Journey Home - Nicky Nolfi - 05-31-2010

well good evening and welcome to the journey home my name is Marcus Grodi your host for this program each week I have this wonderful privilege that EWTN has offered me to introduce to you men women and because of their love for Jesus Christ their love for truth were drawn home to the Catholic Church our guest tonight is Nicky nolfi he's a former Church of the Nazarene Easter to tell his story and my prayer is that his story is an encouragement to you I know we have a lot of people that watch the journey home some of you are lifelong Catholics some of you are fallen away Catholics some of you are Catholics at all and I'm glad you're watching this program and it's our desire that this program would be an encouragement to your faith Nicky welcome to the journey home thank you for having me it's good to have you here was a fortune be able to drive over to be a part of this program yeah yeah I was very happy and excited when I got the call that they come yeah and I don't think I realized when we invited you to come that actually the journey home was a bit of a part of your journey but yeah absolutely but we won't that's a jump in a bit of ahead of ourselves I always ask the guests to take a big step back and give us a summary of your spiritual background so we can know where you came from on your journey well I was actually baptized as a Catholic as an infant I never knew that though until I was probably about 17 18 years old my mom showed me a picture she found and she said oh here's your baptism and immediately I thought okay I remember I was seven you know baptized you know Nazarene Church and I looked at the picture and I said why that yeah it looks like you know as an infant I said man that looks like Holy Rosary she goes that's where you were baptized at and I never never knew that how'd that happen I mean we were your parents well my father is you know 100 percent of tyne so his side of the family was always Catholic and then my mother was strict Baptist and you know very devoted to the scriptures my grandfather you know my mom's father was a I mean he just him and his Bible I mean he just loved the Lord so when they got married the marriage was blessed by the Catholic Church and so she had right agree to that right right and my oldest brother there's five of us and my oldest brother was baptized in the Catholic Church as a baby and so was I and then a little bit after that they end up going to the Nazarene Church okay and they left and you know my dad felt that it bringing him closer to God and he was learning the scriptures and got very involved there and that's how I ended up Nazarene was he your dad a practicing Catholic at the time or just more out of well he went through well a lot of times you people are Catholic because you know they love the strictness of it and because maybe their ethnic background in fact he went to Catholic school and he was older he was you know a little bit wilder and stuff like that and my mom I think helped to settle him down and really introduced him to really giving his whole self to Christ so once we became Nazarene he was very involved and much of my spiritual faith in Christ my love of the scriptures I have to give credit to the Nazarene because my father mother took us Sunday morning Bible School Sunday morning church service we went home they you know sauce macaroni and what back Sunday night and then Wednesday night for you know 12 years at least in the Nazarene Church your dad kind of fits into the category which sadly is true of of many Catholics they were brought up in the church and pretty much followed the teachings of the church and and we're active in the church and did the usual things as a Catholic but but then end up finding a deeper relationship with Jesus somewhere else and that's often the case and many things are dead did he end up after his journey into the Nazarene Church bemoaning his Catholic background I mean did he sense in which he looked down on his Catholic background from that point you know my dad was never he was never you find that a lot right people also now the Catholic Church the Antichrist and they hate everything about it no my dad was never like that he was always very respectful of it even when I started going to the Catholic Church he wasn't that you know against it I mean he did love his his uh his faith and he loved and he all we he never thought that the Catholic Church was like that opposite but he just thought and which is true a lot of times that there was a lot of laziness of people not proclaiming they the faith so he actually probably learned more Catholic doctrine in the Nazarene Church sorry it's sad say then he didn't leave Catholic didn't realize it as right many Nazarenes don't realize right how a lot of their doctrines are closer to the Catholic Church of then other Protestant denominations what about yourself then as a young man becoming involved in the Nazarene Church where was the Catholic Church at all in your thinking as a very young man well I went to live in a small town called Louisville it's very ethnic Italian and I'd probably say 90% of the population was Catholic 90% of my friends were Catholic and for me I was always trying to teach them about Jesus because when somebody tells you they're Catholic a lot of people claim that name and that you might not they might say oh I'm Catholic and you have no clue that you know they never go to Mass they you know I've never opened up with catechism they've never opened up a Bible so when I grew up I just thought that the Catholic Church were unsaved people they needed to be saved and there were many people who meaning unsaved as in the fact of not having this deep faith in Christ and there were a lot of them that didn't have that and then there were good faithful Catholics there also so I really wasn't on my mind that much yeah there's a verse in the Bible which you you know well we're towards the end of the Sermon on the Mount right where Jesus tells people who