How to Become a Catholic

First I ignored the Catholic Church, then I laughed at the Catholic Church, then I fought the Catholic Church, then I became Catholic.

- Matt Swaim of the Coming Home Network

That pretty much sums it up for me as well.  

Luther and Tradition

Luther deliberately rejected Church Tradition. Whatever he retained from Tradition he retained because he decided to retain it. Whatever he didn’t like about Tradition, he rejected. His own spirit became the umpire for his belief system. He became his own final authority. Here is how he defended the addition of a word that is not in the original Biblical text. See that he refused any and all correction. He appealed to himself as the final authority on the subject.

"But I will return to the subject at hand. If your papist wishes to make a great fuss about the word sola (alone), say this to him: "Dr. Martin Luther will have it so, and he says that a papist and a donkey are the same thing.”

- From Luther’s Open Letter on Translating

------------------------------------------------- I will add that no Bible translator in our day - Protestant or Catholic - would ever get away with adding words to Scripture in order to defend a pet doctrine. That is not acceptable at all, yet Luther did it and accepted no correction. So, yes, Luther set the tone for all Protestants. His influence is clearly seen in all denominations. Each denomination, - and then each individual within that denomination - feels free to pick and choose what doctrines it will accept and what doctrines it will reject. Hence the continuous infighting, and then divisions within Protestantism. Yes, Luther kept a lot of Catholic teaching, but so what? He did it because “Dr. Martin Luther will have it so.” Is that what Jesus intended for His Church? If it is, then prove from Scripture that the attitude Luther had was the one Jesus wanted His people to have. There is abundant Scriptural evidence to prove that Jesus indeed wants His Church to be one, even as He and the Father are one. (See John 17 and Ephesians 4 for starters.)

I couldn’t defend the divisions anymore. We are supposed to be one Church, not many.

Some like the idea that they are free to pick and choose whatever they wish to believe and still call it Christian. Some make better choices than others. Some are really seeking the truth, and not just an excuse to make up their own religion. I get that.

Freedom is a great gift. Some believe that being free means not submitting to an organized Church. It gets complicated. I understand that, since I was a Protestant my whole life until not long ago.

Many look for a denomination that will give them more structure than that. Few have the time or inclination to make up their minds about every point of doctrine. However, if all Protestant denominations claim the Bible as their final authority, why are there so many different denominations?

Maybe I just hope that some will take another look at the Catholic Church’s claim to being the one that Jesus founded.

...and so forth.

Jesus founded only one Church. Yes, Protestants are real Christians. I am not saying they are not. What I am saying is that Jesus did not mean for us to be so antagonistic towards one another.

I am also saying that, even with all her warts and flaws, the Catholic Church still has the right message about unity. I understand that not all want to come Home to Rome. I get that. Rome is still Home, and always has been since Jesus founded His One Church.

Maybe at least Protestants - and those of us who used to be Protestants :-) - and Catholics could try a little harder to accept one another as brethren? That would be a good place to start.

Pope Francis is trying to lead in the right direction, I believe.

The Rosary - a few thoughts - 1

This is another post without a lot of developed ideas, just a few thoughts and those kind of random. Here goes.

The Rosary is called the Mysteries of the Rosary. For most Protestants, the Rosary itself is a mystery. 

Why would Christians pray to and worship Mary?  When I was a Protestant, I thought that the Rosary was all about Mary and probably mariolatry - the worship of Mary as though she were a goddess. It was kind of creepy.

Well, now I know that it really isn’t all about Mary. It’s more like seeing the life of Jesus, Mary’s Son, through her eyes. It is also an appeal to Mary to pray for us. It is a very human form of devotion, to put oneself into the Gospel narrative and see it all through the eyes of the one who made the Incarnation possible from the human point of view. Mary’s “yes” to God made our “yes” to Him possible. 

Eve’s “no” to God’s will brought about the effects in our world that we call in theological terms "the Fall." Mary’s “yes” changed everything. If you think about the parallels between Eve and Mary you may begin to see why Mary is so highly favored, being called “blessed” all throughout the history of the Church.


So, the Rosary involves the contemplation of the key points of the life of Christ as seen through His mother’s eyes as well as an appeal to her for prayer. That kind of thing makes Protestants uncomfortable. I know, because I used to think that was strange. 

Why do Catholics pray to the dead?

Catholics and Orthodox used to tell me that Mary is not dead, but actually more alive now in God’s presence than she was during her earthly life. So, just as we would ask someone here on earth to pray for us, we can ask those who are in Heaven right now to pray for us. That is the kind of intercession we are talking about.

