I Do Believe in the Communion of Saints

On the Eve of All Saints day, creedal Christians celebrate the continuing fellowship that extends beyond the confines of time and space and death. We take time out on All Saint's Day to commemorate the lives of the Saints, both known and unknown. We, like the early church, believe that the folks that have gone before us can continue to intercede for us while they are in heaven. We can ask them to intercede for us or using the old english term for ask, "pray". The saints are not divine, nor omnipresent or omniscient. They are not to be worshipped. All of this communion between them and us has been facilitated by the grace of God released through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Not only can they pray for us, we can pray for those being perfected in purgatory as Maccabees in the Old Testament illustrates, and St. Paul's comments about Onesiphorus his helper suggest. Purgatory isn't a "second chance" to get into heaven. If a soul is in purgatory, they are already "in" so to speak, but need a little purifiying since no unclean thing can see God, so as CS Lewis suggests needs a "bit of cleaning up." Purgatory is kind of like "heaven's washroom", where we go for purification before we see the Holy One face to face.

I blogged a bit more on this here in the past.

Elvis, Eric and Relics

(Photo on the left) The heart of St. John Vianney

American society has a high regard for the memorabilia of pop stars, movie actors and famous politicians. Whether it's the teeth of George Washington, the scarves that touched Elvis' sweaty brow ($3000 on ebay) or the baseballs pitched by famous athletes, we have no problem with placing high monetary and cultural value on these inanimate objects sometimes referred to as relics.

I own a guitar string that was once on Eric Clapton's guitar. A pharmaceutical rep came to my office when I was still in private practice and held out a rusty guitar string and said "Guess whose guitar this was on?" I without hesitation said 'Eric Clapton', and he was dumbfounded. It was a lucky guess and the first guitarist that came to my mind. He explained that his neighbor worked at Martin Guitar Company in Nazareth, PA and had Eric Clapton over his house to discuss the new Eric Clapton Signature model guitar. They were jamming and Eric broke a string and the host kept it and gave it to his neighbor who gave it to me. It's probably not worth too much now, but when Eric goes to his reward it might be . Why? Because it touched Eric's body.
(His sweaty fingers to be exact.) So we humans know that there is a value in touching something and honoring something that was a part of or touched a famous person or someone greatly admired. Shortly after my wife died, I would sometimes go in the closet just to smell her shirt or scarf to remember her, to honor her. But I didn't worship the shirt . It just helped me to connect to her memory in a very real physical way and to honor her.

Well, that's what Catholics believe about the relics of saints. They are either a part of the body(1st class) of a godly person gone to glory recognized as a saint, or something they owned or a personal effect (2nd class) or an item touched to any first or 2nd class relic (3rd class relic).
Where is this in the Bible? The veneration or honoring of relics is a concept borne from the Scriptures as well as defended and supported by the early Church Fathers.

Exodus 13:19 "And Moses took Joseph's bones with him: because he had adjured the children of Israel, saying: God shall visit you, carry out my bones from hence with you."4 Kings 13:20-21 "And Elisha died, and they buried him. And the rovers from Moab came into the land the same year. And some that were burying a man, saw the rovers, and cast the body into the sepulchre of Elisha. And when it had touched the bones of Elisha, the man came to life and stood upon his feet."

Matthew 9:20-22 "And behold a woman who was troubled with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind him, and touched the hem of his garment. For she said within herself: If I shall touch only his garment, I shall be healed. But Jesus turning and seeing her, said: Be of good heart, daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour."
Acts 19:11-12 "And God wrought by the hand of Paul more than common miracles. So that even there were brought from his body to the sick, handkerchiefs and aprons: and the diseases departed from them: and the wicked spirits went out of them."
St Jerome: (340-430 AD)
We do not adore, I will not say the relics of the martyrs, but either the sun or the moon or even the angels -- that is to say, with the worship of "latria"...But we honor the martyrs' relics, so that thereby we give honor to Him Whose [witness] they are: we honor the servants, that the honor shown to them may reflect on their Master... Consequently, by honoring the martyrs' relics we do not fall into the error of the Gentiles, who gave the worship of "latria" to dead men.

The Idiot's Quick and Dirty Guide to Relics
God is a God of matter. He created matter and works through it. Blood, bread, wine, oil, mud, spittle, old prophet's bones, hems of garments, hankies, shadows etc . The Incarnation Himself shows us God works through the things of the earth.

1) Catholics don't worship relics! We venerate (honor) the memory of the person they pertain and that saint draws our hearts towards Christ, the source of all power and grace.
2) Relics have no Magic Power, or any power unto themselves.
3) Relics are never to be bought or sold! (Let's here it for the Council of Trent!) It was never an official position/teaching of the Church to allow relic sales.
4) They may be the occasion of miracles wrought by God (as in Elisha's bones) and many other documented healings in the history of the Church.
5) The use of relics can lead people to receive or respond to grace. They do not actually provide grace because they are just matter, only God can provide grace. This is the key message here.
6) There is strong historical evidence of the early church's veneration of bones, ashes of the martyrs and their tombs were often the site of prayer. After Polycarp, a disciple of John was burned at the stake: "We took up his bones, which are more valuable than precious stones and finer than refined gold, and laid them in a suitable place, where the Lord will permit us to gather ourselves together, as we are able, in gladness and joy and to celebrate the birthday of his martyrdom." Not worshipping the dead guy, but "the honor shown them may reflect on their Master, Jesus!"
7) Does anyone want to offer me some cash for Eric Clapton's guitar string? (just kidding)

Pontificator Becomes a Papist Priest

“In the name of an ideology of radical inclusivity, the Episcopal Church has moved significantly away from the apostolic and catholic faith of Jesus Christ,” he said, adding that he “must be in the Church founded by Christ Jesus.” Fr. A. Kimel

This is probably old news but on December 3rd 2006, Al Kimel, a former Anglican priest will be ordained as a Catholic priest in the diocese of Newark, New Jersey at Our Lady of Souls Parish in South Orange, NJ.
He is the blogmeister of the award-winning blog "Pontifications" that he started as a Anglican priest about two years ago. He has chronicled his journey along with excellent commentary on theology, news and "all things Catholic."
He is about the eightieth Anglican priest to be ordained in the Catholic Church since the Pastoral Provision was made by the late John Paul 2 in 1980. Keep him in your prayers as well as the many Anglican folks who are struggling with the issues in their communion.

Apparently the flow of the tide "across the Tiber" sometimes goes both ways though. I read that there are forty Catholic priests a year who are leaving Catholicism to become Anglican. I suspect we are getting the best end of the stick in this exchange. It's about quality, not quantity. If you have read Pontifications, you will see the heart of a man committed to the Catholic Church and the folks that Father Kimel will serve will be blessed indeed.

St. John Vianney (patron saint of priests), pray for Father Kimel and his family as he accepts the mantle of responsibility of carrying forth the apostolic mission of the Catholic Church.

The Spiritual Works of Mercy

Our Church also provides for us an outline of Spiritual Works of Mercy.

• To instruct the ignorant;
• To counsel the doubtful;
• To admonish sinners;
• To bear wrongs patiently;
• To forgive offences willingly;
• To comfort the afflicted;
• To pray for the living and the dead

Prayers for the dead was evidenced by writings of the early church, ancient liturgy, as well as inscriptions on first century tombs and prove that the early church continued this practice of the Jews
St. Augustine in the 5th century speaks of prayers for the dead: "The universal Church observes this law, handed down from the Fathers, that prayers should be offered for those who have died in the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, when they are commemorated in their proper place at the Sacrifice"

We are not all gifted with the ability to do the first three but the last four seem to be actions that we are all capable of through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Corporal Works of Mercy

When an ex-evangelical like myself hears of terms like the above for the first time, I think "corporal punishment", "good works" blah, blah, blah etc. Sometimes my spiritual eyes would glaze over when I read or heard anything that sounded Catholic and I missed out on much truth and edifying material because of that.

The seven practices (works) of Catholic charity toward our neighbor's body (corpora) are:

1. Feeding the hungry
2. Giving drink to the thirsty
3. Clothing the naked
4. Sheltering the homeless
5. Visiting the sick
6. Visiting the imprisoned
7. Burying the dead

In this modern society, there is still ample opportunity to perform most of these if not directly than through the "dreaded work of dragging out the pen" and writing a check to an organization that does do these things.

One might say "Here they go again, Catholics talking about good works." Do we need to do these to get to Heaven?
I can assure you, Catholics believe that no one gets to Heaven without the redemptive work of Christ. He suffered and died for our sins and restored our fellowship with God. That being said, we also believe Scripture teaches that being empowered by God's grace to perform good works is a also a key component since "faith without works is dead". Catholics believe in faith and works, not faith or works. Let's hear what Jesus has to say about the works of mercy and how they figure into our eternal destiny. Matt 25

"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne,

32

and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

33

He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

34

Then the king will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

35

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me,

36

naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.'

37

Then the righteous will answer him and say, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?

38

When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you?

39

When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?'

40

And the king will say to them in reply, 'Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.'

41

Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

42

For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,

43

a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.'

44

Then they will answer and say, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?'

45

He will answer them, 'Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.'

46

And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

I Love Penance!

This week I had the opportunity to spend part of two days in a Catholic high school in eastern Pennsylvania. My friend who is a priest and director of spiritual life at this school asked me to give a short talk after Communion. It was Homecoming Week and they wanted an outside speaker, so in front of 800 Catholic high school kids, I explained how I left the church and why I came back 30 years later. I let them know that the Church they are a part of is an amazing treasure and never take for granted the opportunity to get to know Jesus better through this Church. I got a little choked up talking about it, because I was overwhelmed with the fact that I had not been in a Catholic school since the first grade and here I was talking to all these students who hadn't abandoned ship on their faith and their Church! I was very humbled.
The next day I was invited back to speak to their pro-life group from a Catholic physician's perspective. As I entered the classroom, I saw crucifixes, posters of saints, scripture, textbooks called "Understanding Scripture", rosary beads and a poster of Our Lady of Guadalupe and pro-life banners and slogans all over the walls of the classroom.
Sister Margaret introduced herself and I met with about ten students. I had the opportunity to share with them the Catholic perspective on end-of-life issues as well as my own experience as a geriatrician caring for the frail elderly. The beautiful thing for me is that I had a wealth of information and guidelines provided to me by the Catechism, the writings of John Paul, so I wasn't just flying by the seat of my pants.

So where does penance come in? As I have mentioned before in my blog, when I returned to the Church and went to confession for the first time in over 30 years, my penance given to me was to tell folks that I meet what Jesus has done for me through His Church. These past two days were redemptive for me and God was so kind to allow me the opportunity to talk to Catholic kids about how great a Church they have. In some small way, it makes up for my high school years that I spent witnessing to Catholics to convince them to leave the Church. God is good!

O Be Careful Little Eyes What You See

"Families need to take a firm stance in safeguarding the threshold of their homes, in defending the dignity of each person. Guard your families against pornography, which nowadays under various forms affects people's minds, especially those of children and young people. Defend the purity of morals in your homes and in society. ... The purer families are, the healthier the nation will be."
- POPE JOHN PAUL II, Sandomierz, Poland, June 12, 1999

When my two boys were small, we gave them little Fisher-Price cassette players and fifteen years later, in my mind, I can still hear the refrains of the songs they played.

"Oh, be careful little eyes, what you see.
Oh, be careful little eyes, what you see.
There's a Father up above, looking down in tender love,
So be careful little eyes, what you see."

The ability to keep our hearts pure is so important. We can be forgiven by Christ for our sins of impurity (adultery actually) but the temporal consequences often don't fade so easily. Scientists say that the images of pornography are "burned" into our brain in our "flash memory" and often these images can come back decades later at the most inopportune times.
( Moments before receiving Christ in the Eucharist is one the enemy's favorite times for accessing these images.)

This upcoming week is Pornography Awareness Week which is promoted by the interfaith venture known as Morality in the Media. Let your pastors know there are resources available for sermons. We can create community awareness by wearing a white ribbon next week, October 29-November 3^rd.

I am convinced that internet pornography in particular is the "invisible elephant" in the room for both Catholic and Protestant believers and we need to come clean before our Lord and families. I encourage you to download accountability software so that your closest confidant knows where "your little eyes" have been on the net. Time to "uncloak" the elephant and get him back to the zoo where he belongs!

Here is some prayers that I hope will assist you in the goal of purity.
(From Pure Intimacy, a ministry of Focus on the Family)

Prayer for Purity of Heart
Lord, help me to accept and receive my sexuality as a gift from you. Grant me the grace to resist the many lies that distort this divine gift and help me to live my sexuality according to the truth of self-giving love. Grant me purity of heart so that I might see the image of your glory in the beauty of others, and one day see you face to face. Amen.

Prayer for the Redemption of Sexual Desire
Lord, I praise you and thank you for the gift of my sexual desires. By the power of your death and resurrection, untwist in me what sin has twisted so that I might know and experience sexual desire as you created it to be as the desire to love freely, totally, faithfully, and fruitfully. Amen.