come up to him say Lord Lord and he says I never knew you right right said what we did all these things in your name he said but I never knew you right that's what you're talking about people that doing things they think that's all it counts but yet they didn't really know him well and what you have is you have kind of like an opposite spectrum because you had you know the Reformers saying so much faith alone trying to prove faith alone I think that a lot of times and then the idea is well if we believe in faith alone that must mean the Catholics believe in work alone and yeah there are many people and if you still went and you asked them why are you going to heaven and they would say well I'm nice good Church I've never killed anybody you'd be amazed how many people never even mention the name Jesus Christ in their reason for further salvation and so when that happened I ended up going to we switched and went to a big was almost like a mega church you know had about 3,000 people when every Sunday and it was live with your parents was it yeah okay right right because it was across the street from us so we went to youth group there that very passionate youth pastor and a lot of good experiences there and a lot of great people I noticed a huge difference it seemed like we just switched from Nazarene Church to the Assemblies of God very quickly and I noticed a huge difference not only in the how much of the spiritual gifts you know the speaking in tongues being slaying the spirit they emphasized also the style of worship also it seemed that the Nazarene were a little bit more dedicated to scriptures and you know total sanctification so I did notice that and I noticed some things that bothered me a little but and but that's where I ended up meaning my wife was at the Pentecostal church at the Assembly of God right yes would you say that just let's do want to back up distance is it there for yourself just to make sure that would you say that you had what you would call a you know a very powerful conversion to Christ later was a gradual thing for you in the Nazarene Church or when you look back on that was a time when you when you would have identified you know this was the time when I surrendered my life to Christ reason I'm asking is that's more of a tradition in Protestantism but I want to be right back and uh I tell you I remember from I mean being very young I mean my parents they were just they were holy people and they I mean we have family devotions and I remember being young I even about the age of seven I went with my dad they had this big thing for young people who called thought that they were called into the ministry and at that age I thought that there was this special calling for the ministry for me and so I always had this deep devotion my mother's father when I would go over there I was you know between 10 to 14 years old I'd work in the garden with them and he was always standing there with his cane and preaching Christ to me and preaching the gospel to me so from a very young age I thought that I truly did love Christ all right well that that defines at least in my mind your journey so you you love Christ before we go I'll talk about meeting your wife there's another phrase in youth ministry which I was very much part of then walked to talk if you look back on your teen years were you walking to talk I would say I was more like crippled by the time I we did a lot of church jumping after we left the Nazarene Church and I went through a period probably you know 16 17 18 and 19 where I totally just I was a horrible Christian I seemed like I left my faith I lived like a pagan I did everything you could imagine started to care more about friends popularity being cool having fun music and you know so I totally left and even though every night even if I was laying in my bed I might be you know drunk or whatever I always had this uneasiness of if I died and I always had this fear because I knew that I wasn't living right there became around 18 and 19 there almost became a little bit of like then I even started to question my belief at all in God so by the age of 19 I was really living bad do you think that the jumping from churches had an influence on that I mean did cause it unsettledness in your faith the jumping around a bit there's good and bad about it the good part is I got to experience the Baptist Church I got to experience in Nazarene I got to experience of the Assemblies of God and non-denominational churches the bad part was it became you know a lot of people go especially in youth they go to church because they're friends and it became harder than to make long lasting friendships in the indie Church and you start to notice the differences and you start to wonder all these people preach and say they get everything from the Bible but why do they believe in different things and I think that had ended up having a negative effect why were your parents jumping around do you know you remember why well I think that my dad was very old-fashioned and one thing he did not believe in women pastors my grandfather Reese was the same way and I'm the same way because Jesus is the same way and you started to see movement and I think he saw the church especially the American church you know prized in church I think he saw it evolving and what happens is a church that the Nazarene Church we went to when we were young it was a great church holy people loved the scripture and loved each other and you know everybody wear suits the church and women wore dresses and what happened is as that church started to change you're always looking for another church to match the old church from 10 years ago and what happens is there's always something missing because there's thousands of verses in the Bible and for you to find a pastor who has the same interpretation of all the thousands of verses as you do it becomes very difficult and lose search and endless search and you know as you undress you know customs in the church whether you have a wins the United service