The Top 3 Reasons That I Became Catholic... and Always Will Be

well it probably would have been the summer of either 1996 or 97 and I was driving down east Leonard Avenue in Grand Rapids Michigan and drove past st. Alphonsus Catholic Church and seeing the church I was reminded that I really had a strong desire to go to confession and I had an urge in fact to just stop the errand that I was on and turned into that parking lot and see if I could track down a priest to unburden myself of some issues that were on my heart now that in itself may not seem so surprising to you because maybe you've had a similar experience where you've had stuff on your mind and heart and you passed a church and it it prompted something in you and you thought you know I really need to get to confession you know it's been too long you know it's been been a couple months I really need to get back to that sacrament and get right with the Lord however what made it a little bit unusual in my circumstances was first of all I wasn't Catholic and secondly I was the pastor of the Protestant Church four blocks away so what was going on why why was I oppressed and pastor having this urge to confess well there's a there's a backstory to this of course I was a young pastor had only been in the pastor for a couple of years and of course in Protestant traditions they don't give you a lectionary you got to invent your own scripture texts for every week so I did what a lot of press and pastors do and I took different books of the Bible and which tried to preach through them in that way I would know you know what I was going to be doing for the next several weeks and so I had preached through Philippians and I had preached through Ephesians and some other books but I got to the Epistle of James and I was doing a sermon series on and the first four chapters of James went fine preaching about it and of course you know a very little oversight because I was pastoring in an area of the city where nobody wanted to be so they just kind of left me alone to do my thing down there and I was very young and zealous and insistent that we were going to have a New Testament church we're going to get back to the teaching of Christ and the Apostles and since I had a kind of a free hand I felt like we just had the the freedom to implement the original faith and strip away all the concessions that had crept into American Christianity and Western Christianity over the ages so that was my mentality we're preaching through the New Testament were going to get back to the original faith so again I was preaching through James and like I said the first four chapters went fine but then I got to James chapter 5 and in particular I got to this passage I'm gonna start around when James 5:14 is any among you sick let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord and the prayer of faith will save the sick man and the Lord will raise him up and if he has committed sins he will be forgiven now here's the real kicker this is verse 16 therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed and that's the verse that I didn't know how to preach but okay so I'm gonna stand up in front of my congregation I'm gonna tell them we're gonna start applying this verse in this parish how are we gonna do that pass a mic on the Sunday service okay we're gonna pass throughout him right so I'll confess our sins to one another you start Sally no no we're not gonna do that we already were passing around a mic in my church for praise and air time and even with prayers and praises that wasn't always edifying because sometimes folks were praising God for getting away from the police and stuff it was that kind of neighborhood that I was ministering to right so I didn't you know I don't even want people to praise anymore much let's start confessing their sins so I thought well okay if we can't do it in the in the big group maybe we could do a small group you know and I thought okay so what do I tell them all right we're gonna divide up into groups of five find four other people moved to different areas of the sanctuary and just confess your sins to one another you know no that ain't gonna work we we were in a neighborhood where as we said back in the day everybody being everybody else business right I mean anything that got mentioned on Sunday by by Monday by 3:00 p.m. okay the rest of the neighborhood would know so I didn't want to do that okay you got a major confidentiality problem plus I could imagine okay what if we got these grew these small groups and there's an elder in one of the group of five and then there's a teenager there too and then the elder lets out that he's committed some sin and the poor teen is scandalized oh my gosh elder Jones has done whatever you know and and it damages his faith or gives him bad example and then I thought of other scenarios too maybe they're sharing their sins and somebody says well you know I I did such as such a week this week and some older lady says oh that's okay I do that all the time that's not really a sin okay all right then I got bad counsel going on so I could see okay scandal confidentiality bad counsel this is a whole can of worms you know but then I'm like well what about my my zeal to preach the literal sense of Scripture and that we were going to be a New Testament church and we were going to do just what the New Testament said and apply it word for word couldn't find a way couldn't think of a way practically to do it but then I don't know why I thought about this but their little spark in my brain I started to think about the Catholic Church and then I started to draw on my extensive knowledge about Catholic liturgy piety and theology which was all from movies it's a great catechetical resource you know the Exorcist you know other Catholic movies you know so so but but for watching movies I had a basic idea of how Catholic confession worked and you know I know you go into the closet and make sign across and say forgive me Father for I have sinned later found out was bless me Father for I've seen but anyway say that and and and then you can confess it I began to reflect on that and I thought you know my goodness that the Catholics actually have a way of obeying this scripture you know I began to reflect on what little I knew about the Catholic sacrament of reconciliation but I thought yeah they have a way of obeying James 5:16 that that avoids scandal and bad counsel and confidentiality issues they can all go to their pastor and they can confess to their pastor in secret but the their pastor represents the whole congregation he's the he's the spiritual head of the whole congregation so in a sense they're confessing to the whole church through him because he's the spiritual head plus he represents Christ so there they are confessing to Christ as well and they can do that without these other problems that I mentioned and they have