Journey Home - 2019-02-12 - Don Smith

[Music] good evening and welcome to the journey home I'm Marcus Grodi your host for this program and as some of you can tell it's one of our winter episodes glad to have you with us once again I have this wonderful privilege to join you to hear this time the story of a returning guest Don Smith former nondenominational minister joined us number of years with before and it's good to have Don back one of the things I know he's very interested in and I am too which is really what this journey home is about and this the idea that our journey with Jesus Christ is not just a one-time thing that we started some time way in the past and then we've arrived we kick back on our lazy boy and just wait until Christ comes in his glory that it's it's an entrance into a journey and it's an interesting growing closer to Christ growing deeper like Christ as he dwells within our hearts as the promised Holy Spirit enters in and changes us but it's a partnership the mystery of his mercy and then our willful response is a lifelong journey and I think every guest that I have in the journey home talks about that one way or the other but I'm excited to talk about a little bit of that with our guest Don Smith welcome back Don thank you Marcus it's good to have you here it's good to be here if the heart thing is that we brought you in do right now hi all from that that tropical paradise which you just come right that's right of where me I mean you got a bit more snow there than we do here don't we quite a little bit more all right that was good to have you back on the program has been a number of years what I often do when I have a return guest is there are people on the program though Don's previous episode is available online that's right but they may not have heard your story so let's let's start back there let me hear your story again all right well I was raised Catholic way up in northern Maine raised on a potato farm in caribou which I draw potatoes up there yes yeah I used to be to be like the potato capital of the world before you know I know get going and that was before the counties yeah and so I was raised Catholic we went to church every Sunday didn't you know like wouldn't miss Mass no matter what but a lot of people don't realize that that part of America was at one time very Catholic yeah I'm well a lot of Irish potato farmers so yeah and French coming down from yeah a lot of French right and so so even though we went to Mass like I we never talked about God we never prayed that I remember we know like God didn't have anything to do with our lives and my parents had a pretty difficult relationship and so it was pretty dysfunctional and so yes I can remember making the decision while I was going through confirmation that this was pretty much a waste of time that was totally irrelevant and it was boring and didn't have much purpose and I can remember actually the priest came in and and talked about I asked a question about some story in the scriptures and he said he said well you know we're not really sure what Jesus taught because the scriptures were written you know hundreds of years after he lived and I thought well we don't even know what Jesus taught and what's the point of it of course you know he'd been trained in the higher criticism movement and all of that stuff and so and so you know my high school and college years were spent doing whatever I wanted which wasn't very productive or fulfilling and in college I met my wife and we were like really desperate to find what life was all about you know you'd go to biology and discover they were just highly evolved animals and you're gonna anthropology and they teach you you know the values are just a cultural norm and she'd been brought up the same way as you in Manila she was raised without anything really yeah yeah so she'd never been baptized oh wow yeah and so we become pretty disillusioned and so we decided to drop out of college and take out hitchhiking which tell you something about how right but we hitchhiked down the East Coast wasn't there a book about that in the 60s and 70s the Zen book cycles but all the way down the East Coast we picked up by people who were telling us about Jews and then we started out arguing with them and and you know and I told my wife Hollis we just celebrated our 36 wedding anniversary edge relations and you know I tell it like they're just Jesus freaks just ignore them but you know eventually somebody gave us a Bible and we ended up you know I kept asking questions like well you know like how do you know like you don't even know what Jesus said and of course they had more accurate information about the Gospels being written very closely to the time that Jesus lived and died and rose from the dead and so long story short when we got to Florida we we ended up standing with some Christians and and getting our answers questions answered and had a very powerful conversion we you know an encounter with Christ that he was alive and he loved us and and from that moment we were I was you know rebaptised in the Gulf of Mexico and and Hollis was baptized and from that moment on the only thing that mattered was eternity um it was like you know like what else matters you know on a pause there because that reminds me of something that I find amazing and that is that though the Lord loves us each so uniquely that he uses unique means to awaken us and often on the journey home program I almost am hesitant for people to tell the the unique means that God used because I'm afraid no don't you do this at home you know that for me the Lord used the the movie Jesus Christ Superstar to bring me back to faith during college I don't recommend watching that movie right for you it was takeoff hitchhiking take on that journey from leaving without anything right to fighting yourself in the kingdom yeah I mean that is amazing in itself oh and it was just it was amazing how God was manifesting himself on my trip it was you know before and after I was obviously like changing them yeah and it's also interesting that you also said that that the the teaching you were getting was the liberal undercutting of the scriptures that often has such a detrimental