The church I go to is very small. We are usually around 60 people. There is a core group of about 15 of us that are there for Bible studies and prayer. We are all very close and that is going to make it hard.
I would respect any choice my friends made about where the Lord is leading them. This is not a choice I made without a lot of prayer and guidance from God. He does not lead us down the wrong path
I feel compelled to share my conversions with you. I am a “cradle” Catholic. I never left my Catholic faith, but I did at one point in my life stop going to Church to worship God. I would show up for baptisms, weddings, funerals, but that was it. I did maintain my prayer life with Jesus; there was still that connection, but there was something missing.
During my 1st conversion, I was praying for my own physical healing and God revealed Himself to me and I was left with this message to do 3 things: 1. Go to Church 2. Go to Church to pray and 3. Go to Church to receive Holy Water. God lead me to this tiny Catholic Church and behind the alter was this huge life-like Crucifix. No matter where I sat in this little Church, I could not get away from this image of Christ on the Cross. I finally realized that God was telling me that I could keep running from His great love for me (the size of the Crucifix became that symbol with the contrast of the smallness of the Church) but I could never hide from Him (my own action of trying to hide my sin before Him by sitting all over the Church to hide from what He did for me personally on the cross). I realized that I had become like Jonah in my life and God was calling me out; that yes He couldn’t force me to stay but He was giving me a choice to come back to Him and learn more about Him and the great love that He has for me.
I choose to stay…and have not regretted it ever. I am so grateful for God’s faithfulness and love, mercy and forgiveness when I did not deserve anything from Him.
I quote St. Ambrose from paragraph 1429 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
1429 St. Peter’s conversion after he had denied his master three times bears witness to this. Jesus’ look of infinite mercy drew tears of repentance from Peter and, after the Lord’s resurrection, a threefold affirmation of love for him. The second conversion also has a communitarian dimension, as is clear in the Lord’s call to a whole Church: “Repent!”
St. Ambrose says of the two conversions that, in the Church “there are water and tears: the water of Baptism and the tears of repentance.”
This really sums up my 2 conversions. My first conversion was about returning to pray with the Community of Faithful and to claim my “baptism” as my own (hence the “holy water” that was part of the message God left me with) as I was baptized as an infant and it was time to claim the baptismal promise my parents and godparents made in proxy for me…there is great joy at the Easter Vigil when we renew our Baptismal Promise before the Lord.
My second conversion was about returning to God by repenting of my sin and being “baptized in the Holy Spirit” with tears.
I know that you are not Catholic but I am and I had not been to confession in many years. God would lead me into the confessional and there I would find peace in knowing that Yes, I am truly forgiven. I needed to hear those words from the Priest, “Yes, you are forgiven” because I really wasn’t sure. When I left, I felt like all of Heaven rejoiced with me.
Luke 15:7:
Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