Prayer in a Moment of Temptation to Lust
Lord, thank you for the beauty of this person whom you made to be loved,never to be treated as a thing for my gratification. I renounce any tendency within me to use this person for my own pleasure, and I ask you to set my desires aright. Amen.

Prayer for Restoring God's Design
Lord, I confess my mind and conscience is corrupted. I claim to know you, but, by my actions, I deny you. Lord, I am unfit for your kingdom as I am. The Psalmist said, "Restore us, O God; make your face shine upon us, that we may be saved." I ask you, Lord, to restore me to the kind of life I was meant to live, including using my body in a way that is holy and honorable. Amen.

Prayer for Transformation of Sinful Desire
Lord, I number myself with those of your ancient Church in Corinth, which consisted, in part, of the sexually immoral, adulterers, male prostitutes, and homosexual offenders. But you are a God of Hope and transformation, for you told these Corinthians, "And such were some of you." I, too, have been washed and set aside for you, made whole by the redemptive actions of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. My identity is no longer captive only to my sexual focus or orientation; my identity is in your Son, Jesus Christ. You say, "if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come." Lord, wash away my old, sinful self and renew me in your Spirit to be a new creation. Amen.

Prayer for Purity of Body, Mind, and Soul
Lord, this physical body is a member of your Son,your temple, your dwelling place. It is not my own to do as I please. You have bought me with the high-priced passion of your Son. When I unite myself with you, I am one with you in spirit. Help me to concentrate on your holiness, peace, faith, a love that permeates all things, and to be in union with those who call on you with pure minds. Amen.

Search Me Oh God: Examining Your Conscience

My blog about internet pornography lead me to write about this. Catholic Christians have this great thing called "The examination of conscience." Sounds legalistic, and where is it in the Bible you say? Well, it's based on the Ten Commandments and is a wonderful tool the Church has given us to allow the Holy Spirit to speak to our hearts about where we might be hiding or sequestering sinful, thoughts actions or motives. Psalm 139 23-24 says "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: 24 And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." That's what you are praying when you perform an examination of conscience.

Man, if I used this as an evangelical, I would have been in much better shape spiritually! Instead I sometimes took the "I'm free in the Spirit and forgiven so I can do whatever the heck I want" approach. I didn't really think that but sometimes my life reflected that philosophy. The "once saved always saved heresy" can really be a deadly trap. Even though we were encouraged to "keep short accounts with God" I never understood how to do that and mumbling a few "I'm sorry Jesus" before falling to sleep seemed to suffice....sort of. By thinking we can't lose our salvation, the concept of a "sin unto death" (as 1 John says) loses its meaning. Catholics call that mortal sin to distinguish it from venial sins that don't lead to spiritual death, at least not immediately.

The beauty of the the examination of conscience is that it is a tool to be used in conjunction with and preparation for the sacrament of reconciliation. We are not just left hanging on a hook after God shows us our sins. He then takes them all and forgives them through the power he gave through His Church which he obtained for us by his death on Calvary. The priest doesn't forgive sins, Jesus forgives us through the priest in our act of humbling ourselves before God in the confessional. Of course we aren't forgiven unless we are truly sorry, but that goes without saying. Here's the examination of conscience using the Ten Commandments .

The First Commandment:
I am the Lord your God; you shall not have strange gods before me.
Do we truly love God above all, or do we sometimes give greater importance to things of this world: money, image, looks, clothes, popularity or selfish desires?
Do we claim to have good values, but often bend or abandon them in order to fit in and be "part of the group?"
Do we turn to God in thankful prayer, or do we pray mostly when we want something?
Do we really want to be transformed by the will of God, or do we just use our religion in order to "look" like good Christian people?
The Second Commandment:
You shall not take the name of the Lord in vain.
Do we show disrespect for God's name by misusing it out of frustration or anger or to look "tough" to others?
Do we hesitate to mention God's name in appropriate situations, in conversations with friends and family members?
Do we continue to learn about God by paying attention in Church, Christian education and through reading orthodox Catholic periodicals, and scripture?
Do we view movies that use vile language and take the Lord's name in vain?
The Third Commandment:
Remember to keep holy the Lord's day.
Do we come to Church to celebrate the Eucharist on Sundays and Holy Days? Do we attend Mass only when it is convenient or when it will make us "feel good?"
Do we participate in the Eucharist by praying and singing, or do we simply sit as spectators and wait to be entertained?
Do we pay close attention to the Word of God and open ourselves to God's call to allow His word to take effect in our lives?
Do we acknowledge the "true presence" of Christ in the Eucharist and receive Holy Communion with respect and reverence?
The Fourth Commandment:
Honor your father and your mother.
Do we help bring peace and happiness to our families, or are we disrespectful of others and a source of hurt and division for those who are closest to us?
As parents, are we generous and patient with our children? Do we spend time with them and give them the attention they need? Do we set responsible limits for them and make sure they follow rules that will help them grow into responsible adults?
Are we willing to say "no" to our children, or are we more likely to ignore problem behavior and hope it will "go away?"
Do we listen to our children carefully and treat them with respect?
As children, are we loving, respectful and obedient to our parents? Do we appreciate the many sacrifices they make for us? Do we say "Thank you" and "I love you" often enough?
Do we do our chores without being asked, or do we wait for our parents to become upset before we move away from what we are doing?
Do we listen to our parents' reasoning when they say "no" to us?
The Fifth Commandment:
You shall not kill. *
Have we injured another person through carelessness or fighting?
Have we placed ourselves or others in danger because of reckless use of alcohol or other drugs? Have we caused difficulties for ourselves or others because of their use?
Have we risked our lives by driving or riding with someone under the influence alcohol or other drugs?
Do we strive to forgive those who have hurt us, or do we hold on to resentment and desire for revenge?
Do we use our powers of influence well, especially our voting rights, in order to fight war, oppression, abortion and injustice, or do we allow those evils to continue by our apathy and our silence?
Have we been violent or abusive either in action or in speech? Have we been verbally abusive to our children or other family members?
Do we share what we have with those in need? Do we support the life and mission of the Church by responsible stewardship - sharing our time, talent and treasure?
Do we bring our Christianity to every day situations, or do we stand on the sidelines and complain about every flaw we can detect in others?

The Sixth Commandment:
You shall not commit adultery.
Do we respect the dignity of the human body and the holiness of Christian marriage? Do we show that respect in our speech, or are crude language and jokes often part of our conversations?
Do we understand and appreciate the gift of our sexuality as a means of expressing our love [and God's love] in the Sacrament of Marriage?
Are we open to the gift of life in our marriage?
Do we use artifical contraception?
Have we been faithful to our marriage, priestly or religious vows? Do we keep our commitments simply because we said we would, or do we seek to nourish ourselves and others through our lifetime commitments?
Have we dishonored our bodies by fornication, masturbation or unworthy conversation or thought leading to impure actions?
Have we encouraged others to sin by our failure to maintain good moral standards?
Do we attend movies or rent DVD's that exploit God's gift of sexuality outside of the marriage covenant?
Have we viewed pornography on-line or read pornographic literature on-line or in print?
Do we watch televison programs that incite lust and impure thoughts?
The Seventh Commandment:
You shall not steal.
Do we respect the property of other people? Have we stolen, damaged or vandalized the property of others?
Have we cheated at work or in school? Have we encouraged others to sin by pressuring them into helping us cheat?
Are we honest and hardworking in school and at work? Do we use work time for our own pursuits?
Are we faithful to our promises? Can we be trusted?
The Eighth Commandment:
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
Have we lied to stay out of trouble or to avoid a difficult situation?
Do we gossip about others? Have we damaged the reputation of another person by exaggeration or making up stories about them?
Can we be trusted with a secret?
Do we stand up for those unjustly accused, or are we merely a channel through which rumors pass, whether or not they are true?
The Ninth Commandment:
You shall not covet your neighbor's wife.
Have we weakened or damaged our marriage commitment through our obsession with another person?
Do we respect the commitments of others and help them remain faithful to their promises?
Do we treat our marriages casually in our conversations and attitudes? Have we said or done anything which made a mockery of our sacred promises?
Do we dress in a way that would lead others to break this commandment?
The Tenth Commandment:
You shall not covet your neighbor's goods.
Are we satisfied with what God has given us, or are we jealous of those who seem to have more?
Do we try to prove we are better than others by bragging or buying more things?
Do we appreciate our own good qualities, or do we constantly compare ourselves with others and become resentful or bitter?
Do we cope well with the problems that confront us and maintain our Christian hope in spite of hard times and difficulties?
Do we truly "seek first the Kingdom of God" in our lives and place our trust in Him?
Do we reflect the peace, hope and joy of a people redeemed and made holy by the Blood of Christ?

I encourage you to copy, paste this, shrink it down, laminate it and keep it in the wallet or bedside table. Even if you are not Catholic it can be a great aid used by the Holy Spirit to assist you in walking closer to Jesus. Which is what it's all about. God bless!

When Your Mind Wanders At Mass.....

Think of this painting. It may help you to refocus on what
is transpiring during the climax of the Mass.

And no, Catholics don't recrucify Christ at every Mass.
He died once and for all for our sins, but the priest
re presents the timeless sacrifice to God the Father as Malachi prophesied. The Gentiles will present a pure sacrifice to God.

"For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering: for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the LORD of hosts."
(Mal 1:11)

The Browser of Our Hearts

I found a recent free software program that I hope folks will find helpful in their pursuit of holiness despite frequent use of the internet. As most honest Christian men will attest, they have had struggles with the sin of adultery..... per the internet that is. Most of us in a moment of weakness have been tempted to click on an inappropriate website. This is mortal sin and puts our souls at great peril if it goes unconfessed and unrepented of. Without the Sacrament of Confession in my life, I found that I often fell into the pattern of presumptuous sinning, knowing God would forgive me by saying a quick prayer and then promptly going forward and sinning again. I have been given much grace in the confessional and the ability to avoid sin has been strangely enhanced by frequent visits to Jesus in the confessional.
But back to the main point of the blog today, X3watch is a software program that sends the history of your internet browsing to an "accountability partner." Someone you trust who is spiritually looking out for your best interests. For a married person, the spouse is probably the best one to assist in the battle for purity. I think a computer browser these days will reveal more about a person than most anything else. Our interests, passions, strange musings all show up on the "history" on our browser. (Those vintage musical instrument websites are a dead giveaway where my heart has been lately.)

Jesus said, where your treasure is, there will your heart be. I say that in modern times, "where your browser is there will your heart be."
By looking at our browser, or letting someone else see it, we will open a window to the things we hold most dear that consume our time and interest.
I have installed this program on all the computers in the house and my wife is my accountability partner. I only wish that I would have more fear of the Holy Spirit looking at my browser history than my wife! Would that we all develop a true contrition that would make us obey Christ and seek purity, not out of fear of getting caught or the embarrassment of having to confess it, but of grieving the "Holy Spirit, the Browser of Our Hearts."

To download the free software: X3watch.com
Fo more help in the battle for purity, check out Ken Henderson's True Knights

"Oh My Jesus, Lover of chastity,
Mary, Mother most pure,
and Joseph, chaste guardian of the Virgin,
to you I come at this hour,
begging you to plead with God for me.

I earnestly wish to be pure in thought,
word and deed in imitation of your own holy purity.
Obtain for me, then,
a deep sense of modesty
which will be reflected in my external conduct.

Protect my eyes, the windows of my soul,
from anything that might dim the lustre of a heart
that must mirror only Christlike purity.

And when the "Bread of Angels" becomes the "Bread of life" for me
in my heart at Holy Communion,
seal it forever against the suggestions of sinful pleasures.
Heart of Jesus, Fount of all purity,
have mercy on us. "

"God Told Me".... The Potential Dangers of Charismatic Renewal

I am thankful for the devotion and fervor for God found in the charismatic movement but Christians need to be made aware of the potential for abuse and heresy that can occur.


I would never deny the role of the Holy Spirit in the Church today regarding gifts, miracles and other manifestations but have become keenly aware of the abuses that can occur when the "spirit" is given "free" reign outside of any boundaries. (I mean after all, Catholics have 2000 years of documented eucharistic miracles, incorruptible saints, levitation, bilocation and other completely outrageous charismatic goings on) Poor St. Joseph of Cupertino having to wear heavy chains around his ankles to keep from levitating while at prayer! I hate when that happens.

The following 6 "potential dangers of charismatic renewal" are taken from the blog Per Christum. I had personally experienced and/or witnessed all of the following "Dangers" and have touched on many of them in my post "My personal conversion story."

1. Illuminism - i.e. folks believe God is telling them something unique that nobody else knows. There is a need to feel "special" and if God isn't telling you something unique or even mildly provocative, your credibility as a leader/follower is called into question. In my parents Sunday school class when I was in college, there were about 5 people who always said "God told me to..." whether it was which car to buy or even to get up in the morning. Not only does this destroy the free will God created us with, but how can you argue with "God told me..."??