I used to argue against that idea. Scripture won the debate for me. I will throw this in, even though it doesn’t relate directly to the Rosary. One of the final blows to my carefully laid Protestant foundation was St. Thomas Aquinas.

Now, generally when someone says they are a Thomist, it means they are steeped in philosophy, natural law, and are just plain smarter than the average human being. That is true about many Thomists. 

However, I am one of those simple Thomists. I have never studied philosophy in any kind of serious way. The one course on philosophy that I took in college traumatized me. I hated it.

So, what is it that impressed me about Thomas?  Here it is. Thomas knew his Bible. He had it memorized. 

That meant a lot to a good, old fashioned and proud of it, Bible thumper. I love God’s Word. I listen to parts of it every day. I read it every day. I have large sections of it memorized, like any good Bible thumper has. Bible thumpers get a bad rap. We love God’s Word, and we love the God of the Word. That part has not changed at all. God bless the Bible thumpers! All of them who spoke the truth of the Bible into my life and my dull mind!

So, I read the first few pages of his Summa Theologica, and I was hooked. It is the most Biblical of all the theological “stuff” I had ever read. In fact, it is like the fountain of all other theological works, since it brings together all that had gone before him, and set the stage for all that followed. 

Many Protestants claim him, even. He indeed summarized all of Christian theology. His philosophy was his handmaiden, and his theology is about God Himself.  It is a very foolish Christian theologian who tosses Thomas aside. It is a very foolish Thomist as well who does not memorize Scripture and argue from that point of view. So, this is also an little advertisement for St. Thomas Aquinas. 


One key Scripture that I could not ignore and that helped in my conversion was this. 

Mark 12:27New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)27 He is God not of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong.”

Read this verse in context. The words are very clear. 

Mark 12:26b‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? 

Here is the complete context. Notice this. 

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are said to be alive, not dead. So, you may not be ready to go the whole way and begin to ask  the saints to pray for you, but at least you may be able to see that Catholics and Orthodox do not pray to the dead. 

In fact, we do not “pray to” the saints in the same sense that we pray to God. We do not believe that they are little gods with supernatural powers of their own, coming from them. It is all about the grace of God operating in the lives of His saints. 

Remember the passage about the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man accomplishing much?  That passage is a key to understanding what Catholics and Orthodox do in asking the saints who are now in God’s presence to pray for us. (James 5:16)

The Question about the Resurrection18 Some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him and asked him a question, saying, 19 “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no child, the man[b] shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. 20 There were seven brothers; the first married and, when he died, left no children; 21 and the second married the widow[c] and died, leaving no children; and the third likewise; 22 none of the seven left children. Last of all the woman herself died. 23 In the resurrection[d]whose wife will she be? For the seven had married her.”24 Jesus said to them, “Is not this the reason you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God? 25 For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. 26 And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the story about the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? 27 He is God not of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong.”

I will leave it there for now. Later I will probably post the sequence of the Rosary. It, like the Creeds, is a way of keeping the Gospel alive among the people of God. 

The world changes. This cosmos - the way that the world is manifested in a specific time frame - is constantly changing. So, the Creeds and the prayers of the Church are ways to keep Christians from following the cosmos. They are ways that Christians can keep from being conformed to this world, but rather being transformed by Christ. They are ways, along with Scripture itself of course, to renew our minds. 

See Romans 12:1,2

It is not obligatory to use the devotional prayers of the Rosary. The Creeds are obligatory. 

The Creeds - The Nicene and the Apostles’ - are incorporated into the Mass. Many of us pray the Creeds every day as well. That is another subject. It touches on the subject of the Rosary, though, because the first prayer is the Apostles’ Creed. 

Yes, I have been praying the Rosary almost every day, now, for about a year. True confessions of an ex Protestant. Yes, it surprises me, too.  It shocks me, even. I never would have believed it about myself!

The Beauty of the Catholic Church - part 1

Sermons set in stone - you can argue with words but you cannot argue with beauty.

- Peter Kreeft


Beauty is what won me. The Catholic churches all around the world give testimony to GLORY!  Like Dr. Kreeft, I fell in love with the Great Whore of Babylon. Well, it sounds better the way he says it. See, in Protestantism we were taught that the Catholic Church is the Great Whore of Babylon that is talked about in the book of Revelation.

It’s not just about the beauty of  Catholic church buildings as well as  the beauty of Catholic art and music. It is the beauty of the liturgy, the beauty of the great minds that God has given to the Church - the whole Church that even Protestants borrow from and often add to - the beauty of Catholic theology, orthodoxy, and philosophy.

Yes, she has some very ugly marks as well. She is not completely pure and holy, but Jesus is preparing His Bride, the Church, His Bride, His Body, for future glory. She will be perfectly holy, dressed in white robes when He comes.

