EWTN - Journey Home - 4/7/08 - Rosalind Moss - Former Jew & Evangelical Christian

EWTN ^ | Tim Drake

[NYer]

April 7 - Rosalind Moss
Former Jew and Evangelical Christian

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A rolled-away stone gathers Moss: from Judaism to Catholicism

How does a Jewish person of faith convert to Catholicism? To judge by Rosalind Moss’s eighteen-year journey into the Church, the answer is . . . very slowly. Raised in Brooklyn, in a conservative Jewish home with one older brother and one younger sister, Moss never even considered that she would ever be anything other than Jewish. “It’s what I was. We were God’s people. That was my identity,” says Moss.

“We waited for the Messiah to come,” adds Moss, “but He never did.” As a teenager, her brother David became an atheist; Rosalind became agnostic. “I figured that there was a God, but how could you know? I longed for meaning and purpose and to know why mankind was on the earth, but didn’t think that you could find God, or that merely knowing He existed could make a difference.”

“When I was thirty-two years old, I heard about Christ for the first time,” recalls Moss. “David brought me an article that said there were Jewish people who believed that Christ was the Messiah. I asked my brother, ‘You mean to tell me that the Messiah was already here? That He was the only hope the world ever had, and yet the Jewish people didn’t know this? That He came and left and there has been no impact, no change, no peace? That’s just insanity.’”

When I was thirty-two years old, I heard about Christ for the first time.
I asked: “You mean to tell me that the Messiah was already here ?
That He was the only hope the world ever had, and yet the
Jewish people didnt know this? That He came and left and there
has been no impact, no change, no peace? That's Just Insanity.”

Not long after, Moss moved to California and met some of what she considered “neurotic” Jews who did in fact believe this. “They led me to the Lamb of God who took away the sins of the world,” Moss said. “They showed me the Old Testament and pointed to John 1:29, which drove a knife through my heart. There I sat, shattered to think that this was true . . . that God, whose name we had written as G – d, had entered history and become a man to bring us home. It was an unbelievable thing.”

Moss immediately jumped into a nearby evangelical Protestant church and enrolled in every Bible study and outreach she could find. Her first Bible study was taught by an ex-Catholic who had been taught by a former priest. “So, right off, I knew that Catholicism was a cult and a false religious system. I spent the next eighteen years trying to save others from what I thought was the work of Satan,” recalls Moss.

“My brother’s search for truth led him first to a Baptist church. But it made no sense to him that God would have left us in so much confusion as thousands of denominations, and so he went seeking the Church God had intended. Two years later, David became a Catholic.

“In the summer of 1990, after having been a Catholic for eleven years, he gave me a copy of This Rock magazine. Inside was an advertisement for a four-tape series by a Presbyterian minister who had become Catholic — Scott Hahn. I had never heard of such a thing, and so I ordered the tapes.”
Just a week away from serving in a ministerial position at the Evangelical Church in Orange, California, Moss listened to the Hahn tapes. “I remember Scott’s words well. He said that for anyone who ‘would look into the claims of Catholicism would come a holy shock and a glorious amazement.’

“Here I knew that the Church was the work of Satan, and yet listening to that tape a ‘holy shock’ went through me. I knew, before God, that I had to look into the claims of the Catholic Church or I would be turning from God. Thus began my four-year agonizing journey toward the Church.”
The journey, Moss admits, was a difficult one. Right from the start, she decided to put the issue of Mary on a shelf and deal with her later, if she ever got that far. Instead, she first dealt with the sacramental nature of the Church.

“I had one hundred percent bought into the Calvinist thinking of total depravity. I believed that creation was absolutely corrupt, and that therefore God would not use things to bring about grace. It just didn’t make sense to me why God would use fallen creation.

“Yet in Scripture Christ uses mud and spit to heal the blind man. I wondered why He did that. He certainly didn’t have to. This led me to wonder why He changed the water into wine, when He could have just gone poof and made the change.