2. Paraclericalism - a downplaying of the role of clergy, or even suggesting there is no need for the Church hierarchy. I have seen this attitude even among charismatic clergy! There is such an emphasis on the experience of the individual, that any kind of formality or hierarchy is looked down upon. The result for some Catholics is to downplay the role of the Holy Spirit acting in the Church, because the Church and her rules seem too "formal," and the hierarchy too "stifling." This leads some charismatic Catholics to become cafeteria Catholics, believing only in what gets them spiritually "excited."

3. Charismania - attributing excessive significance to the charisms while downplaying other spiritual acts. I have seen this, not so much firsthand, but from the testimony of others. Speaking in tongues or prophecy become the litmus tests for true spirituality, while feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, etc, are downplayed or even ignored. In some churches, the more outrageous the "charismatic" event, the more the Holy Spirit is deemed present. Unfortunately, this means the Holy Spirit is never allowed to work in a dignified and quiet manner.

4. Neglect of Traditional Spirituality - i.e. past spiritual experiences are downplayed or not even studied because it is all about what "I" am experiencing "now." This can also be seen when the traditional liturgy is "suspended" when the Spirit leads to be replaced by often questionable pet projects of the pastor. There is also a hostility to formality, and to suggest that something should be done a proper way (such as clerical dress or properly executing an essential part of the liturgy) is viewed suspiciously.

5. Tyranny of the Prophetic - This means that the prophetic, in this case referring to the illuminism mentioned above, can trump anything. In other words, if there is an objection to what the pastor is doing, the pastor just reminds the objectors that he talked to Jesus and "God told him..." and that settles it. 2000 years of Tradition is forced to submit to the private revelation of one pastor.

6. Cult of Personality - I have to add this after reading the comments to the post. One commenter makes a good point in that in some charismatic churches, and even charismatic movements, a cult of personality can develop around the pastor or leader. Despite a general suspicion of traditional hierarchy and church order among some charismatics, the pastor, who has been given special prophetic knowledge, is often viewed idealistically. The result is that he can do whatever he wants without discipline or question, including taking huge sums of money from the congregation. Why? Well it goes back to number 5 above. He has spoken with God. That settles it!

For my non-Catholic readers, I need to make certain it is understood that I do not discount the move of the Holy Spirit in our Church or non-Catholic fellowships. But to sum up "The Holy Spirit operating in the individual will not contradict the Holy Spirit operating in Christ's Church."(from David B. on Per Christum)

Finding God in the Pots and Pans.

In 1976, I entered my first year of college. As I wandered through the bookstore that first day purchasing text books, I happened upon a little paperback book that became my favorite devotional book for the next twenty years, next to the bible. Practicing the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence. He was born in the Lorraine province of France in 1605 and became a soldier. After the war he was led to become a lay monk in the Dicalced Carmelite order in Paris and spent the rest of his life working in the kitchen and later repairing the sandals of the 100 or so monks at the priory.

Brother Lawrence was able to cultivate a constant devotion and communion with God all the while still having to wash pots and pans, order wine, and repair sandals. He wrote about how he did this in letters to a close acquaintance and these letters were later published after his death. This spirituality of walking with God in a constant awareness of His presence has been a challenge and a blessing to millions of believers since the 17th century who have read the letters of this simple monk. I was greatly blessed to finding his writings in a bookstore some three hundred years after they were written. It's ironic to me now how one of the most influential devotional books in my Christian life was written by a monk in a church that I had long left as stale and irrelevant.

"God knows best what we need. All that He does is for our good. If we knew how much He loves us, we would always be ready to receive both the bitter and the sweet from His Hand. It would make no difference. All that came from Him would be pleasing.

The worst afflictions only appear intolerable if we see them in the wrong light. When we see them as coming from the hand of God, and know that it is our loving Father who humbles and distresses us, our sufferings lose their bitterness and can even become a source of consolation.

Let all our efforts be to know God. The more one knows Him, the greater one desires to know Him. Knowledge is commonly the measure of love. The deeper and more extensive our knowledge, the greater is our love. If our love of God were great we would love Him equally in pain and pleasure."

He passed away a few days after he wrote this last letter.
I encourage any believer to read this short little book. I believe it can be helpful in drawing you closer to God. It is available as a free download from this website:
PracticeGodsPresence.com

Sometimes We Can't Pray as We Ought

In the New Testament, we are told that sometimes "we can't pray as we ought so the Spirit itself maketh intercession with groanings that can't be uttered." (Romans 8:26)
There are times in our life when a situation has us "prayerless." Where we just can't muster the words to pray. My former charismatic teachings suggested that this was when your "prayer language" could take over. I was never gifted with a prayer language but was open to the possibility. Now, I find that at times like this the intercession of the Spirit comes through for me in prayers written by others. These prayers can be short or long and can be useful to mirror the pangs of our heart that we can't seem to express. This one is a litany that was forwarded to me and came at a much needed time. Litany is from the latin word litania meaning prayer or supplication. This one is from the Catholics United for the Faith website.

Litany for the Protection and Guidance of Our Children

Lord, have mercy on us.
Christ, have mercy on us.
Lord, have mercy on us, Christ, hear us.
Christ, graciously hear us.
God, the Father of Heaven, have mercy on us.
God the Holy Spirit, have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on us!

Mary, Mother of God . . . pray for us and for our children (repeat after each intercession)
St. Joseph, role model of Christian homes . . .
St. Michael, St. Rafael, and St. Gabriel . . .
All you guardian angels . . .
All you saints in Heaven . . .

From wrong companions . . . shield them, O Lord
From bad magazines . . .
From evil TV shows . . .
From filthy images and words on the Internet . . .
From worldly music and lyrics . . .
From violent movies and bad language . . .
From all the snares of the devil . . .

For guidance to make good choices . . . please, send them Your Holy Spirit
For guidance to discern situations . . .
For guidance to despise vanity . . .
For guidance to suppress pride . . .
For guidance to recognize and avoid the occasions of sin . . .
For guidance to banish evil thoughts and imaginations . . .

That they may love what is good . . . we beseech Thee, O Lord
That they may recognize the needs of others . . .
That they might be selfless in humble service to others, especially within their own families . . .
That they may joyfully make sacrifices . . .
That they have a great desire to hear and read Holy Scripture . . .
That they may grow in holiness . . .
That they understand more clearly that no one enjoys interior peace of heart who turns away from You and is disobedient to Your will . . .
That they may all reach heaven . . .

Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world . . . spare us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world . . . graciously hear us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world . . . have mercy on us, O Lord!

Beloved Physician Saint Luke and the Hippocratic Oath

Today the Church celebrates the life and writing of one very important physician, Saint Luke. The only gentile to write a gospel he also wrote about the deeds of Peter and Paul in the Book of Acts. Paul referred to him as the "beloved physician." I feel honored to be a part of a profession that goes back to the days even before Christ walked the earth. Yet, I feel saddened at the departure many physicians have made from their original Hippocratic Oath. Most folks don't know this but the original oath prohibited physicians from giving an abortifacient as well as any drug to end life!

"I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. In purity and holiness I will guard my life and my art."

Saint Luke probably took the original oath in order to practice his art and I also took this oath. Though in 1985, at my state medical school, the oath I swore was barely recognizeable as the Hippocratic Oath, since they removed all references to abortion and euthanasia.

Let's ask Saint Luke on his feast day, to ask God for the grace for physicians to return to the original oath that was life affirming and completely in accord with the Gospel of Life.

St Luke, I ask you to speak to God on my behalf for the grace and strength to practice my art in "purity and holiness." So God will be glorified and someday I will hear the Lord call me a beloved physician.

"Creeds, Schmeeds, Who Needs'm?"

I happened upon a website today that described the faith statement of an "emerging looking" church. They had the Nicene and Apostle's creeds on their site and said that their faith comes from the ancient truths expressed in these creeds. Yet when I read further down and came to their "contemporary statement of faith" they stated that "we believe neither baptism or the Lord's supper has any merit in obtaining eternal salvation." Yet, the Nicene Creed states "we believe in one baptism for the forgiveness of sins." The early church believed that one needed baptism to begin the process of salvation and believed that baptism was not symbolic but regenerational for the sinner.


So what's my issue here? I respect the right for anyone to state their views regardless of how divergent from mine. However, to wave the Creeds around like a flag but deny the very doctrines they espouse doesn't make sense to me.
I am intrigued by the ancient/future church movement as I have talked about before because those folks are taking an honest unbiased look at the early church with its creeds and making statements like "the Call" which I blogged on before. These are folks who I hope and pray will eventually feel the call to Rome as they learn more about the early church which was Catholic in creed, practice and name as well. But for a church to advertise their belief in the Apostles and Nicene creeds on their website displayed with a celtic cross, and then go out and create your own contradicting statement of faith.....I just don't get it. It's like saying "creeds, schmeeds, who needs'm." What do you think?

"Why Liturgy Works for Me"

Getting back to my blog about the Mass, I was reflecting how the Liturgy is a constant and the priests in the Church are instructed that "the liturgy belongs to the Church, not the priest." Therefore, he is not allowed to inject his own words, tenses, or paraphrases during the Mass. For me, this removes the human tendency to infuse one's own agenda (spin) in the Mass. This "stays" the fleshly nature of man's hand so to speak and allows God to speak and infuse His grace through the liturgy.
I used to think of Catholicism as a "man-made religion with man-made liturgies" but now I see that the Liturgy of the Mass is evidence of God's divine protection and love so that we don't allow man (meaning, the priest) to change the liturgy to suit his fancy. So rather than being man-made, it is God-breathed and does not allow for personal interpretation or expression by a particular priest's point of view. (Please see my post on how much of the Liturgy is based on God's Word.)

Finally, regarding the universal indult that is soon to be delivered by the Pope. If the Mass said in Latin continues to protect the Liturgy and keep us from "messing with it", then I am all for it. With the Mass in Latin, there will be less tendency and temptation to "customize" the Liturgy as many of the priests today don't have a working knowledge of Latin. I am thankful for my parish where the priests respect the liturgy and don't ever "make it their own."
Here's the CCC on liturgy:
1125 For this reason no sacramental rite may be modified or manipulated at the will of the minister or the community. Even the supreme authority in the Church may not change the liturgy arbitrarily, but only in the obedience of faith and with religious respect for the mystery of the liturgy.

So this is why Liturgy works for me. Because it is ordained by God through His Church and removes the opportunity for man-made manipulation that can be so tempting in this present culture.

"Nada te turbe" Teresa of Avila

Today the Catholic Church celebrates the life of Teresa of Avila. She was born in Spain in 1515 at the start of the Reformation and lived until 1582 to see the beginnings of the Counter Reformation in the Council of Trent. She was a contemplative, mystic and reformer and one of the first women recognized as a Doctor of the Church. She did much to bring the Carmelite order back to its original rule and had much success in turning around the carmelite monasteries that were becoming too worldy. She wrote many volumes of poems, books and letters. Her exhumed body nine months after burial was incorrupted and gave off a beautiful perfume of an odor that filled the monastery. She was canonized in 1622 and made a Doctor of the Church in 1970.

"Let nothing upset you, let nothing startle you. All things pass; God does not change. Patience wins all it seeks. Whoever has God lacks nothing: God alone is enough"

On This Rock

"The Mass is So Boring"

When I left the Church in 1973, I was immediately impressed with the spontaneity and excitement that was found in the independent charismatic church I started to attend. The prayers were spontaneous, the singing was often spontaneous and the pastor with no formal education was even more spontaneous! Having never experienced this before, it was a delight to my senses and being newly converted I was told this was "normative Christianity." Meaning; this is how the church normally operated.
Fast forward 25 years. At this point my senses were more than overstimulated and perhaps my middle age was showing but I began to dread the spontaneity of the services. Would the worship time go for 30 minutes , or an hour or two? Would the sermon be cancelled because of the Spirit was directing us to have an altar call? Would the service come to a grinding halt when an individual felt led to give a prophecy? Or would the worship leader feeling we weren't "quite "breaking through yet" signal for the musicians to put down their instruments and stop the music? All of these things were certainly done with the attitude of allowing God to be in control and I was always impressed with the humility of my pastor putting away his sermon in order to allow the service to proceed in another direction.... But..., was this "normative Christianity?"

For the past two years, my study of the early church presented through the writings of the Early Church Fathers and other historical documents has led me to a different conclusion. I blogged on this before so I won't go into the details, but normative Christian worship has always been centered on the Liturgy of the Mass with the Eucharist being the focal point. Now that I am Catholic and have experienced yet another conversion, I can see the Mass as anything but boring .

