The Journey Home - 2014-02-17 - Charlie McKinney - Former Southern Baptist

[Music] good evening and welcome to the journey home Marcus Grodi your host every week I have this great privilege of coming into your homes and introducing to young men and women who following the guidance of voice but the only spirit in their love for our Lord Jesus were brought to the fullness of faith in the Catholic Church such as our guest tonight Charlie McKinney former Southern Baptist president of Sophia Institute press and a bunch other thing the Sophia is connected with crisis magazine and Catholic exchange and so Charlie welcome to the journal thanks Curtis it's really good to have you here and I just found out before the program about the combination of Sophia press and crisis magazine and Katherine exchanges a lot of the audience who are men if you aren't too familiar with all three probably don't realize that they're not one entity that's right yeah we you know it's been one of the great things about Sophia Institute presses we had the opportunity last year to to acquire crisis magazine acquire Catholic exchange and bring them into the family and be able to do on a daily basis what what we try to publish in the book spiritual self-help and cultural analysis and to be able to provide Catholics those sorts of resources on a daily basis has been a great a great pleasure for us my guess is that now you as the president of the very staunchly Catholic things that a number of years ago you've been ever dreamed you've been doing no no way no I've been God's been good all right well just take a big step back and I'll get out of the way and I you to start at the beginning and give the audience a glimpse of your spiritual journey all right well the first time I had ever even formed an opinion about Catholicism was in the 8th grade in I had attended an evangelical school and in the religion class the the teacher decided to take two or three weeks and and discuss cults and in that we learned about New Age we learned about Buddhism we learned about jehovah's witness we learned about mormons and we learned about catholics and I don't really recall much about what I learned I just know that what I kind of took from that was a catholics were like Mormons they somewhat Christian there was a little bit of truth in there but they really went way off the reservation there wasn't a lot of truth in there anymore and so the sense at 8th grade was that this was the common assumption of the community yeah yeah I didn't know any Catholics in fact to this day I'm pretty sure that my wife and I and our children are the only Catholics my parents know so I I it was it was for her uh you know I'd seen priests in movies but that was the extent of it so without any sacramental even Catholic or sacramental right background then from a child were you baptized were you yeah I was baptized I think I was eight years old because his Baptist at least in my strain of baptism or Baptist we got baptized at the age of reason or whenever we could verbalize a commitment to Christ and then you take the altar call you go down front and once you believe and you confess with your mouth and then you're saved and when you're saved you're always saved and so that's what that's what I grew up believing it was the faith an active part of the home life oh yeah yeah it was an active I mean we went to church every Sunday morning we went to church every Sunday night there was for a while I didn't really like it we went to church every Wednesday night and so yeah it was very much a part of the live and I went to private school Kappa Protestant school evangelical school okay at least up through the eighth grade and even when I was in public school down there everybody seemed to be Southern Baptist you know it was just it was just a part of the culture all right even the Methodists or Southern Baptists I'm pretty convinced of it what is interesting it's a historical thing we can't get it on the short program but to look historically and how that part of the United States became so solidly Southern Baptists whether you're Baptist or not that Hawaiian culture yeah yeah it was and even this assumption about the Catholic Church assumption that your community accepted as true without knowing Catholics at all that's right yeah yeah I mean I can't I can't explain it I never having never met a Catholic I'd never heard Catholic theology had never read a Catholic book well the Bible obviously but there was just no exposure to that it was as it was as for and as Islam or Buddhism to me you know it was it was not something that I had any exposure to whatsoever not at all so I had moved to Washington DC I had the honor of working for Pat Buchanan on his presidential campaign and that took me out of Alabama moved me to Washington DC and that was the first time that I had ever met a calf even in college even in college yeah I mean I'm sure I met Catholics I just never had had an occasion to talk religion with them or ever know anything other than and when you headed off to DC was your faith leading you to think about ministry or anything it was just a part of your life no I was really interested in politics at the time and that's that's really what took me up there I mean faith was a part of it all there was a sense of the you know the problems with the culture and the problems with Washington and all of that but that was really what was what was my motivation it wasn't it wasn't really religion that probably had that certainly had an underlying affect on everything and on my opinions and everything was formed by my Protestant upbringing which I'm very grateful for went to Sunday school every morning all this it was a really good solid foundation in the faith and there was really no struggle with that but I wanted to get into politics and that's what took took me up there and that was the first time that I met Catholics because I was meeting people from different parts of the country and realized that you know these are normal people and they love the Lord too and and I kind of took away some of them I wouldn't say I I wouldn't say that I no longer thought they were called but I certainly thought that you know these aren't weird people they've got weird beliefs but they're people I can be friends with and I'm guessing given my own experience in that way that it would have been far more easier for you to let's say okay I might become a Presbyterian or a Methodist or Episcopalian or Lutheran right but becoming a Catholic yeah yeah would not have been something that would have been a possibility in your mind because of the what you had presume from the early age not not even a possibility yeah but there was already even