“Right off, I knew that Catholicism was a cult
and a false religious system. I spent the next eighteen years trying to save others from what I thought
was the work of Satan.”

“Furthermore, I questioned the Incar-nation. Why would God have taken on flesh? I came to understand that creation is fallen, but not totally depraved, and that God can and does take creation and us and restore us to the dignity that He intended.”

Another issue Moss had a hard time understanding was the Eucharist. “I could not understand how, if we already had Christ, we could get Him. Did we get Him on Sunday and then lose Him during the week?”

One of Ross’ spiritual directors, Monsignor James O’Connor, helped answer her question. “He told me that ‘in a marriage relationship the husband and wife love each other and have each other all the time. Yet sometimes they are not very aware of that love. However, in the intimacy of the marital union it is the beloved giving to his loved, just as Christ, the Bridegroom, gives to His Church, the Bride, in the Eucharist, a total act of self-giving love that is unique to that time.’

“For me, that was extraordinarily beautiful. Monsignor O’Connor’s explanation of the Eucharist and the nature of the Mass as the once-for-all sacrifice of Calvary helped me into the Church.”

Moss’ final hurdle was understanding the sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ. “I could not understand how we could offer our lives with Christ,” she recalls. “It seemed as if we were saying that Christ’s sacrifice wasn’t sufficient.

“What enabled that truth to get through to me was thinking of a mother who is in the kitchen baking a chocolate cake. She has all that she needs. She needs nothing.

“Then her daughter comes into the kitchen and asks, ‘Mommy, can I help you?’ and so the mother lets the daughter help. The mother doesn’t need her addition, but it is still a true addition.

“My sins put Christ to death on the cross. However, now that I’ve come to love Him, if I could go back and be at the foot of the cross, even though I once cried ‘Crucify him!’ wouldn’t I now crawl up on the cross and give myself with Him? Wouldn’t I want to do that?

“Calvary, through two thousand years, is brought to us. We are at the foot of the cross and we can give ourselves with Him, in Him and through Him. That is the Mass.”

In the end, having dealt with every Marian doctrine and coming to understand the communion of saints, Moss started praying through Mary. Five weeks later, at the Easter vigil, 1995, she took Mary’s Jewish name, Miriam, as her confirmation name and entered the Church. Life has never been the same.

“Evangelical friends ask me what I have now that I was missing as an Evangelical. I tell them that I have not more than Christ, but I have the whole Christ. I have all that God has given us in giving us His Church.”

Of her conversion, Moss states, “I looked at every Protestant work I could find against Catholicism. In the end, looking into two thousand years of Church history, I learned that the late Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen’s comment was truly the case: ‘There’s not a hundred people in America who hate the Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they mistakenly think the Catholic Church teaches.’

“My heart was taken halfway to heaven. I never believed that there could be such a design.”

Moss admits that her conversion has given her a far better understanding of what it means to be Jewish. “The most Jewish thing a person can do is to become Catholic. When I was trying to save my brother from becoming Catholic, I went to Christmas Mass with him. Afterwards, I told him, ‘That’s a synagogue, but with Christ!’”

She draws comparisons between the Passover and the Lord’s Supper. “Passover was celebrated to point to Israel’s temporal deliverance from bondage to Egypt. The final Passover, the Last Supper, points to our eternal deliverance from bondage to sin. Both events required the participants to eat of the lamb.”

“My heart was taken halfway to heaven. I never believed that there could be such a design.”

Moss now spends the majority of her time on the road, speaking to parishes, conventions and conferences as a staff apologist with San Diego-based Catholic Answers. In addition, she writes for This Rock and Be magazine, is a frequent guest on Catholic Answers’ live radio program, and co-hosted a sixteen-part EWTN series with convert Kristine Franklin, titled Household of Faith. Moss was awarded a 1999 Envoy Award for Best New Evangelist.