or not all these things are ended up being right not only based on the local person's interpretation but the way we used to do it in so there's the battle between the way we used to do it no way you want to do it now right right any ideas and so a new Protestant denomination starts every five days even a Protestant source says that yeah this day there are always new things as an often that's always I'm gonna go back to the way it was in the book of Acts right well the different interpretations and how you apply the book of Acts so there's that of course we're looking with hindsight you know right look back so there you are going through a rebellious time and it's good back to you mentioned your wife did she had future wife did she has something to do at this point in your journey yeah my wife was very strong Christian yeah she was very involved in her youth group at the Assemblies of God she went to Mission strips towel Salvador and she loved Christ I didn't know her that good I met her when I was younger a church and but I knew she was a good girl she just had that vibe and I always wanted to marry you know I had this vision of sin with a marry tiny girl long black hair good Christian and everybody said oh that's impossible but then this one day I just I knew that I was living that and I knew I needed to get back to Christ and I thought that a good woman would help me so I went on search for one and for some reason I just got this thought of her name in my head and I decided to call her out of the blue I did I didn't even know if she knew my name really so when I started dating her at first I really did I brought me back to Christ we shared a good faith her family were Christians her you know brother our oldest brother you know was one we got along great because he loved you know the scriptures and the Bible's and and so it did it helped me at first but then it became like one of those things were like okay once we were I didn't have to prove how much of a Christian I was anymore and now that she trusted me then I started to ease off a little bit and start pushing the envelope start pushing the envelope I started you know not being as faithful to Christ as I should have been even then we got married after a couple years and I you know we started going to church and then I remember reaching a point where she just kicked me they own bed on Sunday like Nick we haven't been to church in a month and you know we have to go and I kind of felt bad because the first I thought you know here's this Christian woman who was very involved in the church and Here I am are you bringing her down yeah I was wondering about that because that's often the case you know that that the lacs person doesn't always get drawn to become more active by the more active person but works the other way around right and that's what was happening in your own life for you well you still at that point in a Zarine Assembly of God with her as you got married well we tried to we went to the Assemblies of God Church because even though my family left the Assemblies of God after a while she stayed there so I started going with with her and we had some you know problems that I was very open minded or very I spoke my mind and one of the senior pastors was a woman and some reason it got to her that I didn't agree with women pastors and they kind of like almost confronted us and I just got irritated and I I so we left and we went to a non-denominational Church that's where we were married through the small nondenominational church and so yeah that's who we were at that time was probably not what was she yet was because she was brought up Catholic writer at least she was yes she was baptized and I think she made her first communion and then she probably left when she was about 8 she left to Catholic faith and her family left the Catholic faith so she was an ex you know Catholic very clearly an ex what was her attitude towards the church she wasn't very anti-catholic but she wasn't very never really talked about them what you don't think it was that great and the Catholics that she knew definitely didn't make her want to convert back her totally wasn't a part of your conversation even though you both had originally Catholic roots baptized Catholics right but it really wasn't a part of your family discussion no no all right all right so so how'd the Catholic issue ever arise I mean that it happened soon after your marriage it was down the road a bit I was about that's a year and a half after we were married my cousin on my dad's side who knows he was a tiny Catholic and she was getting married at that same church I was baptized you know at 23 years before my wife was in the wedding so I went to the ceremony and as I was sitting in the Pew even though there was many Catholic friends that I had and Catholic relatives I probably was only at Mass maybe six times seven times in my life so it was not very familiar with it and my cousin was getting married and then I was sitting in the pew and I was sitting probably about 20 feet away from the tabernacle which I didn't even know what that was and I just remember and I wasn't living as a good Christian at this time I mean I believed in Christ and somebody started talking to me about Jesus I would defend him but I did you your wife were an act of that active and back in the church again at this point I'm not really that active okay you want to call us like true disciples at least not me yeah she was better than that it was but we were just sit I was sitting there and I just remember feeling almost like that voice that Moses heard at the burning bush of you know take off your sandals further where you're standing at his holy ground I just remember like feeling that and I just felt this presence of sanctity in the church and from the Nazarene Church which looked like a church to all the different things we went to the churches that we went to no longer look like churches you couldn't tell if it was a you know a playhouse or a church I mean because it became