at the age of 16 or 7 some holes being poked and into into the the theology that I have been brought up in like for example I remember we were in the truck headed to work my dad owned a grocery store I worked for him we were going to work together and I asked him if if then I remember how I must have read or saw on the History Channel I don't know but there were all these kind of books of the Bible that were floating around some were accurate some were inaccurate this is three you know 300 years after the death of Christ there was Gnostic by books and that a bunch of men came together and decided what was the Bible what wasn't I said well how do we know that the right ones got in and ones that were supposed to get in didn't get in and my dad said well God wouldn't God wouldn't let that happen so for me that was I accepted that I mean it's kind of a little mini crisis averted and it wasn't till many years later that you know I met Mormon of a Mormon which I flirted with that for about 90 seconds and and realized that they did add to the Bible and the Catholics have got books in the Bible that Protestants didn't have and so then I kind of thought back on that you know you know God did let that happen that there are different versions of the Bible and so that that I didn't really realize when I first moved to DC but you know there were different understanding people had different views of justification that there were arguments of once saved always saved you know that began to get me thinking and thinking logically about what it is I believe and what it is that I have been taught that was wrong you know we were always taught that drinking beer was bad and that that was a sin and Christ drank wine and so you know as a young man I began to think that you know that was inaccurate as well and so it was just little holes that started being poked in what I had always been been taught that led me to begin a little search but I think at first it just I was just doubting I just started to doubt things and I wasn't really I don't think on a search for truth until until many years later and then I met my wife and and we worked over mmm I want to get your wife but what still gets my mind is I still to this day especially with the status of Washington being what it is a man of faith in politics right welcome in many ways given about Washington as it yeah it almost seems like an oxymoron right how do you a man committed to Jesus Christ a man of faith desiring to be in politics yeah you know I want them to go together but it's really hard to see how that works today yeah well I know I mean it would be you you've got to have a pretty strong faith to do it and remember I was I was in a campaign that was more idealistic it wasn't sure you know I wasn't in Washington with all the intrigue and all that I was working with a bunch of people who were from different faiths and so I I kind of saw the fun part of it I saw the end you know of course the Buchanan himself was a very religious man and and a Catholic so I was with a bunch of people who were good faithful people and I think the biggest takeaway I have from that whole experience is just you know getting me out of the bubble and helping me to realize that they're different people that believe in different things and just kind of challenging me on my faith a little bit and it wasn't long after that you know after I the campaign was over you know I was kind of done with politics and it said well the reason I mentioned that even flow the audience they're given the year that we're in you know that we need people of faith in politics yeah it's you people but the second thing is we need to pray for them because it's tough to get elected when you express your views where I respect your values in a culture that we have that's so secure it's a tough world yeah it was work we need people of faith so god bless her that you you jumped into the fray right but you were working for a Catholic guy that's right yeah I had the great honor of being his driver for a while and I traveled with them across the country and you know I on Sundays he always went to Mass every day and I I would drop him off around front and especially we were out on the road somewhere but I never went in because you know it was still too foreign for me and you invited me in but I you know I did and so yeah I but I got I spent a lot of time with them was in you know we talked a little bit about religion but you know it's Catholics are not and I think this is very prudent or sort of in your face about it they just kind of let you go along on your spiritual journey and ask questions and I'm very grateful for that so it was the midst of that that you met your wife no it was after that that I met my wife I had went to work for another organization at DC like a lot of people when when you get pulled into that town you you don't leave and my wife has a deep Calvinist background Dutch Reformed her whole family's Dutch Reformed her father went to Calvin College she went to Calvin College and she and I left least wrong yeah there's definitely straw so she was almost as strong and in that psychology as you were in the southern man that's right yeah that's right so she and I and several other people work at an organization every every day at launch we would go in and we would talk in the in the conference room and more than more than half the time we talked about religion and there was a Catholic Steve klika weds who I credit more than anybody with bringing me into the faith who was just answering all these questions that you know all these holes that was kind of poking in the theology that I had developed over the years he was answering the questions and that's when it realized the church kind of had an answer for where the Bible came from and they had an answer for justification and there was a good answer that was consistent with Scripture on once saved always saved you know so all of these things I just began to realize you know what Catholics kind of have some answers here and I was flirting with it a little bit and then we Steve invited me to Mass and it was a daily Mass I was just across the street from where we worked I was a Cathedral in in Arlington and my wife went with me although she doesn't recall it so maybe with somebody else but we went across the street and it was the most Awkward experience I one of the most awkward experiences I've ever had we walked in as towards the front of the church and everybody's looking at you you know because you're in the side and I'm walking right behind Steve and then he stops he pivots he kneels I have no idea what he's doing I have no idea what his face it you know and I'm already kind of back on my heels