She’s not alone in her ministry efforts. Her brother David now leads the Association of Hebrew Catholics, a community that helps Catholics of Jewish origin to realize that they need not abandon their heritage in becoming Catholic.

“My wish, from the moment I gave my life to Christ twenty-three years ago, was to find a megaphone and a ladder tall enough to get to the moon so that I could tell the world that there is a Savior. Now I want to spend the rest of my life telling Catholics what they have.”

[NYer]

EWTN TV and radio host announces formation of new religious community

2/15/2008
Catholic News Service

Raised a conservative Jew, Moss spent 18 years as an evangelical Protestant before becoming a Catholic in 1995.

SACRAMENTO, CA (CNS) - Rosalind Moss, an author who is an Eternal Word Television Network TV host and one of the network's radio hosts, announced Feb. 13 that she is starting a new community of sisters in the Archdiocese of St. Louis with the permission of Archbishop Raymond L. Burke.

The new group will be called the Daughters of Mary, Mother of Israel's Hope, she told an audience of more than 200 at the Catholic Breakfast Club of Sacramento.

Moss, 65, said she hopes to move to St. Louis within a few months, intends to fulfill as many of her scheduled speaking engagements in the coming year as possible, and plans to continue her radio program from St. Louis.

She is working now on designing a floor-length habit, along with a basket to hold religious articles which sisters will distribute both in the poorest areas of the city and the richest.

"The purpose of this religious community is to flood the world with holy habits as signs to God," said Moss, who is also a staff apologist with Catholic Answers, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the Catholic faith through all forms of media.

She said she intends to go into the streets with a team of joy-filled sisters and share the good news.

"I want to tell the world that God hasn't left. He is still here. We are loved by the God who made us for himself. I want to show there is no such thing as secular and religious. There is no division. All is from God," she said.

Moss said her group will be an evangelistic, teaching community following in the spiritual tradition of St. Francis de Sales, whose writings and sermons inspired many to convert to Catholicism. She already has a few women who plan to join her, she added.

"I'll come back to Sacramento one day in a habit," said Moss. "Hold nothing back from God."

Quoting Father Stan Fortuna, a Franciscan Friar of the Renewal known for his music and preaching, she said that "if we keep what God has given us, we are thieves. There is no true, lasting happiness apart from giving our lives to God."

Raised a conservative Jew, Moss spent 18 years as an evangelical Protestant before becoming a Catholic in 1995. She detailed her journey of faith to the Catholic Breakfast Club. In closing she said the group was the first to hear of the new community.

[NYer]

EWTN TV and radio host announces formation of new religious community

2/15/2008
Catholic News Service

Raised a conservative Jew, Moss spent 18 years as an evangelical Protestant before becoming a Catholic in 1995.

SACRAMENTO, CA (CNS) - Rosalind Moss, an author who is an Eternal Word Television Network TV host and one of the network's radio hosts, announced Feb. 13 that she is starting a new community of sisters in the Archdiocese of St. Louis with the permission of Archbishop Raymond L. Burke.

The new group will be called the Daughters of Mary, Mother of Israel's Hope, she told an audience of more than 200 at the Catholic Breakfast Club of Sacramento.

Moss, 65, said she hopes to move to St. Louis within a few months, intends to fulfill as many of her scheduled speaking engagements in the coming year as possible, and plans to continue her radio program from St. Louis.

She is working now on designing a floor-length habit, along with a basket to hold religious articles which sisters will distribute both in the poorest areas of the city and the richest.

"The purpose of this religious community is to flood the world with holy habits as signs to God," said Moss, who is also a staff apologist with Catholic Answers, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the Catholic faith through all forms of media.

She said she intends to go into the streets with a team of joy-filled sisters and share the good news.

"I want to tell the world that God hasn't left. He is still here. We are loved by the God who made us for himself. I want to show there is no such thing as secular and religious. There is no division. All is from God," she said.

