M
Mr.Ex_Nihilo
Guest
How so?
- Status
B
Brian_C
Guest
A lot of people have told me that and it kinda scares me!
L
LeahInancsi
Guest
As much as I would have liked to have been Catholic from the beginning, the glory of being “called” to Jesus’ church is unbelieveable.
I only regret all the time I wasted before I followed my heart to the Catholic church. My grandmother was the wonderful role-model who inadvertantly showed me the grace with which the Catholic church blessed her.
I only regret all the time I wasted before I followed my heart to the Catholic church. My grandmother was the wonderful role-model who inadvertantly showed me the grace with which the Catholic church blessed her.
S
Steadfast_love
Guest
My 3th grade Sunday school teacher started me on my journey to the CC.
She was a Presbyterian (like me and my family) but she had a supernatural ability akin to Papal Infalability. Not all the time, but whenever she (1) taught as a Sunday school teacher (2) on an issue of faith or morals (3) and defined a doctrine to be held by all Christians, she was flat out wrong.
Because she taught the contrary I suspected that the CC was the One church, but I wasn’t able to get Catholics to fess up. In fact, they all went to extraordinary lengths to convince me that they were ignorant of scripture and devoid of every fruit of the spirit. So I turned my back on the CC and on my Sunday school teacher Falability theory.
My Senior year I went on a month long tour of Germany and Italy with my High School Choir. Since Germany was the home of Luther and Italy the heart of the CC I girded myself for spiritual warfare. The Vatican was great, as was the Sistine chapel (N.b. wear pants, not shorts!), but I was most looking foward to der Wartberg the castle where Luther spent his exile hiding from the Papists and singlehandedly returning Christianity to the light of the Truth of scripture.
I was disapointed.
Der Wartberg was founded on stolen real-estate. The culprits wheeled in soil from their own property and erected a castle on it. Once they were caught they swore an oath that they had built “on their own soil.” An inauspicious start to the tour of the the birthplace of the Truth of scripture.
They also had their own saint, lovingly painted on the walls of the music room who was, so far as I could tell, the patron saint of “lying under oath but not technicaly.” Her story was she stole food from her father and carried it in a basket to feed the poor. When she was caught she hid her basket behind her back and swore a false oath that she had been gathering flowers. But lo! When she showed him the basket the meat and wine transformed into flowers so her lie was not *technicaly *a lie, even though it **was a lie when she said it. ** Since she was a saint, I chalked her up under the catagory of “wacky Catholic stories.” But I still thought it was odd that they hadn’t painted her over with something more Protestant.
As we progressed along the tour, we heard several other stories in tribute to underhandedness. The great hall was covertly re-designed to make hymns less acoustic and debauchery more raccous. There was something about lesbians in the bath room that our High School teachers stopped translating mid-story.
But then we reached Luther’s study, a tiny cell with a false wall and a little stove to keep warm. It was everything I could have hoped for. It’s sparcity was extra sparce, it’s megerness was extra meger. It was the perfect place for a holy person who had rebelled against corrupt powers for the salvation of the world.
My fellow students swore they could see the famous ink stain, the spot where Luther hurled his ink pot at the devil. So hey, it’s kind-of wierd that we don’t believe in saints or angels, but Satan is able to drop in for a chat, but the point is: Ink-pot to the head! Take that Satan!
That’s when the sh*t hit the fan.
“Actualy” my High School teacher said, “It’s not ink, it’s Sht. The ink-pot story is just to make it sound better. Luther threw his sht.” I couldn’t wrap my head around that one.
Later on, durring the Italy part of the tour, I found that the Catholics had not only larger and more impressive buildings and art, but the priests also conducted themselves more in line with my version of Sola Scriptura. For instance, when my fellow students attempted to “crack up” the procession of priests and what not, they just ignored the insults and their expressions bore an uncanny resemblace to the expression of Jesus carrying the cross.
After that I decided to become Catholic, but the RCIA group I joined convinced me that to be Catholic was to be ignorant of scripture so I turned away again.
