life that could help me actually walk with Jesus, I received a Bible from my mother that her father (my grandfather) had given to me when I was baptized in the Presbyterian Church on my 1st birthday.  She had hung on to it.  It was a Revised Standard Version in mint condition.  My grandfather had written a note in it to me.  "To Howard, on the day he was presented to the Lord, from his Granddaddy".  My parents and my grandfather had presented me to the Lord on that day.  Hmmm...  That was their understanding of what they were doing having me baptized as an infant.  I had been offered up to the Lord.  And they were doing it because they loved me and they thought baptism mattered and that I mattered.  They wanted the best for me and so they offered me up to the Lord, the Creator and Giver of life through baptism, initiating me into the Body of Christ.

Then I learned that the Catholic Church believed many things happened at my baptism.

So stay tuned.

Why did I become a Catholic? The Sacraments - they are physical, incarnational.

As I have mentioned, when people ask me the recurring question in the subject line of most of my posts, hundreds of reasons come bubbling to the surface all wanting expression like the bubbles in a carbonated beverage when you open up the container. Sometimes I would respond in trying to summarize the reasons, "It's physical."  My answer was somewhat cryptic because there is a context that one has to understand before my answer would make sense.  Therefore, I have abandoned that summary for "It helps me to hold onto Jesus better."  But I want to give some more of the context here.

I came across some paragraphs of the Catechism of the Catholic Church this week that state well the importance of the physical as well as the spiritual.

1145    A sacramental celebration is woven from signs and symbols. In keeping with the divine pedagogy of salvation (pedagogy: the art, science, or profession of teaching - Merriam Webster Online Dictionary), their meaning is rooted in the work of creation and in human culture, specified by the events of the Old Covenant and fully revealed in the person and work of Christ.

1146    Signs of the human world. In human life, signs and symbols occupy an important place. As a being at once body and spirit, man expresses and perceives spiritual realities through physical signs and symbols. As a social being, man needs signs and symbols to communicate with others, through language, gestures, and actions. The same holds true for his relationship with God.

There is much more that could be said here but you can read about it in the Catechism online via the link below.
http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catechism/catechism-of-the-catholic-church/epub/index.cfm#

And this sacramental celebration and communication spills out into the everyday world as a way of life, a way of service to others and a way of viewing the world.  There is a interconnectedness of life that I have found rich and fulfilling.  And so while I am going to first address the seven sacraments of the Church, there are many other areas I am excited about sharing such as the social teachings of the Catholic Church and the nature of the Church itself and the keys to understanding it.

If you want a good overview of Catholicism in a video series, I highly recommend Catholicism with Father Robert Barron.  http://www.catholicismseries.com/  It has been on PBS, EWTN and many parishes are showing it in their Christian or religious education classes.  We have been using it for the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adult and for general adult education classes at my parish.

The first sacrament I am going to cover is Baptism.

Why I became a Catholic? The Sacraments

The initial draw of the Catholic Church for me was the hope of developing my relationship with Jesus through learning to pray.  I was also looking for an inner transformation flowing out of that closer relationship where I would trust in God rather than being overwhelmed by fear and running to my idols.  I wanted to be able to love people with God's love.  And I was finding that and much more.  I found that there was a whole ancient and living community, the Church, the Body of Christ, to connect with and relate to in addition to God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  I found the sacramentals (physical items and actions that aid in developing one's relationship with God such as the sign of the cross, rosaries, prayer books and cards, etc).  And I found the Sacraments of which there are seven in the Catholic Church.  The Eastern Orthodox also have essentially the same seven which they call the Mysteries.

The Baltimore Catechism defines a sacrament in this short and simple way.  A Sacrament is an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace.

In Howard's words, they are outward signs that are actual channels of grace established by Jesus Christ that actually provide the graces that they signify.

In the Catholic Church they are grouped together in the following categories which help us to understand their purpose.

The Sacraments of Initiation
  Baptism
  Confirmation
  Eucharist (Holy Communion)

The Sacraments of Healing
  Penance & Reconciliation (Confession)
  Anointing of the Sick

The Sacraments at the Service of Communion
  Holy Orders
  Matrimony

As an evangelical Protestant with non-denominational/Baptist tendencies, I only recognized two of the seven (Lord's Supper/Communion and Baptism).  I wouldn't have called them sacraments and they were purely symbolic in my view.  The Lord's Supper was a remembrance/self examination only and Baptism was a profession of faith.  Both were a matter of obedience to Christ.  Neither were necessary for salvation.

But as I came to understand the Catholic teaching on the Sacraments, I found out just how much I was missing.  In fact, I am still learning and marveling at how much I was missing.  And I am extremely grateful to be the undeserving recipient of such torrents of grace as are being poured into my soul through them.

I am looking forward to writing about these treasures of blessing in the weeks ahead.

Why did I become a Catholic? The internet and friends played a big role.

There were several internet related sources that contributed to my conversion.
1)  Fellowship with faithful Catholic friends on the internet who were passionate in their pursuit of God and were willing to talk about God and life.
2)  Their availability at all hours of the day or night (there were kindred minds and hearts awake).  We didn't have to go anywhere to meet, didn't have to spend money other than having an internet connection and a computer, didn't have to get the house cleaned up for visitors and we could be sitting in our pajamas at our computers, chatting in chat rooms and posting on forums.
3)  The Eternal Word Television Network with its myriad of quality programs and resources running 24/7, 365 days a year with solid Christian and Catholic teaching.
4)  The Journey Home program with Marcus Grodi as a host.  Marcus is a Protestant clergy convert himself and started a ministry to help fellow clergy and lay persons on their journey to the Catholic Church.  Each week he has one or more guests who share how they became Catholics often at great personal cost to themselves and how it has helped them in their relationship with God.

I also had some friends in SE Colorado who were Catholics or who were on the journey.  And some of my Methodist brothers also had Catholic spiritual leanings and we read books on the spiritual life and prayer written by Catholics.  So I was finding myself supported and blessed in my relationship with the Lord by what I was learning even as we experienced very trying times. 

I had a friend in SE Colorado who was raised Catholic, left the Catholic Church when he grew up, had a conversion experience and became a fundamentalist/evangelical, very anti-Catholic Christian.  After some years of my sharing what I was discovering in my journey, he suddenly returned to the Catholic Church a few weeks before his death and was well cared for by Catholics during his last illness of a couple of weeks when he was in the hospital.  I had never seen him with such peace.

And yet I did not really experience walking with Jesus in the sacramental way of life until I actually became a Catholic in January, 2010.  More on that later, although I have given you a glimpse in my most recent post before this one.