effect of people forever on faith yeah I've just destroys faith yeah but even with that foundation the Holy Spirit was able to cut through that for you and your wife yeah let me praise God yeah so there you are you're in this Florida a boarding a night yeah and so we ended up we ended up hitching hitchhiking out west and then coming back home and we got plugged into a non-denominational Church in Maine and we went with you through the mission for a while and did missions work with them which they have a program called discipleship training discipleship training school and they basically teach you the basics of the faith in the scriptures and how to pray and really laid a good foundation but while we were doing missions work in Puerto Rico I realized like I don't know what I'm doing when I need to go to school and so that's why we made the full-time commitment to ministry from there when you look back why'd you land didn't on denominationalism I'm sure you're a dad age you were surrounded by denominational churches as well as your old Catholic Church well the the people that we stayed with in Florida were part of a non-denominational Church and they had a very low opinion of denominations kind of you know like their most of them were dead and that you wouldn't grow and that you need to be in a vibrant spiritual community and that's and so they told us when you you know when you get back to Maine look for a non-denominational Bible believing Church and so that's what we did okay that was meeting it was it was a little it was a wonderful little community we met in the basement of the YMCA and scripture alone yes more of a at least little Zef fundamentalist yeah yeah okay yeah charismatic that's yeah but it was very all very practical of how to kind of grow and in faith in Christ and there was nothing so far in your background that was tugging you to go back to your roots no no in fact the people in Florida that we were with were very anti-catholic like Catholics Catholics just went straight down in fact when I when we came home my you know most of my family were still Catholic you know I'm not practicing but I so I converted my my mother and my sisters to the Assemblies of God so yeah so in some ways your experience growing up when you heard them thing at that Catholic message in Florida from those who brought you to Christ you were saying yeah I've been there done that right yeah okay yeah cuz I mean at least in my experience in in that parish like Christ wasn't real or alive it was you know at least four twelve thirteen fourteen year old it was very ritualistic and then the message of your pastor was there's no way to really know who Jesus was anyway so there you are yeah so you go away to seminary did any of that get corrected yeah I actually had a wonderful experience I went to Alan Bible Institute which is outside of Rochester New York is a wonderful school wonderful people had great professors and and and you know really focused on your character and understanding that the you know the Scriptures thoroughly and and practically so it was a fantastic foundation okay yeah and so I that I eventually I became a pastor of a church in in the firing canary in the western mountains of Maine I was there for almost 10 years I didn't know it at the time but but we went through a church split and and that was the beginning of my like what is the church supposed to be this is business how church is supposed to be and there should be some authority there should be something and of course we were all independent and you know we had fellowship but nobody had any authority over anything maybe I asked the awkward question on which end of the split were you in other words were were people disagreeing with you as the leader and so they then went and did their own thing yeah yeah we had started a Christian 12-step program and we probably had 40 or 50 people coming and it was very powerful had people who had never been to church coming and and I can remember one Sunday morning we had a time when people could share you know what was going on in their lives and somebody stood up and said that they've been clean and sober for three weeks and they'd never been that long before and they couldn't do it with without God's help and the people who had been part of the church for a long time said you know like where I was ruining the reputation of our church because it was become you know known in the community that this was a church for alcoholics and drug addicts I thought that and that's a bad thing it seemed to me the Pharisees made that same complaint about Jesus right so so yeah that's weak so they so they they took their ball and went home and and made a big mess in the process and so our guest is Don Smith former nondenominational yeah reason I asked that question is in the nondenominational situation whether regardless of what side of the split you're on you're stuck with a dilemma right if you're on the side that says that leader is wrong I'm going to start my own it's like well what's my authority to do that what's my authority to decide he's wrong or that I'm right well the Holy Spirit speaks to every person's heart and and so every person is is a pope unto themselves as is the church unto themselves which is why I mean like that's why we have I think that's why we have a lot I think we have a ton of brothers and sisters who have gone through church splits and they've been part of the church name and they're like they have their church at home now that like I can like I'm not gonna deal a lot of church politics and garbage well again after a while when you're in an environment Worth you know we'll see my our present leader broke away from another leader who broke away from another leader well if he had a right to do that and I don't like him now mmm I've got the Bible read anybody else that's right yeah there yeah yeah so you but you were getting caught up in that then oh yeah yeah and what do you think about like Jesus's heart that he expresses in in the prayer in John chapter 17 that we would all be one no I mean there's a unity there's a fellowship that is not possible in the Protestant world were you realizing that then was that was