In America where LCD projectors, audiophile-quality sound sytems, professional dance and drama presentations rule the day on Sunday mornings, a liturgical based worship could "look" boring. Once I realized what the liturgy meant and knowing that the priest uses some of the same prayers used in the 1st century church, I get chills! At the point of consecration, heaven opens and all the angels on earth and in heaven adore the Holy One! Then, I have the privilege of participating in this grand feast and receiving Christ physically in the Eucharist.

No, I'm not bored anymore.

An excellent book that can help us to see and understand the beauty of the Mass is Thomas Howard's "If your Mind Wanders At Mass." (Thomas Howard is Elizabeth Elliot's brother and a renowned scholar and convert)

Let Me Be Merciful

I have discovered the joy of praying written prayers. It forces me to not rely on myself, my own intellect my own desires or imaginations. After 30 years of spontaneous prayer, it was a little hard initially to get use to praying as I read the words from someone else's devotional life. I found though these prayers from this saint too irresistible to be kept for her alone. I need to humble myself and admit; I need my heart to echo the word's of this believer. May God give us all the mercy that Saint Faustina prayed for.

I want to be completely transformed into Your mercy and to be Your living reflection, O Lord. May the greatest of all divine attributes, that of Your unfathomable mercy, pass through my heart and soul to my neighbor.

Help me, O Lord, that my eyes may be merciful, so that I may never suspect or judge from appearances, but look for what is beautiful in my neighbors' souls and come to their rescue.

Help me, that my ears may be merciful, so that I may give heed to my neighbors' needs and not be indifferent to their pains and moanings.

Help me, O Lord, that my tongue may be merciful, so that I should never speak negatively of my neighbor, but have a word of comfort and forgiveness for all.

Help me, O Lord, that my hands may be merciful and filled with good deeds, so that I may do only good to my neighbors and take upon myself the more difficult and toilsome tasks.

Help me, that my feet may be merciful, so that I may hurry to assist my neighbor, overcoming my own fatigue and weariness. My true rest is in the service of my neighbor.

Saint Faustina, Pray for us to have a heart for God and others as you did. You are with Him now, close to His heart of mercy. Pray for this grace for me . Thank you Saint Faustina for your prayers for me today.

Working Out My Salvation With a Little Fear and Some Trembling

Some of my posts recently may have been viewed as polemic and answering back "tit" for "tat" when I get an unkind commenter. Yes, I am still "working out my salvation" and part of that process for me has been attempting to explain Catholicism and dispel the false legends and mythology that is so ever present in the hearts and minds of many Christian folks who have not been presented the facts. Most of these posts address misconceptions that I myself personally held against the Catholic Church! So daily, I am in a state of both joy and shame once I discover the Truth behind the myths! I know I have been forgiven for my anti-Catholic ways over the years and He has separated my sins as far as the East is from the West. I still feel bad about the verbal abuse I gave to Father Robert Cofenas of Lehigh University when I was a "Radio-Bible Scholar" so Father if you are out there, forgive me!! (And give me a call will ya?)
Blogging about Catholicism is one small way for me to work out my salvation as St. Paul admonishes us as well as for me to correct the temporal consequences of my years away from the Church and dragging others away as well. You are watching a Catholic do actual penance when you read this blog! Not working for Jesus' forgiveness; that's already accomplished by Christ's death on the Cross, but I am still responsible for the temporal consequences of my sin, and this, my friends, is the meaning of "doing penance."

Scripture and The Mass

Much time, energy, prayer and discernment went into the canonization of Scripture in the fourth century. The present canon of Scripture didn't "fall from the sky," but required much prayerful debate and discussion by the early Church fathers. Why was so much time and effort spent in discernment of the many books and letters that were eventually included in the bible? Was this process done for the end result that the people at that time could have Scripture available for personal devotional time? No, there was no printing press available and literacy rates were very low so the purpose was not to distribute the Bible to the masses, but provide the Bible for the Mass. The canonization of Scripture was accomplished to provide the Church with the correct inspired Scriptures for readings at the Mass.

The early Church was still very Jewish and Scripture reading comprised a significant portion of the Mass as it does today. I found a website that shows just how much of Scripture is interwoven in the liturgy of the Mass. It really made me quite ashamed for my accusations that Catholics don't read the Bible and don't use Scripture. I was clearly mistaken. You may be surprised too!

Commentary appears in green.

Greeting:

Priest: In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. (Matt. 28:19)

People: Amen (1 Chr 16:36)

Priest: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. (2 Cor 13:13)

People: And also with you.

Penitential Rite:

All: I confess to almighty God, and to you my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault. (Jas. 5:16) In my thoughts and in my words, (Rom. 12:16) In what I have done and what I have failed to do; (Jas 3:6) and I ask the Blessed Virgin Mary, all the angel and saints, and you, my brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord our God. (1 Thess 5:25)

Priest: May almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life. (1 John 1:9)

People: Amen (1 Chr 16:36)

All: Lord have mercy. (Tb 8:4) Christ have mercy. (1 Tim 1:2) Lord have mercy.

Gloria:

All: Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people on earth. (Luke 2:14)
Lord God, heavenly King, almighty God and Father, (Rev 19:6)
we worship you, (Rev. 22:9) we give you thanks, (Eph. 5:20)
we praise you for your glory. (Rev 7:12)
Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the Father, (2 John 3)
Lord God, Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world:
have mercy on us; (John 1:29)
You are seated at the right hand of the Father, receive our prayer. (Rom 8:34)
For you alone are the Holy One, (Luke 4:34)
You alone are Lord, You alone are the Most High, Jesus Christ. (Luke 1:32)
with the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father. (John 14:26)

[The Liturgy of the Word consists of four readings from Scripture: the first is typically from the Old Testament, the second a psalm, followed by a reading from one of the epistles. Finally, the Gospel is proclaimed during which the people stand out of respect for the Word. The chosen readings change daily.]

Click here to get today’s liturgical readings from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

[A Sermon on the readings follows.] (2 Tim 4:1-2)

Profession of Faith: [the Nicene (or Apostles) Creed]

All:

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, (Gen 14:19) of all that is seen and unseen. (Col 1:16)
We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, (Luke 1:35) eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, begotten not made, one in being with the Father. (Heb 1:3) Through him all things were made. (John 1:2-3) For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven: (John 3:13) by the power of the Holy Spirit he was born of the Virgin Mary, (Matt 1:18) and became man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, (John 19:16) he suffered, died and was buried. On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures. (1 Cor 15:3-4) He ascended into heaven (Luke 24:51) and is seated at the right hand of the Father. (Col 3:1) He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead (2 Tim 4:1) and his kingdom will have no end. (Luke 1:33)
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of Life, (Acts 2:17) who proceeds from the Father and the Son. (John 14:16) With the Father and Son he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the prophets. (1 Peter 1:10-11)
We believe in one holy, catholic and apostolic Church. (Rom 12:5) We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. (Acts 2:38) We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. (Rom 6:5) Amen

Liturgy of the Eucharist:

[The gifts are brought to the altar. These include the bread and wine and the offering collected from the people.] (Malachi 3:10)

Priest: Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation. Through your goodness we have this bread to offer, which earth has given and human hands have made. (Eccl. 3:13) It will become for us the bread of life. (John 6:35)

People: Blessed be God forever. (Ps 68:36)

Priest: Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation. Through your goodness we have this wine to offer, fruit of the vine and work of human hands. It will become our spiritual drink. (Luke 22:17-18)

People: Blessed be God forever. (Ps 68:36)

Priest: Pray, brethren, that our sacrifice may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father. (Heb. 12:28)

People: May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands for the praise and glory of his name, for our sake and the good of all his Church. (Ps 50:23)

Eucharistic Prayers:

Priest: Lift up your hearts.

People: We lift them up to the Lord. (Lam 3:41)

Priest: Let us give thanks to the Lord Our God. (Col 3:17)

People: It is right to give him thanks and praise. (Col 1:3)

Preface acclamation:

All: Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory. (Is 6:3) Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. (Mark 11:9-10)

Eucharistic prayer:

[There are four of these, based on ancient prayers of the Church. Eucharistic Prayer Two follows as an example:]

Priest: Lord, you are holy indeed, the fountain of all holiness. (2 Macc. 14:36) Let your spirit come upon these gifts (water and wine) to make them holy, so that they may become the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Before he was given up to death, (Phil 2:8) a death he freely accepted, (John 10:17-18) he took bread and gave you thanks. He broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, and said: Take this all of you, and eat it: this is my body which will be given up for you. When supper was ended, he took the cup. Again he gave thanks and praise, gave the cup to his disciples, and said: Take this, all of you, and drink from it: this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven. Do this is memory of me. (Mark 14:22-25) Let us proclaim the mystery of faith.

All: Dying you destroyed our death, rising you restored our life, Lord Jesus, come in glory. (Heb 2:14-15)

Priest: In memory of his death and resurrection, we offer you, Father, this life-giving bread, this saving cup. (John 6:51) We thank you for counting us worthy to stand in your presence and serve you. May all of us who share in the body and blood of Christ be brought together in unity by the Holy Spirit. (1 Cor.10:17) Lord, remember your Church throughout the world; make us grow in love together with our Pope and our bishop, and all the clergy. Remember our brothers and sisters who have gone to their rest in the hope of rising again: bring them and all the departed into the light of your presence. (2 Macc 12:45-46) Have mercy on us all; make us worthy to share eternal life with Mary, the virgin Mother of God, with the apostles and with all the saints who have done your will throughout the ages. May we praise you in union with them, and give you glory though your Son, Jesus Christ. (2 Thes 1:4-5) Through him, with him, in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, almighty Father, for ever and ever.

All: Amen. (Rom 11:36)

Communion Rite:

The Lord’s Prayer:

All: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. (Matt 6:9-13)

Priest: Deliver us, Lord, from every evil and grant us peace in our day. In your mercy keep us from sin and protect us from all anxiety as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our savior, Jesus Christ. (John 17:15)

All: For the kingdom the power and the glory are yours, now and forever. Amen

Priest: Lord Jesus Christ, you said to your apostles; I leave you peace, my peace I give to you. (John 14:27) Look not on our sins, but on the faith of your Church, and grant us the peace and unity of your kingdom where you live forever and ever.

Priest: The peace of the Lord be with you always! (John 20:19)

People: And also with you!

[The priest then directs the people to exchange a sign, such as a handshake or a kiss, or a word of God’s peace to one another.]

Breaking of the Bread:

All: Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: have mercy on us. Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: have mercy on us. Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, grant us peace. (John 1:29)

Communion:

Priest: This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Happy are those who are called to his supper. (Rev. 19:9)

People: Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed. (Matt 8:8)

[Communion is distributed to the faithful at the altar by the priest and lay ministers.]

Dismissal:

Priest: Blessed be the name of the Lord. Now and forever. (Dan 2:20) May almighty God bless you, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. (Luke 24:51) Go in peace (Luke 7:50) to love and serve the Lord. (2 Chr 35:3)

[During the blessing the people make the Sign of the Cross, the traditional sign of the baptized and a public sign of their belief in the power of God.]

People: Thanks be to God. (2 Cor 9:15)

Do Catholics Worship Statues? (One More Time!)

Catholics are often accused of worshipping statues as idolaters. One of the most circulated images of our late Holy Father John Paul 2 on the internet is not found on Catholic websites but is on anti-Catholic websites! PhatCatholic does an excellent job explaining why it is not idol worship and for the gazillionth time, Catholics don't worship statues and are prohibited by Scripture from worshipping anyone but the Triune God. Let's read what PhatCatholic has to say here:

"... the statue is simply a reminder of the saint whose prayers we are invoking. We are not praying to the statue, we are requesting the prayers of the saint who is represented by it.

The second issue is the posture of kneeling or bowing, and what it means. The bible clearly shows that this posture need not be equated with divine worship, or the worship afforded to God alone. Lot "bowed himself with his face to the earth" before the angels that visited him in Sodom (Gen 19:1). Joseph's brothers "bowed themselves before him with their faces to the ground" when they came to him for food (Gen 42:6). Saul "bowed with his face to the ground, and did obeisance" before Samuel (1 Sam 28:14). Bathsheba "bowed and did obeisance" to King David (1 Kings 1:16), as did Nathan (vs. 23), Ornan (1 Chron 21:21), and even the entire assembly (1 Chron 29:20). David himself bowed down before the temple of the Lord (Psa 138:2). The sons of the prophets at Jericho "bowed to the ground" before Elisha (2 Kings 2:15). King Nebuchadnezzar "fell upon his face, and did homage" to Daniel, and even commanded that an offering and incense be offered up to him! (Dan 2:46). Even Jesus Christ himself will make those of the synagogue of Satan to bow down before the church in Philadelphia (Rev 3:9).

No one would accuse all of these people of idol worship because they assumed a posture of prayer or worship before an object of God's creation. One should not accuse Catholics of doing the same thing. Ultimately, this is a matter of intent. Kneeling or bowing can imply worship, but it need not necessarily, as these scripture passages reveal. It is just as erroneous to assume that a Catholic is worshipping a statue (simply because he is kneeling near it) as it is to assume that Nebuchadnezzer was worshipping Daniel...........and Nebuchadnezzer did so much more!