I got married, and looked for a better church. Found one that I liked and joined the choir, I put in 10 hours a week but each week I felt more abandoned by God. That’s when the illnesses struck. I got a death sentance (only two years to live) my wife had a miscarriage – it broke our hearts. Being part of a pro-life church went sour and I gave up on ever finding a church I could be a part of.
Then, one night around 2am my wife happened across TBN. They were showing Life is Worth Living. I don’t remember what Fulton Sheen said, but he taught with authority. I decided then to become Catholic, no matter how poor the spiritual health of other Catholics I meet along the way. But before I could open my mouth, my wife declared that she wanted us to become Catholic.
She was a Presbyterian (like me and my family) but she had a supernatural ability akin to Papal Infalability. Not all the time, but whenever she (1) taught as a Sunday school teacher (2) on an issue of faith or morals (3) and defined a doctrine to be held by all Christians, she was flat out wrong.
Because she taught the contrary I suspected that the CC was the One church, but I wasn’t able to get Catholics to fess up. In fact, they all went to extraordinary lengths to convince me that they were ignorant of scripture and devoid of every fruit of the spirit. So I turned my back on the CC and on my Sunday school teacher Falability theory.
My Senior year I went on a month long tour of Germany and Italy with my High School Choir. Since Germany was the home of Luther and Italy the heart of the CC I girded myself for spiritual warfare. The Vatican was great, as was the Sistine chapel (N.b. wear pants, not shorts!), but I was most looking foward to der Wartberg the castle where Luther spent his exile hiding from the Papists and singlehandedly returning Christianity to the light of the Truth of scripture.
I was disapointed.
Der Wartberg was founded on stolen real-estate. The culprits wheeled in soil from their own property and erected a castle on it. Once they were caught they swore an oath that they had built “on their own soil.” An inauspicious start to the tour of the the birthplace of the Truth of scripture.
They also had their own saint, lovingly painted on the walls of the music room who was, so far as I could tell, the patron saint of “lying under oath but not technicaly.” Her story was she stole food from her father and carried it in a basket to feed the poor. When she was caught she hid her basket behind her back and swore a false oath that she had been gathering flowers. But lo! When she showed him the basket the meat and wine transformed into flowers so her lie was not *technicaly *a lie, even though it **was a lie when she said it. ** Since she was a saint, I chalked her up under the catagory of “wacky Catholic stories.” But I still thought it was odd that they hadn’t painted her over with something more Protestant.
As we progressed along the tour, we heard several other stories in tribute to underhandedness. The great hall was covertly re-designed to make hymns less acoustic and debauchery more raccous. There was something about lesbians in the bath room that our High School teachers stopped translating mid-story.
But then we reached Luther’s study, a tiny cell with a false wall and a little stove to keep warm. It was everything I could have hoped for. It’s sparcity was extra sparce, it’s megerness was extra meger. It was the perfect place for a holy person who had rebelled against corrupt powers for the salvation of the world.
My fellow students swore they could see the famous ink stain, the spot where Luther hurled his ink pot at the devil. So hey, it’s kind-of wierd that we don’t believe in saints or angels, but Satan is able to drop in for a chat, but the point is: Ink-pot to the head! Take that Satan!
That’s when the sh*t hit the fan.
“Actualy” my High School teacher said, “It’s not ink, it’s Sht. The ink-pot story is just to make it sound better. Luther threw his sht.” I couldn’t wrap my head around that one.
Later on, durring the Italy part of the tour, I found that the Catholics had not only larger and more impressive buildings and art, but the priests also conducted themselves more in line with my version of Sola Scriptura. For instance, when my fellow students attempted to “crack up” the procession of priests and what not, they just ignored the insults and their expressions bore an uncanny resemblace to the expression of Jesus carrying the cross.
After that I decided to become Catholic, but the RCIA group I joined convinced me that to be Catholic was to be ignorant of scripture so I turned away again.