Some of you who know me may be thinking, "But, Howard, what about all those strange, unbiblical Catholic doctrines?"  Well, there are actually a couple of issues there.

One issue is that what are often presented as alleged Catholic doctrines among Protestants are actually distortions having little similarity with the actual teachings of the Catholic Church, the Straw Man Syndrome that I mentioned in a previous post. 

Sometimes these distortions come from Catholics themselves (clergy and laity alike) and former Catholics who have a faulty understanding of the teaching.  Try sampling the views of members of any Christian group and you will find some pretty far out variations. Other distortions have been passed down from generation to generation, often growing over time.

If you want to know what the actual teachings of the Catholic Church are, here is the link to the Catechism.  http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catechism/catechism-of-the-catholic-church/epub/index.cfm

Then, secondly, there are the Scriptures I never saw or understood before because I was reading with my Protestant glasses on, like not seeing Mary as the woman of Revelation 12 and the mother of all Christians (even those who don't recognize her as such) in Revelation 12.  Some of the posts I have in the works will deal with more examples of this issue.

But why am I writing these posts?

Well, in part to answer the question why did I become a Catholic.

But the most important reason is that I have found rivers of grace that I do not want to keep to myself.  Jesus said "I came so they might have life and have it more abundantly."  I am experiencing His life more abundantly and so I want you to know how that has come to pass.  I also hope and pray that God may use my story to draw each of you closer to His heart of love.

Writing my journey is becoming hard work.

It is difficult to go back and try to sort out what I knew at the time of what I now believe and to try to convey how life changing it was and is.

I have 3 draft posts in various stages of development, one on baptism, one on the Church and another one that I would have to leave this post to refresh my memory on.  That one will probably end up in the discard pile. LOL

I want to write about the present for a break.  I have really changed and am really changing on the inside, in my spiritual life.  It is like a major remodel, an "extreme makeover".  I have been and am being delivered from my idols, my besetting sins.  I am becoming integrated as a person.  I am becoming "human" as God intended me to be. And the changes are working their way outward into my life.  God is at work and He is using everything and everybody in the past and present in His work on me.

I actually pray a lot now, talking to God, God talking to me, revealing things.  I am becoming a patient, considerate driver because the longer it takes to get somewhere the longer I have to pray.  My thought life is becoming more pure, true and wholesome.  The Holy Trinity, Mary, the Saints and Angels are becoming constant companions.

And joy, I have a lot more joy which makes sharing the faith easier because I want everyone to experience that joy.  And yet, I am finding that I am understanding people a lot better, respecting their dignity that God has given them and I know the roadblocks to faith personally and the catastrophic wounds we can receive in this world.  And so much of my evangelism is done via prayer and seeking to love and serve them.  As St. Francis of Assisi said, "Preach the gospel at all times and if necessary use words."

Time to go.  Please feel free to comment.  I have viewers from a variety of countries with Russians, Dutch and Germans being the most frequent viewers besides Americans.  Welcome.  I took a year and a half of Russian and a Russian civilization course in college.

Why did I become a Catholic? Scriptures that I never really "saw" before about angels.

As a Protestant, when I read Matthew 18:10 where Jesus inferred that an angel was assigned to me, I just sort of thought "Check", file that fact away in my theology box.  But I learned from the Catholics to really think about the ramifications of these facts and act on them.  Angels are spiritual beings that can appear as human beings but most of the time remain invisible.  There are good angels serving God and us and evil angels called demons that followed Satan in his rebellion against God who seek to deceive and harm us.  So when I talk about angels, I am talking about those who are loyal to God and I will use the term demons for those who are in rebellion towards God.

But the main point in what Jesus said is that God cares about us enough to give us each an angel to protect and serve us.  And we can assist them by praying for them and they can hear us.  They also fight for us as the book of Daniel mentions in Chapter 10 where Daniel is seeking understanding about a matter from God and an angel is dispatched to bring the answer to Daniel but he gets tied up in a battle for 3 weeks with the Prince of Persia who appears to be a demon in charge of that area. The archangel Michael has to join the battle in order to free the angel up to continue on his mission.  So that was why it took 3 weeks for Daniel to get an answer to his prayer.  So next time an answer to a prayer of yours is delayed, maybe an angel is having to fight his way to you.

You might ask, "Well, Howard, have you ever been aware of your guardian angel?"  I think perhaps when I was about 5 years old or so.  It was a Sunday and we were at our church, Hilltop Presbyterian, which was on the crest of a hill (hence the name Hilltop).  I was playing out in front of the church and for some reason ran out into the road, saw a car come over the crest of the hill and tried to run back to the side of the road.  My foot landed on a round stick in the road and I fell in front of the oncoming car.  I was aware of a movement of some kind around me and the car came to a sudden halt just a couple of feet from me.  I think the movement might have been my angel rushing to stop the car.

So now I thank God and my angel for keeping watch over me.  My eyes have been opened like Elisha's servant in 2 Kings 6:15 Early the next morning, when the servant of the man of God arose and went out, he saw the force with its horses and chariots surrounding the city. “Alas!” he said to Elisha. “What shall we do, my lord?” 16 Elisha answered, “Do not be afraid. Our side outnumbers theirs.” 17 Then he prayed, “O LORD, open his eyes, that he may see.” And the LORD opened the eyes of the servant, and he saw that the mountainside was filled with fiery chariots and horses around Elisha.  I also pray for the angels as they fight for God and for us.  NABRE

Why I became a Catholic? It really was an accident from a human perspective. I just wanted to follow and to be close Jesus.

That's all. 

A Protestant usually does not start out wanting to become a Catholic.  I mean it's counter-intuitive really.  I mean the Catholic Church is what we Protestants have been protesting against since the Reformation 500 years ago.  That's why there was such a barrier when I wanted to go through the doors of a Catholic church about 20 years ago.  But I needed help to walk with Jesus, to pray, and what I had experienced to date in the Protestants was great in many ways but Howard wasn't changing as much as he needed to, to become the man of God, the husband, the father, the friend that he wanted to be.  And life was almost defeating me.  But not quite.  I have been shown a path to follow through the wilderness, a little way to follow.

And yet, God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) has been leading me all the way.  All through my life.  And becoming Catholic is giving me understanding of that in so many ways, especially with the Scriptural background I received being an evangelical Protestant for so many years.

I mentioned seeing Scriptures that I hadn't seen before.  Oh, I had read them and even studied a lot of them but I didn't understand them.  So what are they?

