In Australia. I went to De La Salle,Ashfield, NSW.
When I was a child it was a parish in Rushcutters Bay NSW I think St Canices Church where I used to go to the Mission was so beautiful. Learnt so much.
stcanice.org.au
So many wonderful memories engraved on my heart forever. I was educated as a Catholic for 15 years. Then I strayed away for about 5 years.
I came from a broken home where my father had abandoned me so I suffered depression and rejection and couldn’t study. Then I took up various jobs and one day I became disillusioned with life and decided to end it.
I went to see the poor shelters and went & visited the different sects and asked them why, if they talk about love aren’t they united and just saying bad things about each other. They couldn’t answer so I went and visited other religions and they all condemned each other and said the other was false. I said we had to have love in the world and forget our differences but they were all stubborn and insisted they were right and all others wrong. I could never accept that fellow human beings treat each other so cruelly. Wars and hatred, prejudice and division when it was so easy to choose love. I saw no hope for humanity…
At that time I decided to end my life and took 50 largactil and slashed my wrists and ended up being found and taken to hospital. I said I didn’t want to live in a world that doesn’t have love. I was for days in a coma and for a long time after had double vision.
Then I was moved to a mental asylum, But as soon as I began speaking about the world needing love they would grab me and stab me with an injection and lock me in a room in a strait jacket. This happened again and again for a total of 6 suicide attempts.
I was calling for help but no answer. They ended up diagnosing me as a chronic schizopheprenic and gave me 6 course of electric shock treatment to try and make me forget about love and to make it not matter anymore.
My poor mother couldn’t bear to take me home so a friend at work said he knew some friends who would put me up for a few weeks until I recovered. They were Baha’is but they didn’t tell me that.
Then I met more Baha’is and I liked them but when I found out they believed in God I was angry and I felt sorry for them. I felt that here we have an almost perfect solution to my dilemma only there is a God involved. And God meant ‘I’m right and all others are false’ and that’s what I had run away from. I was tired of division, prejudice and hatred in the world.
But it troubled me greatly the Baha’is happiness and steadiness of soul. People who believe in God should be condemning other faiths but the Bahais loved them all which made me upset that why religious people are not fighting so I had to try and expose the Baha’is as liars and deceivers. I tested and asked questions and no matter what I threw at them they always had an excellent answer which made me more mad as I was positive they were false. So I started reading their books to try and find some way of disproving their philosophy as a wild utopian dream that can never be,
I started writing a book against a chapter of Abdul-Baha called Proofs and evidences of the Existance of God. My Book was called the proofs and evidences of the non existence of God.
I was winning and absolutely certain I had beaten Abdul-Bah as these Baha’is were false and I was absolutely sure I could prove it. I then came across some writings I didn’t understand and the longer I tried to think of a counter argument the harder it became until I realised Abdul-Baha was right and I was wrong so I then said ‘OK God you’re there’.
Then I began reading some other Bahai Books and for 3 days and nights when it dawned on me what this was all about I wept for days with joy at what I’d discovered unintentionally by opposing the Bahai Faith with all my heart, mind and soul.
When I found out who Baha’u’llah was I wanted to give my life for Him. I travelled the world announcing the joyful tidings. I was never worthy of this blessing unasked and even I opposed it vehemently. That was 40 years ago and I’m still unworthy and will never understand why I was blessed by the Holy Spirit and Angels of heaven. my Father abandoned me but God took me as His own and He is the best Father anyone could want. I should have just died in the gutter. I was an enemy of the Baha’is yet He still kept showing me and guiding me until the Holy Spirit announced to my heart that my Beloved Lord has come and the world will be loved back to life again. There is no person more unworthy that exists than me. I live an illusion now hoping , praying although futile to thank Him befittingly but no deed I do can ever thank Him.
The Catholics instilled into me the love of Jesus in my early days until the Baha’is came along and fanned the flame of my love for Him into a blazing sun.
All I can say is there’s ‘something very beautiful’ waiting to be discovered. Keep looking. Keep questioning. Keep challenging. My biggest frustration is I can’t give this gift to anyone. One must earn it according to the intensity of their love for the Lord in His Heart.
Sorry if anyone is offended by anything I have written in this post but I feel I can share with you because of your love deep love for your Lord.