Moss said her group will be an evangelistic, teaching community following in the spiritual tradition of St. Francis de Sales, whose writings and sermons inspired many to convert to Catholicism. She already has a few women who plan to join her, she added.

"I'll come back to Sacramento one day in a habit," said Moss. "Hold nothing back from God."

Quoting Father Stan Fortuna, a Franciscan Friar of the Renewal known for his music and preaching, she said that "if we keep what God has given us, we are thieves. There is no true, lasting happiness apart from giving our lives to God."

Raised a conservative Jew, Moss spent 18 years as an evangelical Protestant before becoming a Catholic in 1995. She detailed her journey of faith to the Catholic Breakfast Club. In closing she said the group was the first to hear of the new community.

[NYer]

Ping!

[big'ol_freeper]

"I knew, before God, that I had to look into the claims of the Catholic Church or I would be turning from God."

Amen. As so many have turned away from God by attacking His Son's very Church.

[annalex]

Moss’ final hurdle was understanding the sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ. “I could not understand how we could offer our lives with Christ,” she recalls. “It seemed as if we were saying that Christ’s sacrifice wasn’t sufficient.

“What enabled that truth to get through to me was thinking of a mother who is in the kitchen baking a chocolate cake. She has all that she needs. She needs nothing.

“Then her daughter comes into the kitchen and asks, ‘Mommy, can I help you?’ and so the mother lets the daughter help. The mother doesn’t need her addition, but it is still a true addition.

“My sins put Christ to death on the cross. However, now that I’ve come to love Him, if I could go back and be at the foot of the cross, even though I once cried ‘Crucify him!’ wouldn’t I now crawl up on the cross and give myself with Him? Wouldn’t I want to do that?

Look, we found your cake story.

[annalex]

50 Days of Easter 2008 Celebration ping, dedicated to converts to the Catholic faith. If you want to be on the list but are not on it already, or if you are on it but do not want to be, let me know either publicly or privately.

Happy Easter. Christ is risen!

Alex.

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Previously posted conversion stories:

Anti-Catholicism, Hypocrisy and Double Standards
Why I Returned to the Catholic Church. Part I: Darkness
Why I Returned to the Catholic Church. Part II: Doubts
Why I Returned to the Catholic Church. Part III: Tradition and Church
Why I Returned to the Catholic Church. Part IV: Crucifix and Altar
Why I Returned to the Catholic Church. Part V: The Catholics and the Pope
Why I Returned to the Catholic Church. Part VI: The Biblical Reality
His Open Arms Welcomed Me
Catholic Conversion Stories & Resources
My Personal Conversion Story
My (Imminent) Reception into the Roman Catholic Church
Catholics Come Home
My Journey of Faith
LOGIC AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF PROTESTANTISM
"What is Truth?" An Examination of Sola Scriptura
"Have you not read?" The Authority behind Biblical Interpretation
The Crisis of Authority in the Reformation
Our Journey Home
Our Lady’s Gentle Call to Peace

[onedoug]

“If you’re planting a tree when you hear the Moshiach has come, first finish the planting, then go to greet him.”

[Salvation]

Bump to read tomorrow.

[xzins]

First she was Jewish, then she was agnostic, then she was Jewish Christian, then she was “evangelical protestant” and then she was Catholic.

I’ve seen the type, and I wouldn’t be terribly surprised to see her become “something else” in the next few years.

We call them church hoppers.

[samiam1972]

She’s becoming a nun. I don’t think she’s going to church hop anymore.

I’m so excited about her being in St. Louis. It would only be better if she were in KC instead. :o) I would love to see them in their habits! How wonderfully exciting! Such joy! If I weren’t already married with 4 kids I would want to join her.

[xzins]

I don’t place significant responsibility in the hands of church hoppers. Others are free to do as they wish. It’s a free country.

[Gumdrop]

I saw the rerun of “Coming Home” this morning, but I missed the first 10 minutes. Did Rosalind state what the mission of her new order of nuns was going to be? I heard her say that her new name will be Mother Miriam of the Lamb of God.

