[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 and happy Ascension Thursday. Christ is risen!

Alex.

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Previously posted conversion stories:

Anti-Catholicism, Hypocrisy and Double Standards
Hauled Aboard the Ark
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
A story of conversion at the Lamb of God Shrine
Who is Mary of Nazareth?
Mary and the Problem of Christian Unity
Why I'm Catholic
A Convert's Response to Friends
My Story
Courage to Be Catholic
Finally Catholic! My Conversion to the Catholic Church

Also see:
Sheep That Go Astray
Pope Benedict Goes to Washington Ecumenical Meeting at St. Joseph's Church, New York
Orthodox and Catholic Churches are allies, (Orthodox) Bishop Hilarion says

[GAB-1955]

Of course, we don't hear of the Catholics who leave the Church for Protestantism.

[WorkingClassFilth]

I was so busy studying and doing ministry work that I wasn't making time for the kids or my wife, so busy that I didn't even notice my neglect.

I'm not even interested in commenting on this guy's conversion to Catholicism, but I do think the quote above reveals the true nature of his problems - here he was in "ministry" and wholly out of synch with Scriptural qualifications for the same. The entire Christian church is full of just this kind of do-gooder impulse and the downstream consequences of self-driven religious practices. Frankly, I wouldn't have been surprised had the article concluded with the fellow converting to Buddhism or some other religion as a result of an internal collapse of values and self-willed pursuits. Just my $0.02.

[dartuser]

Being a Baptist ... I have an immediate distrust for a former fellow Baptist who would essentially formulate his theological understanding of basic doctrine (especially in the area of ecclesiology) by translating from the church fathers instead of the Bible.

[sneakers]

Thank you for posting these testimonies. I enjoy reading them. They give me great joy. All of these people truly have a love and appreciation for their roots and the faith they left. Tying together Sacred Scripture with the Early Church Fathers brought them to the only logical conclusion. I sometimes envy these people. They had to search. Their knowledge is awesome. Being a cradle Catholic, I take my Faith for granted. We have Bible study at our church, but I wish we had studies of the Fathers as well. We teach the scripture, but ignore the Tradition. When you put them together, as these converts all did, then the picture becomes complete.

[Tax-chick]

I should explain at this point that I was discovering that because of the charism of knowledge, study came very easy to me. Things just seemed to be absorbed as if my mind were a dry sponge. There is nothing wrong with that, except for the fact that I was not tempering my newfound knowledge with humility and personal piety.

I have that problem, too. If religious study made one a saint, I'd be one!

[Gumdrop]

Good Christian parents raising good Christian men.

I often thank God for the parents I was given. It’s a prize worth more than we ever realize.

Also, as a Catholic, I want to praise other Christians who infuse a love of Jesus Christ into their children’s lives. All to often parents neglect to take the time to introduce Jesus to their children in a personal way. I’m writing about both Catholics and Protestants who neglect the spiritual upbringing of their kids. It’s a scandal.

[magdalen]

Of course many Catholics have left the faith—they do nt understand the ongoing miracle of the Real Presence of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, present in the most Holy Eucharist. If they did, and if they truly love Our Lord, they could never ever leave!

But teachings in many places have been almost non-existant and heresies rampant such that many Catholics do tno know their faith.

The early Catholic Christians of the first 300 years of the Church had to be willing to give thier lives. What for? The Bible had yet to be compiled. It is the Holy Eucharist that is worth living and DYING for!!!

When you read the Didache or the early Church Fathers, one can see that they assisted at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. For 2000 years Catholics have followed Our Lord who said—Do THIS (offer Holy Mass) in remembrance of Me.

I had the great privilege of attending Holy Mass this very morning and Our Blessed Lord came to me in Holy Communion.
Ahhh—the wonder of it all!

Ave Maria!

[Boagenes]

What I want to know, guy, is how you reconciled your longing for the Eucharist with also having to pray to Mary and saints.

How did you intellectually make the leap into ignoring the total lack of scriptural evidence, traditional evidence, or the use of simple reason and honest rationale to believe in things like the Immaculate Conception and Assumption of Mary when it is clearly tradition that was made up whole cloth by the Church?

Until the day comes that I can chuck my conscience and reason out the window, I cannot cross the Tiber. This has been the single biggest stumbling block to ever becoming Catholic. I can't accept things that aren't based in Scripture or some real, definable, documented tradition of the very early Church fathers who had the closest ties to the apostles. Things that were made up centuries later, by men...sorry, that just doesn't wash.

[stfassisi]

I found myself going to Eucharistic Adoration at the Catholic Hospital during my hospital visitation rounds.

Dear Annalex,thanks for posting this wonderful article! Inviting our protestant brothers and sisters to attend Eucharistic Adoration is the key to conversion.

After all,Our blessed Lord is fully present right there on the alter in the monstrance.

I wish you a Blessed day!

[Resolute Conservative]

I would submit his calling to preach was not through faith but a selfish desire to please his parents and look pious.

[DouglasKC]

What I did notice was that my denominational "constituents", for the most part, were historically and theologically myopic. I vowed to myself that a major portion of my ministry would be to take Baptists back to the practices and beliefs of the Baptist founders, which, I believed at the time, to be synonymous with the beliefs and practices of the early Christians.

Would it be that everyone would realize this, Catholics included. Early Christians practiced the Christianity described in the bible and practiced by Christ. The identifying practices, the practices that differ the most from modern Christianity are the observance of the Lord's sabbath on the 7th day and the observation of the Lord's holy days, the same ones practiced by Christ while incarnate and then taught and practiced by gentile and jewish converts to Christianity.

While Catholicism has at least an excuse (the belief in holy tradition) for not practicing first century Christianity, Protestants have no such excuse. They instead pick and choose the traditions of the Catholic church which they want to observe.