How will that be?  He is building His Church and sanctifying her.

Protestants who believe in Jesus are not excluded, either. That is part of the beauty - her catholicity.

Why Catholicism? - 4

     I have always liked to study the Bible. I love God’s Word. It is all the things it says about itself - a lamp to guide my way, true spiritual food for my soul, the very Word of God, the wisdom of God, and so forth.

     I have also enjoyed the study of theology, hence the interest in the Westminster Confession of Faith. As I said in another place, the WCF makes for good study. Much of what it teaches is what the Church has always taught. I do not have an advanced degree in theology, but I do have a BTH. The focus of the school where I studied was Biblical theology, so most of our time was spent learning to read and explain the text of Scripture. During my course of study, I, in effect, wrote a commentary on the whole Bible. Each one of us did.

Our profs. then would bring in other great Bible teachers and theologians to expand our understanding of the text. We were introduced to many great Protestant theologians and teachers that way, as well as selected passages and quotes from the Church Fathers.

   During my course I also had 3 years of Greek study. So, even though I did not study in seminary, I do have a fairly strong background in Biblical studies. In fact, so much of what I have read in the WCF is very much like what I was taught where I studied, though it was not a Reformed school.

   So, why didn’t I stick with my WCF study and continue to blog about it?  Well, I began to read more from the early Church fathers. So, to make a long story a bit shorter, I will say that after awhile I realized that the Catholic Church still taught what the early Church Fathers taught.

   Yes, there are liberal influences in parts of the Church, but the foundation is still there. There are some extremes as well. I will not deny that. However, the basic dogmas of our faith - and now I say “our” instead of “their” - can be traced back to the Apostles and the ones who were trained by them as per 1 Timothy 2.

   In  a way, I fell in love with the saints of God who so carefully defined and defended orthodoxy. St. John Chrysostom, St. Augustine, St. Anselm, St. Athanasius, and I finally came to St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Thomas was the one who convinced me that I needed to come back Home to the Church.

   In fact, I came to understand that the split should never have happened in the first place. Sure, it would be easy to blame the pope at the time of the Reformation and the state of the Church then. It was a mess. It would be easy to blame the Reformers for being so impatient and such hot heads - and they were. It is more likely that both and all share in the blame.

   That happened a long time ago now. What was God calling me to in the year 2014 and into 2015 and beyond?  His call to come Home was clear, and I ran as fast as I could to get here. Or should I say swam as fast as I could, crossing the Tiber as they say.

   See, as far as the Church goes, I was already a part of her, but not in full communion. My baptism was in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. The Church accepted my baptism as true Christian baptism. I had been part of the separated brethren. Now I am in full communion and loving it.

  There is more to the story, of course, and maybe I will share more. So, I have nothing but love and gratitude for those who shared Christ with me along the way - as I wrote before. I must follow God’s call, and I did so with a heart full of joy!

   What does everyone else need to do?  I can’t answer that for you.

 

Why Catholicism - 3

II. Looking for the feminine

A. How is femininity viewed within Protestantism?

1. Egalitarian option

   The Egalitarian position within Protestantism offers women the idea that men and women are equal. In general, no gender specific roles are acknowledged. All activity should be based on an individual's abilities and really nothing more.

   That is all fine and dandy to a certain point, but for me, it did not answer my most basic questions about why I am female and not male. The most glaring example of egalitarian inability to give satisfying answers to the most basic questions about sexuality has to do with breast feeding.

  In conversation with egalitarians at one point I tried to get them to at least admit that women because they were women were more suited to breast feeding. Men could not breast feed a baby. Some were not so sure that breast feeding could be limited to women only.

  As far as I'm concerned, the egalitarian position fails at the most basic level of explaining why men are men and women are women. Their tendency to reduce all sexual differences to a matter of plumbing was not at all satisfying.


   Even Christian egalitarians tend to fall into the same kinds of errors as their secular counterparts. The most obvious error being a denial of human nature.  Men and women are not interchangeable, and the breast feeding example is one of the most obvious reasons as to why men cannot be substituted for women nor women for men.

  There are many other natural examples of this dilemma for egalitarian feminists. Yes, in many ways men and women can both do the same kinds of things. For example, a woman can pound nails and a man can wash dishes. There may be slight differences, but both can get the job done.

  However, when it comes to really important activities like bearing children and breast feeding, there really is no comparison. A man cannot naturally do either of those. It takes a woman.