starting to happen to you yeah that was really that really sowed the seed so it wasn't until you know many years later that you know that the real process of returning to the church occurred and that happened if you want to hear story as soon as we do that on the journey home I used to work at this point I was a chaplain at a facility for at-risk teens and they've been for teens that had been removed from their homes for abuse or neglect been and so I used to take them to a non-denominational retreats for the weekend they were kind of like chrissteele weekend's or you know along those lines very powerful encounters with the Lord and one of the volunteers that I had was a wonderful woman she was like knew the scriptures she was great with kids she had a big youth group in Portland and she came one fall and said like she had big she'd she'd become Catholic over the summer in my literally my first thought was like like are you getting married are they forcing you to become a girl because I'd never met I mean I much my church was at least half Catholics if not more and so I've never met someone who knew the Scriptures and loved the Lord who had come into the Catholic Church and so it to me it was just like why would you do that like what is going on like I have a lot of respect for you I can't imagine what what happened that you wouldn't enter the Catholic Church and so she we had a lot of discussions and she gave me a book on the early church fathers and gave me a Catechism like an early church and that's really what started the process and so it was it took me three or four years I went you know like I would I would be studying and reading and sharing with my wife like listen to what this church father says listen to the Catechism says you and then it say oh my gosh I don't wanna become Catholic and I'd put it all aside thank gosh that would that that's just stupid I don't want to do that but at some point it became inevitable and so me made the choice made the decision we talked about the effect of the early church fathers on the journey home all the time and it comes up and I'm often as I think about it I'm wonder if there's people out there wondering well who've never read their literature what is it about the early church fathers that is such an eye-opener they are so thoroughly Catholic in their perspective not mean the the centrality of the Eucharist there I mean I think it's just a marker that says that you know people the people who left didn't believe that this was actually the body of Christ the same body that wasn't nailed to a tree and so they don't belong with us and I'm thinking wow that I mean and you're talking you know the one of the earliest church fathers after the Apostolic age and it's like I would not have been welcome in the early church oh that was a that was a shock I was also thinking especially even the teaching you received from that particular priest in his training which was undercutting Scripture but that also came out of an idea those same liberal scholars really saw the hierarchical structure of the church is something that was imposed upon these early free right nondenominational community yeah they just want a political battle and so they they established their like whatever orthodoxy but there wasn't really that that in the early in a really early church as well that that's what what did you find it's like no it's and when you read the Church Fathers it's it's so obvious that what we believe is what has been believed from the very beginning it's that's the amazing thing and part of process was realizing like well like this is what this was believed for 2,000 years who had the authority to throw this out right who had the authority to say oh that's not a sacrament anymore or to say you know like we don't believe in and in bishops anymore or you know like any of that stuff it wasn't like they deny me authority anything that so that was so that was part of the process too it's like the church you know from the very beginning believed in the communion of saints and believed in the real presence in the Eucharist no like how did we lose that yeah yeah and bishops you know I think it was Irenaeus you know saying that you know apart from the bishop you can't have the Eucharist I hate you know that the necessity of that yeah the description of Ignatius I think talking about you know or you know God in relationship to his son Jesus in relationship to the Apostles in relationship to the to their disciples you know the same apostolic succession yeah that was very early in the church and the recognition that you know like some of the early church fathers just like all I was trained by so and so and he was trained by the Apostle John so it's like wow this is like hearing it from the horse's mouth so how long have you been in you and your wife do your wife come in new with you and I yes yeah yeah I sat down to have the big talk with her to say like I think I'd have to become a Catholic and she said oh like when can we start going to mass she had been reading the Saints lives in the meantime in of course I'd been sharing with her and for years and giving her that little whiplash thing of like Catholicism is really amazing and then like no I don't want to be Catholic oh so yeah she was ready when the time came so you two are an example which connects with the work of the coming home network but you too are an example of a of a non Catholic clergyman and his wife mm-hmm who support yourselves through the ministry hmm and the Lord awakens your heart hits you with that proverbial two-by-four about becoming Catholic mm-hmm now what right for you well I wasn't I was incredibly blessed because I approached the organization that I work for that the home the home for teenagers and and and my job description said I had to be ordained and so when I made the decision I went to them and said I'm surrendering my ordination I'm becoming Catholic and so either I need to get done or you need to change my job description and they voted to to change my job description always go so that's that was a huge blessing because that's not what you can do when you're a pastor of a church that makes all right now of course makes it much more