completely awkward everybody stick I felt like everybody was staring at me and then we walked down the aisle he turns around does it again we get in sit down he pulls down Neela I never I've never seen a kneeler and then he kneels down and of course the whole experience all my senses were were off I had never been in a church that was anything more than white drywall and the only thing painted on the walls hung on the walls were these big foam boards to keep the band from echoing you know so it was just a really awkward experience we stood up and we sat down stood up sat down kneeled and people were saying things we get out there was no music it's a daily Mass so there was as I go right I'm not I'm not Catholic my god this is not this is not for me this isn't right there's a it was it was really an awkward experience so that I would say set me back a good year or so in the in the faith and it wasn't until my wife and I then moved to Delaware we got out of Washington and my friend Steve I went to work with him again because he moved here and he got me a job there and had your wife at this time joined you in the Southern Baptist churches or no we were nondenominational at this point yeah we were just going for the common denominator you know we believed in Jesus in the Bible and you know we'll keep it at that you know so you know we we kind of say that a little flippantly we don't mean to be flippant about that but the truth is beyond that amongst these non-denominational churches there aren't too many doctrines that hold true from one church to the next that's right yeah well it's hard and that was the thing that led that I think put me back on the path to Catholicism is when we moved to Delaware we were hunting around four different churches but you know what when we were going to find an you know one one of the rebaptised as we knew that wasn't right it was just different things that kind of you know kept us out of one church or the other and my wife was pregnant at the time and then we got we realized we had a disagreement kind of our first big disagreement on faith and that is whether to baptize our child or not and for me as a Southern Baptist you just don't do that I mean the kid has to verbalize something has to make a commitment and you can't do that as a baby so you don't baptize the maybe nothing in scripture about that so in her tradition they baptize babies so we got into this long discussion about it you know long meaning over several months and she would I'd be at work and I get an email from her and it was some quote from an early church father about baptism or there'd be some quote from scripture but none of it was really at least in Scripture none of it was like you know this is definitely right we're supposed to baptize babies so when I started seeing the writings of the early church fathers and saw what they said about baptism that it wasn't about whether baptize are not the baptized but whether it was a baptized immediately or on the eighth day in place of circumcision if the Bible wasn't absolutely clear on that at least all the people that lived you know in the first century in 2nd century there was no debate as to whether or not to baptize a baby and so that got me thinking all right now what else is it that that I believe that's not true because I knew the Catholics believe that and so then I bought I bought this great 10 volumes set like all the early church fathers the ante-nicene and church fathers and I started reading reading through that and I serve being the data carrying all of this stuff and realized in time that well the early church fathers were Catholic and you saw the Cassell confession in there you saw the Eucharist in there and and it was I think that the early church fathers more than anything I think broad brought me prominent but it was your wife that was neat jigna towards early church fathers yeah I mean I don't know that she had any background the early church fathers I think she was just trying to make an argument that we need a baptized kids and that was you know and that was a good useful argument and so that that is I think what push just pushed us towards that area and I got into it I think a little bit quicker than she did because once I realized that I was wrong on baptism then that that kind of was a bit of a crisis of faith at that point it was like all right I know I've just been proven wrong on something and now we got to figure out what else is wrong I'm newly married I've got a kid coming up I'm the spiritual leader of this family I've got to figure out what the truth is if I don't figure out what the truth is that I'm going to I run the risk of leading you know several souls astray and so that's when I just jumped headfirst into into studying Scripture and studying various theologies to try to figure out what what the truth was our guest tonight is Charlie McKinney a former Southern Baptist the issue of changing baptism whether it's when you express it or not as a sign of your faith or whether you're baptizing a child behind that as is some major theology in terms of what baptism does mm-hmm I mean did that become a question because I don't think the strong Calvinists had a real strong hold on baptismal regeneration either that's right yeah when we were we went to visit my wife's family in Chicago and we went to a Dutch Reformed Church and they were doing a baptism that day and this water is a symbol of this now we're doing this as a symbol of that everything was symbolic and that was for my wife I think a big moment where she realized that for her and for me too that what the Catholics believed was that this this this physical water has has saving power that this is physically brings you into the body of Christ who brings the baby into the body of Christ and so I think for her it was like why are why are we even doing this if it's a symbol of you know of something new and so that yeah there's a lot of there's a lot of theology behind it and the reason I was being a little hesitant here to say what Calvinists believe is because coming from myself a Calvinist background as a pastor I realize that they're Calvinists are all over the place today right on what this Presbyterian group or this you know group believes baptism means yeah or where they even use the word baptism or use christening or some right make it a more of dedicatory a right to put a child through or not right and you dare you and your wife are stuck on the big issue that divides Christians too yeah that's right yeah well and it's easy when you see that there you know what the early church fathers believed but you know this was for us I think one you know one thing when I first started looking at the church I kind