Catholic vs Protestant Spirituality: Lets compare faith walks

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I really liked reading that you listen to Al Kresta and Fr John Ricardo. Father Ricardo is one of my three favorite priests on EWTN. The other two are Frs Larry Richards and Mitch Pacwa.

Would you believe that one of the inspirations for Fr Larry Richards was Billy Graham?

If you haven’t listened to him yet, Fr Larry Richards is a diocesan priest in Erie, PA who regularly meets with Protestant pastors near his parish. The way he preaches! Oh my gosh! He’s faithfully Catholic, but he preaches like a Baptist!

One thing I thought about was: What was it that Billy Graham said that fired you up for God?

To tell you the truth; I was an ill formed Lutheran. In my childhood, I can count on one hand how many times I been to church for services other than a wedding, baptism or a funeral until my mother took me to her ELCA church for Sunday school classes. I raised such a fuss, that my mother gave up trying to confirm me.

That being said: Fast forward to my late thirties.

I came back to Christianity begging God to forgive my sins; blubbering and bawling like a baby. My ex wife was a non denom when I met her. Well, my deeply ingrained habits just wouldn’t let go. My mind was a hellworld.

Now, trying to be the best Lutheran I could, with what little I knew beyond Jesús is present in the Eucharist; I tried to apply Lutheran doctrine to my problems.

The heart of the problem I had was that what I did know was that Luther taught that man is hopeless and powerless to effect change and that by nature, man is a pile of dung covered by the pure snow of Jesus’ righteousness and that in Cross theology; Jesus paid for everything on the Cross. There’s nothing for me to do. Combine this with Protestant radio saying that the spiritual battle is already over and Christ won. That and also: There wasn’t any spiritual texts in Protestantism, that I knew of beyond Pilgrim’s Progress and something was telling me to stay away from it; that I could read detailing out interior practices to help me in my spiritual life.

All this combined in my mind that there’s nothing I can do for myself and the only thing I could do was pray and passively await God to change me for me.

All the while, my marriage was slowly dying on the wire because of my sins. I knew I needed to act; to make changes to save my marriage and family. All the while, there’s Saint James in the back of my head saying: “ Faith without works is dead “ which to my mind means I can’t just believe: I had to do.

So, fast forward to the divorce.

I was devastated. I felt my ex wife reached into my soul and ripped half of it out; while telling me to: “ Just get over it “.

She really was that cold.

So, for a year; I drifted along in an intense haze of soul crushing pain that I desperately I wanted to stop feeling. Let’s just say that year was the lowest level of despair I’ve ever felt.

So, I started to pray the Rosary and wore a blessed Saint Michael’s medal. Eventually, I got to the point where, because of Our Lady and the hell I was in; I decided to go home into the Catholic Church. I knew I needed the Church and her Sacraments as “ they know about evil. “
 
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Well, basically for me the journey home into the Church was a gradual process. While going to RCIA classes, I prayed the Rosary, the Divine Mercy Chaplet, went to Mass and sat in Adoration. I frequently prayed the Saint Michael Prayer.

Like many Protestants, even though I instinctively felt respect for the Blessed Mother; I was uneasy with praying to Our Lady; especially the Assumption and Coronation as Queen of Heaven and Earth Mysteries of the Rosary and the Hail Holy Queen.

But, I went onward knowing that the Church is a church in which they believe what I believe.

Now that I’ve been home for 3 years, my life’s a lot better.

The spirituality I’ve learned!

There’s Benedictine spirituality of Saint Benedict of Nursia, from whom I learned lectio divina and the one of the vows his monks swear is Conversion: In which the monk swears to continually progress in conversion from sin as a way of life.

Then there’s Saint Ignatius de Loyola and his Spiritual Exercises in which Jesuit priests are trained. That spirituality is really multi faceted. But, the basics are: Living your life on the first principle and foundation that everything you do is to praise, revere and serve God and thus save your soul. Then it teaches ways to discern interior movements and how to make good decisions and to seek God’s Will in everything as well as a daily Examen of Conscience in which I prayerfully go over my day, recognizing my sins, asking God’s help to not do it again and resolving not to do it again.