I got married, and looked for a better church. Found one that I liked and joined the choir, I put in 10 hours a week but each week I felt more abandoned by God. That’s when the illnesses struck. I got a death sentance (only two years to live) my wife had a miscarriage – it broke our hearts. Being part of a pro-life church went sour and I gave up on ever finding a church I could be a part of.
Then, one night around 2am my wife happened across TBN. They were showing Life is Worth Living. I don’t remember what Fulton Sheen said, but he taught with authority. I decided then to become Catholic, no matter how poor the spiritual health of other Catholics I meet along the way. But before I could open my mouth, my wife declared that she wanted us to become Catholic.
S
Steadfast_love
Guest
There’s a bunch of learning that I’ve done since then, online and at the library but it was a moot point. Hearing Archbishop Sheen speak with authority made all the difference.
Through the Rosary, I feel that I’ve recieved every spiritual blessing I’ve ever asked for. (Also, my health is great, my wife is fine and I’m the father of an adorable baby girl.) We’ve subscribed to premium cable so we can watch EWTN and we’ve got Geared for Kids songs stuck in our heads. My friends and family are interested and I think that a half dozen of them want to join but haven’t been invited. Even my anti-Christian mother in law is happy for us. (I call her “anti-Christian” because that’s what she answers when she’s asked “what religion are you?”)
Anyway, that’s why I’m joining.
Through the Rosary, I feel that I’ve recieved every spiritual blessing I’ve ever asked for. (Also, my health is great, my wife is fine and I’m the father of an adorable baby girl.) We’ve subscribed to premium cable so we can watch EWTN and we’ve got Geared for Kids songs stuck in our heads. My friends and family are interested and I think that a half dozen of them want to join but haven’t been invited. Even my anti-Christian mother in law is happy for us. (I call her “anti-Christian” because that’s what she answers when she’s asked “what religion are you?”)
Anyway, that’s why I’m joining.
R
Reedolo
Guest
I was born and raised Baptist, then converted to Methodist with my mom when I was a teenager.
There are two main reasons why I am now a Catholic and not a Protestant:
- The Eucharist
- Authority
D
dulcissima
Guest
I was raised in a Baptist family. When I was 7 I told my mom I was going to be Catholic. I waited until I was 33 though. I guess there were a lot of baby steps in between those years. I was baptised when I was 11 (in the Baptist Church) , and a few months later my dad died. My mom married my stepfather who was Catholic when I was 13. We were a bad influence on him though and he stopped going to Mass soon after he and my mom had their daughter (my sister who is 15 years younger than me) baptized.
I must have given up on the whole Catholic thing at some point because after my daughter got old enough to be asking me questions about God (around age 3 1/2) I started looking for a church for our family. We tried a few – Methodist, Lutheran, and Presbyterian. I also sent my kids to VBS at a Baptist Church and they hated it. I decided to join the Presbyterian Church and went to a couple of question and answer sessions. The only other person looking to join was a lapsed Catholic who had been attending with his wife. Since he was Catholic, they presented all of the Presbyterian teachings in contrast to what the Catholic Church taught. The funny thing was that the Presbyterian presentation made me realize that the Catholic Church taught the truth, and I left believing in the Real Presence of Christ in the eucharist.
So, I went to mass at the Catholic Church in town. I felt totally uncomfortable, like an imposter. I didn’t go back. Then a couple of years later one of my friends invited our family to their house on Christmas Eve. She said we could come over when they got back from Mass, and I asked if it would be OK if we went to Mass with them. It was a different parish, and we all really enjoyed it. Still we didn’t go back. Interestingly that very Christmas Eve, our third child was conceived. We ended up back at our friend’s house on a Friday for a Memorial Day weekend BBQ. Later into the evening we were out on the back deck. Most people had had a couple of beers. I hadn’t since I was pregnant, but I was sitting out on the deck with my friend’s husband. He kind of got almost a little bit teary eyed and said that he had really liked having us go to Mass with them on Christmas Eve and wished that we had continued going. It turned out that literally everyone at the BBQ was Catholic and they all encouraged us to go to Mass. I got several offers from people who would be my sponsor if I wanted to go through RCIA. Well, the next morning, we all got up and went to Mass. We went every Sunday until I got put on bedrest for pre-term labor. My son was born on a Sunday, and the family that had encouraged us to go to church ended up being the ones who watched our older two children when I gave birth. They took them to Mass and to the annual church picnic. When I talked on the phone to them that evening they had had such a good day.