What these passages also show is that kneeling/bowing can also be an act of respect, or veneration. That is in fact what is going on in all of these passages, and that is what the Catholic does. When a Catholic kisses a crucifix, this is not an act towards the actual metal/wooden cross he is holding. Instead, it is a sign of the love that he has for Jesus and His work on the cross. David knelt before the temple not to worship the actual stone structure but to make an act of humility before the presence of the Lord that the temple represented."

Thanks Phat Catholic for that great explanation.

Hope this helps to dispel another of those circulating internet legends that take on a life of their own.

The Martyrs of Abitina

During the persecution of the Roman emperor Diocletian which started in 303 AD, many Christians were called to make the ultimate sacrifice for their faith. A particular group of 46 believers in Northern Africa refused to stop meeting and partaking of the Eucharist. They freely admitted to their persecutors that they would not stop celebrating the Lord's Supper.
Their life would mean nothing to them if they could not have Christ in the Eucharist so they willing gave up their lives.
They were arrested at the liturgy and sent to Carthage for examination. Saturninus was a priest, and with him suffered his four children, Saturninus and Felix, readers, Mary, a virgin, and Hilarion, a young child. Dativus and another Felix were senators. Other names from this group are: Thelica, Ampelius, Emeritus, Rogatian and Victoria, a holy virgin of undaunted courage. The child Hilarion, when threatened by the magistrates while his companions were being tortured, replied: 'Yes, torture me too; anyhow, I am a Christian'. They all died in prison.

It really made me think when I prayed in Mass today, "Give Us this Day Our Daily Bread," how much we take for granted our freedom to celebrate Mass! The early Christians had interpreted the Lord's Prayer to mean the "Bread from Heaven" and the Eucharist became the center of their liturgy from the earliest times. They were willing to die for their belief in the Eucharist and many were persecuted for being cannibals! So the next time, I feel a bit reluctant about getting up for daily Mass, I will try to remember the North African martyrs who died for their chance to receive Christ in the Lord's Supper.

Saint Saturninus , You were willing to die for your desire to keep the Lord's Supper. I ask you to pray to Jesus to give me more and more appreciation of His presence with us in the Mass. Thanks for your prayers on my behalf.

Lead a Dying Life

"Realize that you must lead a dying life; the more a man dies to himself, the more he begins to live unto God."

From The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis (1380-1471)

"For five hundred years, this gentle book, filled with the spirit of the love of God, has brought understanding and comfort to millions of readers in over fifty languages, and provided them with a source of heart-felt personal prayer. These meditations on the life and teachings of Jesus, written in times even more troubled and dangerous than our own, have become second only to the Bible as a guide and inspiration." excerpted from CCEL

You can read it online from Calvin College's website "Christian Classics Ethereal Library"

It is definitely recommended reading for Christians of any denomination. I have a copy downloaded on my Palm Pilot.

Sly Comes Back to the Family Stone (CEPHAS that is!)

Charismatic Episcopal Church Archbishop Randolph Sly is joining the Catholic Church in the next few months. He intends to resign his episcopate in November and enter the Catholic Church as a layman. The Charismatic Episcopal Church was formed in 1992 as a convergence of ancient creedal Christianity with a claim to apostolic succession with elements of the charismatic renewal.
Welcome to The Rock Archbishop! Our prayers are with you and your family.

What Is It That Engenders This Much Vitriol From Our Brothers in Christ?

I initially wasn't going to allow this post because I try to not let my blog become a posting site for uncharitable comments but here goes. I am hoping for some thoughtful charitable responses to Mr. Anon. He certainly knows select quotes from popes and the catechism more than I do! This interaction was taken from the comments in response to my Faith With Reason post.

Anonymous Recently Posted:

"You guys have got to be kidding?!Catholics can't think for themselves so they need a pope who declares himself to be Jesus that is an abomination to think for them. Work out your faith with fear... "


I then Responded:

Catholic teaching never equates the Pope with Jesus. If you could get past your vitriol* perhaps you would be able to see this a bit more clearly. Sometimes hatred and prejudice can blind a person's intellect as well, but that's just my opinion. 33,000 different denominations each with their own peculiar ideas of salvation, baptism, end times etc. All because folks think for themselves and become their own popes.No thanks, I would rather trust in The Church that Christ started rather than create my own unique doctrines, and inserting my own words into Scripture or removing books I dont' like. (as one of the reformers did without hesitation.)I would hope from reading the blog you would realize that Catholics are great thinkers and have tremendous intellect. The freedom to be a great thinker is granted when the freedom is constrained by correct doctrinal boundaries set by a teaching magisterium instituted by the Holy Spirit. Please refer to my blogs about the magisterium to understand where I am coming from here.
October 10, 2006 3:21 PM

Anonymous then posted:

I stumbled on your blog and apologize for my hateful words. I emotionally discharges on you and I apologize. I interpret your post as EVANGELICALS do not use reason and I was taken back by your harsh judgement. Harsh judgement deserves harsh words, but it wasn;t meant to be hateful towards you or Catholics. To say that "There used to be a saying about evangelicals, that they "check their brain at the door when they come to church." is the same as me saying: "Here is a Roman Catholic who thinks that a piece of bread is the flesh of Christ and they are cannibals." As to your reply that the Church doesn't teach that the Pope is "Jesus Christ on earth" is a Catholic lie:"
For the Roman pontiff (pope), by reason of his office as VICAR OF CHRIST, and as pastor of the entire Church has full, supreme, and universal POWER over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise UNHINDERED." CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, 1994, P. 254 #882"We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely NECESSARY FOR the SALVATION of every human creature to be SUBJECT TO THE ROMAN PONTIFF (POPE)." POPE BONIFACE VIII, BULL UNUN SANCTUM, 1302

No thanks!
October 10, 2006 6:04 PM




I Then Posted:

Dear Anon:
I think it would be best to re-read my blog. I don't think you understood what I was trying to get across. My words were not meant to be harsh and I disagree that harsh judgments deserve harsh words(where's that in the Bible?) I was an evangelical for 30 years and often-times experienced a tendency to down play the use of my intellect. The saying I used about evangelicals was obtained from an interview of the author of the above book I posted about, he himself is an evangelical. His entire book is a statement that charismatic/pentecostals are in danger of emphasizing emotion and downplaying intellect. I was writing about his book to explain that I too did that for many years and I was one of the folks he spoke about.

An example of my "dummying down" was my refusal to look at history particularly the documents written by early Christians. Justin Martyr as well as many other writers in the first centuries of the church wrote that the Eucharist was indeed the real body and blood of the Lord, and they were brutally persecuted by the Romans for being "cannibals" as you alluded to. Up until the 1600 century, Christians never viewed the Eucharist as symbolic until the Reformation. But I refused to acknowledge any written history of what early Christianity looked like due to my anti-Catholic bias and vitriol against all things Catholic.

Justin Martyr said :
"We call this food Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration [i.e., has received baptism] and is thereby living as Christ enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus" (First Apology 66 [A.D. 151]).

Regarding Your statement that Catholics need a "Pope who declares himself to be Jesus":

The Pope is the Vicar of Christ. A Pope never has and never will declare himself to be Jesus.
Sir, that truly is a lie and not a "catholic lie" , but a lie that someone is stating to blindly criticize Catholicism out of bitterness and much anger I might add.
We need to decrease the height of the flames here and read what the definition of a vicar is:"a person who is authorized to perform the functions of another; deputy"So the Pope is functioning as the "deputy", Jesus gave the "badge" to Peter and said, Peter, I am giving you the authority to perform my functions, so to speak. So Pete, while I am away, you have my authority given to you to forgive sins, bind and loose and even bind things in heaven!! The language Jesus used is borrowed from Isaiah 22:20-22, when the king gives the keys of the kingdom to his prime minister to bind and loose etc.So Jesus transferred his authority, power to forgive sins etc, to his Church. This transference was a huge deal and was meant to be carried on and the ability to bind and loose was not intended to stop with Peter. So Catholics don't usurp Christ's power nor do popes equate themselves with Jesus as your original comments stated. The Popes are obeying Jesus command to hold onto the keys as a prime minister would handle all the affairs for an ancient Jewish king. Please re-read Isaiah to really get a sense of what Jesus was doing in this monumentous handoff.

You seem to know quite a bit about the Catholic catechism, so I don't understand why you can't realize that the Catholic Church is only doing as Christ commanded?If he gave all authority to Peter and his successors, including the gospel of salvation, then no salvation can come but through this succession. You, who I assume are a Christian, are a believer today because of the Catholic Church and the deposit of Truth passed on by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Bible you read was canonized by a successor of Peter named Pope Damasus in 393 AD. Therefore ultimately all salvation did come from this Church. It may sound triumphalistic and I am sorry that it seems to you that way, but it is how God intended. The Church is happy to accept the faith of other believers outside the Church and considers them our brethren, albeit separated from us. But Luther and the other reformers and the 33,000 sects that have sprung from them have the Catholic Church to thank for the Gospel of Salvation passed on by Peter and his successors. I accept your apology for your "hateful words" and just pray for God's grace and peace on both of us. God bless you,
TJ

"Come Let Us Worship and Bow Down"

This past Sunday evening I had the privilege of providing worship music for a "Holy Hour" at a nearby parish. For the un-initiated, a Holy Hour is a time that folks come together for an hour for Eucharistic adoration and prayer as well as the opportunity to receive the sacrament of reconciliation (Confession). Not unlike First Fridays except this has additional singing of worship songs in the presence of our Lord. It was very meaningful to me because I had spent the past 30 or so years as a musician in worship and praise bands and led worship services from time to time in a Methodist church shortly before reverting to Catholicism. This was the first opportunity in two years since returning to the Church , to use my musical talents in a Catholic worship service.

There was a difference this time. All the focus was on Jesus displayed in the monstrance for all the worshippers. The music provided a backdrop but was not the focus of the service. Jesus was the focus and the pressure and focus was off me! Unless you have ever led worship in a charismatic church, you can't fully understand the pressure and responsibility that you feel because of the need to "get it right" and bring the congregation into 'the presence" of the Lord.
I admire the worship leaders I have known in the past because of their concern and committment to help bring the congregants into fervent praise of Jesus. But in Eucharistic Adoration, as a Catholic when I sang: "Come let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our God, our Maker" I finally "got it." He was there with us, "cloaked" as it were in bread, humbled before us in the form of the Eucharist. It was difficult to hold back my tears when I realized all the years I had sung about His presence, but left the Church that gave me the opportunity to come and bow down before Him in the Real Presence.

Faith Without Reason.

Faith With Reason

There used to be a saying about evangelicals, that they "check their brain at the door when they come to church." I have been so thankful since returning to the Church of my youth that I no longer have to fight my intellect and attempt to 'dummy it" down. I have found the writings of the saints, Church Fathers and popes incredibly satisfying intellectually and challenging as well. I am not saying Catholic=intellectual and evangelical=dummy, and I hope I am not implying that, but I have been thankful for having a faith that does not ask me to give up reason. Recently, when I attempted to dialogue with an "independent evangelical" regarding the writings of the Early Church Fathers: Ignatius, Augustine, Clement, Justin Martyr, he told me: "All I need to know about the history of the church is in the book of Acts, I don't need your fathers." To me, it is intellectual suicide to disregard history and or great inspired writing because it is not in the Bible. God told us to love Him with our whole heart and mind and strength. I think that it would be a sin not to. By ignoring everything else outside the Bible deprives us of resources God has given us to learn more about Him and to love Him more.

What started this rant today was the finding of a book recently written by a"charismatic-pentecostal" pastor who left his pastorate for 18 months to sequester himself and research and write the book called Full Gospel, Fractured Minds. Author and pastor Rick Nanez fears that the charismatic/pentecostal churches are in danger of falling into relativistic post-modernity due to their anti-intellectual bias and focus on emotion-packed preaching and worship styles. He believes that Christians in this camp have made a virtue out of anti-intellectualism and have vilified anyone who attempts to use their mind.

The Catholic Church has aways embraced Faith and Reason and there is no better example than St. Thomas Aquinas. His writings on Aristotle and his proof of the existence of God through Aristitotelian logic are still mind numbing! St. Thomas Aquinas is a Doctor of the Church and his Summa Theologica continues to be the subject of study in Catholic as well as Protestant schools of theology due to its richness. John Paul 2 had not one but two PhD's and his successor holds a PhD as well. I have just started scratching the surface of the writings of John Paul and a couple of Pope Benedict's books are on my nightstand in the "line up." Pope Benedict himself recently said : "Reason and faith go hand and hand ....." Unfortunately his comments were not read in the context of his whole speech but that's another blog.

