The Journey Home - 2013-07-01- Matthew Leonard - Former Methodist / Evangelical

good evening and welcome to the journey home I'm Marcus Grodi your host for this program when people love Jesus Christ and desire to follow him wherever he leads sometimes he does lead us in places we didn't suspect and but our desire is to grow closer to our Lord where every calls that's what we're called to do and sometimes he does he challenges our lives and of course trains us up tries to straight this up challenges in the way we live and way we talk when we act but sometimes he draws us even deeper and for the guests in the journey home program that step has meant the discovery and the beauty of the church that he established in his apostles the Catholic Church and so our guest talked about that journey all is a part of following our Lord Jesus called by the Holy Spirit to be obedient to him and that's what we can say about our guest tonight it's a great privilege to have Matthew Leonard join us tonight he's the he's a former evangelical and Methodist although he says that's just a summary of putting it all together because a lot of different steps he's the executive director of the st. Paul Center for biblical theology Matt welcome thank you mark so this journey home thanks for having me it's good to have you drive over today and it's really good because that not only to have you on the program but it's it's also good to have the the st. Paul Center labeled you know to make sure people hear about it they don't always hear about the good work that the st. Paul Center is doing ww salvation history comm is the website right to find out more about the wonderful work and it's really about discovering the beauty of Scripture and in God's big plan of salvation and challenging us to go out and tell the good news we want to ignite a fire people's hearts for a love of Scripture because scripture has the power to change your life because the Word of God and so that's really what the center is all about alright well I know that you were that way a long time before you were Catholic so let's talk about that know what I do in the program is get out of the way as soon as possible and invite the guests to go back as far as you want to start us to help people understand where you come spirit or I I come from a very strong Protestant tradition in fact my dad was a pastor he was a Methodist I deserve that really BK I'm supposed to be the bad rebel you know but I turned out ok at least I think so so my dad was a Methodist pastor and then he became a Pentecostal pastor foursquare after that oh really I was a big shift so was he a conservative Methodist and what could sometimes be a more progressive denomination I think it's a little more progressive at the time so he was United Methodists at the time and kind of had an encounter with the Holy Spirit and that's what precipitated our move into the Foursquare Church okay and after a couple years of the old-time power of the Pentecostal power they're just church split as is so often a case and we moved to the Chicago area and then we went to an open Bible Church and then we moved to a charismatic church they put me in a Calvinist high school then I went to Oral Roberts University and Oh didn't oh yeah for a year and then I graduated from a Swedish covenant University in Chicago and there was Assemblies of God there was a Baptist there was Willow Creek mega church for a few years I mean I've I've been around kind of know what was your dad bouncing around no they bounced around kind of on their own but after they were in the charismatic church for quite a while and they kind of moved to other charismatic churches but after a while when you start to move around it's funny because there's never the there's never the problem of what church you're going to go to as long as I was in church it was okay and that was never an issue I mean I was I was always in church well let me jump in here then cuz I've recently have put on a little book called what must I do to be saved and I'm not here to promote the book but the point of the book was that I was addressing what I considered this modern heresy of Jesus in me and that's all that matters right doesn't matter what church even doctrine theology really when it comes down to it some are better than others but really as long as you got Jesus that sounds like that's where you're bouncing back and around from it's exactly right okay so if as long as it's an internal religion what difference does it make what church I'm in and so I wasn't really paying much attention to different theological streams that were there and I was aware I was aware that my Calvinist you know in high school said double predestination and charismatic churches no you can lose your salvation and sometimes I have fun with them I play them back and forth against each other just to watch a market what life pastor said this and they you know didn't go back and forth and really that was kind of the the impetus after a while that started to push me toward Catholicism and I never in a million years dreamed I've become Catholic I mean it was very strong in my faith as a Protestant I had one Catholic family that I knew from my Calvinist high school ironically and I was pretty sure they were gonna go to hell I loved them but they had some wild beliefs and and I would do my best to try and convert them with all kinds of theological discussions and arguments and things like that but it was that when it finally came time in fact it was in Wheaton Illinois of all places and for people who don't know Wheaton and we who's kind of the Steubenville of the Protestant world there's a great university there and and I was in a coffee shop and we're having a discussion with some of my buddies and we weren't this holy normally I assure you but we were talking about baptism I think it was and whether or not it was necessary for salvation was it infant or adult was it immersion or sprinkling and as we talked what really came to light was hey none of us agree here and it never bothered me in the past but here we were talking about a central aspect of of salvation and I'd gotten a little bit older and and so finally I said how in the world are we supposed to know who's right there has to be a right answer to this God is who he is it doesn't matter what I believe about him I can't change him so now as a Catholic I'd say your truth is conforming my mind oneself to reality back then I was saying I can't change God so what's the right answer here well we've got the Holy Spirit yeah you got a man you got a when you get on um I got him and we all disagree and that was the that was the start and I saw as Steven Smith on the show not long ago and he brought this line we major in the major a minor in the minors you know I got that line too and that was kind of the response I would get to the people when I would bring this up but that was the low wattage bulb kind of discovering Aristotle's principle of non-contradiction at that point in time the end and thinking okay if there's a right answer where is it and so I went back and I start reading Luther