almost like anti like well if you have to put up a lot of decorations it means that you're lacking you're making up for the spirituality that your church lacks it almost seemed like that was like deep idea so as I was sitting there it not only did it bring me just that thought of Catholicism but I think it brought me back to Christ and it was a feeling that I left and little by little at home I started going downstairs I would wait for my wife to be asleep and I started just going downstairs and I would open up my Bible and I started reading the Gospels and it seemed like they were coming alive to me for the first time even though I heard them I went through you know Bible school all these years and I knew my you know parables but it seemed like all of a sudden as an adult it was starting to click so once that happened I wanted to start just being surrounded I became obsessed with Christ so everything I did I bought Highborne CD I would read the Bible at home and I would watch Christian television and there was a couple different stations there was a Protestant station then there was a Catholic station EWTN and I would flip back and forth and I'll never forget I was watching EWTN and it was Mother Angelica and I didn't know you know who she was but I remember the feminist movement that started so strongly in some of the Assemblies of God churches and I remember being so against that and then all of a sudden here was this woman who seemed so humble and so in love with Christ but the way she came across was like a grandmother just teaching you about Jesus because I believe very clearly that men and women are created equal but we just have different rules and we were given different gifts women my wife the way she takes care of my son you know she leaves me when I have to watch you might go hysterical after a little while and butt cheek it just has a knack for it so I believe we would create equal were just different jobs and here is this woman the way she did it wasn't like she was trying to steal the spotlight and trying to you know prove herself to anybody she just truly loved Christ and she said something as I watched her that changed everything she sitting there with her Bible on her lap and she held it up and she said you know a lot of Catholics are afraid to read this book but they shouldn't be because this is a Catholic book and when she said and I said what do you mean that's a Catholic Buckeye that's God's book you know that's the Word of God it's my Catholic it's not Nazarene I mean it's just it's gone that was what why I initially thought so it's search something up in me and I started doing research started reading online and I had no idea I never even thought about it because we love the scripture growing up and we would hold it up in the air and before the service and say you know this is you know the Word of God and we were so dedicated to it and it was our foundation of all truth but if you went to the average evangelical and asked them do you base your whole life and truth on this book they would say yes and you say would you say that your whole faith comes from this book and they would say yes and if you said where did this book come from a lot of them would have no idea because it wasn't like to tank commandments it wasn't written on the wall by God's finger we know was it is the Word of God and it was from God through the Holy Spirit but where did it come from did it fall from the sky that he just appear and you started to realize that after Christ ascended you had almost 20 years with nothing even written no New Testament was even written even the Old Testament itself wasn't even canonized until you know around 90 AD of Jamia and then you start to realize that when did all of these letters who decided it would be Genesis all the way to Revelation who decided it would be Matthew Mark Luke John acts who decided that order and who decided that the letter of comment to the Corinthians shouldn't be in there who decided the Gospel of Judas shouldn't be in there because all these existed and you start to learn it was until 382 the council room that all of a sudden the church used by the Holy Spirit made this decision and gave us the canonized fulfilled scripture that was a during that period of your study that you discovered that yeah okay because I never knew that before and I never because I didn't even think the Catholic reason I asked that so you and I look back with hindsight we've picked up a lot of things in the years since we became Catholic but at that point in your you're still not quite open to the Catholic Church right yes this that was one of the reasons there's none on TV awakened you're harder than your discovering this I'd love to capture if I could a bit of that an excitement when you begin discovering these things well what ended up happening was I first had to be fully converted to Christ and I was changing my life one of the big things that I had my god at that time was money and I would never say that but if you ask people who's your God it was oh you know God Father Son Holy Spirit but if you I really ask him like who do you think the most about what do you think the most about and for me it was not God it was money saving money and everybody joked about how cheap I was I'd be driving down the street counting well let's see if I'd buy whole milk and then add water to it and I don't have to buy skim hoping and my poor wife but that was my god and as I started to read the Gospels the one parable that I always say really changed everything was from Luke where Christ says let's Nicholas pause right there let's hold that let's take a break right now let's hit that so as we come back okay that'd be a great place to break we'll come back welcome back to the journey home again my name is Marcus Grodi your host and our guest is Nikki no-fee he's former Church of Christ Church of Nazarene and you've left us hanging which I wanted to do the you had mentioned to me earlier that there was a particular scripture that had made