  Besides, in egalitarianism itself, there is no good explanation of why men are attracted to certain activities and women to other kinds. The whole cultural relativism line of argumentation breaks down under closer examination. Men like to do guy things and women like to do girl things. It's our nature and it is getting harder and harder to deny that. In spite of truly bizarre, egalitarian social experimentation, men are still men and women are still women. Just ask any mom who has raised children of both genders. There are huge differences, and those differences start to manifest themselves at birth.

   Egalitarians still cannot explain why the Disney Princesses are so popular, nor why little boys love Thomas the Tank Engine.

  Also, just because a woman can do many things that men can do, and vice versa, doesn't mean that the best use of a woman's time and energy is the same as a man's. So, for me, egalitarianism did not answer any of my important concerns about sexuality and gender identity.

2. Complementarian option

  So, for me as a Protestant, the main other options was complementarianism. That is, men and women complement one another. Both men and women have God-ordained, gender-specific roles within the church and the home. In those areas, men lead and women follow. I like that arrangement, and no, I am definitely not a doormat.

  However, I did not find a coherent philosophy and theology of motherhood as I examined the complementation position. There were very few articles written about motherhood, and many of them made motherhood itself out to be kind of a curse, a punishment that women must learn to deal with.

   I wrote about that here when I did a kind of analysis of John Piper's sermons on motherhood. You can read that here if you like. He especially messes up the concept of "saved through child bearing" as do most males who try to preach on the subject. They have no clue about how a mother feels about being a mother. No clue at all. Don't they know any mothers that they could ask about what motherhood means to them?

I tell ya'...


3. Christian Patriarchy

   I then spent quite a bit of time studying the Christian Patriarchy Movement. I have to say that I like a lot of what is written from that point of view. The women representing that movement are some of the strongest, most noble, and best Christian women I know. They are amazing women.

  Even so, it was not for me. I couldn't really find theological flaws in it at the time. Egalitarians hate the "partrios" and spend a lot of time bashing them, but that was not the same as really refuting the theological or practical positions of the Patriarchalists.

  However, there was something not quite right about it. Again, it was the lack of any coherent philosophy and theology of womanhood, motherhood, and matriarchy that finally helped me see the problems. It was all about males.


4. So, in Protestantism, my options boiled down to 1.) egalitarian feminism, which is all about women struggling to free themselves from male oppression. 2.) complementarianism, which is all about resisting the feminists' onslaught 3.) Christian patriarchy, which is all about establishing male rule in society, the home, and the church.

  I never felt entirely comfortable with any of the 3. I  most closely identified with #2, Complementarianism, and called myself a complementarian for a long time.

The idea of being Catholic didn't even cross my mind until much, much later. Sure, it was okay for Catholics to be Catholic, I guess.  We are free. However, it was not something I was interested in.

 

Why Catholic? - 2

So, it was the realization that I had no mother that awakened in me a desire to know more about the Catholic Church.

You see, in Protestantism the church is generally thought of as an "it." We talk about the church in the neuter gender almost all the time. If we talk about the Bride of Christ, we may use feminine pronouns, but in general conversation, we talk about the church as a thing, an it. However, in the Bible, the Church is described with feminine imagery.

Think of the New Birth in Christ. In that birth we see the work of the Church in preaching the Gospel, baptizing and teaching believers. It is through this work of the Church that new birth comes by the power of the Holy Spirit working in and through her. Again, how can we miss the feminine imagery here?

Thus Church is our Mother. No, she is not the author of our salvation. Christ is, but we are born into the Church, Christ's body.

She is also called His bride. (See 2 Corinthians 11:2;  Ephesians 5:24;25-27; Revelation 19:7-9; 21:1-2). The feminine imagery here is hard to miss, yet most Protestants don't give this strong imagery a second thought, and continue to call Christ's Bride an "it."

Also, the Church has strong feminine images, especially that of Mary. She is indeed our mother, as Jesus spoke from the cross to John. I won't go farther than that, since there are many resources out there which explain this much better than I ever could. Marian theology is new to me, but the veneration of Mary as Christ's mother and ours is a very ancient tradition. The early Church held her in high honor.

In Protestantism, Mary is practically ignored or even demonized. Well, we don't think we are demonizing her, but we really do not know what to do with Mary. I wrote about that in several posts here.  In these posts I was kind of thinking out loud, trying to work out in my mind what I was beginning to see as far as the Catholic Church goes. There are a number of incomplete ideas or even mistaken concepts, so please check out what the Church officially teaches about the Church as our Mother.