Well, let's take angels for instance.  The Catholic Church teaches that we are each assigned a guardian angel.  Where do they get that from?  From Jesus.  In Matthew 18:10, He says “See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father."  The phrase does include children for He has just used a child as the reference point for His lessons in the passage but it is also clear from the passage that we must all become childlike to enter the kingdom of heaven.  So we are all His little ones, the lost ones He is gathering. 

More later.  Time to get ready to go to work.

Why did I become a Catholic? The Church as a hospital for sinners so they can become saints as they learn to walk with God.

Even though the Church is a hospital for recovering sinners and staffed by recovering sinners and Satan plants his agents in the Church and thus evil, sin and scandal happen in and through the Church, God has set it apart and declared it holy and has endowed it with many gifts and channels of grace so that He can accomplish His plan of salvation in and through the Church.

As I have revealed in my posts, I was finding that the lives and prayers of Mary and the Saints, the sacramentals (actions and material objects that helped turn one's heart and mind towards God, not to be confused with the Sacraments) and the prayer books were helping me hang onto Jesus.  I discovered that developing a close, intimate union with God, the Holy Trinity, was emphasized and encouraged.  And so many sinners have been transformed into Saints because that is what happens when one hangs out with God and finds out how passionately God loves us.

There was also an emphasis on our solidarity with both believers and unbelievers as fellow human beings created in God's image through the social teachings of the Catholic Church.  Hence the many charitable works that the Catholic Church has been and is engaged in and the concern for the poor, education, healthcare and defending life.

I was also seeing verses in Scripture that I had never noticed before, like Mary in Revelation 12.

More on that later.

Going adventuring with God - There are a lot of parallels with The Hobbit.

The movie and the book start out with a younger Bilbo Baggins (an agnostic?) trying to live a quiet, pleasant and respectable life in the Shire.  And then Gandalf (God?) comes along and invites him to join him on an adventure.  Bilbo tries to end the conversation quickly, saying "We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!".

But Gandalf seems to think otherwise and sends the company of dwarves to join Bilbo at his house, uninvited, for dinner.  Hmmm... I wonder if the dwarves could be an analogy for the church sometimes?

During the course of the meal, Bilbo is given the contract (Bible, catechisms, creeds, church history...?) where he learns that he could even be killed in a number of gruesome ways on this adventure and thereupon passes out.  But he ends up deciding to go and runs out of his house without his pocket handkerchiefs to catch up with Thorin and company who have already started on the journey, little realizing what he is getting himself into.

All for now.

Why did I become a Catholic? Discovering the Church as a hospital for sinners.

As I mentioned, Sin is our basic distrust of God, His intentions towards us, the goodness and wisdom of His character, will and plan as our Creator.  Our individual acts of sin are the symptoms of that distrust and unbelief.

God however has a plan for our salvation from sin through Jesus Christ, His son.  And part of His plan is for us to be in community in the Church which Jesus founded during his time here on earth.  God designed it so we can help each other towards wholeness, maturity until we all become like Jesus.

But here's part of the deal, the Church is a hospital for sinners in the recovery process and it is staffed by sinners in the recovery process.  And our salvation is a lifelong process for each of us.  So guess what?  Sin is going to happen in the Church.  On top of that the Scriptures themselves warn that the dragon will also plant his agents in the Church to try to undermine and destroy it and us.  Much of the New Testament was written in part to address problems in the fledgling churches caused by their sinfulness getting out of hand and yet God was their midst ministering through and to them.  And He made some of them shepherds to tend His flock.

As I studied church history, I found it interesting that the Church fairly consistently rejected both licentiousness and perfectionistic legalism down through the ages.  There were darker times and lighter times but the Church has never been nor will be perfect this side of heaven.  As I have heard from numerous sources, "If you ever find the perfect church, don't join it because then it won't be perfect anymore."  As Peter says in 1 Peter 4:18, quoting Proverbs 11:31 from the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, “And if the righteous one is barely saved, where will the godless and the sinner appear?” NABRE

And yet the promise that Jesus made in Matthew 16 still holds true and has down through the ages:

13 When Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter said in reply, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” 17Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. 18 And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." NABRE

Over time I came to believe in an inspired church made up of broken people.  How did this help me?  Realistic expectations always help and it gave me more compassion towards the weaknesses and frailties of others and even myself.

Disccovering the Church as a hospital for sinners.

In my journey towards the Catholic Church, I was looking for actual healing from the most deadly disease that all of us have and that is sin.  I was looking for treatments that actually worked.  I think a medical analogy is a good one.

But let's talk about the disease first, what is sin?  Most of us immediately think of a list of things that we ought not to do but that we in fact do.  If we think further we also think of sin as not doing things that we ought to have done.  So we have discovered that there are sins of commission (doing what we ought not to do) and sins of omission (not doing what we ought to do).  But we are still thinking about "sins", individual acts or instances which are only symptoms (although they can have disastrous consequences) of the disease, Sin, itself.

Sin is, at its root, an ingrained distrust of and in God and an ingrained trust of and in self.  The symptoms or individual sins flow from our distrust in God's goodness and our pursuit of what we think is "life" apart from Him.  It involves what the Apostle Paul calls exchanging the truth of God for the lie in Romans 1.

So my question has always been, how do I find healing from my disease?  So I will talk about what I found.

May God be with you today in whatever circumstances you find yourselves in.  May He be your refuge.

Why did I become a Catholic? The Longer Version Part 4 From Methodist to Catholic - Sacramentals

I still feel like there are thousands of things that I want to share with you and there is so little time and energy to do so.  My mind and my heart flit from one beautiful facet of the truth of the gospel to another saying, "Oh! I want to share this with them and share that with them and I must not forget to write about this..."  And I know a lot of you already know many of these things but as Peter told believers in his 2nd letter, "Therefore, I will always remind you of these things, even though you already know them and are established in the truth you have." 2 Peter 1:13 NABRE

So I want to begin to write about sacramentals because they are one of the facets of the Catholic Church that drew me during my time with my beloved Methodist brothers and sisters.  I have already mentioned some of them such as holy cards which have pictures and prayers on them and little prayer books one can carry around in one's pockets or purse.  Sacramentals are material or physical objects and actions that help raise one's heart and mind to God and the things of God in obedience to the Apostle Paul's many admonitions in his letters such as Philippians 4:8, "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."

They include actions like making the sign of the cross, genuflection (a momentary kneeling with one knee), prostration (laying oneself down on the floor), bowing, folding one's hand in prayer, blessings and on and on.

They also include objects such as crosses, crucifixes (crosses with the body of Jesus on them), pictures, statues, holy water, holy cards, prayer books, rosaries, medals, and on and on.