a big difference in your life and that's kind of where we've we've left off and so the let's start up there in Luke right right yeah it was a scripture that just helped change my God in the center of my life from money to actually the true God and it's from Luke where Christ talks says a parable about the rich fool and he says then he told them a parable there was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest he asked himself what shall I do for I do not have space to store my harvest and he said this is what I shall do I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones there I shall store all my grain and other goods and I shall say to myself now as for you you have so many good things stored up for many years rest eat drink be merry but God said to him you fool this night your life will be demanded of you in the things that you have prepared to whom will they belong this will be for the one who stores up treasure for himself but is not rich and what matters to God when I looked at that it started to all of a sudden remind me that I was mortal that I will meet God no matter what and that when I meet him I will have to answer for what I did and this gift of faith that I was given then this is why I can never be faith alone this gift of faith I was given then now I was demanded to use this faith and I would be judged on that and that really started to bring me back to Christ and I think that's where the grace started to come in to where God started opening my eyes to see deeper realities of his truth so that would well at that point it did leaning towards the Catholic Church more or just living out your Christian faith as you were at the time well I think that it started to bring me to living out my faith but also I think in some ways it pointed towards Catholicism just because the big movement that you see happening today in the American Protestant church is not all but a lot of them is this big prosperity message this big idea of you know God wants to know if you live in a 2,000 square foot house become a Christian live in a 5,000 square foot house you know if you see that car you want you got to name it and claim it and when you see Christ and you see these parables and then you look at st. Francis then all of a sudden you see which one really lines up closer and at this time I had those two different stations you know the Protestant station the catholic station and I remember clicking on one and you just see this people talking about you know you give your 10% you know and you're just gonna you're gonna be rich you're gonna have money you just appear in your bank account like you don't even know how it got there and then I flipped the chin I said ah and I flipped the channel and there was Mother Teresa you know and holding the sick mother in Georgia Oh Mother Teresa and holding these you know sick children and I just thought to myself wow that's really what it's supposed to be and there are many I have you know Protestant uncles and aunts that are really like that and they you know what totally submissive to Christ wool and stuff like that but they're also it made me have sympathy let's say for the Catholic Church and say wow you know what even they are doing a a good job you know living that way well I think particularly in the churches that your family was bouncing around to the this health and wealth gospel what was much more popular in the Assembly of gods it's not it really is an equivalent to the Assembly of God teaching but to be right more MORE popular in that you wouldn't have seen that if you had been bouncing around to lutheran churches or american churches or maybe presbyterian churches but in the ones you were looking at right very much so and again we're talking about the Canon of Scripture and the interpretation of Scripture that was the thing that was at that time really awakening you possibly at the Catholic perspective spurred on by mother Angelica's could draw to your right I started to look at things like that at this time I held a very high standard a very high view of Scripture which I still do and I always will because it's God's Word what shocked me as I was watching this debate online and it was between Catholics and Protestants and they were talking about the Bible and where it came from you've been on the internet or on the Internet yes okay and when ended up happening was somebody said well you know Luther took seven books out of the Bible and I never ever remembered hearing that mentioned in my life I had never even heard of these seven books I never heard of anything like that so they made me start thinking and then I looked into that and that you know put like another checkpoint on the Catholic side and then I started looking at the authority of and how old the Catholic Church was and then all of a sudden it just started to give me more more of these feelings towards the Catholic Church until one day I said you know what you know it's like you could somebody can tell you how great the water feels you know but eventually you just have to jump in it and tried for yourself so I said my wife was out in the garden she's tying up tomato plants and this one day and I just walked out and I really shocked her and I said you know what I go I've been doing some thinking and I said I think that I'm gonna go to math she just looked at me and said what why I said I don't know why and I said you know I said did you know that you know there was only one church for like the first 15 hundred years and did you know the Catholic Church canonized the Bible and that Peter was the first pope and and she goes Nick we're not being no Catholics and I said I I just think I I'm gonna go I said I'm gonna go down to church and I'm going good mass and see what it's like and this was on a Saturday so I called my Nana and you know I asked her what time Mass was and I had no idea what went on at Mass what I was supposed to do what I was supposed to wear so I went upstairs and I started getting dressed and I was just about dressed