and I started reading Calvin again not getting totally in depth I'm you know I'm not some academic that was really going in and searching out the fine details but it amazed me in Wheaton for theology I wasn't I was at Northpark University the Swedish company University who just happened to hang out in Wheaton but it was interesting that I discovered that you know Luther had this devotion to Mary and and the Calvinists I knew didn't totally believe the Calvin that I was reading and so I would go back and back and back and finally in it like so many other people and fathers and they kind of sealed the deal and I think it sound like an easy process it wasn't but that whole kind of lack of a straight theological tradition really was what pushed me out of my Protestant mutt hood into the arms of the church all right well let's back up a little bit short because if you look back before you thought about the church what was the foundation for truth for you yeah it was the Bible you know there's one thing that's pounded in your head over and over and over the Bible is the only authority I can still see my high school teacher you know with the Bible and literally almost hammering us with this this is it and and really you can't it was it was that echo in my head that later is what really pushed me toward the church because if that Bible is the only authority then my gosh who's got the right to interpret it and I had to it went up when I finally came to the realization that I was actually giving tacit approval to the Catholic Church or so recognizing that there even was a Bible I was astounded and I was angry because we just seemed to have assumed that the Bible came flying down out of heaven landed in the pew in front of me had a nice leather cover it said Matt Leonard in gold letters in the bottom right hand corner and this is the book that's supposed to get you to heaven yeah that's it actually was a my next question because you were bouncing from this tradition to this tradition that is tradition I would say one of things that United all those traditions what this presumption about the authority of Scripture without ever really examining where it came from that's exactly who does I never heard anyone talk about where the Bible came from we just looked at Acts and that was the kind of the early church and a lot of the churches I was in we try and emulate what was in that church and for a while my dad had a church in our house you know and so people would come to my living room for a worship service and well they had house churches you know in the Bible and so we're gonna have a house church and every time you're right Marcus and that everything was based on Scripture but the seven-week sermon series that I would hear on two verses would never get into where we even get this you know they get this all scripture is inspired and from the Lord but I'm asking a friend of mine actually after I became Catholic why is it you believe the Bible is the Bible why honestly and he sat there and he was really a sharp guy for 30 seconds he sat there and finally he said I don't know I didn't either so I had to accept at the same church to have the authority to put the can together in the first place has the authority to interpret it that was liberating I remember that stage myself and I remember going through a period of okay I've got all these are friends with the different opinions I know they love Jesus we love the Bible but we can't agree everything you said to baptism I remember that very incident on that very issue only was when I was in seminary listening to fellow seminarians and the Scot might have been one of those arguing with their Bibles hoping the truth of baptism right and listening because I was not a debater I was just listening these people and same scripture same love for Christ ten different opinions on baptism but I went through a period of saying well what's the problem here is it the Bible then what why can't we agree my conclusion with the problems me and I wonder if you remember going through asking that question what what is the problem there well when you realize it that the weight of your salvation is upon your private interpretation of what's sacred scripture is that that was something that I knew at some point that I couldn't show so I knew that there was a problem I didn't look it as such a problem with me per se but there was a problem with the system is kind of the way that I viewed it at the time and not systems of theology but I took a big step back and said really this is what God intended with all of these different streams of thought about the same book that I'm supposed to hang my salvation on and I never strayed from the fact that it's about Christ everything comes back to Christ and that the Bible is the inspired inerrant Word of God and I still hang my hat on that just as the church does but I had to acknowledge at some point that I just wasn't the final authority and so where did it go out junks john 14 jesus promised something the Holy Spirit's gonna come to guide us all truth what happened it's exactly right and so something went off the rails and and it's mushroomed I think even back then the number that was being quoted you know there were 20,000 different denominations and now it's over 40,000 and granted a lot of them they believe the same things they're very little difference but some of them diametrically opposed and I just couldn't live with that I needed to know that what I was binding myself to was the truth I just never thought that it was going to end up Catholic during that period were you Trinitarian absolutely why because we thought the Bible said so if it's the Trinity was not in the Bible at least it's not spelled out that way I was basing my Trinitarian beliefs on what the church taught and I didn't even realize it you know I mean all those different groups were they all Trinitarian me some of those might have been borderline oneness Pentecostals maybe some of those you know I was pretty much Trinitarian all the way around yeah it's never that was never even an issue to me I never even thought about it in those times what I'm getting at either you dealt with baptism or Trinitarian is you presuming that it was the scripture thought you were blind to the you were really fallen on a tradition that's exactly right it was a tradition that I didn't have I don't even know where it came from and that's what blew me away about the church father so much you know we just kind of bypassed 1500 years in my tradition I'd never even knew anything about those intervening years we just went right from the Bible the Reformation and that was it and when you start moving back as I did and reading earlier and earlier in earlier and you get to a guy like st. Ignatius of Antioch who just rocked my world and he's talking about obeying your bishop and you're outside the bishop and you're outside of Christ and not to rely on your private interpretation and he's talking about the Eucharist and I'm thinking that I thought these were Catholic inventions I didn't even know what this stuff was and here we are in the second