difficult how long ago was that oh shoot you know I should it's been a while I have the answer I'd say 12 or 15 years okay all right yeah okay so how have you found opportunities to use your gifts and has it been a good or a bad experience it's been very good I started by volunteering the parents doing adult classes and helping with our CI a and stuff like that and then eventually got hired as a faith formation director at a parish and I think that when I got hired I'd only been in the Catholic Church for three years and and it was quite a large parish you know for Maine and and the priest who hired me said like like this is crazy hire somebody has only been Catholic for three years but it was a wonderful experience obviously I was still learning a lot and especially learning about how parishes run and all of that stuff yeah but I it was a it was a wonderful experience I had a wonderful time and then from there I went to the Archdiocese of Boston and was an evangelization trainer and of course that was another learning experience of how diocese work and you know politics work and and in working with a large variety of parishes and the different personalities and cultures and different parishes assume Salem so it's all been very good my and right now I'm the face formation director at another parish in Maine so okay okay so it's all very good it's the the frustrating thing is that it's all about making disciples and an evangelization evangelization and making disciples that where that's that's what we're supposed to be doing that's their the mission of the church and that's you know go and make disciples that's the Great Commission and yet it I don't feel like we're very successful at making disciples well in the second part of our program we'll take a break in a couple minutes but I want to talk more about some of that specifically yeah but so what I cast now is it was fascinating me it is I've had this great privilege of interviewing people of so many years is to hear how often the experiences the Lord either allowed us or led us into earlier we're all in preparation for hmm what he would eventually call us to do then amazing though he didn't think so I want to talk a bit about that it's almost like he knows the end from the beginning [Laughter] and the audacity and the arrogance of us to think we've got our whole lives together and I'm gonna plan out you know I forget where it is in Psalms or James or it says you know don't planning tomorrow offer excuse me God has tomorrow and it's in in the mercy and humor of his of his own plan but okay let's just take a moment your childhood experiences in the Catholic Church what happened as you look back and then how is that prepared you for what you're doing now your childhood experiences in the Catholic Church what was wrong back what was going on I'm not talking about the point of finger at any person right well the you know it's funny because I don't have very many memories I obviously I I I went to Catholic school for a few years but I don't have very many memories of going to Catholic school other than the times when I get in trouble I remember those we had there weren't very there was only a couple of nuns left at that point they had a lot of late each errs and I don't know like I don't remember learning anything about faith there I remember like obviously going to Mass and stuff like that so as you stand back from that you realize you know that you didn't come to Christ right and a realization of it I mean yeah the graces of the baptismal right confirmation you can add eucharist confession I presume you've got to go to at least once during those yearly year yeah yeah but I mean you know First Communion and of course the class for forgetting confirmed and that was the way they did it was in small groups in people's homes and and so you know I did it with my friends and it was like the only class that I can remember is that we had a little pillow that we'd pass around and I had a smiley face on one side and a sad face on the other and you talked about your week whether you'd had a good week or a bad week and how you felt about it and I don't ever remember being taught about the sacraments or about the scriptures or even just having a relationship with Jesus Christ on them and then having that intimate real knowledge that he's with us all it was it the sixties yeah okay yeah I mean it's almost like we say that we said oh yeah okay now I understand what I mean but it's interesting to see that there was a difficult time in the church yeah and then we're reaping that yeah now 30 40 50 years yeah later on this different generation and and the catechesis the formation the discipleship that for whatever reason was a difficult time right well you think about how many families you know that you know like maybe one sibling comes to church and they might have four or five or six or eight or ten siblings who don't practice anymore there which is not uncommon yeah and what's yeah and the trajectory of that is you know they marry and then have children who end up being like your wife was right nothing right wickles which is the fastest-growing population in the United States right now okay why don't we take a break and because I'd also like to ask how you're training then and how the Holy Spirit equipped you during your years apart from the church you came out of that you had this awakening which you weren't asking for you were just off you know hitchhiking and but you you found our Lord Jesus but then he prepared you with certain gifts how do you feel those were given to you to dress the problem of why you didn't found Christ when you were a child right all right let's talk about that we come back seeing a bit as we come back here the rest of Don Smith story in a moment [Music] [Music] welcome back to the journey home I'm your host Marcus Grodi and our guest is Don Smith and before we get back to the interview I just want remind you that if you're inspired by Don's journey and also what he is doing in the church in the areas of evangelization and discipleship I want you to connect with the coming on network and that's our website is ch network.org or RG you'll find on that lots of conversion stories and but also you'll hear the stories of men and women who in their journey into the church recognize that they bring with them lots of gifts and they want to use those gifts in the church as laymen and as priests and as deacons an hour of the Lord might open the door but to help bring solutions if you will or encouragement soar opportunities to address the problems that you Don struggled with bringing up in the church I know and as we come back into the story I want to pick up on that idea that how what were some of the gifts that you were able to receive by the gift of the Holy Spirit when you were a non Catholic clergyman what were some of the ideas the commitments the values as well as that you found able to use since you've come home in the church well you know that the Protestant movement has an emphasis on evangelization and discipleship that is part of their culture right I mean every evangelical knows there are responsible for evangelizing the people that they work with and their families they they they understand that that relationship with God is the most important thing in their lives and helping other people have a relationship with that God is their job and and of course that's not so prevalent and in the Catholic world in Catholic parishes the idea I mean Pope Francis talks all that talking about being missionary disciples and that's certainly a calling that every single baptized person has but I because we don't we haven't developed the cult to develop missionary disciples then then the people don't have necessarily the skills or the the motivation to to actually step out and do those things as if we've ended up with two extremes and and I've been a caricature of these so I'm being a little tongue-in-cheek here but on the one extreme the Protestant world evangelical world almost becomes like a pyramid scheme in other words you get someone to come to Jesus and once they're in Jesus now their job is to get somebody to come to Jesus right so that's it yeah if I convert three those three will convert three each that's nine and then those three each 9:27 pretty soon in two years we've got the world so it's a it's a pyramid scheme that's all it's about yeah yeah at that church planting scheme and that interprets John 15 you know I am the vine you are the branches you got to produce fruit what are fruit well they're more Christians so yeah that's what it's all about and that's the full extreme almost like no spiritual growth whatsoever just come to Jesus the Catholic extreme is well the other side is well that's what Protestants do right our job we just we just get them in the church and the church will take care of them right you know they come to church they come to mass they go to their sacraments and they've arrived as long as they're going to mass long as they're but baptized catechized they go to confession at least once a year you know they've arrived right and no those are two extremes that somehow we got to bring right exactly yeah and so I think that culture certainly makes a huge difference and and that's a perspective that I that I use every day that that I think like every person I encounter yeah you know every parishioner that I have conversations with it's it's my my goal is to help people become disciples of Christ followers of him have an intimate personal loving relationship with him you get actually got jobs doing that in the church but you started a website and are involved the example well I love teaching I love teaching and there's not very much adult education that goes on in parishes there's a ton of wonderful resources and you know with videos and online and things like that but as far as having someone who can communicate the faith in in a parish hall or wherever it would be and be able to answer questions and be able to help people and guide people there's not a lot going on or at least not in in Maine or New England and so I love to teach and and I think that the Catholic faith is so rich and profound and amazing that I love being able to communicate that truth to people we're hearing more and more in the church today the word discipleship which is a good thing and I'd look at the last couple of Catholic parishes that I've attended or visited and almost every one of them the word discipleship has come up from the pulpit so we're hearing it more and more I'm not always sure that people in the pews are catching what that mean right and the absolute importance of that in a relationship to evangelization right talk about that well the I think a lot of people think that you know if they go to Mass every Sunday and and maybe if they're like really dedicated they might have a daily prayer life and that's a that's like a that's that's doing really good but really that's just the that's really a starting place to to developing you the whole point of the Christian mission is for us to become like Christ right and so if I'm gonna become like Christ then obviously I need to know him very well I need to know his heart I need to know his perspective I need to know how he sees situations and people and and eventually as I grow in in my closeness to him and his understanding of his love for me then I begin to share his perspective I begin to actually share his love for people and his desire to see them have an abundant life our small groups a significant a gift in the church too to talk about I think small groups are essential I think that when Jesus chose 12 disciples and spent three years with them he was communicating this is this is how you make disciples right you you have a small group of people and you basically you know like like live in community with them so because it's not just teaching the obviously teaching is really important it's also how you respond to situations and and and having that conversation like I you know some I don't know how these conversations happen but I can imagine Jesus and the Apostles sitting around the fire and Jesus saying hey Philip you were really quiet today they're like what's going on with you why are you pointing what have you even thinking about right but and having those type of discussions yeah yeah and III think that it's important for us to emphasize why from a Catholic perspective leadership is so key when it comes to small groups I look at your childhood well there were small groups right you were going to small groups passing around the pillow with the smiley face or that I mean they were doing things yeah and if you want every nondenominational church begins as a small group so how do we make sure small groups are authentically effective and faithful well see that's that's part of raising up disciples is is recognizing that some people have that gift of leadership and investing the time to be a mentor with them so I mean you just don't say hey like you know you seem to have a good head on your shoulders when you start a small group but that you actually have them help you lead a small group and then you let them lead the small group while you're still there to help you know so that your presence is still there and then when they go off and start a small group on their own then you're still like check-in and say hey how did you meet and go this week any issues you know it's a process it's like it's kind of a slow process but it's that's how you build a solid foundation as I'm listening you I'm envisioning the small groups you went through as a kid which didn't seem to bring you to Jesus they didn't seem to help you understand the truth of the church for whatever reason right okay and then small groups later as a non-denominational leadership starting little churches and all that but I remember you said there were two things that in your heart to the church one of them was early church fathers the other was the catechism and I'll talk about I'm it's one thing to have small groups it's one thing to have good leaders but why is something like the catechism absolutely essential to making sure that whatever these small groups are doing they're making sure it's true because in the opening statements of the Catechism it John Paul declared that this is the norm for teaching right this is this is what the Church teaches and when it believes and if it and if it doesn't if it's not in the category let me be teaching something common category and it doesn't matter who it is right then that's not the teaching of the church and and so it's it's a wonderful gift it's a huge gift and and I love you know one of the things that I love doing is teaching the Catechism because you know I don't think I like Catholics read it it's not very entertaining reading and and and and of course we're not a reading culture anymore but being able to pull out the the key paragraphs and being able to put the story together because it's a-you know there's that the theme of God's plan and loving kindness that runs through the whole catechism that is just a profound an amazing vision of human life and we want to really emphasize in the program those of you list listening or watching especially if you're not Catholic is what why is it the catechism or the church so important I mean that's the danger on the one hand the good of small groups the good of leadership the good of Scripture the good of tradition but if there isn't a touch base of authentic truth and as I look at the Catechism if I were to summarize why I think the Catechism is so important besides the fact that it it it has a wonderful logical flow to it is that the first part of the Catechism recognizes the authority of the church and scripture and tradition that you have to have that and there's doctrine so there's the touchstone and the second part of this is grace through the sacraments you know it isn't just truth it isn't just information is there's the gray that we received through the church that helps us make sure we're holding to what is true and then given the truth and the grace the third part is there's objective moral life right I don't have how do we live and so we have this truth that we believe about God and truth we have the graces that enable us but now how do we live and then in the end we know we can't do it right apart from prayer yeah connected with God yeah and that's what feeds why small groups are value to help people show up on a Sunday in this big mass of people at mass yeah they have connection with real people yeah well one of the things that I appreciate the the catechism my favorite paragraph is its 409 all right so it's kind of funny to have a favorite paragraph but it talks about this epic spiritual cosmic battle that were engaged in that from you know from the moment from the beginning moments of creation until the end of time we are engaged in this epic cosmic spiritual battle and and that paragraph says that it's at great personal cost and with the help of God's grace that we can achieve our own inner integrity and I think I just love the wording there because it's you know it has the cross involved and it has God's grace involved but the goal is for me to find my wholeness right my healing my the the calling to the abundant life that Jesus offers us and that it's a battle for me to find the hope and the peace and the joy that is declared throughout the Scriptures right and so you know the Apostle Paul when he's writing to the Romans says you know that God wants us to be filled with peace and joy and overflowing with hope and yet when you look at our lives you know um I'm not filled with peace and joy with hope most of the time but if I'm engaged in that battle then then I'm moving more and more towards that vision of having it life myself and and I think that we need that personal relationships we need we need to have people that we can have the conversation they're like yeah you know this is planet this is what I'm going through this week this is my battle with fear and shame and this is my battle with the lies you know this is what I need prayer for this is my me prayer support for and I think it's interesting too that the Catechism you know refers to this battle you know in lots of different places but it's it's it's really in the section on prayer I think it's you know like if you look at the different sections it's like mentioned three or four times in the Creed section and a couple of times in the sacrament ii and a couple of times in the moral section but when you get to the prayer part which is actually the shortest part of a catechism it's like 15 or 17 times because that's really where the you know battle takes place is in our prayer lives no Dom one you you remind me of an important thing I want to make sure the audience hears your a number your model of this in a way an awful lot of non Catholic clergymen when they are drawn by grace to the Catholic Church and they wonder what am I going to do often the only categories they think about because of where they've come from is priesthood right but do you remodel up as a layman you have a wonderful ministry right talk about if you were the audience the the great value and potential of a layman using his gifts for the Church of our Lord Jesus well I think that that's that's the calling of every layperson right is is to to enter the abundant life and to share the abundant life and to being able to do that in the context of our regular daily lives that that I'm married I have kids I have grandchildren that's and and for me to be a role model to me to demonstrate Christ's life and love to them is is my calling and then of course I take that you know to work I take it everywhere I go and that's really how evangelization happens and especially in this modern age where where we don't have the priests and and the Deacons and a religious that we used to have then it's uh there really is and of course that's part of what what what the call was from adding to was that lay people are the are are they evangelists yeah yeah but it's not a replacement of the priests or initiative the product in any way now but it's really our land lay men and women rediscovering and recognizing and responsibility we were given through our baptism yeah and just throw a figure out there for everybody for a long time the data shows that those in America for example calling us of Catholics have been about twenty percent of the population it varies there okay you go ask almost anyone in the know and they would say that less than half of those Catholics go to Mass right in fact I went to a I talked to a good Bishop leaders recently he said maybe thirty percent let's say half so that would mean ten percent of America are in the sacraments mm-hmm one out of ten we get a lot of work to do yeah well in and especially in the in the way that the world is going with the growing population of people who are not baptized or not raised with any faith I think it's you know I'm you know living in America is pretty discouraging only gonna do is turn on the news and find out how discouraging how divided our country is and all of that and and and I and I actually think this is a wonderful opportunity because when Christianity was introduced to the Roman culture I don't think the Roman culture was that much different than than ours right there was a there was a lot of immorality and there was a lot of competing faiths and there was a lot of violence and all kinds of stuff and one of the great witnesses to the Christian faith was the family life and the and the love that Christians had for each other and I and I really think that in our culture if we could demonstrate what a happy marriage looks like and what what family looks like that that has the right priorities and functions according to to peace and goodness then that becomes a very powerful witness because it's such a contrast well done I'm gonna do something to you that I haven't done the very main guests on the journey on the spot here I'm gonna ask you to give you reflections on a section of Scripture it's kind of big but I think it connects with what we're talking about and it's very important given what we're struggling with today in the church but I want you to just going to read in sections in fact I might even ask the the the producer to put it online so you could all read it but I'm reading from 2nd Peter the second letter by our first Pope chapter 1 and I'm gonna read verses 3 through 11 but only in sections and I'm gonna read them and that I want you to talk about okay all right a cor communalism oh yeah first of all verses 3 & 4 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and goodness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion and become partakers of the divine nature there's a lot in there oh my gosh it's amazing isn't it but talk about the value of that in in the fact that by God's grace we're Catholics right well see that's the amazing thing about the sacraments right is that they actually convey you know we often say it's grace but it's actually divine life I guess it's that that if you if you look at the beginning of the Catechism the very first sentence is that the plan that God has is to share his very life with us to share to bring us right into the very life of the Trinity and and that union that we have with Christ through baptism and confirmation and the Eucharist is is a real union right it's a it's it's we become one with him to such an extent that you know that Aquinas and Anthony's talk about us becoming God right that's the divine nature I mean it's it's so it's not just like bit low like I have faith and I'm hoping to squeak into heaven it's like this is this is a profound amazing thanks so this is the first third of this thing I'm going to read it talks about we live in this world that's encryption because of passions right and sadly even now we all know that that's crept into even in the leadership of the church which goes to show you that receiving the graces of the baptismal the Eucharistic doesn't guarantee right it's it's a partnership between God's grace and our effort and that leads us into the next section right that's the spiritual or family okay it's spiritual warfare you know here we read you this and I want you just in because the time just reflect first begins verse five for this very reason make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue and virtue with knowledge and knowledge with self control and self control with steadfastness and steadfastness with godliness and godliness with brotherly affection and brotherly affection with love wow what a beautiful description yeah I mean there's the journey right that well it's it's like he shares his divine nature with us through the sacraments but then we have to grow