As I like to say, it's physical or incarnational.  God's son, the Word of God, was spirit like Him before the incarnation or becoming flesh.  But now Jesus is one of us.  And we are not just spirit or intellectual, we are physical.  When Jesus healed, sometimes He just spoke a word from a distance and other times He used physical means.

And most importantly, it works. 

And you can say, "Well, what about all those people who are just going through the motions or are doing them for the wrong reasons and ..."  We can do that with anything, no matter what our faith tradition or lack thereof.  That is part of our human condition.

Simple illustration of the effectiveness of a sacramental.

Lyric by Chris Tomlin from Here I am to Worship, "I'll never know how much it cost
To see my sin upon that cross."

Howard looking at, meditating on and feeling with his fingers a crucifix with the battered and twisted body of Jesus on it, thinking of the Gospel accounts and Chris Tomlin's song.  A light begins to dawn, a feeling begins to stir and a tear begins to trace its way down Howard's cheek, a heart begins to change...

May God bless you, my brothers and sisters/

Why did I become a Catholic? The Longer Version Part 4 From Methodist to Catholic - What about Mary and the Saints? Cont'd #3

The standard and ancient prayer asking Mary to pray for us is the Hail Mary.  The first half of the prayer is a combination of the angel Gabriel's and Mary's cousin Elizabeth's greetings to Mary in Luke 1.  It goes like this.

Hail Mary, full of grace.  The Lord is with you.

Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.

 

That's it.  We are asking her to pray for us now and at the hour of our death.  And she does because we are her offspring ,who are being pursued by the dragon (Satan) who tried to destroy her and her son.

 

As I am sharing these things, I am just covering the surface, there is much more I could share but I won't now for the sake of time.

 

What about the saints?  I have talked about them somewhat but I will say a little more.

 

First of all, all members of the household of God, the Body of Christ, are saints.  But the term is also used of Christians who have gone before us into heaven, who lived lives of heroic faith and virtue while on the earth and who the Church has formally declared to be Saints as examples to follow and ask for their intercessions.

 

When we talk of patron saints, we are often talking of saints who during their lives had particular experiences, interests and devotions and who therefore identify with us in praying for people in similar situations.  So Saint Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland.  Why?  Because he devoted his life to making God known among the Irish and serving them.  He still loves them dearly even though he is now in heaven and he therefore prays for them.

 

Before I became a Catholic, I asked for Saint Jude's intercessions for my family members and for me.  He is the patron saint of desperate causes.  And those of you who know my and my family's history can probably imagine why.  I also chose him as my patron saint when I became a Catholic.

 

When we say the Apostles Creed, we say we believe in the communion of saints and it is a communion that is not broken by our earthly death since the saints are very much alive on the other side.  There is a solidarity among us, kind of like the motto of the Musketeers, One for all and all for one.

 

Well, Howard, can you give an example from the Bible of a conversation of someone on earth with someone who has departed?  Yes, the Transfiguration where Jesus talks with Moses and Elijah on the mountain.

 

Remember God is not the God of the dead but of the living.  He said I am the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob when He spoke to Moses in the burning bush as Jesus pointed out.  And Jesus said to Martha when Lazarus died “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,..."

 

Now I also pray to God myself and I also ask my brothers and sisters on earth to pray for me.  And the Bible is filled with people praying and being prayed for.

 

So that is all I am going to say for now on Mary and the Saints.  Upcoming topics will be the Church and Sacraments and sacramentals.



The Lord's screw-up: Clarification

I am the screw-up but the Lord loves me and He wants me and He lets me be on His team anyway so I am His screw-up.  He didn't screw up.  I am just one of His motley crew.  That is one thing that a lot of people don't get about the Church whether they are inside or outside of it.

The Lord generally chooses those who the world would consider the least likely to succeed.  That is why the powers of this world whether religious or not didn't get why Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners and why He picked a bunch of hicks from Galilee, fishermen, a tax collector, a Zealot and so on to be His apostles.

The Apostle Paul says in 1st Corinthians 1:
26Consider your own calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, 28and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something, 29so that no human being might boast before God. 30It is due to him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, as well as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, 31so that, as it is written, “Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord.”  NABRE

The Lord's Screw-up

At my parish it is okay to be fallible even when you are an altar server, like me.  Tonight I came home from church sticky and reeking of wine.  One of our deacons had been preaching a challenging homily (short sermon) and I was the head server. I try not to get too engrossed in the liturgy and homily because I still need to think ahead, keep track of where we are and what's next in the Mass and be alert to the needs of the clergy and possible changes in how things are going to go.  But tonight his homily was really getting me thinking and I forgot where we were so when we stood up to say the creed after the homily I thought it was time to help the deacon get the altar ready for the Eucharist.  When I picked up the tray of cups of wine, I heard them start saying the creed and realized my mistake.  I end up knocking over some of the cups as I tried to set the tray back on the table, spilling wine over the tray, myself and the floor.  Fortunately this all occurred behind a wall and with the help of some kind people, we muddled through it and managed to complete the Mass.

Now I wouldn't have been surprised if they had asked me to turn in my robe and kicked me off the altar serving team.  Instead the priest blessed us as usual and thanked us for serving at the end of the Mass.  The deacon laughed when I explained what had happened, thanked me for the indirect complement about his homily and said not to worry about it.  And some people from the parish stopped by the sacristy afterwards to console me with stories of other Mass catastrophes.

Altar serving hasn't come naturally to me.  I feel privileged to serve at the Lord's table but I don't feel worthy of the trust.  I've been doing it for a year and a half because a deacon's wife asked me to and I said I would.  Most of the servers are young children or teens but they need a few of us adults to help out.  It seemed like I would do something out of sync almost every Mass at first.  Most of the kids seem to take to it like fish to water and could probably do it in their sleep.  Things had finally smoothed out lately and I seemed to have it down and then this disaster happened.

But that has been my experience with Catholics, they seem to know we are earthen vessels made of clay, frail and broken, and so they make allowances for that while encouraging us to walk with Jesus and strive for the holiness without which no man will see God, to seek the wholeness that God is providing through His Son. (Hebrews 12:14)

Goodnight.

Why did I become a Catholic? The Longer Version Part 4 From Methodist to Catholic - What about Mary and the Saints? Cont'd #2

Another way that Mary helps me in walking with Jesus is by her intercessions for me and the things I am concerned about.  When Catholics talk about praying to Mary and the saints, they are talking about asking them to pray for us much like we ask our friends on earth to do.  Prayer is a conversation and a sharing between beings.  Much like she did with the servers in the miracle at Cana in the Gospel of John, chapter 2, she brings me into the presence of her son, presents my concerns and then tells me to do whatever He tells me to do.