century and I am angry actually at one point that I didn't have this at least it had never been exposed to me before I remember having conversations with my dad and I wanted to know how come those seven books aren't in the Protestant Bible why are the only 66 books what happened to the Old Testament books that you know Luther got rid of and he's got a PhD in a canon of Scripture he's a brilliant man he loves the Lord he's fantastic then he started giving some of the reasons and I just it didn't swage my concerns it wasn't a solid enough answer and so you know you start going back and you look into the history of that and how Luther got rid of those those books and I I got angry and so then I had to find out more and and then I just it was really more it wasn't me becoming Catholic it was me I couldn't avoid becoming a Catholic eventually was kicking and screaming at times that God was dragging me into the church you know at the core of this is what happens when an individual or a group of people have almost the arrogance to presume they know better than the authority of the church because when we once we discovered that the that book the scriptures the Canon was established by a group of Bishops back in the fourth century that had all the books that's why the church accepts that canon because of the authority that they believed given John 14 the Holy Spirit had given them to do that but once you questioned reliability of that authority then anybody can say exactly right cutting with every little doctrine every the books of the scripture you're messing the strips now that that takes hooks pot it's one thing to say well you know I don't know if I believe in Trinity or not because I was at a conference and I'll counsel back in the fourth century or the fifth century but to decide I'm going to change what's in the Bible and he's taking it from a group that were anti-christian I mean who is the Jews they the list that Luther took was from the Jews yeah I'm guessing that the majority of the audience do not know the process about which the Reformers decided to do that it was based on a different the Jewish Hebrew Bible that the Jewish Church in the second century I think was emphasizing yeah and so they're taking books that were you know nothing past the time of Ezra I think it can only be in Hebrew and so they came up with a can and it was different than then what the church had been using it for you know more than a thousand years yeah and so when Luther adopted that he was adopting and I don't call an anti-catholic Canon but there were things in there that were supposed to be in there and then he tried to get rid of Hebrews and James and Jude and revelation as well and that didn't fly thank goodness it when I found that out that really rocked my world even more so than those Old Testament books and I found out he had a problem with books in the New Testament that really was problematic for me and you know as you kind of read through the book of James and you start to understand why he wants to get rid of this because it seemed to be contradictory to his well you're calm you're also encountering got the odd question I want for you because were you Calvinists pretty much in theology by this time where were you I was all over the map I didn't pay too much attention so I was getting you know getting this four years of Calvinist philosophy at this high school at the same time that I was at this charismatic church you know so you know polar opposites here so I knew what they were teaching me I knew what my church was teaching me and I so I knew the different things but I never really allowed any of those to seep in in any deep deep way I accepted the fact that I was a Christian and I wanted to be as good as I could I was always in church if I wasn't in school Church I mean if you a Sunday morning Sunday night Wednesday night Thursday potluck and then youth group activities on the weekend you know school is that other thing that I did your life revolves around the church it was always about Jesus but it did the open Bible Church that I went to you know eternal security i I knew all of these things did I did I hang my hat on even in a really deep theological way no I didn't I knew him I just accepted that they were there and it was about me and the Lord it wasn't until later that it really bothered me that those things were different well that so now when you're all of a sudden unexpected conduce reacted to that but particularly this issue of justification faith and works the Catholic understanding is quite a bit different than those of other groups that you were hanging with how do you deal with that theological transition I think it started with thee when I came to the understanding and I could hear the Calvinists in my head saying were totally corrupt and that was when you take it back to that point you take it back to original sin and you start to understand that the way that I was raised was to teach that we're completely bankrupt and there's nothing that we can possibly do that's going to change us in the eyes of God and Luther of course as the famous saying or snow-covered dung heaps I kind of I knew it but I kind of rubbed me the wrong way and somebody I want to be a feud is this snow-covered dung heap you know who does but when you see what the Catholic view of that is and it was someone explaining that to me it was kind of an eye-opener because no we're you know Adam and Eve are made in the image and likeness of God and yes we lost our likeness to God through sin but we're still in the image of God and so we're disfigured and really the salvation process the justification process is in a one time event with the sinner's prayer it's about an unfolding and working on your salvation and fear and trembling because we can conform ourselves to God that's what it's all about we're still in his image and that's what the Christian life is all about is working out that conformity to God so once you get to the understanding original sin the correct way that really helped me move toward this whole justification idea in the calf and that wasn't totally bankrupt I mean the image of God I'm a child of God I'm supposed to live like that and that would that was kind of a lynchpin for me you had to from a Catholic perspective justification in many ways is almost more about becoming a part of the family it's exactly right that's exactly and then that that didn't have any categories in the Pradas of none not in fact this was huge for me when I came into the church of Franciscan University and was at the Easter Vigil in 98 so this is my 15th year and I remember sitting there in the front row at Franciscan and there are thousands of people in this place it was packed and I was coming in with a group of twenty or so people and when it finally came time to receive Communion my up my sponsor says I had a local sponsor they said I elbowed him out of the way so I could get to Jesus as fast as I possibly could because I was about to encounter God in this radically new way it was incredible you know but now my family had come none of them agreed with what it is