and I came out of my room and there was my wife dressed and ready to go and she said you're not going to Mass without me and so it really showed you what kind of a wife she is so we went to Mass we sat in the back corner had no clue what was going on and the priest of the time father de Lucia was a very very gifted great speaker and the mass was so different than anything I've ever seen and it was just so holy and respect and you didn't talk in church you didn't you know compared to having a church were you know after church you moved the chairs and it's basketball gym and it was just very holy so after Mass me my wife went to the priest and I told him I said you know one day I would like to maybe get together with you if that's okay maybe talk about the Catholic Church they said well why don't we get together right now so I said okay and we went over and he just explained things and we had our questions and at that time I was still looking at like well I like a lot of things about the Catholic Church I'm not gonna believe everything but I'm gonna start going to both and I thought well you know I'll get the best of both worlds I get to the tradition in this the sacredness and the holiness of the Catholic Church and then I'll get like the good music and the you know great sermons and everything from the Protestant church so that's what we started doing for a while we would go to Mass on Saturday and then we would go to our Protestant church on Sunday mornings then was it a comfortable experience for a while you know for a while it it really made me come in love with Christ and it did I would just people say why would you go to both and no longer became like oh I have to go to church I just I want it to go and I loved it and I loved both things and I just thought you know why can't we fellowship together if we both love Christ I I no longer saw us as enemies because I was I considered myself both I mean I considered myself this point a Catholic if you would ask me but I consider myself both but as I started to where was your wife in this term was she enjoying it too or she she was maybe to her childhood faith she liked things about the Catholic Church but there was also things that she didn't like and that she felt likes you know she loved the praise and worship you know when you're used to having a band a praise band that you know could put on a concert she she enjoyed that she enjoyed the preaching and she enjoyed the fellowship of you know strong Christians at our Protestant churches so she wasn't as into it as I was but the difference I think was I was one of those people were I no longer wanted just emotion to guide my truth I really did want to base all my all my feelings or all my beliefs on my prayer life and on the scripture and reading in history because I wanted to see what was true and my passion was for truth I wanted to worship the way God wanted me to worship more than I wanted to worship the way I wanted me to worship and that became the reason I started looking into things more and more whether it was a real telling point then that turned her the needle of your life towards the Catholic Church at this point what was you I was me and my wife were making homemade spinach rolls one day and II W tan was having their annual family you know conference and all of a sudden there was this guy talking and he said he was a former you know Protestant pastor and he said that he learned Hebrew so he could read the Old Testament in Hebrew and then he learned Greek so he could read in Greek and the way he spoke with this passion I mean like you can almost wait for the tears to draw from his eyes because he was just so in love with what he is saying in this truth and he started to talk about because we were very much into the you know the rapture and the the you know we're all gonna be left behind you know that the evil will be left behind and you know very much in this room are pulled out before right right yeah the whole rapture right and seeing him talk about how in the original Greek the word Antichrist is not even in the book of Revelation and seeing him talk about how the book of Revelation relates to the mass and it was dr. Scott Hahn and I became just in awe and I started watching then I saw him on TV again and this time he was having a show talking about his book lord have mercy and I was just watching it because I had so much respect for him and he started talking about the sacrament of confession and I remember sitting there listening and he most of what he said came from the scriptures and this that's what I needed to hear and he talked about how Christ had given the Apostles the authority and he talked about how an Easter Sunday after Christ had one redemption for all of us the first thing he says to the Apostles when he appears to them is he gives them the authority to forgive sins in John 20 and he quoted you know where it says know Christ went to him said peace be with you and he breathed on them said received the Holy Spirit whoever sins you forgive they are forgiven and whoever sins you do not forgive and they are not forgiven and when he said that I thought man I lost a lot of respect for this guy cuz I said he just made a Bible verse I said it's not rival so I had my Bible and I looked and I just it was in there and I couldn't believe it and I I really started to have a lot of respect from so my Nana Papa lived down the street from us and they were Catholic and we would go over their house and you know eat and I was talked in ask them questions about the church and my Nana especially what I was try to help me out and she said oh you know what Nicky there's a speaker coming to our church I would like you to hear him now I was 23 I think at this time and the words that came out of a 23-year old I said you know what Nana I said you know who I would love to hear there's a guy named dr. Scott Hahn she goes you know what that name sounds really familiar so she ran over and got her pamphlet for the speaker it's doctors gone on and I