into that image of Christ right and that process where it's like you know okay so first you have to you have to have faith but that's just the beginning you supplement your faith by developing the muscles of your virtues you know the patience and kindness and and all of those things and then you begin this process of learning to be self-controlled and I love the fact that it ends with love yeah right now and which is interesting because if you're not guided by objective truth if you're not constantly aware that especially if you're if you're in leadership as a Christian under spiritual battle that pretty soon the whispers in your mind will encourage you to misinterpret brotherly affection misinterpret love ya see turn Italy into the wrong thing right yeah because love separate from truth is not real love right we speak the truth in love as how that what we're called to we go on here for if these things are yours and abound they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ Wow so forever go ahead well just the idea that you can have knowledge of Jesus Christ and be still be unfruitful and an ineffective yeah verse 9 for whoever lacks these things is blind and short-sighted and has forgotten that he was cleansed from the old sins become blinded by that and that can happen to anyone anyone so remember we talked about the extremes those are think once I got faith I've arrived no you need more right or well once I've received divine nature into sacraments I've arrived no you need more that's right and it's responding to that grace and it's and it's a daily every moment moment by moment awareness of God's presence and help that's available to us so that if you know when I'm in the grocery store and there's someone ahead of me and I'm being impatient like that's my opportunity okay so it's business this is where I can find hope and peace enjoy by exercising the virtues and by exit you know by trying to be the most loving person I possibly can be first ten therefore brethren be the more zealous to confirm your call and election for you if you do this you will never fall so there will be richly provided for you and entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ I had this faith is so amazing yeah but I mean this is what discipleship is right is that we we share what we've been given yeah we share what we've been given so that person and grow from faith and through self-discipline and the divine nature and the grow into the image of Christ we can grow and yeah I think one of the reasons that doesn't happen now is that we have been we're just so busy right and it really it takes that probably or you we're prioritizing our relationship with God so that we can learn more about him and and have a prayer life and grow in our knowledge of what this faith is all about remember those statements about you you can't love God and Mammon at the same time right so all these other distractions take our heart and mind away from that which is right most important and maybe the danger is that through the sacramental Grace's were given a great gift that we squander right well you think about the parable of the sower right then that there's some seed that grows but it's choked out by the weeds and Jesus says that's the worries and concerns of this world I'm just going to ask a question Don as we come to a close here let's say that somebody's watching right now who's in a non-denominational one of those independent churches out there maybe surrounded by great faithful believers why should they make the same journey you've made all I would say is that my love for Jesus Christ and my appreciation of His grace it's more now than it ever has been in my life and I think it ever could have been with the knowledge that I had in the Protestant the richness and deepness of the Catholic faith and tradition is just profound you know I think about that scripture that we just looked at which is profound I mean there's so much there we actually can't cover but I know that in my particular theology as a Protestant minister I didn't hear that mmm-hmm I couldn't hear what the scripture itself was trying to teach you right yeah yeah cuz you approach it with thinking you already know it you already understand it all and you have it all figured out before that because of my depravity I know I can't be that all I can be is it upon when I die someday and God says why should I let you know my kingdom you know just point to Jesus it's him as opposed to the call to well we're supposed to grow and perfection I'd yeah yeah boy when you read Matthew chapter 23 about the sheep and the goats it's interesting that that faith doesn't play any any part of that conversation you know he doesn't say did you have faith oh then you can come in he says whatever you did to the least of these yeah that's a pretty scary scripture yeah in fact that takes us in that long list of things that we read from 2nd Peter night the last thing was love yeah the last thing on that long list was that parable the sheep in the builders yeah and really that speaks to both sides right because it's not just a faith and it's not just you know like oh oh I went to church every week that it's not like we're checking off boxes and I got like okay I checked out all my boxes so I get to go to heaven now that's a lot more than that it is it's eternity before my full face into our Lord Jesus and saying Lord what do you want me to be what do you want me to do evangelize me.com that's it Don thank you so much for joining us on the journey home and I continue to pray for how God will can you to use your gifts the glory of the kingdom Thank You Don and thank you for joining us on this episode of the journey home I hope it's been encouragement to you once again I want to encourage you to go to CH network.org you're more of these conversion stories and also find out maybe how you can use the gifts that God has given you for his glory in his kingdom god bless you [Music] [Music] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: EWTN

Views: 18,590

Rating: 4.8468084 out of 5

Keywords: ytsync-en, jht, jht01644

Id: 6-7fVO2H6RY

Length: 56min 10sec (3370 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 11 2019