Perhaps folks like Rick Nanez and others may start to consider Catholicism because of its rich intellectual reasoning. I was more than pleasantly suprised at the tremendous resource of intellect and faith we have in this Church and I regret the 30 years that I spent not being open to anything written before the Reformation or any Catholic writings because of my mis-informed anti-Catholic bias.

I suggest reading GK. Chesterton's Orthodoxy , any writings of John Paul 2 to see great examples of Faith and Reason.
God bless!

TGIF

The Church uses the first Friday of each month to encourage the faithful to again look to the Cross and recall the events of Good Friday and focus our attention on Jesus. Actually, each Friday of each week has been always held as a day of penance to recall the Lord's suffering for us. We undergo small sacrifices as a way of "offering up" something to God. We are encouraged to spend more time in prayer on Fridays and or to perform an extra deed of charity. We are encouraged to forego eating meat as a small sacrifice. Are these done because I am trying to earn my way to heaven? No, not at all, Jesus did that on the Cross! But, by fasting meat on Fridays, I can show my love for Jesus by "offering up" my creature comfort uniting my "little suffering" to His. (Col 1:24) Why wait until one day of the year (Good Friday) to meditate on the suffering and death of our Lord when each Friday of each week we can focus on this most important event in Salvation History?

Many parishes do this by having Eucharistic Adoration on the first Friday of each month. It is a time when Mother Church calls us to take a pause from our overly busy lives, just for an hour, and come, bow down and worship the Lord Jesus. What a great way to start the weekend! Letting go of myself and my agenda for a moment, and concentrating on Him and His agenda.

As I entered the chapel for Eucharistic Adoration last evening, I was struck by the quiet and peace that was there. As I entered the pew, I knelt on both knees for a moment as a way of honoring my Lord who was physically present in the monstrance on the altar. I noticed that there were elderly couples kneeling together, men and women having just finished their work weeks, and young singles quietly sitting and adoring the Lord. I prayed privately for a time thanking God for this privilege, than prayed some prayers that many saints who have gone before me prayed as they knelt before the Eucharist hundreds of years ago.

"My Jesus! What a lovable contrivance this holy Sacrament was - that You would hide under the appearance of bread to make Yourself loved and to be available for a visit by anyone who desires You!"

- St. Alphonsus Ligouri

You don't have to be Catholic to be blessed by blessing the Lord in Eucharistic Adoration.
I encourage you to find a parish in your area via Mass Times. org and check out the next First Friday Eucharistic Adoration. Some Pentecostal folks in Brooklyn go to Eucharistic Adoration at the Franciscan Friary because they "know our sweet Lord Jesus is there."
http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/pea/a2.html

Carry Your Cross is not a "Jabezian" Theology

I read a blog on suffering today that helps me to better understand disappointments, hardships, physical and mental pain. Thomas a Kempis wrote much about the value of suffering
and the blogger quotes from him on her site.
"Realize that you must lead a dying life; the more a man dies to himself, the more he begins to live unto God."

Jesus said:
“If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.”

That sure flies in the face of much of the current teachings of wealth, prosperity and the "enlarging your borders" of Jabezian* theology. Jesus and the disciples seemed much more "Franciscan" and less "Jabezian." As a matter of fact, the early church pretty much suffered all the time and the blood of the martyrs became the seeds of this church. Not much wealth and prosperity there, but talk about "enlarging your borders!" The Gospel of Jesus Christ spread throughout the world!

Check out this blog for some needed thoughts about suffering: The Mystery of Suffering



*Prayer of Jabez was a 93 page book that sold 9 million copies was at the top of the NY Times BestSeller's List in 2000.

Get To Know the Lord! (Personally That Is!)

"To truly know Jesus requires discovering him personally," Pope Benedict XVI said at his weekly general audience.10/04/2006

While hearing about Christ through the Bible or through other people can introduce a person to Christian belief, "it must then be ourselves (who) become personally involved in an intimate and deep relationship with Jesus" in order to know he is truly the savior of the world, the pope said.

I can't think of a closer way of getting to know Jesus more than through frequent reception of the Most Blessed Sacrament. As a revert to Catholicism, I feel I have become closer to Jesus in the Eucharist and this continues to grow and is nourished through the grace I receive daily from this sacrament. The quiet moments while kneeling in prayer after receiving Him in the Eucharist are the most precious part of the Mass for me. Heaven truly comes to earth in the Mass and we can commune most intimately with the Lord. I wish I had understood this reality when I was a 13 year old kid before I left the Church. I was baptized and went through the motions of being Catholic but didn't get to know Jesus personally which is so important as Pope Benedict stated yesterday.

Truly, truly I say to you, unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of man and drink His Blood, you have no life in you; he who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My Flesh is food indeed, and My Blood is drink indeed. He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood abides in me, and I in him." (Jn 6:53-56).

"What wonderful majesty! What stupendous condescension! O sublime humility! That the Lord of the whole universe, God and the Son of God, should humble Himself like this under the form of a little bread, for our salvation"

"...In this world I cannot see the Most High Son of God with my own eyes, except for His Most Holy Body and Blood."

- St. Francis of Assisi

So as Catholics, not only do we get to know Jesus personally but actually get to receive Him personally; body, soul and divinity through the Eucharist.

Why is the @#$% of Babylon Pro Life?

I just had to blog this thought. Forgive the break in the flow of saints here but I need to ask this question. Satan is the author of death and destruction and his goal is to destroy life here as well as lead people into eternal damnation. Many of the criticisms of our faith say that we believe a false gospel and the Pope is leading people to hell! They say we are in league with the Devil! Yet , suspending all reality for a moment and assuming this is true, why is the Catholic Church always on the forefront of the protection of the unborn as well as the elderly at the end of life and the unprotected in our society? Does that cause any of the anti-Catholic folks out there to wonder? It sure would make me question why Satan's false church has always been protecting the unborn? I have posed this to many folks and have never received an answer.
The Church is Pro-life because God is the author and creator of all life and therefore life from conception to natural death is sacred and needs to be protected. This is an ancient Judaic truth that continues to be upheld in the Catholic Church. When the Romans in the first three centuries were putting their newborns outside the walls of the city to die, guess who gathered these
children up an created orphanages for them? When prostitutes gave birth and could not care for their own, who adopted these children and took them under their care? When the prostitutes became ill and could not care for themselves, what Church was there for them? I can't bring myself to come to the conclusion that these were all the works of the devil. Can you?
The Supreme Court will be taking a second look at the legislation that made president Bush's Partial Birth Abortion Ban "illegal." It is hoped they will decide that the ban on partial birth abortion is not a privacy protected right supported by the Roe vs. Wade decision and will re-institute the legality of the earlier decision. Five of the current Supreme Court judges are members of the Catholic Church. Why did President Bush pick two Catholics for his last two judges? Guess which organization is spear-heading the efforts to lobby Congress, the media and opinion leaders with information to promote this life-saving legislation? Yup, our friends at the United States Catholic Council of Bishops! Check out the Second Look Project.
And you know what's interesting? Jane Roe, (Norma McGorvey) the original woman who the case focused on is now a staunch proponent of life and campaigns actively to end abortion in the US. Norma was baptized in 1995 and became an evangelical Christian after evangelistic efforts of folks from Operation Rescue. Three years later she was received into the Catholic Church. I hope this rant was worth the read, I just had to get it off my chest.
Please check out Norma's Pro-Life Ministry Crossing Over and pray for the upcoming Supreme Court's Second Look at Partial Birth Abortion Ban.

St Francis Of Assisi - A Fundamentalist Catholic!

Today the Church remembers and celebrates the life and ministry of the little monk, St. Francis of Assisi. He is often remembered as one of the first hippies because of the stylized portrayal in Zifferelli's 70's era film "Brother Sun, Sister Moon." However, he was no "spiritual liteweight" and took the Gospel literally when he read that he should forsake all to follow Christ.

"Announce the kingdom! Possess no gold or silver or copper in your purses, no traveling bag, no sandals, no staff" (see Luke 9:1-3).

He completely emptied himself of all possessions literally removing all his clothes and returning them to his earthly father as a way of announcing his desire to forsake all and follow Christ. Boy, he sure took the Bible literally didn't he? He was known for his devotion to the Eucharist and his care for the poor and the sick. A story is told of his followers asking him to come and rebuke a worldy sinful priest that they were traveling to see. "What are you going to say to him when you see him Francis? they asked. "I am going to ask him to show me his hands so that I may kiss them because those are the hands that bring me Christ in the Eucharist." Wow! The Lord often brings that story to mind when I have critical thoughts about my pastor or a sermon that "didn't meet my approval."
One of the things that brings me no small pleasure is seeing all the creches in all the churches, regardless of denomination during the Christmas season. For it was that tradition of bringing live animals and a baby in a manger to the Church that St. Francis initiated as a way to honor the Savior during Christmas in 1223.
In the last 2 years of his life he received the stigmata and as he was dying asked to have his clothes removed so he would die as our Lord did, naked. His last words were "Be praised, O Lord, for our Sister Death." He looked forward to seeing his savior Jesus after a life of service to Him.

"Most High, Glorious God, enlighten the darkness of our minds. Give us a right faith, a firm hope and a perfect charity, so that we may always and in all things act according to Your Holy Will. Amen."

St. Francis, I ask you today on your feast day, to pray for me to Jesus so that my heart will grow to love Jesus more than the things of this earth. Thank you!

Feast of Blessed Frances Xavier Seelos 1819-1867

Today the Church remembers a missionary priest known for his devotion to the poor and care for the sick . He was a German priest who came to the United States and was active in teaching and preaching during the Civil War. He spent time in several states including Pennsylvania , NJ and Maryland but finally ended his ministry in New Orleans among the poor.

"So the doctor says I am to die! Oh, what pleasant news! How thankful I am! And to you, doctor, how much I have to return thanks for your kindness and attention to me! "

The words of Blessed Father Frances Xavier Seelos after contracting yellow fever from his ministry among the sick in New Orleans in 1867. He died at 48 years of age.

What Was The Hardest Thing About Becoming Catholic?

Yesterday I blogged about the joy of becoming Catholic. This joy however is accompanied by sadness as well. The decision to convert for many of us has resulted in much temporal loss. The hardest thing for me was losing friends and/or the respect of friends who viewed my conversion as backsliding or walking away from God. It was so painful (and hurtful to my pride) to see that folks who cared about you no longer considered you a serious Christian or someone who "loved the Lord." To be told by former patients that I prayed for and ministered to that "They are praying for me that I stay close to Jesus" was a bitter pill to swallow. To have musical engagements cancelled where I had played many times before was tough as well. I told one of the evangelical churches that cancelled my gig that "converting to Catholicism hadn't affected my hammer dulcimer playing any yet!"

I can't explain to them that my conversion has actually increased my desire to obey Christ and live for Him, not the other way around. I can't tell them that God has given me victory over many difficult areas in my life that I struggled with for 30 or more years. My desire to read the Bible and spend time in prayer has been enhanced since returning to Catholicism all of which I attribute to the grace and mercy of God.
I just have to hope that I will keep changing and becoming more like Him so that my life will be as St. Paul said, "a living epistle."

Have any of you other converts or reverts out there experienced difficulties as you made the decision to come home to the Church? I would be interested in hearing from you. Often our conversion stories are viewed by anti-Catholics as emotionally-motivated decisions without substantive reason or careful consideration. (This accusation is usually leveled at new evangelical converts!) Let me know what you think.

"The Catholic Church is God's Romance"

"The Catholic Church is God's romance. If the Bible is God's love letter to us, then the Catholic Church is the box of chocolates, the roses and the jewelry."

This is lifted from another blog, but I agree with the sentiment. Since I have become Catholic, I feel like Jesus has opened up a treasure chest for me every day! Mary and the other Saints and their writings, the power and grace of the Sacraments particularly the Eucharist and Confession and the knowledge that I am able to embrace the early church and worship as they did. Thank you God for revealing this to me so late in my life. When I was young, I found you but lost your Church. Now you let me have both. That's the spiritual equivalent to having your cake and eating it too!

My Personal Conversion Story

About 35 years ago as a young teen, I strayed from my Catholic faith and began to look into the occult and the rock and roll culture for answers and peace in my life. My parents brought me to Church faithfully but didn't allow their faith to help them with their personal problems. They had a troubled marriage and alcohol abuse was a chronic unspoken demon in their lives. As a teenager my Catholicism meant little to me though I do remember praying the rosary at night to help me sleep when I was troubled by something.
One night, I went to Bible study hosted by a friend of mine whose parents were ex-Catholics. There was tremendous joy and peace in the folks we met and I knew they had something I needed and wanted. That night I asked Jesus to forgive me and come into my life. I recited a prayer known as the Sinner's Prayer. God heard my prayers and I was set free from much sin and bad life choices in just one night. I had a very emotional experience and remember it as "better than any high that was out there." I was "born again" and my life took an abrupt and markedly different course. My parents reacted very negatively since they had no idea of the secret life I was living and my Mom kept saying "Why do you need to be born again? You are good kids."