went and I ended up I knew I was gonna see him I was so excited so I went to a Catholic bookstore and I said well let me buy one of this guy's books so I could understand him a little bit more and I picked the lamb supper just by chance and it happened to be the book he was reading and when he opened my eyes to the Eucharist and how there's no closer way to Christ when you have this faith of Christ and you understand that not only does he want to just live inside of you I'm he wants to become part of you he wants to give you all of him not just spiritually but physically and I started learning the typology about how even in the Old Testament the Eucharist is throughout the whole thing and even with the manna and it's so neat because you see how in the Old Testament you have the manna and it almost is like a question of it has this mystery and it's almost like a question of what is it I mean that's what manna even means it means what is it and when you have this question the Old Testament what is it and then you see it answer to the New Testament as Christ holds up to bread says this is my body and you see this all answered and I told everybody I said you know the traditions the sanctity that brought me into the Catholic Church the Eucharist will keep me in the Catholic Church what would you say if you look back on your journey was the Eucharist was was there an authority the the flaws in the idea of Sola scriptura the Eucharist were things that drew the church what was the hardest barrier for you to get over when you became Catholic I would probably say maybe the Blessed Mother because growing up I always thought that one that I always thought the biggest difference was that we worshipped God alone and Catholics worship God and Mary and looking at that and understanding how they worshiped Catholics worship God alone in adoration in latria is offered only to all this unholy spirit alone and you start to see this respect that was given to Mary but it was very hard at first even the hell Mary or saying well how could you pray to these people if they're passed on already and it wasn't all I really started to look deeply into scripture where you start to see and it just made sense that we believe as Christians that when you die you become stronger not weaker so would there be anything wrong if you had a problem with you asking me to pray for you absolutely not so if you're saying that Nicky no-fee who's a sinner who falls short of the will of God in my life all all the time if I can pray for you how could Mary or Peter who stares God in the face how could they not be able to pray for us and that then it finally all started to make sense and that is also built on another Catholic idea which would not have been very much a part of especially you're somebody I've got out of your Nasreen background and that's the communion of the saints did you profess that in the Creed when you were a Nazarene Assembly of God well the Assemblies of God are non creedal okay so they don't say Creed's they would not have said the appendix yeah the Nazarene would say it on special occasions they would say the Apostles Creed but even I don't really remember it that much being taught it as a young kid was that one of the doctrines you had to work through when you came into the church I had misunder well when I came in yeah the communion of saints of something you had to profess and we you know of course at Mass you know you're more familiar with the Nicene Creed right than the Apostles Creed but yeah and at first I didn't know how to take it did that mean just like okay everybody on earth you know we're all friends and we're all supposed to you know be nice to each other and work together and pray together but yeah eventually had to make sense that there's this connection between us and our Saints who have went on before us in the biggest scripture that we always used to contradict that was in first Timothy when Paul says that there's one mediator between God and man and that's to Lord Jesus but I learned the Catholics seemed to not give you a little quotes of Scripture they give you paragraphs so I read and I thought well you know this verse Scott you know was against intercessions and then when you actually read the verse the paragraph in full basically what Paul's saying is he's not condemning intercessions he's saying therefore I ask that all prayers intercessions and Thanksgivings be made for all you know kings and all men and authority because there is only one God and one mediator between God and man and that's the Lord Jesus so with the verse that I used to condemn the intercessions actually was a verse that supported the intercessions because Paul knew that were all connected and even the Saints and even Mary were all part of man were all humanity so between men and the Trinity Christ is that access so all of our prayers whether we're praying for each other or whatever it all goes through Christ Christ brings it even the prayers of the saints you are exactly brother and sisters are all through Christ you have a website full conversion com talk about that because I know you're very active and in men's ministry is that what they would get connected to on your website well I'm a part of Catholic men's fellowship of Northeast Ohio and our goal is you know many men have left their position created for them by God and have left their authority of being the priests of the home the elite spiritual leader of the family Catholic men's fellowship the goal was to start these men's groups in all the different churches and then our goal then is to bring these men back to Christ fully and to make them give their whole selves to Christ and to make sure that their most important job they know is to lead their family into heaven so I was very involved with that and I just all of a sudden I thought that God was calling me into public speaking and I said I've met with the board and they said well if you know if it's God you know the Holy Spirit will confirm so I didn't do anything and then