The Bible tells us that the effective prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much in James 5 and then James gives the prophet Elijah during his earthly ministry as an example.  How much more effective are the prayers of Mary and the saints and the angels who stand in the presence of God in heaven.  And you may ask me, "Howard, do they really pray for us?"  And my answer is yes. 

In Revelation, chapter 5, as the Lamb of God (Jesus) is receiving the scroll from His Father, we read of humans in heaven offering up prayers to God in verse 8, "When he took it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each of the elders held a harp and gold bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of the holy ones."  And in Revelation 8 we read of an angel offering up prayers to God in verses 3 and 4, "Another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a gold censer. He was given a great quantity of incense to offer, along with the prayers of all the holy ones, on the gold altar that was before the throne.  The smoke of the incense along with the prayers of the holy ones went up before God from the hand of the angel."  In verse 5, we read of the impact of those prayers upon the earth, "Then the angel took the censer, filled it with burning coals from the altar, and hurled it down to the earth. There were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake."  Our prayers really shake things up!  But remember that it is God who answers our prayers from heaven, who wills and accomplishes great things.  And He wants us to pray for one another.  It is part of love.

But, Howard, have you experienced this power?  Again, my answer is yes.  One of my sons who was deathly ill on more than one occasion is well and still with us and I am still here.

I will give you a specific incident as I was on still on my journey towards becoming a Catholic.  In 2004, my father died and our family went out to Oregon for a week for his memorial service.  Our son who had been ill the year before had to stay behind and work so we boarded our two dogs so he wouldn't have to take care of them.  One of them was our son's favorite, a small cocker spaniel mix.  Shortly after we left, there was a thunderstorm and the bigger dog who was quite a digger and escape artist tried to escape from their pen.  She didn't succeed but the small one was able to slip out.  Our son looked for her frantically during most of the week during a hot summer, following tips and leads.  There were coyotes, town roads, highways, railroads and open country.  We were on our way home at the end of our week away and still she had not been found.  And so I asked Mary and Saint Anthony, the patron saint of lost things, for their prayers on the night before we would arrive home.

The very next morning our son called us as we were on the road home.  He had been out driving a road on the edge of town and our dog came out of the brush and tall grass a few yards in front of his car looking tired, dazed and bedraggled.  She was found and recovered from her adventure.

We  are to pray to God ourselves but we are also to ask others to pray for us.  More later.

Why did I become a Catholic? The Longer Version Part 4 From Methodist to Catholic - What about Mary and the Saints? Cont'd

In the 5th century AD, there was a faction in the church that was trying to explain the mystery of the Incarnation in a way that made Jesus two persons (one human and one divine) united into one instead of simply being one person, fully human and fully divine, the Word becoming flesh as presented in John's Gospel.  The third ecumenical council was convened in 431 AD to discuss the issue and it proclaimed that Mary became the Mother of God by the human conception of the eternal Word of God (who was with God in beginning as John says) in her womb.  The emphasis here is that Jesus born of Mary is in fact, God, become man.  Her new title was designed to be a safeguard of her son's divinity.  And so Mary has been called the Mother of God ever since.

So how has Mary helped me follow Jesus, her son?

Well, first of all, she has been called his first disciple because she offered her life up to God and to her future son, Jesus, in becoming his mother.  Her life was no longer her own.  And so I have been able to meditate on her life and imitate her life.  The life of the one who said to God's angelic messenger, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”

More later.

Why did I become a Catholic? The Longer Version Part 4 From Methodist to Catholic - What about Mary and the Saints?

Okay, we are going to talk about Mary and the Saints!  This area is one of the biggies separating most Protestants (except for Anglo/Catholic Anglicans) and Catholics.  The Orthodox are closer to Catholic faith and practice in this area but there are some differences in emphasis which I will not go into here.

Now before I started my journey towards the Catholic Church, I didn't give Mary much thought at all.  She had the kid, mission accomplished, now get her off the stage.  She was an accessory to any crèche set sitting next to the manger looking adoringly at the God/Man baby lying in it.

I did go so far as thinking highly of her for being willing to endure for God's will and plan the probable gossip going on in her community about her alleged indiscretions and what a good man Joseph was to go ahead and marry her anyway.  I mean the Bible says that even Joseph had his doubts until an angel set him straight.  (See Matthew Chapter 1)  But that was about it for my thoughts about her.

Catholics on the other hand highly revere her (but not worship) and call her the Queen of Heaven, the Mother of all Christians/the Church, the Blessed Mother and the Mother of God.  They regularly ask for her intercessions, confide in her and have a relationship with her as they do with Jesus.

So how did I come to adopt the Catholic view of Mary?  Gradually.  And it is based largely on Scripture.

I noticed for the first time as I was re-reading Revelation 12 that the woman even though she is not identified by name in the passage is obviously Mary and that her male child is obviously Jesus.  The Protestant commentators just identified her as symbolically representing Israel.  And Mary definitely does represent Israel but she is still Mary, the mother of Jesus.  And she is in the sky standing on the moon wearing a crown.  Hmmm... that suggests royalty, a queen or more precisely the queen-mother for she is the mother of the King of kings and Lord of lords, the one who will rule all nations with a rod of iron, Jesus. 

And someone else is in the sky.  A great, red dragon who is identified as the Devil, Satan and the Accuser.  And he is seeking to devour the child and destroy the woman.  An all-out war breaks out that seems to be taking place back and forth across time and simultaneously in heaven and on earth.  And the sky appears to be heaven from which Satan and the angels that follow him are cast down from as they lose the war against the angelic host led by Michael the archangel.  Satan is also unsuccessful in his attempts to destroy the mother and child and he is furious and the chapter closes with this verse.

"17  Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus." 

Hey, that's us Christians!  We are offspring of the woman, of Mary and of Israel too, through her.  I understood that I was Mary's child, too.  I also saw that this passage was one of the places where Catholics got the idea that Mary is Queen (or Queen-Mother) of Heaven and Mother of All Christians/the Church.

I think I will stop here because I want to write in bite-size chunks for my readers.  I also want to make a few things clear as to my purposes in writing about my journey.  I want my readers to know about and hopefully understand my journey.  I also hope they will be able to learn things that will help them in their walk with Jesus as I have been helped.  I also hope to help Christians from the three major branches understand and respect one another.

I have a bit more to write about Mary and how she has helped me along the way to follow her son, Jesus.  Then I will address the Saints.

