I realized after my last post that I may have shocked many of those who read it. Especially those who have known me for some time. So, I decided that this post will slow down the apologetics for this time, and instead focus on, why I am where I am. My second post gave a thumbnail sketch as to how I came to the Catholic Church. This one will address, at least at some level, the why.
Why would I, a born and bred Protestant, go to the Catholic Church?? Well, that will take some explaining. I guess the best way to put it would be, God brought me there. For the longest time, I struggled with "why do I believe..." mentality. That is to say, there are certain passages in the Bible that never quite made sense with my "modern" sensibilities. I mean, how can Jesus truly be present in the Holy Eucharist? I suppose that was the first question I grappled with. So, I read. And read. And read some more. Of course, coming from a "Sola Scriptura" background, I was already convinced that the idea of transubstantiation (that is, the Holy Eucharist becoming the Body and Blood of Christ) was certainly a man-made proposition and tradition. In my most cynical way, I had figured (wrongly, by the way), that the Catholic Church had made that up in an effort to use fear as a motivator. Instead, I read St. John 6: 51-71, where Jesus clearly states that His flesh is bread, and His blood is wine. Oh boy, how do grapple with that? If I believe that Christ did not say that, I have turned my back on the Holy Scriptures. If I believe that Christ did say that, then I must take it as His word. That was the crux of the issue for me. It came down to, if Christ says it, do I have the faith to believe Him AT HIS WORD. Not, well he was obviously using symbolism..... If that were the case, I have to believe that Christ would have clarified that point once people started leaving Him, never to continue following Him. But He did not. Instead, St. Peter answers him by saying, where do we go for eternal life if we leave, as we know and believe that you are Christ, the Son of God. And that was where I started to realize that maybe, just maybe, modern thought (philosophical paradigms, such as nominalism) had stripped the beauty and mystery away from Faith, leaving it as a shell where people could claim Christ without being held to the standard.
And so, I continued. My next post will go into other issues I grappled with, and I welcome any questions that you may have. I am on this wonderful journey, and God continues to bless me and my family in ways that I could never have dreamed or imagined. My last words for this post are these; Have we, as people, allowed moral relativism to degrade and destroy the work and plan of the Eternal, Almighty God? Temporal restriction on the eternal is the pure definition of insanity.
Ad maiorem Dei gloriam
Why would I, a born and bred Protestant, go to the Catholic Church?? Well, that will take some explaining. I guess the best way to put it would be, God brought me there. For the longest time, I struggled with "why do I believe..." mentality. That is to say, there are certain passages in the Bible that never quite made sense with my "modern" sensibilities. I mean, how can Jesus truly be present in the Holy Eucharist? I suppose that was the first question I grappled with. So, I read. And read. And read some more. Of course, coming from a "Sola Scriptura" background, I was already convinced that the idea of transubstantiation (that is, the Holy Eucharist becoming the Body and Blood of Christ) was certainly a man-made proposition and tradition. In my most cynical way, I had figured (wrongly, by the way), that the Catholic Church had made that up in an effort to use fear as a motivator. Instead, I read St. John 6: 51-71, where Jesus clearly states that His flesh is bread, and His blood is wine. Oh boy, how do grapple with that? If I believe that Christ did not say that, I have turned my back on the Holy Scriptures. If I believe that Christ did say that, then I must take it as His word. That was the crux of the issue for me. It came down to, if Christ says it, do I have the faith to believe Him AT HIS WORD. Not, well he was obviously using symbolism..... If that were the case, I have to believe that Christ would have clarified that point once people started leaving Him, never to continue following Him. But He did not. Instead, St. Peter answers him by saying, where do we go for eternal life if we leave, as we know and believe that you are Christ, the Son of God. And that was where I started to realize that maybe, just maybe, modern thought (philosophical paradigms, such as nominalism) had stripped the beauty and mystery away from Faith, leaving it as a shell where people could claim Christ without being held to the standard.
And so, I continued. My next post will go into other issues I grappled with, and I welcome any questions that you may have. I am on this wonderful journey, and God continues to bless me and my family in ways that I could never have dreamed or imagined. My last words for this post are these; Have we, as people, allowed moral relativism to degrade and destroy the work and plan of the Eternal, Almighty God? Temporal restriction on the eternal is the pure definition of insanity.
Ad maiorem Dei gloriam
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