that I was doing but God bless them some of them made the trip eight hours from Chicago to come to this Easter Vigil my mother was dying of cancer at the time so my dad and mom could not come which just added all kinds of you know weight to the decision but my sister and brother-in-law my best friend and his girlfriend came and they're sitting a few rows behind me and I remember this so vividly it was like a chasm between us and we'd been so close spiritually and I love him to death but now we were just in two different places but I remember going up and receiving our Lord and kind of floating back to my seat and sitting there thanking God for the graces he had given me to become Catholic but I realized as I sat back and I watched these thousands of people filing past me that I had become part of their family in a way that transcended my blood relations no one can ever replace my brothers and sisters and my parents I love them I always will but now I become part of the family of God in a new way through the sacraments and that's what got the whole sysm is it really boils down to the family where God is my father and Jesus of my brother and you're my brother Marcus and we're all family and and that was a mind point and Mary as my mother you know I mean Mary was a you know totally separate issue but the family aspect of Catholicism I think drew finally and continues to draw me on a daily basis in a way that I never experienced as a Protestant yeah I forget who was I think it maybe was Agustin I think it was in confessions I think up I get corrected here that he said the the three most important things that we need to do in growing closer to God the three most important things are humility humility and humility I mean that's to me what justification is about it's through baptism become part of this family and realizing it about me that's right anymore it's about becoming as as Paul says it's no longer a high that's right it's Christ I've died and now he lives in me I mean that's really what we believe that it's Protestants but I think in the Catholic Church you really see that continuing changing that happens and it's not something we do it's the graces of the sacrament that have powers to do it yeah and that's the key I mean the sacraments were the big lure for me talk about that again because you didn't come from any sacramental back I didn't I in fact I remember at one point it was during my Willow Creek years sitting there right I've kind of started to dabble in Catholic theology and I was sitting there and communion came by now we had it once a quarter you know as a Methodist they would come by and a little grape juice in the bread and and then in the the charismatic church I really don't remember having it I'm sure we did at some point I think but I don't remember it at all it wasn't a normal process but I'm gonna Willow Creek doing this and if the pastor stood up and said all right now everyone examine your conscience you know make sure that you're right with God and overlooking this thinking why do I have to examine my conscience for this is grape juice and a piece of bread and I know Paul says you know you better be careful what you're doing here discern what you're doing because you know you could somebody gotten sick and some of you have died he writes to the Corinthians and I thought this doesn't really jive with what it is I'm doing here but I think the reason that the sacraments are such a not a part of Protestantism at least in the way that I was raised is because we touch on an earlier how it's such an internal religion and anything that's external is going to take you away from God and so the more you mature as a Christian in the Protestant tradition it just goes more and more internal you don't need those things on the outside other than scripture to help your relationship with God dare I say that it almost becomes Gnostic yes it does you have this knowledge that's just between you and God and there's no other outside Authority that's saying anything to you because you have your final authority but it's you know obviously up to your interpretation and this to me is one of the greatest things about the Catholic Church and that is that the Lord she speaks to us in the way that he made us through our senses through the nitty-gritty nests of the sacraments and the sights and the smells and and the taste and the touch that he knows exactly how he made us and so he's extending salvation to us in a way that fits our humanity and I mean partaking of the Eucharist is fantastic well yeah after the brick we're gonna get to that cuz I want to talk about the Eucharist but also given your work with the st. Paul Center and I know we talked about Salvation history and all that one of the key things to understand the mysteries of the Catholic Church is the mystery of the Incarnation that's right I mean this mystery of Jesus being fully God fully man fully God becoming a part of creation that mystery carries on through the sacraments carries on through the church carries on who you and I are because you're totally 100% man but you have the Holy Spirit dwelling within you through baptism that's right I mean the the mystery of that change the Incarnation ulm major Catholicism at the heart of all that is because of Christ who became man and so through his humanity we can become divine like him we participate in his divine nature that just wasn't a consideration that wasn't something that was part of my tradition growing up because it was kind of a almost a manichaean ism in a way you know it was kind of body bad spirit good and will always you know it didn't always play out there's a more intellectual interior and then the more you grow in reading Scripture it's a separation from the world being one with Jesus but almost a gnostic whereas the Catholic perspective recognizes through baptism we are not member of this family right but it's it's a pilgrimage family we're only it's a part of the kingdom and we're here but we're also there it's a both hand that's right and we live this world as members of the eternal Kingdom but yet we are here and it's not again it's not Gnostic where we're only a part of heaven and just putting up with our time here it's a both/and where Paul was stuck with that I'd rather be there but I'm here I'm not sure I want to be is because of this new existence we have as a result of the Incarnation yeah we used to focus so much on the second coming and end times and the rapture and all the rest of that and the understanding that I came to as a Catholic is that Christ is coming every time again to us in the Eucharist this parasya is coming again in that Eucharist which is the embodiment of that incarnational nature of our of our belief system which just this would have mass every day because God is literally there we're gonna talk about that the break because that's so radically different from where you were it's true you know John 15 says apart from me you can do nothing you gotta Biden me where does he see how to abide John 6 that's how we're close to him let's talk about that we get back to break all right welcome