What is their mission? Thanks.

[Salvation]

A story of conversion at the Lamb of God Shrine
EWTN - Journey Home - 4/7/08 - Rosalind Moss - Former Jew & Evangelical Christian
Coming Out of Sodom (Reversion Experience of Once-Active Homosexual) [Eric Hess]
Our Journey Home [Larry and Joetta Lewis]

Book on Mary turns runaway youngster immersed in drugs and crime into a priest
Dr. Robert C. Koons (former Lutheran) - Journey Home - Monday 3/31 - Conversion Story
The Story of a Convert from Islam – Baptized by the Pope at St. Peter's [Magdi Cristiano Allam]
How Do We Know It’s the True Church? - Twelve Things to Look For [Fr. Dwight Longenecker]
"Have you not read?" The Authority behind Biblical Interpretation [Robert Sungenis]

New faith pulls Hot Springs family together (Baptists join Catholic Church at Easter Vigil) [Danny Morrison and family
SciFi Writer, John C. Wright, Enters Catholic Church at Easter Vigil (conversion story)[John C. Wright]
"What is Truth?" An Examination of Sola Scriptura [Dwight Longenecker’family]
LOGIC AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF PROTESTANTISM [Fr. Brian Harrison]
Pope baptizes prominent Italian Muslim [Magdi Allam]

My Journey of Faith [Marco Fallon]
My (Imminent) Reception into the Roman Catholic Church [Robert Koons]
Thousands in U.S. to Join (Catholic) Church - Many Feel They Have Found a Home
TURN ABOUT (Carl Olson, former Evangelical and Monday's guest on EWTN's Journey Home)
Former Southern Baptist Pastor Now a Traveling Crusader for the Catholic Church [Michael Cumbie]

All Roads Lead To Rome (A Southern Baptist's Journey into the Catholic Church)[John David Young]
Allen Hunt, Methodist Minister ...Journeys Home (Catholic, Re: Real Presence)
The Challenges and Graces of Conversion [Chris Findley]
An Open Letter...from Bishop John Lipscomb [Another TEC Bishop Goes Papist]
Unlocking the Convert's Heart [Marcus Grodi]

His Open Arms Welcomed Me [ Paul Thigpen}
Why I'm Catholic (Sola Scriptura leads atheist to Catholic Church)
From Calvinist to Catholic (another powerful conversion story) Rodney Beason
Good-bye To All That (Another Episcopalian gets ready to swim the Tiber)
Bp. Steenson's Letter to his clergy on his conversion to the Catholic Church

Bishop Steenson’s Statement to the House [of Bishops: Episcopal (TEC) to Catholic]
Bp. Steenson's Letter to his clergy on his conversion to the Catholic Church
Bishop Steenson Will Become a Roman Catholic
Married man considers turn as Catholic priest
Pavarotti returns to the Catholic faith before dying

Searching For Authority (A Methodist minister finds himself surprised by Truth!)
Why I Returned to the Catholic Church. Part VI: The Biblical Reality (Al Kresta)
Why I Returned to the Catholic Church. Part V: The Catholics and the Pope(Al Kresta)
The Hail Mary of a Protestant (A true story)
Why I Returned to the Catholic Church. Part IV: Crucifix and Altar(Al Kresta)

Why I Returned to the Catholic Church. Part III: Tradition and Church (Al Kresta)
Why I Returned to the Catholic Church. Part II: Doubts (Al Kresta)
Conversion Story - Rusty Tisdale (former Pentecostal)
Why I Returned to the Catholic Church. Part I: Darkness(Al Kresta)
Conversion Story - Matt Enloe (former Baptist) [prepare to be amazed!]
THE ORTHODOX REVIVAL IN RUSSIA

