S
starforsaken
Guest
Hi everyone, I figured I’d make a post here finally since I’ve been lurking on the site for nearly two months reading everything I could about the faith.
For a long time in my life I had jumped around from different things, placing my faith in philosophies, ideas, science etc. I was baptized a lutheran as a child but would not ever have considered myself one, more on that later. There was a time in highschool when I had lost all faith in everything, but it was then that I felt an incredible presence of warmth and love all around me. To this day I still can’t describe in words what it was I felt, but it was a feeling of total security, and the feeling stayed with me for a long time. It was during that time that I started reading the bible, I had not before and I don’t believe it was a coincidence.
Fastforward to college, I started taking geology, archeology and philosophy; all these things together tore down my faith, strange how quickly we forget the past… And this is largely to blame on protestant literalist teaching I had heard as a child. Hearing about a 6000 year old earth, man and dinosaurs living together, worldwide flood, etc etc. At this point I was totally torn and became depressed because I could not keep forcing myself to ignore geological evidence. Instead of looking to God or praying, I embraced philosophers like Hume, Voltaire, Spinoza and so on, and considered myself a deist, and sometimes a pantheist when it suited me. I guess I never really abandoned the idea of God but had no longer believed Him to be a personal one, one who uses miracles or divine revelation. Well ultimately this too left me unsatisfied with no personal God to pray to or commune with.
And after a period of 4 months or so earlier this year, of just being so down and lost I finally started praying again. Praying to find answers, to not be lost anymore. I was shocked to find the huge amount of logical writing that was within the Catholic Church. Growing up I had always heard all the anti catholic stuff, “they worship mary”, “they pray to saints”, “the pope is the antichrist” etc, the whole deal. I don’t want this to turn into an attack but from someone who was raised in a protestant family, it is like finding a whole new world. Thought, logic, reasoning and science weren’t things to be embraced. You were to read the bible and with the holy spirit interpret it for yourself. Well I always asked myself if the holy spirit was telling me one thing, and the same holy spirit was telling another person something else from reading the same scripture than is god a liar? I was lacking the foundation, the tradition and the church that can interpret these matters for the people. God can not be contained by a book alone and it is foolish to believe that all there is to know of him could be contained in it. The day came not too long ago when I realized I agreed with the teachings of the Catholic Church and could no longer consider myself a deist, pantheist, protestant, agnostic… and I taught myself the Rosary!!!
I started memorizing the apostles creed, haily mary, haily holy queen, angel of god, etc. The faith is so much less lonely when you have a whole heavenly congregation of angels, saints, and a holy mother to petition to pray for you in times of need. I have never felt so happy and satisfied in other times in my life than when I first began consistently praying these things. I started reading up on St Bernadette and lourdes, fatima, and guadaloupe. If anyone has any other saints or anything that they think would be good to read please let me know!
I’m not in a church yet, I’ve never had communion in my life, not even confirmed in any church. I don’t really know what the best way about going about getting into one.
Also… during the time when I would have considered myself an atheist, I said horrible things, blaspheming God many times. As well I’m sure I lead others astray with the ideologies I preached vehemently. Looking back I cringe at the kind of things I spewed. I have prayed for forgiveness but I feel some of it may be unforgivable.
Alright that’s about it I just wanted to put this story out there for any who might find it interesting. Any information regarding catholic tradition, dogmas, and also prayers would be helpful to me. Currently I only know the ones of the rosary, angel of god and a little of st michaels.
For a long time in my life I had jumped around from different things, placing my faith in philosophies, ideas, science etc. I was baptized a lutheran as a child but would not ever have considered myself one, more on that later. There was a time in highschool when I had lost all faith in everything, but it was then that I felt an incredible presence of warmth and love all around me. To this day I still can’t describe in words what it was I felt, but it was a feeling of total security, and the feeling stayed with me for a long time. It was during that time that I started reading the bible, I had not before and I don’t believe it was a coincidence.
Fastforward to college, I started taking geology, archeology and philosophy; all these things together tore down my faith, strange how quickly we forget the past… And this is largely to blame on protestant literalist teaching I had heard as a child. Hearing about a 6000 year old earth, man and dinosaurs living together, worldwide flood, etc etc. At this point I was totally torn and became depressed because I could not keep forcing myself to ignore geological evidence. Instead of looking to God or praying, I embraced philosophers like Hume, Voltaire, Spinoza and so on, and considered myself a deist, and sometimes a pantheist when it suited me. I guess I never really abandoned the idea of God but had no longer believed Him to be a personal one, one who uses miracles or divine revelation. Well ultimately this too left me unsatisfied with no personal God to pray to or commune with.
And after a period of 4 months or so earlier this year, of just being so down and lost I finally started praying again. Praying to find answers, to not be lost anymore. I was shocked to find the huge amount of logical writing that was within the Catholic Church. Growing up I had always heard all the anti catholic stuff, “they worship mary”, “they pray to saints”, “the pope is the antichrist” etc, the whole deal. I don’t want this to turn into an attack but from someone who was raised in a protestant family, it is like finding a whole new world. Thought, logic, reasoning and science weren’t things to be embraced. You were to read the bible and with the holy spirit interpret it for yourself. Well I always asked myself if the holy spirit was telling me one thing, and the same holy spirit was telling another person something else from reading the same scripture than is god a liar? I was lacking the foundation, the tradition and the church that can interpret these matters for the people. God can not be contained by a book alone and it is foolish to believe that all there is to know of him could be contained in it. The day came not too long ago when I realized I agreed with the teachings of the Catholic Church and could no longer consider myself a deist, pantheist, protestant, agnostic… and I taught myself the Rosary!!!
I started memorizing the apostles creed, haily mary, haily holy queen, angel of god, etc. The faith is so much less lonely when you have a whole heavenly congregation of angels, saints, and a holy mother to petition to pray for you in times of need. I have never felt so happy and satisfied in other times in my life than when I first began consistently praying these things. I started reading up on St Bernadette and lourdes, fatima, and guadaloupe. If anyone has any other saints or anything that they think would be good to read please let me know!
I’m not in a church yet, I’ve never had communion in my life, not even confirmed in any church. I don’t really know what the best way about going about getting into one.
Also… during the time when I would have considered myself an atheist, I said horrible things, blaspheming God many times. As well I’m sure I lead others astray with the ideologies I preached vehemently. Looking back I cringe at the kind of things I spewed. I have prayed for forgiveness but I feel some of it may be unforgivable.
Alright that’s about it I just wanted to put this story out there for any who might find it interesting. Any information regarding catholic tradition, dogmas, and also prayers would be helpful to me. Currently I only know the ones of the rosary, angel of god and a little of st michaels.
:bible1: