During my Southern Baptist days, I used to have the mistaken belief that Catholic were idolaters, who bowed and kneeled before graven images. I used the exact same rational as area52 is using.
Almost 30 years ago I met my future wife and I started to see and learn just what the truth is and what the CC taught. I also learned what falsehoods I had been taught by the SB community in Sunday school and from the pastors. During my conversion, it was exactly this issue that was the last of the falsehoods I had to overcome. The Priest, my wife and the RCIA team all tried to explain it to me. It was really to no avail, for some reason this last falsehood was deeply rooted in me. It took months to get through this, I read over and over Sacred Scripture,
Exodus 20:1-5; *1 Then God delivered all these commandments: 2 "I, the LORD, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery.3 You shall not have other gods besides me. 4 You shall not carve idols for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth; 5 you shall not bow down before them or worship them. For I, the LORD, your God, am a jealous God, inflicting punishment for their fathers’ wickedness on the children of those who hate me, down to the third and fourth generation; *
No amount of explanation or reason from those around me could adequately explain it to me. I prayed and prayed on it and it was the Holy Spirit that led me to the truth. Can you believe it, the Holy Spirit Himself, what a blessing to have had this grace from God to come and personally touch me. The truth that I came to know is that God did not want us to *“carve idols for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth” *such as a bird, a calf, or a fish, carved out of stone or wood and ascribe a divine nature to that physical piece of stone or wood, and then to worship that physical piece of stone or wood as a god. Again I say and I know it to be true that it was the grace of God and the Holy Spirit that led me to this conclusion. From that point on ( 26 years now) it was full steam ahead to becoming a Catholic.
This brings me back to the main topic.
How sad that there are many of our brothers and sisters in Christ that are so blinded to the truth and even sadder, because of their lack of knowledge and faith regarding the most Holy Eucharist, they fail to see Christ physically present in their midst.
When I am in Church, I always have this keen awareness of Christ’s physical presence in the tabernacle, I am always drawn in that direction. It is a feeling and awareness I can’t get away from. As an extraordinary minister, I am humbled and awed at having the unworthy privilege to actually touch Christ Himself. What an honor that is bestowed on a sinner like myself. In receiving Holy Communion, what honor and privilege it is to receive Christ into me Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.
How completely sad it is that there are many of our brothers and sisters in Christ that because of their mistaken beliefs in Sacred Scripture and Catholicism, they will never know the fullness of truth and touch Christ in a deeper way. We need to pray for these brothers and sisters.
I cannot imagine being anything other than a Catholic, I love this beautiful faith.