Conversion Story - David Finkelstein (former Jew)
Conversion Story - John Weidner (former Evangelical)
12 Reasons I Joined the Catholic Church
Conversion Story - Tom Hunt
The Tide Is Turning Toward Catholicism: The Converts

John Calvin Made Me Catholic
Journey Home - May 21 - Neil Babcox (former Presbyterian) - A minister encounters Mary
Going Catholic - Six journeys to Rome
My (Imminent) Reception into the Roman Catholic Church
A Convert's Pilgrimage [Christopher Cuddy]

From Pastor to Parishioner: My Love for Christ Led Me Home (to the Catholic Church) [Drake McCalister]
Lutheran professor of philosophy prepares to enter Catholic Church
Patty Bonds (former Baptist and sister of Dr. James White) to appear on The Journey Home - May 7
Pastor and Flock Become Catholics
Why Converts Choose Catholicism

From Calvinist to Catholic
The journey back - Dr. Beckwith explains his reasons for returning to the Catholic Church
Famous Homosexual Italian Author Returned to the Church Before Dying of AIDS
Dr. Francis Beckwith Returns To Full Communion With The Church
laetare (commentary on ordination of married Anglican convert to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles) Father Bill Lowe
Catholic Converts - Stephen K. Ray (former Evangelical)

Catholic Converts - Malcolm Muggeridge
Catholic Converts - Richard John Neuhaus
Catholic Converts - Avery Cardinal Dulles
Catholic Converts - Israel (Eugenio) Zolli - Chief Rabbi of Rome
Catholic Converts - Robert H. Bork , American Jurist (Catholic Caucus)
Catholic Converts - Marcus Grodi
He Was an Evangelical Christian Until He Read Aquinas [Rob Evans]

The Scott Hahn Conversion Story
FORMER PENTECOSTAL RELATES MIRACLE THAT OCCURRED WITH THE PRECIOUS BLOOD
Interview with Roy Schoeman - A Jewish Convert

[NYer]

If I weren’t already married with 4 kids I would want to join her.

Perhaps you could become an Oblate. Religious orders rely upon them for prayer support. BTW - At the end of the show, Ms. Moss gave some additional information. She is going to take the name Mother Miriam of the Lamb of God. The Community will follow the spirituality of St. Francis de Sales, (and...that, like the Dominican intellect, follows St. Augustine.) They will wear full habits, floor length, full veils, full wimple and a scapular. I get the sense that the color will be black and white, but she did not say specifically.

[Constitutions Grandchild]

I've heard her and she is amazing. I'm thrilled she is coming to St. Louis. I'm confused, though. I thought she was married. I was sure on one Journey Home she appeared with her husband. I must be wrong, but I would truly love to help her get it up and running. An amazing revelation to one of his people. Both hubby and I are truly great fans of her journey's story.

[samiam1972]

All I know came from post #3:

“The purpose of this religious community is to flood the world with holy habits as signs to God,” said Moss, who is also a staff apologist with Catholic Answers, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the Catholic faith through all forms of media.

She said she intends to go into the streets with a team of joy-filled sisters and share the good news.

“I want to tell the world that God hasn’t left. He is still here. We are loved by the God who made us for himself. I want to show there is no such thing as secular and religious. There is no division. All is from God,” she said.

Moss said her group will be an evangelistic, teaching community following in the spiritual tradition of St. Francis de Sales, whose writings and sermons inspired many to convert to Catholicism. She already has a few women who plan to join her, she added.

[Forest Keeper]

Look, we found your cake story.

LOL! Boy you sure did. :) Thanks for the ping, that's really funny. It's interesting how Moss' take is different from mine:

“Then her daughter comes into the kitchen and asks, ‘Mommy, can I help you?’ and so the mother lets the daughter help. The mother doesn’t need her addition, but it is still a true addition.

My position was that if anything, the daughter would actually be a hindrance to the most efficient making of the cake. The mother by herself could have done it better and faster if alone. But, I don't mean to throw rocks. Analogies like this have their limitations. :)