The next Sunday we all went to Mass together again. When I got out of the car with my newborn son in my arms and stepped foot onto the churhc parking lot, I felt a tremendous surge of homecoming. That was the day I actually took the initiative to get us registered at the parish, my kids signed up for religious ed and myself signed up for RCIA. I started RCIA when my son was just 6 weeks old and he attended the weekly 2 + hour classes and dismissals with me. He was an angel the whole time including throughout the whole Easter Vigil in which he was baptized.
I feel really fortunate to be Catholic. I just wish I hadn’t waited 26 years!
I must have given up on the whole Catholic thing at some point because after my daughter got old enough to be asking me questions about God (around age 3 1/2) I started looking for a church for our family. We tried a few – Methodist, Lutheran, and Presbyterian. I also sent my kids to VBS at a Baptist Church and they hated it. I decided to join the Presbyterian Church and went to a couple of question and answer sessions. The only other person looking to join was a lapsed Catholic who had been attending with his wife. Since he was Catholic, they presented all of the Presbyterian teachings in contrast to what the Catholic Church taught. The funny thing was that the Presbyterian presentation made me realize that the Catholic Church taught the truth, and I left believing in the Real Presence of Christ in the eucharist.
So, I went to mass at the Catholic Church in town. I felt totally uncomfortable, like an imposter. I didn’t go back. Then a couple of years later one of my friends invited our family to their house on Christmas Eve. She said we could come over when they got back from Mass, and I asked if it would be OK if we went to Mass with them. It was a different parish, and we all really enjoyed it. Still we didn’t go back. Interestingly that very Christmas Eve, our third child was conceived. We ended up back at our friend’s house on a Friday for a Memorial Day weekend BBQ. Later into the evening we were out on the back deck. Most people had had a couple of beers. I hadn’t since I was pregnant, but I was sitting out on the deck with my friend’s husband. He kind of got almost a little bit teary eyed and said that he had really liked having us go to Mass with them on Christmas Eve and wished that we had continued going. It turned out that literally everyone at the BBQ was Catholic and they all encouraged us to go to Mass. I got several offers from people who would be my sponsor if I wanted to go through RCIA. Well, the next morning, we all got up and went to Mass. We went every Sunday until I got put on bedrest for pre-term labor. My son was born on a Sunday, and the family that had encouraged us to go to church ended up being the ones who watched our older two children when I gave birth. They took them to Mass and to the annual church picnic. When I talked on the phone to them that evening they had had such a good day.
The next Sunday we all went to Mass together again. When I got out of the car with my newborn son in my arms and stepped foot onto the churhc parking lot, I felt a tremendous surge of homecoming. That was the day I actually took the initiative to get us registered at the parish, my kids signed up for religious ed and myself signed up for RCIA. I started RCIA when my son was just 6 weeks old and he attended the weekly 2 + hour classes and dismissals with me. He was an angel the whole time including throughout the whole Easter Vigil in which he was baptized.
I feel really fortunate to be Catholic. I just wish I hadn’t waited 26 years!
D
dulcissima
Guest
Oh, and in re-reading my post above, I just wanted to add that my younger sister, who was baptized Catholic but who grew up going to non-denominational Bible churches, has now gone through RCIA and has come home to the Catholic Church.
I
Iraneaus
Guest
As an ex and very devout Baptist, for me it was study of the bible and history.
You just cannot argue with it. It’s there if you’re willing to be objective. (Something many Protestants have trouble doing.) As someone who lives in the “bible belt” there are hundreds if not thousands of misconceptions and just plain out falsehoods about Catholic beliefs and practices. Many times in polite debate with a protestant, once I explain why the church believes something they counter with: “Well that may be what you believe, but so and so Catholic did not” or “Well most Catholics don’t believe that!”