Why did I become a Catholic? The Longer Version Part 4 From Methodist to Catholic becoming open to an ancient church.

As you saw if you read my account of it, the strong reluctance I felt trying to enter a Catholic church on my own to attend an Easter Mass, even though I wanted and intended to.  Many Protestants are raised or are taught after coming to Christ at a later time in their lives that the Catholic Church is way off base.  My general overview of church history based on ignorance (before I became a student of church history) was that the early church went off the tracks somewhere between the death of the Apostle John, circa 100 AD, and the recognition of Christianity as one of the state religions of the Roman Empire by Emperor Constantine in the early 4th Century.  I leaned toward the earlier date.  According to the story line, things went from bad to worse from that point on until Christianity was fortunate enough to be rescued by the Reformers during the time of the Reformation in the 16th Century.  The Eastern Orthodox were generally ignored by us since our beef wasn't with them and besides we didn't know anything about them except that they were into pictures and smells and bells, kind of like the Catholics.

So when the Lord told me when in the Sierra foothills to check out churches that had bishops and physical worship/liturgy, I naturally gravitated towards the Anglican (Church of England/Episcopal) family of churches.  They are kind of half Catholic/half Reformed and are often called "the Middle Way". We were never near one until we moved to Central Oregon and I didn't think my family would go for it.  So I was kind of a closet Anglican from afar for awhile.

When we moved to Central Oregon, we visited many different churches and attended a few for a time.  We visited the Episcopal church in town and even talked about going there but we ended up at the Nazarene church until we moved to SE Colorado.  Central Oregon was my looking into Eastern Orthodoxy time as well as the beginning of our SE Colorado time.  It was also when I began reading about church history.

Going to the Methodist church in SE Colorado partially fulfilled my longings since the Wesleys from whom it came were Anglicans and it was semi-liturgical, a sort of Anglican/Episcopal Lite.  And it did have bishops.  There was also a smidgen of Catholic spirituality in the Upper Room/Walk to Emmaus circles.  And I had some buddies there with leaning towards Catholic spirituality.

But what really challenged my original uniformed church history overview stated above was when I read about the martyrdom of some Christians in Gaul (present-day France) in 177 AD, among them was a young slave girl named Blandina (now Saint Blandina) who had such lion-hearted faith and joy in the midst of terrible tortures that she became a major source of strength for her fellow believers.  After seeing them all safely into heaven, she was the last to die.  God broke my pride and I confessed myself a lightweight who was not worthy to be counted among them.  And who did I think I was to question and look down on their faith.  And there are many more stories down through the centuries. 

I started checking the early church fathers when I was preparing to preach and teach and was astounded by their depth and insights.  Hmmm... so maybe my church historical overview needed a major overhaul.  Maybe the Church didn't completely derail after the 1st Century like I thought.  Maybe what Jesus said about His church was true.

Next up will be, what about Mary and the Saints?

Why did I become a Catholic? The Longer Version Part 4 Becoming a closet Catholic while being a practising Methodist. Cont'd # 3

You will probably have noticed that what was attracting me so far was practical Catholic spirituality and you are probably wondering about the doctrinal issues.  With my fairly solid Biblical background, I was finding that actual Catholicism, as compared to the mythical version of Catholicism with which I was previously familiar as a Protestant, was actually very Biblical and in some areas even more literal in its interpretations and applications than my evangelical, Bible-believing background.

One of the things my wife and I found interesting, when we were in Central Oregon and had visited many churches looking for a church home, was what the different Christian churches said about the other churches and what they believed.  Many of them had the Straw Man Syndrome.  They often took the most extreme worst possible examples of the other churches faith and practice and made them the general rules for those churches.  But Joan and I had been to the churches they were talking about and I had studied the history and theology of those other churches.  And what the churches we were currently attending said about the others was often untrue or greatly distorted.  The best way to find out about what a Christian group believes is to read its documents, go direct to the source.

Why did I become a Catholic? The Longer Version Part 4 Becoming a closet Catholic while being a practising Methodist. Cont'd # 2

Part 4 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Christian Prayer, begins with a startling revelation from John 4, the story of the woman at the well.  I have included 2 paragraphs below.

2560    “If you knew the gift of God!” The wonder of prayer is revealed beside the well where we come seeking water: there, Christ comes to meet every human being. It is he who first seeks us and asks us for a drink. Jesus thirsts; his asking arises from the depths of God’s desire for us. Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God’s thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for him.

2561    “You would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” Paradoxically our prayer of petition is a response to the plea of the living God: “They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water!” Prayer is the response of faith to the free promise of salvation and also a response of love to the thirst of the only Son of God.

I had never thought about God thirsting for us all, and especially not for me.  Jesus thirsts for me that I might thirst for Him.  God's love poured into my soul through this truth and I was lost in grateful wonder for a couple of hours.  The rest of the section on prayer is great, too.  And the Catechism is not dull or dry reading.  You can tell it was written by people with a love for God.

The Lord also provided me with a group of brothers with similar interests and we read books on prayer like Letters from the Desert by Carlo Carretto, a brother, and With Open Hands by Henri Nouwen, a Catholic priest.

Our church library also had a book by an Orthodox bishop, Anthony Bloom, called Beginning to Pray which is a good entry level book on prayer.

As I mentioned in  my last post I found the prayer/holy cards handy to carry around in a pocket and to pull out and meditate on the prayers and pictures while talking to God and directing my attention to Him.  And there were many little shirt or pants pocket-size devotional books that focused on one's relationship with God.  These were very handy to carry around and pull out and use when one had a moment of free time.

Another thing I was finding out was that being Catholic meant joining a very large family that transcends space, time and even death.  But more about that later.

 

 

 

 

Why did I become a Catholic? The Longer Version Part 4 Becoming a closet Catholic while being a practising Methodist. Cont'd

What I discovered as I talked with devout Catholics online and started reading the Catechism, using the prayer cards with pictures on them, looking through and using some of the vast wealth of the devotional materials and prayer aids was a whole new world and way of living the Christian life.

And I needed a different approach.  You see, as the Desperation Band's song goes, "I'm in a fight not physical, I'm in a war but not with this world...".  I needed a Christianity for the trenches for Monday through Saturday, when there aren't any teachings or any praise bands, when I am going toe to toe with "The huge dragon, the ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, who deceived the whole world..., the accuser of our brothers...who accuses them before our God day and night."