Finally, the heart of my spirituality is devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in which I study and imitate Our Lady’s interior life, her virtues, her perfections and her love of the Father and Jesus and for us; her spiritual children on Earth.

For me, the heart of my faith walk with God is Love. Love of God with all of my heart, mind, soul and strength and love for others as I would myself. As Our Lord said: “ No greater love hath a man; that he would lay down his life for his friends. “

So, love to the point of martyrdom.
 
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I’ve been meditating this morning, along with sorting through my mail, organizing meetings and doing grocery shopping, about the thread’s title : “Catholic vs Protestant Spirituality.”

Now that I’m at a point in my life where I’m still a nominal Protestant on the road to full communion with the Catholic Church, I’ve been reflecting a bit on what it meant for my spirituality, and I think that the important thing for me to say is that I don’t see the “versus”.

There wasn’t a before and an after. There wasn’t a dry or unsatisfying prayer life followed by something fulfilling. There just was a natural path, and when I look at my spiritual life, I’d have trouble saying “this is Protestant” and “this is Catholic” (well, except maybe the Rosary, if even that).

Bible reading gradually evolved into Lectio Divina, morning and evening prayer into the Liturgy of the Hours.

The Taizé community, about three hours away from where I live, was (and still is) important for my faith. In Brother Roger, I found a role model who had been able to reconcile in himself, as I was trying to do it for myself, the Protestant and the Catholic parts of his own heritage. It helped me understand how deeply unifying Christian spirituality is, striving towards the unity of self, the unity of the self with the Church, and the unity of the self with God.

Protestantism taught me that Truth need not be afraid of questions (see where all my questioning led me 😉). It also gave me the precious gift of teaching me to do my best out of love for God rather than out of fear of hell.

Catholicism gave me the complementary gift of free will and responsibility, opened to me the communion of saints, and made me the wonderful promise of sacramental life.

I’ll be forever grateful for the Lutheran professor of patristics who taught me to recognize the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, even if my understanding of it later evolved from consubstantiation to transsubstantiation.

I’ll also be forever grateful to that community of Protestant nuns (yes, they do exist) to whom I’m still close and will be staying close, who taught me to love silence and contemplative prayer, and to watch for the voice of God. They’re wonderful Christians whose vocation is praying for Christian unity.
 
Gab123 said:
Catholics need to know the Bible in order to intelligently defend the faith against those who attack it using Scripture
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Agreed. Never denied that. Just as Our Lord refuted Satan’s interpretation with His Own.
Gab123 said:
Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.
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Again, never said we should be ignorant of Scripture. It is in the Tradition of the Church that we received Sacred Scripture. It is in that Tradition you have been educated of Scripture & it is in that Tradition you present that Scripture.
 
Gab123 said:
The main difference can be seen when you walk into a Protestant church, where nowhere will you find a crucifix, and the focus is on a resurrected Christ.
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National Cathedral, an Episcopal cathedral in DC:
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My journey is similar to other converts I guess.

Was raised in a Presbyterian household (EPC, basically a conservative branch but not as well-known as PCA). My father was an extremely intelligent man and taught me the faith (RIP, miss you).

I never got much out of church, though. We would go to worship, sing 3 or 4 songs, do an offering, listen to a 30 minute sermon, do communion and leave. It always felt dry to me.

Fast forward to high school. My parents sent me to the local Catholic high school and I was blown away at the first all-school Mass I attended. The sanctuary was more modern than my church’s, but I FELT God there. I still had hang-up’s on quite a few things, though. Praying to the Blessed Mother, the Saints, purgatory, etc. The usual Protestant objections. I went on to college and even though I was going to church, I was living in sin.

My father passed away suddenly right before I graduated college. At that point I was in a “God you’re controlling all of this, but I’m gonna YOLO this life.” Dove deeper into sin.

A few years ago it hit me I wasn’t happy. Started going back to my church I grew up in. Met my wife there and really turned things around, but there was still that “something” missing. After church-hopping for awhile, I felt the need to be in a church that believes that Christ is present in the Eucharist. So we settled on a LCMS church. Pastor there is truly a shepherd of his flock. Nice people everywhere.