of you know mentally created a list I was kind of looking at it like a Protestant when when I was used to having to when we moved and had to find a new church you've got all your lists and you got to check the box do they believe in this did they believe in this do I agree with them on this and in the same way when when when I started looking into it I had that same same list I was do I but do I agree with the church on on justification or do I believe in with the church on Marian Dogma or whatever it is and after you know in most of the times I did because the church is just mercilessly logical and and there was nothing in in in what the church was teaching that was inconsistent with Scripture and as a Sola scriptura boy that was a big big thing for me and what it ultimately came down to for me was I I remember I was sitting I was sitting at the dining room table and I was I had been on the internet for a couple hours that I was reading debates on justification and I couldn't I couldn't figure out who was right and who was wrong as Catholic debating and evangelical and I couldn't get my arms around because different verses old I mean you can make the Bible say you know in some sense whatever you wanted to say it was just frustrating and for me that was the night that I said all right it comes down it comes down to one question it comes down to one question is the church what it claims to be is it the mystical body of Christ when it has when it claims a truth then it interprets the scripture in a certain way do I am I bound to believe that and is it have is it the repository of truth and so that was the moment for me that I said it comes down to one question it comes down to that and if if I determine through scripture through the early church fathers whatever it is that that's the truth then then whether I disagree with it or can't come to an opinion on Marian Dogma or on purgatory or whatever it is I will bend my will towards it because it ultimately comes down to whether or not the church has has the authority and so that's when I put I put all my eggs in that basket all chips were in it was either all in or all out and so I started with Peter is Peter the rock is it what in Matthew when he said I built on you on this rock I build my church and I remember there's a book by Stephen ray upon this rock which which I read it had to have a big big big role in my conversion and you know and it said things like you know Peter was mentioned 130 times and the names of the other apostles are mentioned 11 or 15 and and Peter served as Christ's proxy here who's the first one he's the first one to stand over the Council of Jerusalem Paul came brought his teaching to him to make sure that it was consistent with the teachings of the church so I realized it all right Peter Peters the rock okay so then is there apostolic succession is there traditions what do you know how does this fall then you see you see that you know that Christ gave the apostles of the power to forgive to bind and lose and then they gave it to to the other disciples and you see some sense of apostolic succession do you read you savea's in the early early church you the whole history there the apostolic succession and Peter and the other popes just falling in line there and you begin to realize that well not only does it seem to be biblical and not only does it seem to be consistent with church history but it's also you know it's rational it's reasonable I mean because you see in your own tradition all the divisions and all the the breakups and fighting over this that and the other thing and I see in my own my own journey of faith that I struggled with my you know bring my own prejudices my own lack of knowledge my own inability to reason things through I mean there's there needs to be a higher power to to interpret this stuff for me and and so it was it long that I realized that you know not only does all this make sense but it seems to be for a sola scriptura boy it seems to be right there in Scripture and and so it wasn't long after that that that I decided that were you sharing this with your wife yeah probably a little too intensely I think yeah I I think I learned a lot about evangelization there because once you get once you see all that and you're just excited about it and you realize is the truth you know you want you you know you kind of expect everyone to see it too and so I probably came on a little hard and then in time had to back off and then allow her to to get there in her own time was she didn't well part of the problem that happens and I bet this happens to again I don't know majority of the guests that we have in the program is that your excitement about the Catholic Church is certainly often interpreted by non Catholics as a critique of where they are right a statement about where they are when in reality what you're experiencing is the joy of discovering the beauty of the church you're really making a statement about them you'd like them to come with us right really more rejoicing and what God has opened your heart and mind yeah that that's absolutely right and you just once you once you see the truth once you feel the truth once you sense the truth you want to you know out of love you want everybody else to be right there with you and and especially when in some ways you feel like you're the only you know you want other people to share that with you because you're you're oftentimes sharing it alone you know yeah yeah yeah especially mostly you've only known Protestants and then the Catholics often you know don't talk about their faith very much right now you know they're Catholic what's one thing though Charlie to to say that okay you know I'm throwing all my chips in and and it's Peter is true or not and so you accept that the authority of the church of the Magisterium United with Peter but still some of the doctrines can still run a little rough shot over our past right I mean it I think the one that I'm a Kadath what marry me will ask what marry after the break but this issue of once saved always saved I mean when you've lived most of your life with that presumption right how do you crack that nut well you know that wasn't hard for me to be perfectly honest because you know in Galatians and a few other places Christ said if well I guess Paul you know if you if you commit these things if you commit fornication or if you're a liar if you do these things you you you know you go to hell and I you know you know and you since in your own life there's these moments of great spiritual joy and you feel like you're you're on a path to get closer to God and then there's moments of aridity and I felt this as a kid you know you're kind of always up and down you're