back Marcus Grodi here host and we're here with Matt Leonard I do want to mention later you've come up with a recent book the art of living as a catholic louder than words after being catholic for about fifteen years that's correct you didn't write that the first year that's we're gonna talk about later a little because i do want to get to that but before we get there though be sure I mean it almost sounded like hey discovered the Catholic Church it came in the next day I mean that is really that's true no it's not it was a long process and it took years and you know there's so many stages you go through as you're moving toward the church I never expected to become Catholic that was the farthest thing from my mind but the Lord and His mercy introduced me to this wonderful Catholic family at that Calvinist high school and they were kind of feeding me information as I became you know more and more open to it and it was a process of prayer and tears and really soul-searching and study how did they model evangelism to you they lived it because their family life they're so rock solid Catholic family their kids were catechized they knew what they were about you know they after they went off to the freshman year of school at Franciscan University came back with their catholic mr. t starter kit you know what all these scapular is and all the rest like kind of like what do you guys do you know but they knew their faith as well as I did as a Protestant and in the beginning I remember in the early years of our relationship I would come out on top of a theological debate because I knew the Bible better and I could you know I can weave in different things and and through semantics and whatever else then there came this tipping point where I couldn't argue as much with the things that they were bringing up and I just I didn't know how to deal with the situations that arose and they really were kind of this they mothered me in a lot of ways into the church particularly the mother of the family and it was through that relationship which is a great you know example of what the New Evangelization is all about it was that relationship with them but it wasn't just this relationship they were feeding me intellectually as well and then embodying it in their own family Paul Ephesians for speaking the truth in love I mean that's what you're saying they were doing that's right speaking the truth they did love and then they waited for me you know that was another thing because it wasn't this overnight thing where I'm like I'm gonna become Catholic now woohoo no it was it was very difficult because as you know it affects so many different relationships in your life and you're leaving an entire world behind when you finally get to that point and that's very difficult to do and so you have to have patience with those people who are on the journey this is one of the things that that I've learned beginning and we've been talking about this they're Christians you know these people love the Lord and the Lord has worked in their lives and a lot of people said it to me well how come you want to move and and become Catholic when you know the Lord has worked in your life and the only response I could give was you know Jesus met me you know its particular place it doesn't mean I don't want to go higher and further with him and more into the fullness but I was a Christian and I love the Lord I just have more avenues of grace open to me now and and I just kind of understand things a little more a little more fully but I know that this family did it and and finally what happened for me was I've been in the business world and I really was miserable and I was successful I was making a lot of money and I thought God is this what you want me to do I was just agonizing over it and through a series of events I was a pastor's kid who will used to sit in the back on the Wednesday night services and kind of making fun of the missionaries that would come in you know because how many more slideshows can I see of the Adobe Hut's and all that god bless me it will go for me Here I am you know and I thought I could never imagine doing that that's just the worst thing ever and when you should know it when I finally got to a point where I said God do with me what you will because I'm miserable in this life three months later I was on a mission field in Mexico for 14 months working with children on this very stretching experience and and really gratified in a lot of ways but I'd already gotten to the point at that point where I was kind of saying there's something to this Catholic thing and I've got to figure it out you had made it an Anglican jump in there I what I had so at the end of all of this long of my Protestant mud hoods I got into this Anglican Church in the wean area that was very highly liturgical beautiful services everything that you would imagine a Catholic Church to be except no Eucharist you know and and that really kind of taught me the liturgy in a very beautiful way and it was kind of under the auspices of that church of the organization I went to Mexico which was so it was an Anglican mission essentially kind of it was through a professor at Wheaton College and so he was kind of over it was the parent Church so you're going on a mission to a Catholic under yes and Here I am struggling at this point in time with what's the truth and so I tried to get to this point where I said you know what I'm just gonna check my issues at the door as I go administer and I found out that I just couldn't do that now granted a lot of people that we worked with they weren't even really Catholic and so it wasn't in some ways that we were sheep stealing you know we were introducing Christ at these people in many ways you were sadly encountering a Catholicism that had been mixed with a lot of other stuff Oh syncretism like you wouldn't believe I mean we're in Guatemala studying Spanish coming across a little statue they called san simone and you'd pay money to go in and there was a priest of san Simone that was pouring alcohol down through this dolls belly and it would come into a pan there was a cigarette and I thought wow these people are going to hell you know this is the Catholic faith I can't take this you know but that's not Catholicism but it was a beautiful experience there but I found myself doing at different points in time was sneaking into Catholic churches while I was there to go pray and so while I wanted to just leave it all behind I found myself you know sneaking off and going to brain it and I'd I just couldn't get away from the issues and so when I came off the mission field this Catholic family that I had known knew where I was at and and said look you've got to get the questions that you have answered and that there's one place you can do it it's in Steubenville now let me back up a little bit because not only did my dad have a PhD in the Canon but my mom had a master's in theology as well from Trinity in Deerfield Illinois so she was the theology was always flowing at the table and she wrote a book that Scott Hahn was using in one of his classes in the 90s and it was on