For now, I will refer you to the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

I. "LORD, LOOK UPON THE FAITH OF YOUR CHURCH"

168 It is the Church that believes first, and so bears, nourishes and sustains my faith. Everywhere, it is the Church that first confesses the Lord: "Throughout the world the holy Church acclaims you", as we sing in the hymn "Te Deum"; with her and in her, we are won over and brought to confess: "I believe", "We believe". It is through the Church that we receive faith and new life in Christ by Baptism. In the Rituale Romanum, the minister of Baptism asks the catechumen: "What do you ask of God's Church?" And the answer is: "Faith." "What does faith offer you?" "Eternal life."⁵⁴

169 Salvation comes from God alone; but because we receive the life of faith through the Church, she is our mother: "We believe the Church as the mother of our new birth, and not in the Church as if she were the author of our salvation."⁵⁵ Because she is our mother, she is also our teacher in the faith.

Some Explanation about My Conversion - #1 of why I am now a Catholic.

I. Introduction

A. First let me say that there are many Reformed teachers that I admire greatly. They have led the way in things like the exposition of Scripture and preaching. I also admire many Evangelicals who do not self-identify as Protestants or Reformed but who follow in the tradition of great expository preaching and evangelism.

B. Many Pentecostals and Charismatics have also influenced my life and faith. In fact, the first person who showed  a love for my soul was a Pentecostal black woman from Canada. She was my kindergarten teacher and was loved and admired by many in our community, giving her love and service to generations of children in our town.

C. As well, I have had the privilege of ministering with some of the finest Christians I have ever known from many different Christian backgrounds. So, I have nothing but gratitude in my heart for those who have loved me and taught me the Gospel through the years. I have been a Christian since the age of 7 or 8, and that was quite a long time ago now.

II. Reason #1 - Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child

A. I will, D.V., write several posts explaining why I joined the Catholic church. These reasons are in no particular order of importance. They are kind of in chronological order I suppose. By that I mean that this reason #1 is maybe the first thing that began to open my eyes to where God was leading me.

B. The beginning was also the end.

     1. That is, my mother passed away last May, just a few days after what would have been my        parents' 65th anniversary. We lost Dad a few years ago, and now Mom is gone.

     2. In many ways, Mom's death was a relief. She had been suffering one major health crisis after another for several months, years really. She lived in constant pain because of her arthritis for one thing, but also had congestive heart failure and circulation problems. She was disappearing in front of us, really.

     My daughter and I would say that one day we would go to visit her, and she would have just vanished. No one would be able to find her, she was so tiny. Even so, her spirit was strong as an ox, and her little will as well. She was determined to get better, to recover from her latest ailment. She just ran out of time.

   Mom had never been baptized, but my husband was able to give her Christian baptism just a few days before she passed away. She was so happy, like a little child. I had not seen her that delighted in years. She was not an unhappy person, but the pain really was a strain on her.

  After she was baptized, she started kind of giggling in delight. No, not an old person's cackle, even though she was 89 years old. It was more like a child's delighted laughter. She couldn't wait to tell people what God had done for her.

   We knew, thought, that her time was almost gone as far as this world goes. She was on her way Home.

 
3. So, I wasn't really in mourning like people might think. Even so, I realized that I was now an orphan. Both of my parents were gone from this earth. Maybe later I'll talk about my mother's alcoholism and how that affected our family when I was growing up. Even though my parents spent over 30 years sober, the effects of those formative years were still felt in many ways.

    After Mom's death, the feeling of being a motherless child became overwhelming. Who was my mother now? Who had my mother been in life?  Who had mothered me?  Those questions and more had to have answers. Who is my mother?

   About that time I read an article by a Protestant woman who talked about motherhood, but didn't get to the heart of the matter. Who is my mother, and what is motherhood all about? Yes, that sounds odd. A Catholic woman wrote a beautiful article about the other article. No, it was not a protest or a rebuttal exactly, but it was a kind of answer to my question about who my mother is.

   She spoke about the Church and Mary. That was when it hit me that we Protestants did not talk about our churches as mothers. We didn't talk about Mary at all, really. It's like we were afraid of her, afraid of motherhood and femininity, even. Why couldn't we call our churches our mothers?

   Yes, there are some Protestants who do use gendered language in reference to church, but it's still not common or understood.

   The song Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child* went through my head and became kind of my theme song for several months. Mahalia Jackson's version is, in my opinion, the clearest interpretation of the meaning of that song. Listen to the lament, the grief, the pain in the lyrics. That is how I felt.

I didn't have a mother.


So, this realization about my motherless state was the first step in my conversion.
--------------------------------

* My focus was on the Motherless Child part of this medley. Summertime is a response to the child who feels motherless. She has a mother and a father watching over her, so all is well.

Think of this in spiritual terms. We have a Heavenly Father as children of God, but who is our Mother?  Children need their mother.