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The Daunting Journey From Faith to Faith
The Daily Telegraph (UK) ^ | 3/9/11 | Stephen Hough

Posted on 03/09/2011 7:25:59 PM PST by marshmallow

This week, hundreds of Anglicans are leaving the Church of England to prepare to join the Catholic Church as part of the new Ordinariate. Even though they’re converting in groups, rather than on their own, it’s a big step. Members of your family, your local community, life-long friends may be disapproving and feel distressed. I should know – my grandmother said she wouldn’t speak to me if I converted, and when I did, my father said it was “all a load of nonsense”.

Becoming a Catholic in my late teens felt a bit like moving from a small village to a big city – and actually, that was close to the truth. I grew up in a village in Cheshire, where many friends went to the local Evangelical chapel. It had lovely warm carpets and friendly hymns; when I started going to a Catholic church with marble floors, high ceilings and plainchant, I really was turning my back on my family’s cultural history.

My grandmother came from an Orange family in Liverpool, where to be on the wrong side of the Protestant-Catholic divide meant that you might have stones thrown at you in the street. Even in the late Seventies, there were prejudices. “The priests will take all your money off you,” I was warned. Another friend conceded that maybe “some Catholics could be saved”.

No wonder my family was surprised – especially since it happened quite by chance. I was 16, playing a concert at the Dartington Summer School in Devon. My mother and I were in a guesthouse down the road from Buckfast, the Benedictine abbey. We went to Mass there, mainly because it was within walking distance, and immediately I had this feeling of entering an enormous, strange, fascinating new world.

(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Catholic; Mainline Protestant; Ministry/Outreach
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 03/09/2011 7:26:02 PM PST by marshmallow
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To: marshmallow; BenKenobi

Ping!


2 posted on 03/09/2011 7:26:58 PM PST by marshmallow ("A country which kills its own children has no future" -Mother Teresa of Calcutta)
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To: marshmallow

We’ll soon all unite for the upcoming war with Islam.


3 posted on 03/09/2011 7:27:59 PM PST by Da Coyote
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To: marshmallow

Most of the comments after his post are truly frightening. Are the English really that stupid and evil?


4 posted on 03/09/2011 7:47:27 PM PST by madprof98 ("moritur et ridet" - salvianus)
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To: madprof98

It’s hard to overstate the depths to which Britain has fallen. In general, religion is held in utter contempt. The Christian religion is now the preserve of a small remnant.


5 posted on 03/09/2011 7:55:24 PM PST by marshmallow ("A country which kills its own children has no future" -Mother Teresa of Calcutta)
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To: Da Coyote

Let’s hope you’re right.

The Devil really likes the way we’re separated into sects, making spiteful remarks about how all the other Christians outside of our circle have some detail of belief wrong. One sees it every day on FR. This weakens us in our fight against the great evil. If we ever united as the Body of Christ, we would be more fearsome than the greatest armies of the world, and no wickedness could stand against us.


6 posted on 03/09/2011 8:37:42 PM PST by ottbmare (off-the-track Thoroughbred mare)
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To: marshmallow
...immediately I had this feeling of entering an enormous, strange, fascinating new world.

Just imagine what an eye-awakening experience it will be when he comes to have just a little more faith than no faith whatsoever in Christ.

7 posted on 03/09/2011 8:39:17 PM PST by Cvengr (Adversity in life and death is inevitable. Thru faith in Christ, stress is optional.)
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To: Cvengr

I don’t understand your post. What makes you suppose that he has “no faith whatsoever in Christ”?


8 posted on 03/09/2011 9:18:38 PM PST by ottbmare (off-the-track Thoroughbred mare)
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To: ottbmare

Apparently God prefers big box churches to ornate Cathedrals.


9 posted on 03/09/2011 9:26:37 PM PST by BenKenobi (Don't expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong. - Silent Cal)
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To: ottbmare

Because his decision was based upon the environment rather than the message.

In all 3 situations the Adversary has fallen in Scripture, it has been from an situation of perfect environment.

Environment is not the criterion for sanctification, although associating with evil may have adverse consequences.


10 posted on 03/10/2011 2:32:54 AM PST by Cvengr (Adversity in life and death is inevitable. Thru faith in Christ, stress is optional.)
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To: Cvengr
I have to respectfully disagree with you. I would point out first that he wrote about this spiritual appeal through the visual senses taking place when he was a sixteen-year-old boy.. You should not expect spiritual maturity from a teenager; personally, I'm just glad when a teenage kid responds to God at all.

Second, as the Scripture says, the whole world, all of creation, proclaims the glory of God. He made us sensitive to beauty in part so we would see His glory around us. There is nothing wrong with responding to the beauty of the created world, even if the beauty one is responding to is religious architecture intended to honor Him.

He chooses different means to speak to each of us. One person may hear a Bach fugue, another may contemplate the stars, another may (like me) study the miraculous workings of the cell, and in wonderment say, "This beauty could not exist without being ordained by a Creator," and start down the path toward Him. Just because the awe-inspiring beauty of a cathedral doesn't move you doesn't mean that this is not a valid way for people to hear God's call.

I find in general that it is neither wise nor charitable to presume that we know what is going on in the relationship between another person and the Lord, or to think that we know more about Him than someone else (unless of course that someone else is leading a life of wickedness).

11 posted on 03/10/2011 8:27:11 AM PST by ottbmare (off-the-track Thoroughbred mare)
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