the covenant she were dead yes she did and so we ended up in Steubenville at one point still in my anti-catholic phase and we ended up in Steubenville now the Calvinists that I had gone to high school with were buddies of Scott in college so when he became Catholic I heard about it even though I had no idea who Scott Hahn wasn't really didn't care but to go with the anti-catholicism that I was taught I had an auntie Scott hon ISM he kind of became the Antichrist you know this guy had it all and then I became a papist so I went he ended up going to Franciscan and so we ended up in Steubenville a few years later I was still very much anti-catholic the Hans invited my parents and me over for lunch because they wanted to talk theology and Scott had been using you know this book and they wanted to talk about all this stuff well I sat in front of the Han house for three hours I refused to go in you know I'm not going in that room in his house because I'm making a standing my poor parents I know they're getting suckered into but I am NOT going in I can see them having lunch you know through the window and I wouldn't go in and it was hilarious I was such a Protestant jerk I mean I was so like so sure of my ways and few years later after I came off the mission field wouldn't you know it that them in the this Vogel family said let's go to the Franciscan and we can check it out and you can look at the RCIA program we have a place for you to stay and it was the same house that I had sat in front of for three hours refusing to go into it was the hot house and so I went and stayed the weekend with them and at the end of it they were so gracious and invited me to stay there and so a few months later I ended up moving there and that's how I started into the RCIA process at Franciscan University which is really important to me because it wasn't just learning about the faith I was now living in a Catholic community which was really important for me because I had no experience of that whatsoever and that was really big Franciscan University played a huge part in my career in many ways I mean there are lots of the professors and things that come out when you think of Franciscan University but it it really it is the entire life the Catholic environment of helping you learn the truth about the church but also see it lived out it's exactly right I mean students are coming there they're not all Saints but they're being challenged to live out their faith in that environment yeah you can't deny that they grow there and the school didn't just provide free on the spiritual side of things I mean God worked miraculously through the people there I had coming off the mission field I was twenty five thousand dollars in debt I was paying penalties on school loans and I thought have been taken care of before I left and all of a sudden I had no job I had no car I had loans I had to pay back and my mom is at home dying of cancer at this point in time my dad was having a very difficult time with me even going to franciscan and kind of exploring this and I remember living in the hothouse thinking what have I done with my life and God you know I'm walking back and forth to school in January you know about a mile up and down these hills I'm not even a student here what am i doing and I remember going to the March for Life and Franciscan sends buses you know of kids to the march for life and one of the kids on the bus said hey I heard you're not even Catholic and what are you doing here and I was like well let me tell you my story and so I did and by the end of the story these kids are praying over me and it was fantastic and and that was kind of an uplifting moment but I still was struggling I was hanging them on my fingernails saying you know God you got to give me a sign if you don't show me that I'm where I'm supposed to be I'm gonna go back home and because you're dealing with all the the family issues on top of them of trying to figure out whether or not this is what God wants you to do on a spiritual level in yourself patient is at stake my eternity is at stake and that's how I felt and you know this no-man's land of knowing you're not in Protestantism anymore but I wasn't Catholic yet either I didn't know what I was I knew was about Christ but I didn't know where I fit in what was right and then was really difficult to deal with and the Lord gave me some wonderful friends that that kind of enveloped me at Franciscan but when I told God literally you gotta show me the next day Scott came up to me he said I think the school's gonna do something for you he took me to the admissions office now I graduated I think Mike seventh in my class in my university but they had no idea who I was and then in an hour and a half I had applied been accepted enrolled and scholarship into the past Theology program I even got a dispensation from a bishop in Minnesota who oversaw this scholarship that they gave me because you're supposed to be Catholic first and I wasn't and and I thought okay I guess I'm supposed to be here I was so penniless Marcus that I remember sitting there going I don't have money to buy pencils literally and a god you're gonna take care of it and two minutes later guy came around the corner said here's a five hundred dollar voucher go to the bookstore get it what it is you need this ice went back to the adoration Chapel after that and knelt down and said okay I know I'm where I'm supposed to be now you gotta take me the rest of the way your book the art of living as a Catholic how did that book come out of this experience in my RCIA class there was this guy who really sharp west coast you know kind of that Seattle ask looking guy sharp sharp guy studying philosophy and he was coming out of a kind of a background of nothing Christianity wise he was moving into the Catholic faith but he didn't know if he was going to do it and I think he was deciding almost up to the last second as to whether or not he was actually going to do this and I remember listening to him and I was praying for him all the way through as much pressure as I was dealing with I knew that he was probably dealing with more he just didn't know and I I remember on I think it was on Good Friday and he said look alright I'm gonna do this but if I'm gonna do this I'm gonna be a saint and that kind of threw me because I hadn't thought in those kind of terms before and we had people that we held up and we were talking about Billy Graham earlier what a phenomenal man Billy Graham is right but you know we weren't whispering what whether he's gonna be seen Billy the great one day cuz we just didn't talk in those kinds of terms he's a holy man but it's really about sainthood at the end of the day and that kind of planted the seed that turned into this book because Matthew 5:48 you know be perfect even as your heavenly Father is perfect what is perfection how can I do this is Jesus exaggerating no he's not and he gives us the power through the sacraments or the graces so that we can achieve that but there are all these different pieces of the Catholic life they come together to form a mosaic of Jesus yeah