beating temptation then you were falling into temptation and and I just sense from a just a natural level that that the once saved always saved can't be true because there are moments when you're in sin there's a moments so it's it's really as Catholic theology you know breaking you're breaking you're breaking your link with God committing a mortal sin that I kind of felt just naturally as a Protestant that you know I want once I realize what the Catholic theology was on that on that I kind of fell into line pretty quickly but even before I had met some pretty hardcore Protestants that were like if you commit a sin and you you know hit a tree you know driving down the highway you know you're going straight to hell so I'd already kind of questioned that but yeah yeah and your wife came from that Calvin strong Calvinist position which would have if not totally have at least had a toe into the double predestination perspective which would have said you know your whole salvation has nothing to do with you at all it's the grace of God whether you're one of the elect or not whether you know it or not and that person over there may not be one of the elect and there's nothing they can do about it that's right well that's a goofy theology when you back yourself in a corner there it's really tough and we pray for our brothers and sisters that are caught up in that theology that we need them to be free to receive the grace of God that empowers us to be obedient right I mean that's the the key of Catholic theology is that we can we can live with grace to resist it right we can do that yeah we can fail but we can get back on track again that's right yeah let's take a break Charley McKinney as our guest we'll come back in a moment because I want to ask them about Mary because that's often a big hurdle to get over catch that effort [Music] [Music] [Music] welcome back to the journey home our guest tonight is Charley McKinney and Charley I mentioned for the break that I'd like to ask because Mary seems to be such a hurdle for so many that come from a conservative Protestant background so you and Carolyn as you struggled with all the doctrines of the Catholic Church excepting now the church first of all did you and your wife come in together we came in together yes it's not always the case no it's not yeah well it was it's I think it's providential that we did I was ready to convert two and a half years before I came into the church but I had I made that decision about two months after our CIA had begun I had to wait a whole whole nother year for rs80 begun and then I had moved right when our CIA had begun again and by the time I moved in middle October by the time I spoke with a priest in November he said well you really need to do the program from the beginning so I had to wait an entire another year just to begin our CIA and then I go through the our CIA program and then finally join the church and I think it was frustrating at the time if I had to do over again I probably would have that you know I would figure something else out but or talk to another priest but I think it was providential because that enabled Caroline and me to come into the church at at the same time there's because let me say that technically our CIA is not for the baptized Christian coming into the church so technically you you would not have needed that that's not how our CI was designed right okay because you know that right but on the local parish level the priest and the our CIA directors have a different way of applying it and so but as you said God's plans are not our plans that's right not to be exactly what the want Lord wanted for you yeah for that so but so Mary's an issue but before we get to Mary one other question though you had that really bad mass experience yes did you ever have a good one yeah well it took a while I went when you know I was telling you about my wife and I and find a church that we agreed with in Delaware that really kind of suited us and after we had gone through the discussion about baptism and I realized that I was wrong on that and we started to see that the church is right in many other areas we decided that you know we were going to start going to the to the Catholic Mass or at least we were going to try it out again and so this time I was a little bit I was ready and we walked in and again it was really it was really awkward and you know all the standing and the kneeling and you know I didn't know what I didn't really know it was going on but the worst part was people saying things and I didn't know what to say and people were singing and I was used to singing so I would sing but if in the back 10 rows of a Catholic Church I didn't realize that was a no singing section nobody sinks back there so so I find myself singing and nobody else singing I find people saying stuff and I didn't know what to say so I wasn't saying anything you go in the Creed I felt like that thing lasted 20 minutes you know just awkward and but we decided to stick it out and as I was reading more about the mass and I was reading Justin Martyr who describes the first mass I realized that this this reaches way back 2,000 years and then I was part of something that that was that was that old and that consistent and so we stuck it out and that's why I always tell people who are converting that say you know the mass is so awkward to them to just go seven times seven or eight times to read about it I get used to the words just to the point where it feels comfortable and then you start to get you start to get something you noticeably you know out of it of course that's not the whole that's not the reason you're there you're not there for you which is a huge huge pivot from from from my whole experience as a Protestant that you go and all the music's there for you the bands there for you the preachings there for you but when you go to mass it's not for you all of thats for christ that's it's quite it's the way to worship Christ is the way that Christ set it up himself for for him to be worshipped and so that took a little bit to understand as well but yeah sometimes think that when we want to bring a non-catholic to mass that that we really need to completely stop for a second and start in the parking lot and just sit there in the parking lot for a while and start from there and scribe now wait a second let's talk about this building we're going to go into what's the center of this building and what everything in this building is focused around a tabernacle of our Lord Jesus in the tavern so everything makes sense because of the tabernacle right the way it's designed that you know what what are the pictures one of the everything telling us that you just go in without