If you have seen the movie, Hook, when Captain Hook and a middle-aged attorney Peter Pan (Banning) are having a sword fight to the death.  And Hook pins Peter Pan next to a spinning grinding wheel that Hook sharpens his hook on while he recites a litany of Peter's failures in his real world life, "You know who you really are, don't you?  You're these failures, sins and weaknesses!"  And the fight starts to go out of Peter Pan... 

Satan does that to me a lot.  He pins me, begins reciting the litany.  It is hard to concentrate and I can't think, but now I have weapons to fight back with, memorized or written prayers when I have no words of my own.  Pictures worth a thousand words to remind me of God's love for me and that I am not alone.  The host of heaven is around me.  They have my back.  And Jesus is there on his white horse, leading them.  Kind of like in the Lord of the Rings, when Théoden is mounting a last charge at Hornburg and Gandalf with Eomer and hundreds of the Riders of Rohan come over the ridge to the surprise, horror and dismay of the orc horde that seemed to have victory in their grasp.

I know, Howard has a vivid imagination, but it is true, just unseen.

I mentioned the Jesus Prayer, there was about a month or so where the battle was so intense I couldn't concentrate to read or think, just kept praying the Jesus Prayer.  "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God have mercy on me, a sinner."  And Jesus brought me out the other side.

Revelation 12 I think covers the whole sweep of history of the war between God and Satan, and you know how the accused brothers overcame the Accuser?

They conquered him by the blood of the Lamb

and by the word of their testimony;

love for life did not deter them from death.  Revelation 12:11 NABRE

 

Good night.  More later.

Why did I become a Catholic? An improved short answer.

I am one of those writers who is always searching for more clarity and conciseness as I seek to express what is waiting inside of me on the page before me.  Therefore it takes a lot of time for me to write anything.  I feel like one of the Ents in an Ent moot.  It takes a long time to say anything at all in Entish.  Which is why I have avoided it for so long.  Now I can't seem to help myself.  I want to help people that are interested to know what I learned and find what I have found.

My previous short answer was "It helps me to walk with Jesus and hang onto Him."  That is a true answer in so far as it goes.  However it dawned on me tonight that the reason it is easier for me to walk with and hang onto Jesus as a Catholic is that Jesus is making Himself more present to me.  I am on the receiving end.  I am merely availing myself of channels of grace like streams of living water that God has placed within my small reach and weak grasp.  And these channels of grace are available and within reach of the lowliest.  They aren't experiences available only to those upon whom they fall.  I am not a super saint.

So as I am writing my longer answer I will be going into those channels of grace.

I want to thank my friend, Barb, and my sister-in-law, Claudia, for inspiring this post with their comments and questions.

Howard's Humpty Dumpty Analogy of Church History

Probably most of us English speakers have heard the rhyme Humpty Dumpty.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.

Now if you make the church (Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant) Humpty Dumpty and Jesus the King, it kind of describes what has happened over the course of church history.  Like any analogy it falls apart if you get too detailed.  So I am talking in generalities here.  The first major split called the Great Schism occurred in 1054 between the East (Constantinople) (who became known as the Eastern Orthodox) and the West (Rome) (who became known as the Roman Catholics).  The term catholic means universal.  The second occurred at the Reformation between the Roman Catholic Church and the reformers who became known as the Protestants because of their protest against the Roman Catholic Church,  The Protestants have been a pretty feisty lot and have continued disagreeing, fighting and protesting amongst themselves to this day.  Last I heard I think there were 34,000 plus Protestant denominations not counting the non-denominational and house church folks (I almost went house church but that is another story).

There have been various attempts to bring us Christians or believers (as some prefer to be known) back together over the course of the last thousand years but all attempts by the king's men (us) have pretty much failed and so church history seems to resemble the rhyme above, does it not?

However, there is one stanza left off if one applies it to the church, "But the King can put Humpty Dumpty back together again."  And I, for one, believe I see signs that He is beginning to do so in spite of all the continued splitting and the divisions that still exist among us.  I am hopeful.

I will close with three quotes, one from our King Himself, one from the chorus of the famous country western song (Love Can Build A Bridge) and one from John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you."  (John 15:12 RSV)

Love can build a bridge
Between your heart and mine
Love can build a bridge
Don't you think it's time?
Don't you think it's time?
(Love Can Build A Bridge by Naomi Judd, Paul Overstreet and John Barlow Jarvis)

“If your heart is as my heart, give me your hand” John Wesley

Why did I become a Catholic? The Longer Version Part 4 Becoming a closet Catholic while being a practising Methodist.

It was actually in Central Oregon that I started to consider the Catholic Church.  My wife and I really like John Michael Talbot's music.  And so I decided to go to the Catholic Church for an Easter Mass at 5:30 or 6:00 am.  I got to the Catholic Church about 30 minutes early so I could "case the joint" as they say.  ;-)  I was nervous and felt like I was breaking a 500 year old taboo which I was.  A Protestant entering forbidden territory.  At the same time, I was thinking this is ridiculous.  How events 500 years ago that I had no part in could have such a powerful hold on me.

So I got out and began to walk towards the doors of the church.  I got about halfway there, got cold feet, retreated to my car, regrouped and tried again.  This time I made it three quarters of the way before I went back to the car.  On the third try, I made it through the doors and seated myself towards the back on the right hand side of the church.  I enjoyed the Mass and could follow along somewhat being familiar with the Anglican rite which follows a similar pattern.  Afterwards I just left and went home.

One of the things that I was finding intriguing about the Anglican, Eastern Orthodox and Catholic churches were all the aids to prayer they provide.  From my Christian tradition, one was supposed to just talk to God in one's own words.  However, the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray and He didn't act like they were dummies for doing so.  Instead, He gave them the Lord's Prayer (Protestant) or the Our Father (Catholic) as it is called.  Even the Apostle Paul admits in Romans 8:26 that we (he includes himself here) don't know how to pray as we ought so the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with groanings to deep for words.  I have had many periods in my life where I was mostly speechless when it came to prayer.  We should also pray in our own words but sometimes we are speechless and clueless or we need the pump primed and the written prayers help.  They are a means or channel of grace.

Also I did pick up the Jesus Prayer from the Eastern Orthodox, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!” while in Central Oregon.  That would come in handy in Colorado.

Okay, back to Colorado.  I mentioned that when we moved we decided to go to the Methodist Church because we liked the pastor and the congregation.  I also liked the Methodist origins, a movement founded by the Wesley brothers, John and Charles, and their friend, George Whitefield, who had their hearts strangely warmed by God and became powerful Spirit-filled preachers.  They were Anglican ministers and I know at least the Wesleys remained so until they died.  But eventually the revival movement separated from the Church of England both in Britain and America.  We became very involved there, teaching Bible studies and Sunday School classes, participating in and leading prayer meetings.  I became a lay speaker providing pulpit supply for out-of-town pastors.  I became aware of the Upper Room ministry in the Methodist church and the Walk to Emmaus which have Catholic influences in them.  We continued to buy and listen to John Michael Talbot CDs.