Lutherans hold onto church history better than all other protestants save for Anglicans. The more I started to read church history, the first thing I noticed is that Sola Scriptura just isn’t a thing. Everything I’ve been taught from there started to unravel.

I started o to wonder on whose authority the Reformers had to just change 1500 years of history. Were there bad leaders in the Church at the time? Sure. Have there been bad Popes? 100%. Were clergy taking advantage of people and turning Christianity into a works-based religion? Yes. But Trent put an end to this.

Just one day out of the blue, all the walls I’d put up around Rome came crashing down. I praise God for it. I also would never say that the people I’ve known in Protestantism are people who have it all wrong. Most of them I’ve known have a heart for our Lord and follow him well.

Sorry for the long post. Praise to our Triune God.
 
The Episcopal Church (The Anglican Church) is an exception and the closest to have an outward resemblance to the Catholic Church, including sacraments, and traditional devotions such as the Rosary, and classic Church architecture. Being that King Henry VIII, the once faithful defender of the Catholic Church, went bananas and founded the Church of England after the pope refused to grant him a marriage annulment. Subsequently all church property was stolen from the Catholic Church, including all those beautiful ancient cathedrals in England. The National Cathedral in DC was built in the early 20th century modeled after the English Gothic style of the late fourteenth century Catholic cathedrals.

Interestingly, once upon a time, all Christian Protestant denominations, though having different teachings on salvation, all condemned the use of artificial contraception as a great evil for individual and society. It was the Episcopal Church in 1930 that first declared it would allow the use of artificial contraception only in extreme unique cases. Not long after the general ban was completely lifted and within 30 years artificial contraception ushered in the age of pornography, promiscuity, children born out of wedlock, and abortion on demand, fulfilling Pope Paul VI’s predictions in his encyclical Humanae Vitae. Today the Episcopal Church has institutionalized and celebrates gay marriage (sodomy), and actively openly gay clergy are celebrated and leading the flock. Thus the Spirituality of the cross, that is, denying oneself and carrying one’s cross has evaporated, despite some of their old cathedrals still preserving architectural elements from the past, namely a crucifix. Here is what the Anglican Church is incorporating in some of their old cathedrals today, replacing crucifixes with this:
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News source: https://catholicherald.co.uk/news/2...lican-bishop-says-on-cathedral-carnival-ride/
 
Loved the place. Bought many a volume at the bookstore, did brass rubbings, stared at beautiful things, toured it many times 1960-1988 (mainly 84-88).

Wouldn’t have attended a service there on a bet.
 
GKMotley said:
Loved the place. Bought many a volume at the bookstore, did brass rubbings, stared at beautiful things, toured it many times 1960-1988 (mainly 84-88).

Wouldn’t have attended a service there on a bet.
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I’ve been to a performance of Handel’s Messiah there. It was incredible.
 
Gab123 said:
Interestingly, once upon a time, all Christian Protestant denominations, though having different teachings on salvation, all condemned the use of artificial contraception as a great evil for individual and society.
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This statement is made from time to time but I can’t find any major American Evangelical Denomination (Baptist, Methodist, and so forth) documents from the 19th Century condemning all forms of Birth Control. There may be individuals who condemned birth control but I can’t find any official church positions, let’s say from a resolution passed at the Southern Baptist Convention or at United Methodist conference. (the two largest denominations in the USA).

I’m not saying it isn’t true. I would just like to see the reasons this statement is made.
 
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HopkinsReb said:
Lutherans also have a tendency to use crucifixes.
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As you know, all the original Protestants were Catholics who left the Catholic Church; Lutherans we’re simply following The ex-Catholic priest Martin Luther, who from the start discarded much of Catholic teaching. Today’s Lutheranism/Protestantism and the countless sectarian branches and offshoots that have morphed into a cacophony of teachings, has developed into modern-day Evangelical bend of Pseudochristianity that has discarded the spirituality of the cross in exchange for one of personal success and self-fulfillment in the many different shades of the so-called health and wealth gospel. While I’m sure the are individuals within these groups that read the Scriptures and try to understand and follow the teachings of Christ, the spirituality that is taught through these groups is not anchored in the authentic teachings of the Church. Protestantism marked the beginning of the Great Apostasy from Truth, which has gradually had a devastating effect on society, as we can see in their full embrace of artificial contraception, and a rejection of a visible concrete authority on earth established by Christ Himself.
 
