Posted on 06/02/2007 1:15:18 PM PDT by xzins
A Jesuit Meets Jesus
"I baptize you, Alfred Ronald Nemec, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen." With those fateful words, at the tender age of ten days, I was enrolled on the official roster of the Roman Catholic Church. And, according to Catholic doctrine, I was indelibly marked as a child of God.
As the son of a devout Catholic mother and a Catholic-convert father, my early training and schooling was centered around the church and Catholic schools. Even with a move from New Jersey to Florida my parents scrimped and saved, and were able to keep me in Catholic schools for all but one year. Like many young Catholic boys of my generation, I was fascinated by the pomp and ritual of the Mass, and would play at being a priest, with towels for vestments and candy wafers for the "host". As soon as I could, I became an altar boy. Seeing my eagerness to please and my partiality for the pomp of the Mass, many of the priests for whom I served Mass, suggested that I become a priest after high school. I attended four years at a Jesuit high school, going almost daily to Mass.
After high school, I entered the Society of Jesus‡, the Jesuit religious order. Comradarie, seclusion from the world (no T.V., radio, newspapers, or any real contact with the outside world for the first four years, and limited for the next four), and a full academic schedule kept me busy and happy (so I thought). But even during this time of intense and concentrated training the Holy Spirit was able to plant His own seeds. Part of my training included Scripture reading and Scripture study. As is technically required by the Council of Trent for all Catholics, my classmates and I were given permission to read the Bible in the vernacular. As a personal goal, I determined to read the entire Bible from cover to cover even though this was not a seminary requirement. (Thank you, Holy Spirit). After I had finished that, my first real Biblical trek through God's history book, I went back and re-read the entire New Testament again at least 2 times. All through this odyssey, I experienced one certain question which kept coming back, again and again. But I kept repressing it, refusing to acknowledge its presence.
As I continued on in the required Theology and religion courses, I found that the responses and decrees of the Council of Trent, Vatican I, and Vatican II, and the dogmas of the Church kept tumbling over and over in my mind. As these dogmas and regulations kept agitating my supposed peace of heart, this same question kept rising to the surface: Where are these other books or writings about Jesus, that were written by the Apostles or someone close to Jesus, that justify the current practices of Catholicism? I couldn't find the practices in the Bible, but I was being told that they were instituted by Christ or God. I had started my search.
Four years of college level Theology and Scripture, followed by three years of Philosophy still did not reveal these "missing writings". After eight years of training (and searching) I was forced to the conclusion that I would never find them. I was inescapably awakened to the fact that the current practices of the Catholic Church were not based on ancient writings and witnesses, but on more modern papal decrees and declarations. They were based on practices that were started, in some cases, many years and often many centuries after Christ. The Christ-shaped void, formed in my heart by the Word of God, cried for action on my part. But I didn't know what action. I decided that I needed some time to think so I determined to ask for a leave of absence.
When I asked for that leave of absence, my Superior in the Jesuits refused my request. He gave me the choice of either leaving the Jesuits or staying. But if I remained a Jesuit, there would be no leave of absence. (The hand of God again worked His way in my life.)
Nine months after I left, I married a wonderful Catholic woman whom I met through a mutual friend, a nun. Then, together, we tried a number of Catholic churches, seeking something that we didn't know how to express. The result, instead of being renewed hope, was indifference. In fact we stopped attending church altogether.
After two sons and a move to Colorado, we again renewed our search in the local Catholic churches. We threw ourselves completely into the task. I became a Eucharistic Minister and Reader in the Church and even thought about looking into the lay Diaconate, which was coming into favor at that time. I limited my search to Catholic teachings and amazingly came to the same conclusion I had come to some 13 years earlier. My wife Marie, meanwhile, had found the answer in a non-denominational women's home Bible Study group, but she wasn't sure how to tell me. Through prayer and gentle persuasion, she got me to go with her to a conservative Bible teaching church. At the urging of a friend of Marie's, I joined the church choir. Because the choir sang at both services, I got to hear the sermon twice each Sunday.