Then I whip out the ole Catechism
In essence though what was the true turning point for me was the Holy Eucharist. Once I realized the truth God was showing me about Holy Communion, what other decision was there to make!
You just cannot argue with it. It’s there if you’re willing to be objective. (Something many Protestants have trouble doing.) As someone who lives in the “bible belt” there are hundreds if not thousands of misconceptions and just plain out falsehoods about Catholic beliefs and practices. Many times in polite debate with a protestant, once I explain why the church believes something they counter with: “Well that may be what you believe, but so and so Catholic did not” or “Well most Catholics don’t believe that!”
Then I whip out the ole Catechism
In essence though what was the true turning point for me was the Holy Eucharist. Once I realized the truth God was showing me about Holy Communion, what other decision was there to make!
T
tamie
Guest
Because when I walked in I found Jesus there. I never found him in any other church.
Tamie
Tamie
I
Iraneaus
Guest
AMEN!
P
Pug
Guest
I wasn’t really a member of a Methodist Church, so when you say leave, well, I never really felt like I was a member there, so I didn’t leave. However, in common parlance, I was certainly Methodist, though more of a Chreaster type.
God suggested to me one day that I get confirmed in a Catholic Church, and I just said OK. There are many reasons why I was able to agree with such ease, but the real reason is that God made the suggestion. It wasn’t my idea at all. I had never thought about it or considered it prior to that moment, and in that moment I just agreed, without any discussion.
I think if anything had happened during RCIA that had seemed truly wrong, then I would have started to question the decision, but as things went, I never did. Well, years later I thought about it extensively, but that is another story.
T
Trelow
Guest
Ya know, the first Good Friday service I went to, I really noticed that big time, it felt so empty, so much like it was before.
D
DL82
Guest
The Real Presence
J
James1982
Guest
No kidding. I’m WELS and this is one thing that seriously troubles me; how even different mainline Lutheran denominations are splitting further and further apart as time goes on. If there were ever two peas in a pod it would be LCMS and WELS, but at least from the WELS side, there seems to be little or no interest in reaching out at all.
It just seems like christians should put a lot more effort into being one, is all.
FWIW, even WELS is getting a bit nonsensical in the ways of messing around with liturgies. The big call sign these days is “contemporary” services - aka get rid of all the old stuff and sing Christian rock instead of hymns, or dress up the old stuff in modernism. Right down to giving sermons on powerpoint. The wife loves it; I am not sold on the concept, it seems fake-ish and corporate to me.
(Sorry, I’ll stop hijacking the thread now
)
S
strngrnrth
Guest
Some things added up over the last couple of years:
- Being led to think The Great Controversy was a Christian classic (not by anyone at my church; we weren’t SDA, but no one said anyhting contrary when I said i was reading it either).
- Searching for the sinners’ prayer in the Bible, acc. to the adage “show me where it is in the Bible”.
- Paranoia (Chick lit, Rebecca Brown, “M.D.”
, Hagee, Warnke
, LaHaye, on and on) treated as normal, and being given Brown’s first book while very weak and vulnerable. - Deliverance sessions when I asked for and waited for counseling for emotional issues, and hearing someone important in the congregation “cast out” my analytical mind and logic while I sat tired and semi-numb.
- If the Bible is literal, why isn’t the Eucharist literal?
- Disrespectful demeanor in church, eating, pastor goofing around going for laffs most of the sermon (which was the main part of the service), chatting in pews.
- Prosperity teaching.
When I complained of materialistic and vain temptations/pressures, pastor asked, “Don’t you think God can bless you?” - So many Catholic-like things coming along anyway, as pastors gathered and prayed hard together for long sessions and came back saying God revealed that we need unity, structure, authority and group synchronization of things like fasting, prayer, feasting, teaching… I wondered if we were sort of um… reinventing something unnecessarily?