knowing that stuff it's so it's a shock compared to like you said you know I wall with the sound or sound boards yeah it's true well in it in you know and I think that's good advice for any Catholic bringing bringing a Protestant or anybody I suppose that it's not a Catholic into the church because you know I know I know Protestants who when they walk into a church that I've been told this then they see Our Lady everywhere where they see I mean the church I go to a st. Murrays in Manchester New Hampshire's named after our lady there's statues of Our Lady all the stained glass or is all the various apparitions of Our Lady and so for a you know a bible-believing Protestant that can oftentimes you come away with the impression that this is not Christocentric I mean this is this is about somebody else other than Christ and for my wife and me that I mean Marian teaching on Mary was a very difficult thing to to get over because you're so used to going straight to Christ and that's just so embedded in you and of course you can and you do and but you know we were at my we my wife and I were at a church I can't remember it was in Delaware we were search hunting and she somehow flipped it to the scriptures and opened it up and she leaned it over and pointed at it and it's and there was the the Magnificat my my my soul magnifies the Lord and generations will call me blessed and and for her I think that was kind of a switch for me it took a little bit it took a little bit longer because it you know is just it took took a little bit longer to kind of accept her as my mother and realize what what role she could play in this in the spiritual journey but in it wasn't until even after I became Catholic that I really even began to develop a devotion to Our Lady because I when I said there were some things that I there was but shitboxes that I hadn't checked off yet and when I believed in the authority of the church that was the moment where I said I'm done bending bending truth to my will instead I'm going to start bending my will to the truth and so I accepted it and so it that completely changes your your approach to learning and your approach to truth because no longer you're judging whether or not it's true you're you're trying to come to understand what this great Catholic tradition that you've now bought into tells you about it yeah the one safe always saved theology really has no place for confession right right you've arrived that's right so now you're in the Catholic Church what about confession yeah a new thing for you and your wife that was a very new thing yeah and it wasn't as awkward as I thought it'd be I thought this was going to be kind of really strange thing but it was a very it's very relieving and and we tried to go to confession a family every month and you know when you when you know that you are going to you are going to be in a state of mortal sin if you if you fall into this temptation and then that you've got to go you know make a point to go to confession and tell a priest about it just on a very practical level never mind the spiritual and what a practical level it gives you pause and then when you realize that what Christ has done in the Eucharist which is a physical he is there in the flesh is very physical with confession you you are confessing your your your sins to a priest who's representing Christ in the confessional the water again we're talking about being symbolic here's not symbolic to this physical you can touch it you can feel it you can taste it the faith you can see it with all your senses all the smells and bells are there everything you know it's a very physical religion and once you sort of accept that you know confession kind of becomes yeah it becomes a huge opportunity to grow in sanctity and III enjoy confession which I never expected as a as a as a new convert yeah well joy mate might be a strange word to throw into with confession but you know what you mean you see the value of it and and the meaning of it and the freeing yeah that's right of it that's right joy Jesus said that he wanted us to have his joy and to have it to the fullness well confessions a means to do that forgetting what lies behind I press onward mm-hmm and there's confession you know that's what our are the good Apostle John said in first John you know if you confess your sins he's faithful just to forgive your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness perhaps confession right you know the beauty of that now you find yourself talk about your work because you've come full circle not merely doing Catholic work but your leading up very staunchly Catholic apostolates good Catholic Obama talked about that work and how that's come as a you know as a trajectory of your conversion to the church yeah you know I I read Sofia Institute press books when I was discerning the faith and and you know I remember Dave Armstrong's book biblical defense of Catholicism and these books really played a big role in in my faith journey I would have never thought that I'd had the opportunity to be to running sofia now and and you know even as as i you know once you joined the church i mean that one one journey in a way is kind of over yeah you've kind of you know you found the repository of truth but another journey begins you know the journey the spiritual journey and so with sofia we you know are what the main thing that we do is we publish spiritual self-help some apologetics some church history but mainly you know how to make a good confession how to get more out of Holy Communion how how to grow in sanctity 17 steps to heaven I mean these are the sorts of things that we really try to remember when I read Flannery O'Connor's books and she said her favorite priest was father Gardini yeah well the only place to get father guarding his books is Sophie via friends yeah that's right yeah we've and we'll have another Gordini book coming out later this year but you know in guardia played a big you know Sophie at John Barger my predecessors just a brilliant man and did a convert himself and published some great books or Sophia and one of them was meditations before mass and and when I read Gordini you know he talked about this is my body but he also which is the first time I had ever read anything about when he reflected on do this in remembrance of me and what this is and this being the mass as on chapter six or chapter seven of meditations before mass because as a Catholic as a Protestant I was told that that that the that the Eucharist is symbolic that the Eucharist isn't really there and that do this and remember to me says that you just you do communion every quarter and it's not really the body of Christ and that's what you're doing in