there's a scripture in Hebrews and when I was a Protestant Hebrews wasn't one of my favorite books I didn't know what to deal with a lot in there right but in my Bibles they were always under everything was underlined and highlighted and everything but there was a verse that wasn't highlighted in my Bible until I became Catholic and I'm not going to quote it perfectly but it's Hebrews 12:14 that says seek after peace and the holiness apart from which no one can be saved that's right it all comes down to personal holiness everything comes down to always always and you know the New Evangelization we're supposed to evangelize but it's not to evangelize you have to first be evangelized and that is a daily thing it's not a once and for all prayer that you pray it's an ongoing litany of prayers it's the sacraments it's all these different things working together Scripture you know what do you do with all these so we have all these pieces and it comes together to form in this Catholic life that's directed toward something and this is what I never really understood it's directed to our our participation in the divine nature that's why we're called to sainthood the only people in heaven are Saints and so yeah we're trying to get to heaven but that's not something that happens later it's not like we we just live this life and all so let me go to purgatory Lord willing and then we're you know it kind of hot for a while and now we're we graduate on to heaven that moved toward God starts right now and becoming like him is really what Catholicism is all about well before the break we brought up the John 15 passage where Jesus says abide in me and I in you and apart from me you can do it right and I think from a Catholic perspective is when I first started realizing what that's about that's about holiness that's what become truly United with him and apart from him we can't do it how do we do that well the only place Jesus says is in John 6 which he talks about eating my body and drinking my blood that's how you abide that's how I eternal life that's how we have him helping us so talk about your journey of the Eucharist because that's really at the core of this whole journey it is and honestly the Eucharist wasn't one of the big issues for me it made I had to deal with it because it was very different than what I was raised with for sure but once you get to the understanding where you're you know only God is holy I can only be holy insofar as I am joined to him and I never heard any sermons on John 6 growing up but you just you just don't right but I couldn't get away why is it that we would take other parts of Scripture literally and and not 6 you John 6 and so when I got there and I combined what I was reading there with what I saw in the fathers of the belief in the Eucharist it was really the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ and I had to eat and drink this in order to have life that okay I got in there even in my Protestant journey to a large degree in the fact that I ended up in this high liturgical kind of Anglican Church so I got that it didn't it wasn't a big jump for me to get to the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist but in my cat now that I've been Catholic for so long I recognize just how important it was I didn't realize how important it was because I can't be wholly apart from that this is the way that I actually become one literally with God that's how I get my holiness because I can't do it any other way yeah if anything when we talk about the New Evangelization that one of the key reasons that were called to proclaim the truth not only to the total non-believer and not just to the fallen away Catholic but to our baptised brothers and sisters the reason for that are the sacraments the graces of the sacraments we want them to have the fullness of the church so they have all the God has given us that's right so we can become like him yeah it's not about right and wrong here I mean I'm right and you are wrong it is about right and wrong you know there's a there's a definite truth to God I want my brothers and sisters and my dad and everyone else I know to have what it is that I have I just I almost fell into this and sometimes I think how did I get here you know it's by the grace of God really god it is so good to me and I can't you can't stand in judgment of other people in the in the journey that they're on as their Lord Willy maybe they come toward the faith but maybe they don't I don't know but I know that God has has graced me and I want what is I that I've discovered for everybody else because did the church the most amazing thing in the world and I I think God every day that I'm Catholic and I build my life around this you know these talk about the Eucharist is it wasn't as much of an issue as it was for so many other people and my coming to the church it's become the biggest issue for me now because you want to build your life around this why do you call it daily if you don't take it you know our father's bread daily as Ambrose talks about yeah you want to get the daily Mass because you are encountering with God and so it's a bigger issue for me now than it was even when I was coming into the church well you work for an organization now that's whose website is salvation history.com so I'm talking about this whole history of salvation and as a Calvinist an eclectic evangelical Christian I mean you were about salvation scripture and salvation and following our Lord Jesus we don't deny that but trains a person in that whole salvation that you pretty much ignored forever huh and that's our lady yeah talk about her how did you make that transition home and Mary was the hardest she was by far the hardest thing for me and becoming Catholic because she was just so antithetical the way that was raised we trotted Mary out at Christmas and that was it and then looking back it's so ridiculous but in that here's the one woman amongst the billions that have ever been born that God chose to bear his son and we would only talk about her at Christmas and the only reason I can think of not only is just bring her out of herself but you brought a bunch of statues that's exactly right isn't that hilarious you know we have people playing them you know on stage and live crashes and whatnot it's hilarious but she was very very difficult for me and I remember the the family that I knew that really kind of mothered me into the church coming home from college and talking about co-redemptrix and co-mediator aches and I just like oh you guess stop this no no you can't say that it's Jesus alone don't you know that she was really really hard and even after I got the Franciscan University I was still struggling with this a great deal and I remember really kind of the the turning point for me I had a lot of head knowledge about her and I'd gone through you know looking at Mary is the new Eve and all these other things which really appealed to me because they were scriptural and so you could kind of see this picture right of where she fit and which I didn't get before but you have to take what's here and it's got to come