The group of Christians who discipled me were from a very anti-Catholic fundamentalist sect. (J.T. Chick and similar folks) I soon was told that Catholics worship Mary, pray to dead people, believe that they only need to "be good" to get to heaven and "just look at their crucifix!" "They think Jesus is still on the cross and didn't rise from the dead!" I had no real objections to this since I had no idea what Catholics really believed. I had never read the Catholic Catechism other than in CCD class and had never been interested in pursuing my faith until the night of my "born again" experience.

So you could see how easy it was for me to accept a view that Catholicism was not the "True faith" but "a form of godliness that denied the power thereof." That is what us re-born Christians would tell each other to explain away 2000 years of Catholicism. I still had a nagging question of how could so many people be wrong for so many years and where were the "born againers" in the early times? My Bible study leader told me that the way is narrow that leads to life and wide that leads to destruction. It seemed to make sense. I knew nothing about the history of Christianity and was told that there had always been "a remnant" of true believers who operated outside the Catholic Church in an "invisible church" so to speak.

Chapter 2
I became very active in evangelical fellowships in high school and college particularly the more charismatic ones. These were groups of young people who truly loved God more than anything in their lives. These were times of warm fellowship and deep friendships some of which have remained up to the present. I still went to the local Catholic Church when I was home to obey my parents but I just tuned out the entire Mass, sat in the pew and stopped receiving the Eucharist. (Thank God I didn't since I would have been violating Paul's admonition to not receive the Body of Christ unworthily. ) At this time I met a Catholic religious brother who was really encouraging about my conversion but I never saw him again after he taught a few CCD classes to us in high school and we lost touch. I figured he was one of the few remaining Christians in the Catholic Church. Actually in all those years, I never met a devout Catholic who could give me a reasoned defense of his faith based on Scripture and good historical arguments. Perhaps they did try to convince me of my error but I usually beat them up so bad with the Bible they were left slack-jawed and wondering what hit them. I would have dismissed anything they told me anyway since I believed they were following the "whore of Babylon."

Once, I got into a heated debate with a Catholic priest at the college I attended and argued with him about how the Eucharist was only symbolic and not to be taken literally. I'll never forget the day he stomped out of my dorm room and slammed the door telling me how ignorant I was! I thought, "Boy is he a jerk!" Now with the wisdom of age and grace of conversion, I realize how justified he was for becoming enraged at me. There was a lot at stake in this argument, not just a non-essential doctrine to use my own "personal interpretation" on. For this priest it was the "source and summit" of his faith and I was basically rejecting everything he held to, and worse yet, I used to play folk guitar for the Masses he said. You have to be in awe of my amazing arrogance at 17 years of age. I had now been reading the Bible exclusively for the past three years and receiving my teachings from a radio Bible teacher who has since gone off into major heresy. (He predicted the Lord would return in 1994, and has recently stated that "we live in the post-church age and you don't need to go to church anymore.") It was from this anti-Catholic radio bible preacher that I learned my initial theology . I spent hours every night reading the Scriptures and listening to "Open Forum," a call-in radio show hosted by this self-proclaimed Bible authority. But in all my 17 years , I never once read the Catechism of the Catholic Church or any devotional Catholic literature or considered reading the history behind Christianity. So, here I am with my "radio bible theology degree" and three years of born again experience arguing with a Catholic priest who had spent 8 years studying theology and was pursuing a Ph.D at the time. I was thinking how great it was that I had been given The Truth and this poor ignorant priest was wasting his time committing himself and his celibacy to a false religion. As far as I was concerned, this was all I had to know about Christian history: Jesus came to earth, started a church which immediately went south and the Holy Spirit went on sabbatical for 1500 years . So for 1500 years, maybe the "Real Christian Church" went into hiding while the false Catholic church flourished and spread. (Incidentally changing the course of history of the civilized world along the way.) The only problem with this was that if I really believed that the early church apostasized, then the Gates of Hell did indeed prevail against it and Jesus didn't know what He was talking about. Unless of course you continue to believe that the "invisible church" persisted in the background, kind of like a program that keeps running undetected in the background on your computer. The only problem with this theory is that the Church was meant to be a visible physical entity, set on a hill where it would be a light to the world, not hidden in the shadows waiting for a German Augustinian monk 1500 years later to unlock the Truth of the Bible for the world. The other problem that didn't bother me at the time was that there was no historical record of a "remnant hidden church." To be sure, there are records of short-lived heretical sects, cults and heterodox preachers, but no proof that any of them had any connection to the historical church that Christ started. There is a little book called the "Trail of Blood" that claims the Catholic Church has systematically persecuted and suppressed the history of the "True Believers" ever since John the Baptist founded his church of true baptist believers. It is this book that has fueled some of the "remnant" theories. http://www.shasta.com/sphaws/trail.html

Chapter 3
During my college years I was involved in a Christian fellowship group that was attended by students from many denominations. One of the members of the group was a student I noticed was also in my New Testament Greek class. I also noted him to go to Mass so I knew he was Catholic. Over the ensuing two years he came to be a good friend and we had fellowship together despite the fact that he was a devout Catholic. He loved the Lord Jesus with same fervor as an evangelical Christian and to this point I had not met a Catholic like him. I was still under the assumption that you couldn't possibly "know the Lord" if you were Catholic. After college, he went to Harvard Divinity school to study theology. Other members of the fellowship went off to protestant seminaries and the mission field after college. We had a reunion one year after college and one of our friends now with a few years of seminary under his belt began to engage our Catholic brother in a barbed and acrimonious manner. He was openly attacking the beliefs of this Catholic brother who he once had fellowship with. The room became very quiet and the atmosphere was tense. My Catholic friend calmly stated, "I don't think this is really the time and place for this discussion but I would welcome continuing this discussion at another time." Despite my total disagreement with the theology of my Catholic friend, the way that he handled this awkward and malicious attack from a former friend was very impressive to me and I never forgot it. He never raised his voice, answered back sarcastically or pulled the "my seminary is better than yours" card.

Chapter 4
After college I went to medical school believing God wanted me to be a doctor and I married my high school sweetheart after my first year of medical school. We were going to church at the same place I had been discipled as a teenager when we left the Catholic Church. I began to recognize problems in this church when the two pastors had a falling out and a power struggle ensued. It turned out that one of the pastors was involved in immorality but was using his spirituality as a smokescreen to defend himself. This led to a split in the church and as happens when each party claims the Holy Spirit is telling them they are right but are diametrically opposed to one another. After medical school we moved to a large city and joined another well-known independent charismatic church. Unfortunately, after a few years of close fellowship and innovative teachings, the pastor of this church had a falling out with the elders over a moral issue and a division ensued. We loved the people in the church and sided with the majority and stayed there for a time. There was a true sense of Christian community in this church that was genuine despite many cult-like features regarding membership requirements etc.

At this time my wife of three years was diagnosed with an extremely rare in-operable lung cancer. There were only thirty other recorded cases in the world's medical literature. She was told there was no cure but she may possibly remain without symptoms for a time before dying but it was uniformly fatal. We were bolstered by a loving group of folks who shared with us that "God can heal if you only have enough faith." We embraced this theology whole-heartedly and pursued her healing for the next 8 years. We attended healing meetings, exorcisms, fasting and prayer and I began fasting Tuesday evenings to Thursday mornings for several years to obtain her healing from God. We sought out nationally known charismatic preachers with healing ministries and had several exorcisms performed on our house and ourselves.

Once on a vacation at the beach we visited a store front church on Sunday. The preacher called my wife up out of the crowded little room and said to her "God will give you that which you have been seeking!" He then asked her what she was seeking and she told him about the cancer. That gave us great hope and encouragement and helped to bolster our faith that Jesus was definitely going to heal her of this cancer.We were blessed with two boys over the next four years. We coped with life by never talking about the possibility of her dying. We lived as if she would be healed. The problem with this was that it took an enormous amount of energy to muster this "faith talk" all the time and it was taking its toll on our marriage. Rather than confronting problems in our relationship, we would put them aside and continue to press for the healing. Seeking her healing became the focus of our lives and as a result, we were in denial about all the other problems that occur in any marriage, cancer notwithstanding. For me, it felt like a constant "sword of Damocles" hanging over my head for 8 of the 11 years we were married, but I could not tell my wife my true feelings. Most of my close friends were believing that her healing was forthcoming and I could not open up to them about how I really felt. Once I tried to tell a close friend how absolutely terrified and sad I was and he kindly said, "Don't worry, she will be healed." I appreciated his vote of confidence but I needed someone to share my pain and fear with. This was one of the most intensely lonely and difficult periods in my life. I took solace in knowing that Christ would never leave me or forsake us despite the fact that we were truly walking in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. I could not share Scriptures with my wife or others about the valley of the shadow of death because it would be "doubting the healing."I started to secretly take comfort in the Scriptures that said "Not my will but thine" and God gave me His reassurance that He would be with us, whether my wife lived or died. I could not share this with her and instead would read aloud to her the Scriptures that said "By His stripes we are healed." We would both lay awake night after night with her in agony and me holding back tears as I watched her die. I just wanted to hold her and say "I love you and hate to see you go through this but we will be okay because He will carry us through this." I longed to just be able to tell her how I felt about our life together but I couldn't because she would have interpreted that as "losing faith." Instead of having precious end of life discussions about our children, our families, our Lord and His love, we listened to faith preacher tapes over and over again throughout the night. This bad theology we embraced ended up hurting us terribly and denied us the ability to be honest with ourselves, our children and our God. We were reading books and tracts about healing that were from an off-shoot of the charismatic movement called the Faith and Prosperity Preachers. Centered in Tulsa, Oklahoma, these teachers taught that Jesus heals everyone and if you don't get healed it must be your lack of faith. I realize now this actually was a twisted form of Christian Science and had its roots in one of the heresies dealt with by the early church. (Gnosticism)

About 4 months before she died, I had a distinct impression that God was telling me that the time was very short and she would die soon. It may have just been my medical instincts seeing her become more irritable and short of breath. At this time she was taking huge amounts of over the counter ibuprofen to deal with the pain but would not admit that she was in pain. We long ago both agreed to not pursue further diagnostic tests since they wouldn't "build our faith." The actual words I heard in my mind were "the time is short now." As horrible as it sounds, this brought me some comfort since I felt that there was to be a conclusion to this torturous existence of denial we were living. I never shared this experience with her. About 4 weeks before she died, she was becoming severely ill and short of breath. We heard of a missionary with a healing ministry that was flying in from Africa who had been known to raise people from the dead. Despite the worse ice and snow storm of that horrible winter of 93-94, I drove with her and my pastor and a friend in a van to Richmond Virginia to see if she could be healed through the ministry of this faith healer. The level of compassion that my church showed for us was beyond description and I will never forget the love and that was displayed for my wife and I at this time. The folks risked their lives to drive my wife over 250 miles on the eve of one of the worst storms of the season because they believed God would heal her. They also knew this is what she wanted as well. We saw many tractor trailers jack-knifed and cars that had skidded off the road on the way down. It turned out that the healer couldn't come in due to the weather and we sadly drove all the way back taking almost two days for a six hour trip. At one point we were stuck in traffic for about 10 hours due to the storm. She was in absolute agony in the jostling van as we ran over potholes and ice on the highway. We stopped intermittently so I could give her injections of a powerful narcotic to relief her screams of agony.

Shortly after this trip, my wife did pass away leaving me with a 4 and 7 year old who did not even realize she was sick since we never told them. I was devastated knowing that our faith did not give her the peace that was promised. Not because God didn't make it available, but we chose to mis-interpret the Scriptures. I knew, even as she was dying, that this theology was wrong and it denied the ability for us to even have an honest conversation about her dying. If there was ever a reason to not believe in private interpretation of Scripture, this was it. The Word of God wrongly applied and twisted out of context can be a cruel taskmaster.
( I want to make it clear to all the readers at this point, my wife and I willingly embraced and sought out this teaching and our charismatic church encouraged us in it, but we did not feel like this doctrine was forced on us. We chose it !)

No one could give me an answer for why she died if she had such faith and many young people from our church were devastated. Two days after my wife died I received a phone call and a familiar voice that I hadn't heard for years was on the line. My Catholic friend from college, now an ordained Catholic priest heard that my wife died and tracked me down. I will never forget when I asked him why she had to suffer so much, and he said that "Jesus gives us the privilege of sharing his suffering." Father E. told me that Jesus stretched his arms out on the cross and said to my wife, "Sue, you come up with me and share my suffering." He then quoted St. Paul when he talked about completing in his body the suffering of Christ. (Colossians 1:23) I couldn't argue since it was Scripture and it was the only thing that gave me comfort in those difficult months after she died. I had never heard a Protestant talk about that verse and somehow missed it in all my years of personal Bible study. My theology didn't allow for suffering but this Scripture given to me by a Catholic priest made more sense than anything I had heard or experienced in the past 12 years. Since Christ our Redeemer had suffered should we too not be willing to take His yoke upon us and experience suffering? The Catholics call this "redemptive suffering' and if you really think about it, it resonates with all of human experience.