all of a sudden a week later churches started calling me asking me to speak so my younger brother rocky and I decided to start this ministry it's something we have in our back of our minds for years but we call it full conversion ministries because we believe that there are many faithful Protestants who have a great justifying faith in Christ and love Christ but our goal then is to bring them fully to the greatness of Christ through the more of a sacramental view and an understanding and falling in love again with the church that Jesus Christ established at the same time though there are Catholics who are physically in the Catholic Church yet I've never really come to that understanding of what their faith means what it means to truly give yourself to Christ that sounds like a great goal because it's exactly true I know from the letters we get from viewers that watch this program as well as others often it's the same group of folk those who are outside the church love Jesus Christ but want this fullness and those their lifelong Catholics who have never really appreciated this great gift that they've always had we do have an email this comes from Francis Francie from Lexington Kentucky and she writes I'm a grandmother and almost all of my children and grandchildren have left the Catholic Church is there anything I could do to help bring them back home it's a very good question if they left the Catholic Church because if they just left faith in general I would say just having them come and spend time maybe at adoration or if you can convince them to just come to Mass every once in a while then they've stir up that feeling again of this love for God because you always have this gut feeling that you you need God if it was somebody who left and went to another church I would say that a lot of times they didn't leave the church because they were trying to be disrespectful but they left to church just because they weren't maybe taught the way that they should have been and sometimes where other people lacked that's where we have to take that responsibility and to make sure that we teach them then and learn our faith and show them especially the early church father school you show them what the early Christians believed for the first few hundred years you realize it was definitely Catholicism yep that's right and for both that group praying that the Holy Spirit would awaken their hearts and minds to what they're going to experience when they come to that first mass really a teachable moment for them rather to see the the fullness of the mass and then let the Holy Spirit open their hearts to the beauty of that we have another email and this one says Nick I am and evangelicals comes to Richard from Pittsburgh Nick I'm an evangelical protestant follower of Jesus can we respect our religious differences and have true fellowship with Jesus and with each other the fields are white unto harvest can we labor together in the fields for the lord of the harvest please explain and go to God bless you richly all right yes I would say one important thing is that we have much in common with our Protestant brothers and sisters much well we have differences we can never pretend like the differences don't matter but while we're working on the differences and we're trying to show each other and share with each other so that we can come to the fullness of truth while we're doing that there's no reason why we can't work together on what we have in common because it all comes down to two words and that's Jesus Christ coming are we both have the goal of bringing people to do what Jesus Christ wants us to do and then the next question is what does he want us to do and that's where we talk about the other issues a good example is working together to stop abortion exactly and and those issues and I've had friends of mine that have said yeah they'll work side by side with our Protestant brothers and sisters and we'll fight the battle it's just that we end up in jail together then we start noticing the dissipation so let's assume Nicky that someone watching has come from a similar background to what you came from and happens to be watching this program we'd like to say to them to encourage them to make the same journey home you've made well I would say number one if you wanted to learn more things I would say definitely watch EWTN I would also say you know we have a website WWL conversion comm but I would say the main thing is to ask yourself this question look at your faith and look at your belief system how new or how old is it then read the early church and understand ask yourself could it be that all these early Christians that were taught by Christ and taught by the apostles of Christ could it be that they were all wrong and that all truth all of a sudden popped up 50 years ago or could it be that the church was always the doctrines of the church were always true just maybe we became lazy in it and the question is then become part of that church and change the world all right Thank You Nick cuz I agree with that in other words that was one of the things that awakened to me you know your you mentioned dr. Hahn and and I when we were seminary partners in seminary together we we really didn't see that connection but it was often the early church fathers that awakened us to see that this church has been around faithful though guys like you and I when we joined the church we didn't make it holy er yeah right and hopefully it's the church that through the sacraments are gonna help us by grace to go yeah be better witnesses for Christ and His Church so Nick thank you for joining us on the journey home and your website full conversion com help others on their journey home okay thank you for joining us on this program god bless you look forward to being with you again next week you

Channel: EWTN

Views: 11,510

Rating: 4.8688526 out of 5

Keywords: Coming, Home, Network, Catholic

Id: Vf0hS8bdqh8

Length: 56min 21sec (3381 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 08 2010