remembrance and somehow the word remembrance wiped away that this is my body part and when i when i read gardenia i remember that kind of be in a light that went off in my head about the do this is the mass and when i'd already read about justin martyr and all the saints talking about the mass i kind of all click clicked for me together and I was reading John six at the same time so yeah so to go back to Sophia that that's one of the big things that the big criteria that we have right now when we publish a book is if it helps our staff to grow in holiness if we learn something from and if we feel like it takes us one closer step to sanctity then that's what we're going to publish it because that's what that's what we really want to do all right we've got an email it's kind of long so but it comes from Jonathan from Windsor Ontario dear Marcus I am a lifelong Catholic but have always been impressed when studying history and finding things about the church and how it has shaped so much of our world Gregorian calendar etc I would love to hear either yourself or your guest talk about something that you may have learned about the Catholic faith or something in the history of the church that you found out after your conversion that made an impression on you good question because sometimes even the guests of the journey home we we talk but brought you in but but it's good to find out that you discovered a lot of beauty of the church long after we came into this yeah well I'm going to take this maybe a little broader than then he asked but the sense that I feel as a Catholic now is that there's no other place no other institution that has developed the great intellectuals the great mystics the poetry the literature the beautiful basilica's the art the architecture there's a whole culture that the Catholic Church and its adherents have built over time writing literature not for its own sake but for the glory of God and Western civilization and the development of it being so intertwined with the development of the church and I think I didn't this is not something I realized before I had converted it was very theological but once you realized the the significance that the Catholic Church has had in the development of our culture and of Western civilization of our own thought and all that's gone into that and all the beauty that we have because of that is just a it's a cool thing - it's a cool thing to be a part of you know I was in when it we can not be candid here on names but I was a city out in the West and I happened to be visiting a very internationally known non Catholic apostolate ministry and a very effective very good non Catholic ministry and the offices of their apostolate ministry were right across the street from a Catholic cathedral mm-hmm and their offices happen to be a full of glass windows and I remember as I went to their front door and I went to knock and I could see in the glass of this Protestant ministry the reflection of the Catholic Chur and a member it struck me that as a non Catholic I was not aware of how much of what I assumed and believed owes its source to the Catholic Church right the Trinity the divinity of Christ the Scriptures the sacraments so much of this ordination all of this goes it's reflected yaddam the great heritage we have in the church yeah well that was a big a big thing for me was when I when I realized and I've heard you talk about the importance of realizing how scriptures put together as a big opponent of how you were brought into the faith and for me it was the same especially when I read that the when the council got together to determine which books were going to go in the Bible one of the main criteria was whether to the extent to which they were consistent with the traditions that they had been living and had been passed down orally if at that moment I realized that if I if I denied sacred tradition I denied sacred scripture if I if I denied the authority of the church then I denied the authority of the Bible and if I was going to be in that now having known that ready you know ignorance is bliss and what you know now I knew it I had if I was going to stay a Christian I had to become I had to become a Catholic now knowing what I what I knew and everything that I the Trinity isn't in the Bible the board Bible is not in the Bible there is no divinely inspired table of contents if you believe in Sola scriptura Sola scriptura leads you to the Catholic Church there Sola scriptura refutes itself and so everything that the Protestants believe yeah they have it's it's rooted in in in the Catholic tradition and as a Protestant I was always taught that the Reformation reverted the church back to you know that over time all these trinkets and all these you know everything added you know all this stuff just barnacles got tagged on to the church and the Reformation just busted it up put it back to where where it was from the beginning of time or when Christ established it and that's where the early church fathers just refutes that and you realize that it's all from the from the very beginning the church is the mystical body of Christ and it is the repository of truth and and one of the great mysteries of of Catholic history is that it's hard to pin down what came first the gospel the written Gospels or the liturgical seasons we don't know what came first in history of the church we know you know in that first century as the early church took the deposit of faith from our Lord and the aplan and they lived it out and it's spread by the Holy Spirit but we see is all far back as we can go not just liturgy but we see the liturgical celebrations as far back as we can go and then we go back into that fog and there's the the Gospels coming out of it so when we see our liturgical season ending Chris soon as Christmas ends you have the baptism of our Lord Jesus going for the rest of the year there's where's those thirty years right right right well do we do we have liturgical season not having the thirty years because the Gospels didn't have it or is the reason the Gospels didn't have it was because the writers of the Gospels were taking the traditions following the liturgical season right we don't know what comes first it's because the church dates all the way back to our Lord and all that's a part of our faith goes all the way back to our Lord praise God yeah we grab another email Victoria from South Bend my husband and I are working on having a more regular better prayer life it's discouraging though since there are so many distractions in our life kids work activities etc and then it's hard to not be distracted when we are actually praying either do you have any suggestions for how to improve our prayer life