On that special Sunday morning in September of 1983, when I stood and said yes to God's word in Romans 10:9, a prophecy of Almighty God was fulfilled. Deut 4:29 reads: "You will find Him, if you search for Him with all your heart and soul." And it was fulfilled for me, in a way that I would never have even imagined. I finally met Jesus, for whom I had been searching for almost 40 years of my life, and I praise Him now for salvation.
When Marie, our sons Kevin and Justin, and I were scripturally baptized in February of 1985, we figuratively burned our last bridge back to Catholicism, for by that very act of being baptized a second time and thus saying that our first baptism was of no value, Catholic dogma said that we were cursed and damned.
"I baptize you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen" again changed the course of my life and that of my wife and sons. Only this time it testified to the world of the completed work of the Lamb of God. And by that act we publicly erased our names from the roster of the Roman Catholic Church.
I offer each of you the same challenge that I faced, in my eight years in the Jesuit seminary: Read through the New Testament from cover to cover. Do it now! Do you find the rules, regulations, and current dogmas as taught by modern Catholicism? Or do you find the alive, only-begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ, who became man, lived, died, was buried, and was raised from the dead to give us eternal-life with Him? (Romans 10:9-10,13) "...if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved: for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation."... "For whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved."
‡The Society of Jesus is a religious order of the Catholic Church. It was established in 1541, by Ignatius of Loyola with a core group of ten men. The society members, called Jesuits, became papal shock troops, rolling back the progress of the Protestant Reformation in Europe and advancing Catholicism in the new mission lands of Latin America, Asia, and Africa of the late 1500's. There are currently almost 26,000 Jesuits. It is the Catholic Church's largest male religious order and specializes in educational and missionary activities.
ping to conversion story
Amen.
Thanks, x, for a terrific witness of God's love.
Post Tenebras Lux.
Amen!
(rolls eyes)
Some would of course say that the Jesuits were never Catholic, lol. As a Catholic I have my issues with the Jesuits. I’m noticing a trend in the religion forum from both sides, are you?
And it's heartwarming to see how keeping Him at the center transcends ethnicity, nationality, and color.
I was somewhat puzzled by this part. "Cursed and damned" by whom? The church or by God??
Why would God care is someone were baptized again; even if only for their own personal knowledge that they'd checked that box?
actually, I was just responding to the just posted thread “John Calvin made me a Catholic” at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1843760/posts
I figured the record had to be balanced
So, if the one post means that cathlics are going to hell in a hand basket, does the other post mean that protestants are going to hell in a hand basket?
Mother Church of course, She saves, not God
Well, definitely not the current crop, for the most part. But the giants of the Jesuits definitely were, like St. Edmund Campion, St. Francis Xavier, and of course, St. Ignatius Loyola.
I was just doing my best imitation of the rhetoric that I find on threads like this from the “children of the so-called Reformation.”
For Marie’s sake, I hope he’s better at keeping his vows to her than he was his vows to God.
I also hope that none of MY collection money over the years went to this self-centered clown’s education.
You will get no disagreement from me. After all, as the article says, they were the Papal Shock Troops who rolled back the progress of the Protestant Reformation, lol. God Bless the faithful martyrs of Tyburn. Freepmail me your email and I’ll send you a copy of my thesis which was on Elizabethan Catholic Priests: Pastor, Apologist, Martyr.
I figured a Jesuit for a Calvinist was a fairly even exchange. Shock troops, all.
:>)
Oh please. The Catholic Church doesn’t even teach that, and you know it. And if you don’t, then you should know better.
I’m quite sure that it did.
Oh, so you agree then that he’s a self-centered clown then? ;-)
Two young religious men are discussing what religious order to join.
They both discuss the similarities in the Jesuits and the Dominicans. And the difference.
The Dominicans were founded to counter the Albigensians one of them notes. The other notes that the Jesuits were founded to counter the Protesants (not entirely true). What’s the difference then one asks.
Met any Albigensians lately?
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