I’m not sure exactly what that has to do with the original point I was responding to.

You said Protestants don’t have crucifixes. I provided two examples of Protestant denominations that do. Your screeds on contraception and Great Apostacies are off-topic.
 
Art
lanman87 said:
This statement is made from time to time but I can’t find any major American Evangelical Denomination (Baptist, Methodist, and so forth) documents from the 19th Century condemning all forms of Birth Control. There may be individuals who condemned birth control but I can’t find any official church positions, let’s say from a resolution passed at the Southern Baptist Convention or at United Methodist conference. (the two largest denominations in the USA).

I’m not saying it isn’t true. I would just like to see the reasons this statement is made.
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Just like abortion was at one time considered an obvious evil and the issue wasn’t even up for discussion, so too was the use of artificial contraception. Same thing with gay marriage today. Look back a few decades and the concept would have been generally regarded as not only ridiculous but a great evil. But one has to realize that the American Evangelical movement is not an offshoot of Catholicism, but rather an offshoot of sectarian Protestantism. We see how the teaching on contraception was seen as a great evil even as recently as 1930:
http://anglicanhistory.org/gore/contra1930.html
 
Gab123 said:
The main difference can be seen when you walk into a Protestant church, where nowhere will you find a crucifix, and the focus is on a resurrected Christ.

In a Catholic Church you will see a crucifix, which echoes Paul’s preaching that the Church teaches Christ crucified (1 Cor. 1:23) which is a stumbling block for many. The crucifix is a visual reminder of the horror of sin, which Christ paid a penalty for, and proof of God’s love for us. It is also a reminder that Chris said that in order to be His disciple we must pick up our cross daily and follow Him, to crucify our passions and die to our old self. Christ forged a path for us to follow, and that path involves the cross. Christianity without the cross is a false Christianity. Thus Protestantism began and continues the Great Apostasy which continues to unravel…
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500+ years of Protestantism and who knew all this time it was over the crucifix? I guess you’re saying if a Protestant building has a crucifix or cross they actually belong to Catholicism and don’t know it??

I’m so confused 🙂
 
Mishakel said:
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Gab123:
The main difference can be seen when you walk into a Protestant church, where nowhere will you find a crucifix, and the focus is on a resurrected Christ.

In a Catholic Church you will see a crucifix, which echoes Paul’s preaching that the Church teaches Christ crucified (1 Cor. 1:23) which is a stumbling block for many. The crucifix is a visual reminder of the horror of sin, which Christ paid a penalty for, and proof of God’s love for us. It is also a reminder that Chris said that in order to be His disciple we must pick up our cross daily and follow Him, to crucify our passions and die to our old self. Christ forged a path for us to follow, and that path involves the cross. Christianity without the cross is a false Christianity. Thus Protestantism began and continues the Great Apostasy which continues to unravel…
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500+ years of Protestantism and who knew all this time it was over the crucifix? I guess you’re saying if a Protestant building has a crucifix or cross they actually belong to Catholicism and don’t know it??

I’m so confused 🙂
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No, it’s something something contraception.
 
Yes, but that is the Anglican church. The claim is ALL Christian Protestant Denominations. So I’m trying to find something from two of the biggest Protestant Christian Denominations in the world and their teachings on contraception prior to the early 1900’s.
 
Mishakel said:
I guess you’re saying if a Protestant building has a crucifix or cross they actually belong to Catholicism and don’t know it??

I’m so confused 🙂
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As Cardinal John Henry Cardinal Newman said, To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.
For most Protestants the history of the church began 500 years ago. Thus traces of Catholic elements still linger in some of the architectur. Some of today´s Evangelical groups see the crucifix as an evil object.
 
Your testimony is interesting, because i often read that many Catholics convert to evangelism and pentecotism because they felt the same thing as you: they don’t feel themselves spiritual in the Church…
 
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