- We even had a kind of confession – trouble was, no private place for it, and no way to check the cred of the persons hearing it, nor any way to be sure when we were done.
- It jarred me to see people throw the communion cups on the floor and walk all over them. even if it was just symbolic, stepping on something is symbolic too, and the service was still happening, so didn’t the symbolism continue at least until we were outdoors again?
- My own independent studies of early Christian history to become a better apologist taught me that there was no trail of blood, the early heretics were very different form one another and the few changes in the Catholic Church over the centuries were public and in response to obvious crises.
- And the early reformers didn’t like each other and were temperamental, self-indulgent men, by and large.
- And there have been a lot of saints. And I’d rather emulate one of them than a reformer.
- And the last straw was when I read the CA homepage while refuting Dan Brown to pass idle moments, and it was packed with solid answers to my issues with the Catholic CHurch,
- And then I picked up a copy of Catholic Doctrine in Scripture and went through it with a highlighter to ask the pastors why we didn’t interpret these verses the way Catholics do, and only one ever got back to me, and she was angry and said they didn’t have time to discuss theology with their own people and I should just read the statement of belief they had ahnded out, sign it and commit so we could devote our energy to bringing in more recruits and building a megachurch already (some paraphrase and interpolation here).
F
fbl9
Guest
i couldn’t resist replying this is a very uplifting thread as a Catholic. i sarted Catholic bounced between Catholic and pentocostal finally jumping into a non-denom. reading the bible to prove to my wife that yes this is the true church i kept bumping against little things in scripture that said the Catholic church is the true church.the final thing was authority and i realized that only the Catholic church had the authority to say and teach what it does and that authority didn’t come from any man but from God.
P
Pixie_Dust
Guest
Long story short:
I was a devout Baptist. Knew for sure I could defend every Baptist doctrine with Scriptures. Thanks to the Internet, I began having theological discussions with members of various other denominations and they could defend their doctrines with Scriptures just as well, if not better, than I. Often this meant that, while we read the same book, we had conflicting and contradictory “truths.” I was pointed to Scriptures that very clearly refuted some of my Baptist beliefs, had a series of rugs yanked out from under me, and went through a crisis of faith.
I began reading the Early Church Fathers. I became online friends with several people who had become Catholic, and sure enough, they too could show me Catholic doctrine from Scripture, and it was the same as I was reading in the ECFs. I came to understand the reality of the Sacraments, they were not just symbols, but actually a means of grace that God works through to bring us closer to Himself.
The family and I had been church hopping and it was getting old. I had started attending the 8:00 service at a Lutheran church then going to 10:00 Sunday School and 11:00 service at the Baptist Church, enduring anti-Catholicism/anti-sacramentalism from the Baptist church on a regular basis. I was praying one day, crying out to God to tell me where to go and I heard God say, “Go to Rome.”
At that time I did not want to hear it. I was pretty happy being a quasi-Lutheran, and I still had some issues with certain Catholic dogmas, the main one (I realized later) being Apostolic Authority - once you submit to the Authority of the Church every other objection falls away quickly. If this Church could infallibly declare the 27 book of the New Testament and I was fine with that, why wouldn’t I listen to what they had to say about other matters of faith and morals?A good friend (also a convert to Catholicism) recommended I listen to “One Church” from the Bible Christian Society. It was my burning bush. I knew then that I had to become Catholic.
F
fbl9
Guest
a short tale…once there was a boy who was raised to belive the sky was blue.As he got older he notice there where people who thought the sky was red or green or even purple.They all read about the sky from the book called above the Sky.Even though the tittle was the same there where different and simular pages. And all the people beleived there was one who wanted to paint the sky black.After many many moons the young man finally didn’t care what colour the sky was just that it was there and he was here.then one day he decided yes the sky is red just like these people say it is.after reading the book above the Sky. It dawned on him that the the sky was blue not because anyone said what colour it was but because the Light above the sky made it so.
S
strngrnrth
Guest
- Status