Chapter 5
Trying to raise two small children alone as well as being in solo practice of medicine was very difficult, to say the least. God provided for me and my boys through support from my family and my church. Jesus showed His kindness and mercy to me through His people in a way that I can never forget. About a year and a half later, I remarried. My new wife had been attending the same church I was attending and had been friends with my late wife and knew our boys from Sunday school. She proved to be a wonderful mother and wife. Most couples argue about sex, money and children but we argued about religion and expressions of spirituality. I was moving away from charismatic theology and outward emotional manifestations ("holy" laughter, being "slain in the spirit") but she was pursuing "full- tilt" these doctrines and expressions of faith that I was shrinking back from. This was the mid -1990's when the “Toronto Blessing” was sweeping through the charismatic churches in the US and our church was having frequent renewal meetings. People would be asked if they wanted “more of God” and would fall to the floor laughing or crying as evidence of having received God's blessing. People in the church must have concluded that I didn't want “more of God” because I never fell to the floor when I was prayed for. My wife attended all of these meetings and I chose not to participate since my perception was that people based the evidence of God's blessing on you as an emotional outpouring. I had not experienced God in an emotional sense for twenty years or more since my initial born again experience as a teenager and had never been very "emotive" in my worship. This strained our marriage, as well- meaning folks in the church would question my wife as to my spiritual well-being. Over the years, I had become a firm believer in not basing my relationship with God on my emotions. I had just been schooled in pain and suffering for the past 10 years of my previous marriage and never felt that God had abandoned me despite many dark feelings and times. I knew from personal experience that God was with me regardless of how I felt and I felt this was a gift of faith He had given me long ago. Unfortunately at the time, the prevailing teaching in our church was that if God didn't engage our emotions, then something was wrong with us spiritually. My wife was starting to wonder about my spirituality and suspected I didn't "want more of God" due to my failure to embrace this renewal. Once again, our personal application of theology had become a wedge between my wife and I.

The stresses of becoming a new mother and wife were difficult for her and the practice of "worship and praise" was no longer providing her peace. In the past, we were taught that we should just “forget about your cares and worship the Lord” as the answer to your problems. Instead, my wife started reading about suffering from Mother Teresa, Teresa Liseux, St. John of the Cross and other Catholic mystics. She was finding much solace in Catholic teaching and she was slowly being drawn away from our evangelical/charismatic faith. For the first time in her life, she started to understand the value of pain and suffering in the world and in the context of her own life. Catholic teachings brought her much comfort in these difficult times of our early marriage.

As much as I was happy that she was leaving the emotionalism of the charismatic church, I was troubled that it took Catholicism to give her true peace. This was at the peak of the priest sex-abuse scandals and I wanted nothing to do with the Church. I thought that Christ "could not possibly be the head of a church with sex abusers and pedophiles." These were the days when the daily headlines of all the papers were tallying the millions of dollars being spent on settlements and lawsuits in Boston and elsewhere. Realizing now that neither my wife nor I embraced our former theology we decided to leave the charismatic church we had been in for almost 10 years and joined a more main-line Evangelical church. I loved the more formal nature of it and didn't miss the spontaneous prophecies and emotionalism that was so much a part of our past experience. At times our old church had a carnival-like atmosphere and the degree of enthusiasm of the congregation during "praise and worship" time was the litmus test for whether or not God showed up. There were times when the worship leader would become visibly discouraged and frustrated if he could not stir the congregants into a religious fervor. I was thankful that this did not occur in this more mainline church. I enjoyed the preaching style of the pastor and the much more subdued worship services. I no longer worried that someone would tap me on the shoulder to give me a "Word from the Lord for you brother." While we both attended this church on Sundays, my wife attended her first Catholic Mass in 25 years at a weekday Mass. (She too had left the Catholic Church when she was 8 years old.) When the priest held up the consecrated Host and said "this is Jesus", she wept at the realization that this is the One she had been seeking all these years! My wife started to attend Mass on her own ( she did not yet receive the Eucharist) and wanted to join the Catholic Church but I felt that it would be too confusing for our children. I couldn't argue however that it was slowly changing our marriage for the better as we both embraced trials in our life as a tool for good and not something to avoid and deny. I still was very reticent about Catholicism based on my past experiences and did not even consider joining the church. I asked her for the sake of unity in our marriage to stop pursuing Catholicism and she agreed to stop going to Mass. More to come.... The final journey home!

Chapter 6

We were attending the United Methodist Church for a few years when my Mom died unexpectedly. My brother and I took the long drive down together to start to clear out her house. He was beginning his master's degree in preparation for becoming a pastor at my previous charismatic church. I asked him about the statement in the Creed regarding "baptism for the forgiveness of sins." What did we believe as charismatics? Which baptism did this refer to? Was it the baptism of the Holy Spirit as a second experience, was it water baptism? I had started to question my evangelical beliefs that I just took for granted for years without really thinking about them. Once a year we recited the Creed in our church but I realized that I didn't understand or hold to many of the statements in the Creed and was not aware of the fact that it was written by a group of Catholics at a Church Council 1600 years before. As we went through my mother's personal effects, I found prayer books, rosary beads, Mass cards and all the paraphenalia that I used to think was pagan and idolatrous. I suddenly realized that despite my Mom's lifelong struggles with alcoholism and depression, she really loved God and had a relationship with Him. As my brother and I went through her things I said to him "Hey, what if Mom was right after all and Catholicism is true?" He said "nah." I have no idea where that question came from but I have since realized that my conversion process was beginning then. He was going to toss her rosary beads in the garbage and I said "No, I'll take them home for my wife, she's been leaning Catholic lately."

Even then, something started to stir in me as I carefully removed the beautiful wooden crucifix my parents always had on their wall above their bed and took it home. I realized that for all the contradiction and pain in their lives, their Catholic faith was more important to them than I had thought. That beautiful crucifix now hangs on the wall above our bed. Even more strange to me was a fairly frequent and almost palpable sense that my Mom was now praying for me! I couldn't explain it, but I felt it and knew it was true. I knew she prayed for me before she died but I had this very strange feeling that her prayers were drawing me back to the Catholic Church. I told my brother about this and I suspect he thought I had totally gone off the rails at this point. I never understood the Communion of Saints nor agreed with it but now I was experiencing the actual application of this communion in my life.
The Methodist church we were attending bought an entire theatre of tickets to see the first screening of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ." In the middle of the movie as tears streamed down my face, I knew I had to come home to the Catholic Church as I saw so graphically displayed His love for me. If He could do this for me, I could overcome my pride and reticence about the Catholic Church and return in obedience to Him. To this day I don't know why or how I came to this conclusion. As far as I know there were no subliminal messages in the movie saying: "Become a Papist" or "You must Cross the Tiber."

My wife continued to long for Mass and I agreed to let her go to Mass as long as she would come with me to the Methodist church on Sunday morning with our boys. She would often watch EWTN (a Catholic Network) and the "Journey Home Program." After seeing some of the conversion stories my interest was piqued. I was astonished to find there was so many former protestants with stories like mine converting to Catholicsm. I asked my wife to get me those Catholic conversion stories of Marcus Grodi, Scott Hahn and others that I had asked her to get rid of 4 years before. She had attempted to show me a Scott Hahn video a few years before this but I found it too dry and Catholic! This time it was as if the veil had been lifted from my eyes and I couldn't put these books down. I read Karl Keating's book "Catholicism and Fundamentalism" and Steve Ray's "Crossing the Tiber." When I read for the first time that it was the Catholic Church that decided on which books and letters should be in the the Bible, that did it for me! I was now very angry that I had been mis-informed for so long by anti-Catholic Protestants and I started to feel remorse for walking away from the Church without ever learning any of its true teachings. I also was angry that I had never met a Catholic in thirty years who could give me these basic true facts about the Catholic Church. I was embarrassed that as a relatively bright person with the ability to obtain a medical degree, I had never considered reading history and instead based my understanding of Church history from a 16-year-old "Bible Scholar" thirty years earlier. How could I be "so smart" and yet be so close-minded about something so important as my faith?

Suddenly, all the troublesome verses I didn't understand as a Protestant came alive with richness and meaning. I realized the Catholics take the Bible more literally than the evangelicals ever had. I always wondered how we got around John 6 when Jesus told us : "eat my body." Protestants insisted it was symbolic but the early church I found out believed that Christ truly became present at the Communion Table. Paul's description in Corinthians also made it clear to me that the Church believed in the real presence of Christ in the "breaking of the bread."

The paradox of Christians who said "the sinner's prayer" and continued to actively live sinful lives always bothered me, but Catholic theology made it clear that our earthly performance was important for salvation, but not the basis for it, as I had wrongly been taught they believed. This was further brought home to me when I now re-read Matthew 25 and realized that Christ himself said the only difference between the sheep (heaven- bound) and the goats (hell-bound) was what they did or didn't do! I now realized that after 30 years of Bible study, the sinner's prayer wasn't mentioned in the Scriptures as the "formula for salvation." The concept of venial and mortal sins made a lot of sense to me. How could a "white lie" really have the same temporal and eternal consequences as murder? That always bothered me. The concept of the Communion of Saints which is in the Creed of Catholic and Protestants alike also became meaningful to me for the first time in my life. As I mentioned earlier, I had this distinct impression that my Mom who had died a year earlier was interceding for me and praying me back to the Church. The Catholic Church has always taught that when a person dies they can continue to pray for those left behind, and since the "fervent effectual prayers of a righteous man availeth much" how much more now that they are in heaven beholding the face of God!

We started counseling with a local parish priest who led us back to the Catholic Church. At my first confession in over 35 years, tears started to fall as I heard those sweet words of absolution as if they were spoken from Christ himself. We then made our marriage vows before the Church and together we received Christ in the Eucharist. Jesus was saying to me "You have found what you have always been looking for and I am right here with you." As I knelt and prayed after receiving Him, I knew that I could never be closer to Him in this life than I was right then. The frustration of all those years of searching for Him and trying to find him outside of His church was over. I had finally come home.

Despite my lack of emotionalism, I have cried more tears of joy in the past two years than in most of my years of charismatic church life! I often choke up telling others about Christ in the Eucharist and often become teary-eyed thinking about how kind He is to have brought us back to His Church. My wife and I have experienced a spiritual oneness in our marriage that can only be described as supernatural. Before, we were always on opposite pages regarding spiritual issues and now not only are we on the same page; we can't stop turning the pages together! I often chastise myself for leaving the Church as a young person but I am thankful for those years away because they prepared me to appreciate the Church and the Sacraments all the more.
My heart aches for my ex-Catholic brothers and sisters who like me had left the truth of the Catholic Church without ever understanding it. I am grateful for the inspiration and encouragement to "follow hard after God" that I learned from my devout Protestant brothers. In particular, the charismatic Christians I have been privileged to know over the years have a devotion and love for God and one another that is truly amazing. I believe if they could only see the tremendous gift of His Real Presence in His Church they would fall on their face before Him in the Eucharist. Their insatiable hunger for the presence of Christ could finally be completely satisfied on a daily basis in receiving him in the Eucharist. Father Benedict Groeschel of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal has said that the many church ladies from Black Pentecostal churches in the Bronx come to Eucharistic Adoration because they know their "sweet Lord Jesus" is there. I know my brethren would do the same once they discover He is truly present with us in the Eucharist.

Is Rome Calling?

Christ intended the church to be visible, "set on a hill" and undivided . Sadly, throughout history it is seen that the church has been divided, some still saying "they are of Paul, others Apollo."
This has led to extreme "separatist ecclesiologies" based on private interpretation of the Word of God. To defend the idea that we "are all still one body of Christ undivided" some invoke a notion of "an invisible church, that transcends time and space." However, it was never Christ's intention that we be "united in spirit" only and have 33,000 ecclesial communities believing entirely different things about Christ and His salvation. I believe, based on the writings below, that there exists a desire for Christians to embrace historic Christianity and eschew the "rugged individualism" that characterizes the modern evangelical church in America. Consider the following excerpt from a "Call" put out to the evangelical community from an evangelical pastor and theologian, Robert Webber.

"We call Evangelicals to take seriously the visible character of the Church. We call for a commitment to its mission in the world in fidelity to God's mission (Missio Dei), and for an exploration of the ecumenical implications this has for the unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity of the Church.* Thus, we call Evangelicals to turn away from an individualism that makes the Church a mere addendum to God's redemptive plan. Individualistic Evangelicalism has contributed to the current problems of churchless Christianity, redefinitions of the Church according to business models, separatist ecclesiologies and judgmental attitudes toward the Church. Therefore, we call Evangelicals to recover their place in the community of the Church catholic. "

Robert Webber from "The Call"

* From the Nicene Creed "One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church"