to your heart and you have to grasp it as your own and I remember this guy that I was working with I was doing a swab job at Franciscan working in the PR department this guy said hey can you cover my holy hour I said sure what's a holy hour I didn't even know the hardest part about becoming Catholic is the culture of Catholicism if you're hard of living as exactly right and I said okay I get the holy hour thing what time he said 2:00 a.m. 2:00 a.m. are you out of your mind not with you people so I said all right I'll do it so I went downtown to this church where he had the Holy Hour and I remember kneeling down and there's the monstrance and it's you know the O's this big in there I never listed in that it going Jesus is that really you and I'm all alone and I kind of look around to make sure because there were some rosaries in front of me I said alright Mary here's your shot I picked up this rosary and at that point in time my dad and I went very strained relations we weren't speaking really at this point he was you know he rightfully so I mean I didn't handle everything the best way that I could I think but he felt like I was turning my back on our family heritage and I can understand why you felt that way we weren't talking at the time it was very difficult to deal with and I remember I thought to myself okay Mary here's your chance I'm gonna throw up my fleece here my relationship with my dad is my intention for this rosary now before I started praying the rosary like please God don't strike me dead that's a rosary you know and then I prayed this rosary all alone in this little chapel at 2:00 a.m. I got finished with the rosary I finished my holy hour I went home I was living at the Hans at the time I woke up at 2:00 p.m. that day a letter arrived from my dad asking for reconciliation and I was just like okay Mary I'm done you know I I might not understand everything about you yet oh but I know you're Jesus's mother and I know you love me and I know you're trying to mother me to him and since then I've developed this great devotion to well and with that I mean as her is our intercessor and channel of all graces amid all of that but in terms of salvation history I mean that's also a key part of her place in Salvation history the whole plan of everything is just not about God the Father and the Holy Spirit in our Lord Jesus and then the fall and all that the covet at all that's true but our Lady as a key part of Salvation history is something that wasn't a part of our thinking at all before us not Catholic that's true you realize that God uses people right now she's a special person and we venerate her in a different way but when you get to the point where you recognize that that salvation history process and God is working in the world you know as a Gustin paraphrasing Augusta he writes the world like men write words you see how he used Adam and then Noah and Abraham and Moses and David that gives context in a big picture for you how you understand Mary's role then as well she embodies a lot of what everything was leading toward and she had a role to play once I got that big picture I still remember sitting in classes with Scott as this whole salvation history thing is being played out in my jaws on the ground you know every night at the Han house and you'd have dinner they have the good thing you know what was a good thing for the day member Scott one time saying my good thing for the day was seeing massive jaw on the ground you know as we were talking about these things once you get that big picture and you see how all these people and places and events all fit together and are driving toward Christ it's a lot easier to see how Mary's role is working toward our salvation not all who come into the church from ministry end up with the great privilege of being in an apostolate it's true I mean what you're doing is it cut the continuation talk about your work as a continuation of your journey you know I think I've learned more in my time working at the st. Paul Center than I did in the rest of my life confined in a lot of ways that's a real gift to be able to do what it is that we do attempting to inspire people for a love of scripture it's not just about scripture because the whole point of all this is to to move toward our Lord and in working with this and you're working with the Bible and the Catechism and all the documents of the church and all these things that were exposed to is we are in this on a daily basis all it's done is strengthened my faith and I get to rub shoulders of people like you and and other people across the country who are looking for something that we know we can't provide on our own and and going down this road of working directly with Catholic people as the greatest gift in the world because people hunger for God yeah there are people who can focus and analyze and critique and tear apart scriptures but never find Jesus it's the truth I mean the point is that I'm one of the things I know that your Institute is about it isn't just about studying this document it's now done in faith of our Lord's right you have to live it I mean you can't do there's an eyes of faith that you have to have you can't approach Scripture as you know some other random book you have to live it with the eyes of faith you see what it is because it's a living document and it's going to transform your life if you live in conjunction with it in the context of the rest of the church that's the the beauty of Sacred Scripture it's not this book we're not a religion of the book a religion of the person that book happens to be divine revelation brought to us with all the limitations of human language without error just like Christ became man with all the limitations of humanity but you know with no sin and so we study this book because it has the ability to change our lives and drive us toward our Lord that's what's about and what I would affirm is that that's one of the beauties of your apostolate in that it's taking the love of Scripture that john paul ii had and that Pope Benedict has and and and recognizing that apart from faith yeah you can take this book and make it say anything you want that's right but within the context of the faith it is the word that's why it's not just the Bible it's biblical catechesis and so we're teaching the truths of the faith and showing how scripture just is is fermenting all of this it's it's a it's like the fertilizer on our it's the soul of theology as Benedict said and so everything is intertwined and youth in the Catechism how many scripture references are there in the Catechism Matthew s Leonard comm is your website but also salvation history comm is your apostolates that's right Matt thanks for joining us Marcus thank you for a journey appreciate it okay thank you very much and thank you for joining us on this episode of the journey home I'm pregnant Matt's journey was an encouragement to you god bless you see you next week you

Channel: EWTN

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Id: rqePAnaOguA

Length: 56min 38sec (3398 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 01 2013