well the best thing I could do is turn you to Romano Gordini and he wrote a great book called the art of praying and the first chapter he kind of outlines how it's hard for all of us to to pray and it's difficult for all of us to pray and it's we always make excuses not to pray and as soon as we do and we move away from prayer we find the most trivial things to do so I would say Romano gardenias the best and father Lavasa croton in the basic book at Catholic prayer I don't know if you know father Lovaas sake but he wrote the hidden power kindness he's just a beautiful writer and in those books are some very practical tips that I think if give folks the advice they need to stick to prayer but the big thing is st. Teresa of Avila talked about it as well yes it took 15 years for her to to develop into any sort of move on to what she would call the second third phases of Prayer it just takes time and persistence and you know I can't I'm not speaking for many particularly experienced myself because I certainly haven't reached the seven levels of Prayer the centuries as but but ever you know it's just time and persistence right would you say Charlie that coming from your background your wife coming from her background that even after coming into the church there's still a sense in which you need to deal with baggage you know assumptions that were so much a part of your Christian faith then right I mean you became Catholic and you know what it says in the Catechism but still you know there's still the spiritual changing that has to happen inside yeah yeah well that's why I said earlier that in some ways you feel like one journeys over but then another journey begins and you know as a Protestant you there was a good you know sort of foundation of what it meant to be a good person but when you began to realize where the saints were in the heights of holiness that that you've got to reach in order to reach any sort of sanctity that was for me it was a big moment to realize oh my goodness there's a long way too there's a long way to go and this is a long and time-consuming journey that that I've just embarked on if I'm going to take it seriously and so that was a I think that was a big thing for me and but otherwise you know on it's there's so much to know there's so much to know and there's so many prayers to know I mean still today sometimes I'll go to a conference or something and then the speaker at the end of it will say you know some prayer and then you know like eight words and then the congregation says I'm out of no idea what everybody's saying I think these prayers that everybody knows that I I still don't know so there's there's a lot of a lot to learn yeah and when you've been on once saved always saved Christian for so long a part of that theology I don't think meaning intentionally but has to take some of the words of Christ and push him aside be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect well on a once saved always saved theology mentality life what do you do with that verse you have to biology's around it right and so that the Sermon on the Mount well it's kind of pushed aside that was pre pre resurrection or whatever well then you come into the church it still takes a while to grab that verse and look at it straight on and perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect that's what we're called to do that's right doesn't mean that all of a sudden I've arrived no I I realize I mean the most important thing that our agustin said you know humility humility humility it's groaning a girl growing in the need for grace yeah and and recognizing them the means that the church is given to us for that's right well you've got a that you've got to work out your salvation with fear and trembling and every single day is a call to holiness and or at least a call to to work towards holiness and as guar Dini said if he said a good good rule of thumb is if you're praying every day then you're going in the right direction not then you're not yeah Terrence from Denver writes I have a friend who I think would be open to Catholicism I'd like to share my faith with him and ask him to attend Mass with me but I'm not sure what would be a good way to approach him I don't want to scare him off hmm well I I had mentioned my friend Steve clogged woods what Steve did for me was he let me he let me go on my spiritual journey on my own he was there to answer questions he invited me to Mass his big mistake was he didn't prepare me for that that mass experience and then I even when he and I changed jobs and we were working together Delaware was him my friend Chad Kuiper and and Steve about an hour after work every day we would sit out behind the building where we worked we'd smoke a pipe and we spent half talking theology the other half trying to figure out why we couldn't keep our pipes live and but you know I think I from me the biggest thing that allowed me to progress in my journey was that I had friends that were there that were that answered the questions but they weren't too they weren't too hard on me they shared the faith with me and they were and they made sure they interjected it and they they corrected me where I was wrong but they weren't too aggressive and they let me proceed on my spiritual journey where I was and they invited me to mass so they were doing all the things that you've got to do and so the biggest thing I would say is to yet invite them to mass do those things but but don't be too too hard on them if they're not ready I think a hard thing for Americans particularly when you no matter where you live you're surrounded by churches and in America they're all just about the same age yeah you know the Methodist Presbyterian the Baptist Assembly of God in the Catholic Church on a corner well they're all about the same and to help them understand that so much of what you see in the sanctuary are the treasures of many cultures you all brought together right and you said they're treasures of many cultures love for Jesus Christ and if we can help them see that then you sell good just take it easy as you move in and then I'll tell you the treasures later right Charlie thank you thanks mo so much for joining us on the journey home and also we ask you God's blessings on your on your work thanks Sophia pressing crisis magazine yours is health exchange so god bless you than that and thank you for joining us on this episode of the Jerle journey home I hope Charlie's journey has been encouragement to you god bless see you next week [Music] [Music] Oh you

Channel: EWTN

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Id: v1npdWMx98k

Length: 56min 30sec (3390 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 20 2014