S
Streckfus
Guest
I joined CAF a number of years ago. I am still an outsider looking in - currently a Lutheran with a conservative Baptist background who deeply desires to join the Roman Catholic Church.
(Long story and a matter of continuing prayer. My journey to Rome began as a child, but didn’t start in earnest until I heard Fr John Ricardo on the radio and later troubled a kind priest whom I picked entirely at random to bless a rosary I’d just purchased. Since then, I’ve been making clandestine visits to a local eucheristic adoration chapel and having conversations with the Church Fathers.)
I am saddened by the tone of discourse CAF is ending on. When I first arrived, the forums had the old format (some of you may remember it), and there was a lively and (mostly) tolerant debate on matters of the faith.
My recollection may be a little rose-colored, but there were often a good number of contributors (right here in the Non-Catholic Religions category) reminding us that Jesus is why we are here and to seek first to understand. One member in particular, a Lutheran fellow (John?) never failed to return a kind word for a harsh one, and I think more than once shared an image of a Reformation-era Lutheran holding a rosary (demonstrating how close we once were).
Judging by what I’ve read here over the years and heard on call-in radio, there are many like me - Protestants who thirst in limbo - while many blessed with full access to our Lord seem to take for granted what they have.
I’m not a young man. And though I’m not in a retirement home, either, I’m a lot closer to the end of my life than the beginning, and someday I will find myself dying, I hope in a hospital, and will be able ask for a priest who will have pity and give me communion and last rites/extreme unction. But if I were dying today and infected with Covid, I probably couldn’t hope for that, as even priests are being prevented from attending to the dying (which, if true, I can’t even begin to comprehend; even during the worst plagues, when death was uglier and more certain, no one could conceive of leaving this world without it).
But I have encountered many apathetic Catholics since my private conversion, even some priests/brothers in the Catholic school system who hand out the Eucharist like candy and shrug at my outsider dismay. And I sometimes wonder: if it’s no big deal to them, why should it be a big deal to me?
Or even worse, was it even a big deal in the first place, and am I just one of uncounted rubes in a historic hoax?
But for the charity of an old priest and the reassuring words in places like CAF, I could be blamed for thinking so.
I’ve always believed when you run out of words, stop typing. So, I will.
Thanks and blessings to all - to the developers, moderators, managers, caretakers who put so much time and love into this little refuge on the Internet. And especially to those who encouraged each other here. You encouraged me, too.
(Long story and a matter of continuing prayer. My journey to Rome began as a child, but didn’t start in earnest until I heard Fr John Ricardo on the radio and later troubled a kind priest whom I picked entirely at random to bless a rosary I’d just purchased. Since then, I’ve been making clandestine visits to a local eucheristic adoration chapel and having conversations with the Church Fathers.)
I am saddened by the tone of discourse CAF is ending on. When I first arrived, the forums had the old format (some of you may remember it), and there was a lively and (mostly) tolerant debate on matters of the faith.
My recollection may be a little rose-colored, but there were often a good number of contributors (right here in the Non-Catholic Religions category) reminding us that Jesus is why we are here and to seek first to understand. One member in particular, a Lutheran fellow (John?) never failed to return a kind word for a harsh one, and I think more than once shared an image of a Reformation-era Lutheran holding a rosary (demonstrating how close we once were).
Judging by what I’ve read here over the years and heard on call-in radio, there are many like me - Protestants who thirst in limbo - while many blessed with full access to our Lord seem to take for granted what they have.
I’m not a young man. And though I’m not in a retirement home, either, I’m a lot closer to the end of my life than the beginning, and someday I will find myself dying, I hope in a hospital, and will be able ask for a priest who will have pity and give me communion and last rites/extreme unction. But if I were dying today and infected with Covid, I probably couldn’t hope for that, as even priests are being prevented from attending to the dying (which, if true, I can’t even begin to comprehend; even during the worst plagues, when death was uglier and more certain, no one could conceive of leaving this world without it).
But I have encountered many apathetic Catholics since my private conversion, even some priests/brothers in the Catholic school system who hand out the Eucharist like candy and shrug at my outsider dismay. And I sometimes wonder: if it’s no big deal to them, why should it be a big deal to me?
Or even worse, was it even a big deal in the first place, and am I just one of uncounted rubes in a historic hoax?
But for the charity of an old priest and the reassuring words in places like CAF, I could be blamed for thinking so.
I’ve always believed when you run out of words, stop typing. So, I will.
Thanks and blessings to all - to the developers, moderators, managers, caretakers who put so much time and love into this little refuge on the Internet. And especially to those who encouraged each other here. You encouraged me, too.
To lengthen my story, that priest was as sweet and kind to me as could be, and he blessed me and the rosary and my Baptist family.