But the real change towards the Catholic Church for me was due to getting connected to the internet and seeking out Catholics to fellowship with on the web.  When I first got on the web, John Michael Talbot's community, the Brothers and Sisters of Charity, had a chat room and forum that I started participating in.  I met friends there that I have to this day.  I was still suffering from ulcerative colitis at the time and one night I requested prayer by the community and their response really touched my heart.  They said, "Howard, we will pray that God will heal you of the colitis but we will also pray that if it is not His will to heal you at this time that He will help you to bear it and will use it redemptively in your life and the lives of those around you."  I thought, "Wow, that is exactly how I wanted to be prayed for!   But I couldn't have come up with the words if I tried."  Then a Catholic deacon in Arkansas who I met on the forum invited Joan and I to come visit him and his wife for a weekend.  He was also a winemaker.  We took him up on his offer and we had a wonderful time visiting with them.  We toured their winery and vineyards as well as a nearby monastery where we got to meet some of the brothers.  We concluded the weekend by attending Mass at the rural church where he served.  It was a lively church, packed with people of all ages.  And we both liked it but I really loved the Catholic spirituality.

I also discovered the Catholic Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) on the web and started watching their Catholic programs, especially The Journey Home with its host, Marcus Grodi.  Each week Marcus would interview converts from many different backgrounds and reverts (former Catholics who had left and were now returning to the Church) and have them tell the conversion/reversion stories.  Many of the converts were evangelical Protestant pastors and lay people.  It was fascinating to hear their stories, the hardships they endured in their conversions  and the blessings they had experienced during and after their conversions.  How it had drawn them closer to Jesus.

I sent EWTN a donation and they sent me a Catechism of the Catholic Church and other Catholic materials which I began to read and use.

All for today.  May God bless you and draw you ever closer to His loving heart.

Beware! Don't be caught in a projection of the Echthroi (Greek for enemies).

Do you ever have bleak despairing visions of your future? 

I have mentioned that my big fear is failure.  So lots of times some version of this vision comes to me.  Howard screws up big time, loses his job, his reputation, disgraces himself, his family and friends abandon him, he ends up penniless, out on the street, diseased and dying in a gutter with people shaking their heads, "Tsk, tsk, what a fool!  Serves him right!"  And God is nowhere around...

Hmmm, what a minute, God is always present.  He promised never to forsake us.  I know who the source of this vision is, the old adversary, the accuser of the brethren, Satan and his minions.  Joan and I are reading Madeleine L'Engle's book, The Swiftly Tilting Planet again.  And the Echthroi are out to try and trap the heroes of the story into believing their projections for the future so they come true and all mankind is destroyed.

So when we find ourselves having dark thoughts void of God, remember the source of those and turn  to the Father of lights. 

James 1:16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers: 17all good giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no alteration or shadow caused by change.  NABRE

Why did I become a Catholic? Longer version Part 3 The Wilderness Years

I moved my family to Central Oregon with a goal to change careers and to be near my parents.  However, I ended up just getting a job pretty quickly in the same line of work because I knew I didn't have any idea of what else to do and didn't have a fire in my belly to do so.

There had been a desire off and on to go to seminary and become a pastor because I loved preaching and teaching the Scriptures and helping people to follow Jesus the best I knew how.  But we had 4 kids, my wife was homeschooling them and I was the sole breadwinner  Also I was hesitant to become a pastor when I was having trouble handling life where I was.  I didn't want to stand up there and say my version of the Christian faith actually worked.  I believe in God and the Scriptures firmly.  I knew that Jesus had the words of eternal life like Peter said in John 6.  And although the prayer books helped I still was inconsistent in prayer, still was running to my idols and so on.  So teaching people the truth about God as a layman was about all I could do.  I also wasn't the husband or father that I wanted and needed to be, partially because I didn't know how to get there.

God had a divine appointment for my wife there to help her grow but I ended up kind of being placed on a shelf ministry-wise.  We got involved in a church there that God directed us to and there met a pastor and good friend who really helped my wife and all of us.  But there was a change in senior pastors and in the direction of the church after about a year there.  Our pastor friend left the church there and for about the next 4 years we wandered around the churches trying to find a community that was a good fit for our whole family.  Prior to moving to Bend, we were pretty much from a non-denominational/Baptist background.  I had been raised in the Presbyterian Church as a child.  So in Bend we started out in a Conservative Baptist church, then we went to a large Foursquare church for about 6 months which we liked but we hadn't had the necessary Pentecostal or Charismatic experiences to really remain there and serve.  Then we went to a small Orthodox Presbyterian church where the people were very caring but there were hardly any kids there.  For awhile my family stopped attending church and we just went to a Bible study taught by our pastor friend but I continued looking for a church and sometimes my wife would join me.  We looked into an Evangelical Free church, a non-denominational church and an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America church.  Finally we ended up at a Nazarene church and stayed there for 9 months until we moved to Colorado with another job change for me.

During that time we became acquainted with the music of John Michael Talbot, a Catholic musician and the founder of a community called the Brothers and Sisters of Charity in Arkansas.  I also picked up a book on the Eastern Orthodox Churches by Eastern Orthodox bishop Kallistos Ware, an Englishman.  I was fascinated by their emphasis on prayer and the spiritual life.  I had by this time also become a student of church history, looking for clues to help me walk with Jesus.  But we were living in rural Oregon and most Orthodox churches are in major metro areas so my family was spared the experience of my trying to talk them into trying one out.  The Eastern Orthodox Churches tend to be ethnic churches and so there has to be sufficient concentrations of those ethnic groups to have a church.  My family just knew Howard or Dad liked to investigate all kinds of strange Christian churches and movements.

I was involved in an early 5:30 am weekly men's Bible study with the Orthodox Presbyterians for about 3 1/2 years until it disbanded.  They welcomed me and I enjoyed the study and fellowship with them even if their church didn't work out for us as a family.

But then a friend and former boss from a former job called to encourage me to apply for a job with the small college he was at in a small town in southeast Colorado.  As we prepared to move there, my wife checked out the pastors of a number of churches via phone interviews.  We then visited the churches and decided to attend the United Methodist church in town and stayed there for the 13 years we lived there.

My next post will be entitled, Becoming a closet Catholic while being a practising Methodist.  So stay tuned.