that availability and they can even you know do that in any part of the world and I thought that's that's not bad and for the first time in my life I had a twinge of Catholic Envy but they they have a way they have a way of obeying the Word of God open to them which is not available to me as a non-catholic because I couldn't think of any way to implement what James is saying without causing a heck of a lot of problems and then I began reflecting on my own life because James 5:16 says confess your sins to one another pray for one another that you may be healed and I began to reflected my own spirituality and I had just reached a kind of plateau you know where I said not seem to make progress and week after week I was fighting the same kind of habitual sins and I didn't have that spiritual healing that I longed for and I wasn't having that kind of victory in my spiritual life that I so desired and I began to think to myself maybe John the reason why you're not making more progress is because you're not obeying the Word of God you're too proud to go confess your sins to somebody else and ask for prayer so I began to think well how can I do this and I'm like well okay I go to my wife yeah I could be bad can't go to my parishioners right that's unfair to them that's like a breach of confidence and then unburden myself on them now there are older pastors around you know that I could go to perhaps but you know we were a very formal tradition it was this was Dutch Calvinism okay I don't know if Dutch Calvinism means anything to you guys but who here knows of what Presbyterianism is who's heard of Presbyterianism okay a lot of you okay so think Presbyterians with wooden shoes and windmill cookies there you go okay now that was my tradition but you know we're kind of formal and that would be very very awkward if I went to one of these older pastors in the area and and said you know would you you know there's some things I want to share with you and I'm burden and he would be uncomfortable with that I would be uncomfortable well there would be professional boundary issues and then - it would seem to Catholic and that would be bad because we were definitely against everything that Catholicism stood for so I couldn't think of a way to do this but then you see I grew up in the Navy because my father was a u.s. Navy chaplain and of course there's a lot of Catholic Navy chaplains and seeing us how Catholic Navy chaplains are celibate and don't have a family to go home to for dinner in the evening my dad would often invite his Catholic priest chaplain friends over to our house for family dinner and so I grew up occasionally having priests in the house so I was like priest tolerant okay like like I was comfortable with them I knew most priests were pretty chill you know and and they had seen a lot of life you know a new priest saw a lot of life and and they swung with a lot of weird situations and I'd seen them you know cope with some odd circumstances in my own experience so that's why I'm driving down I see say my father's Church I'm like you know priests are you know are chill guys I've known some priests I'm sure if I walked in there and found a priest and said you know father I'm not really Catholic but they're saying some things I need to unburden myself of you know you probably swing with that you know we could go into the little closet you know and and we could talk about stuff he'd probably he'd probably be okay with that so I thought you know that's that's a real option so I'm driving down I had I have this urge but I didn't do it I didn't do it and I had that urge again in subsequent weeks for a long time okay often had this this urge I thought you know I really ought to do that sometime but but you know what held me back I had a 1980 dark-green Olds Cutlass sedan a very unique car there was the only Cutlass sedan of that color in the whole city you can see where this is going and I knew if I pulled into that parking lot you know if one of my church members drove by and saw my car in the parking lot of a Catholic Church oh my gosh there would be questions that I did not want to deal with so sorry to say gentlemen I never got up the courage to make a confession before I actually become Catholic but already many years it wouldn't be until 2001 that I would come into the church but so many years before even as a Protestant confession was drawing me into the Catholic Church now that may sound odd because confession is an impediment for many and they're like oh why do I have to confess my sins to a man bla bla bla well because the Bible recommends it that's number one okay and and I challenge non Catholics okay there's so many non Catholics out there that claim to stand on the Word of God and I know they could say that and pass a polygraph and they generally believe that but if you are a non Catholic that stands on the Word of God I say Amen brother I'm with you there but you tell me how you follow James 5:16 in your tradition and I can tell you from personal experience gentleman in the Baptist Lutheran Calvinist and every tradition I've encountered there was no way to follow the command of 5:16 right but thanks be to God in the Catholic Church we do have a way to obey the scripture and in subsequent years I found that was true of a lot of other doctrines as well but that was just a start so top three reasons I became Catholic confession is one I'm going to fast forward now to three years later I'm on the campus of the University of Notre Dame in the fall of 1999 beginning my doctoral program in Scripture when you say what is a Protestant doing at Notre Dame getting a doctorate in Scripture well first of all let me clarify I had no intention whatsoever of becoming Catholic however Notre Dame has an ecumenical theology department and they had Protestants teaching in the area that I wanted to do my dissertation on so plus when I sent them an application they got back enthusiastically and offered me money to come so I think this is great I'll get paid by catholics and study with Protestants it's like Robin the Egyptians can't get any better than that and maybe I'll score a couple converts while I'm down there because I had converted many you know non practicing Catholics that I had run into in the neighborhood where I served up in Michigan and I figured you know I know how this is done I had my half a dozen scripture arguments in my back pocket that I used to such good effect against Catholics who had have been practicing for a decade and never read the Bible so I figured this this will work down down in Notre Dame as well but God had some other plans for me and the the first guy almost the first guy I should say that I meet when I got down to the campus of Notre Dame had three qualities that I never thought I'd find in the same individual he was highly intelligent full of the Holy Spirit and Catholic yeah and like how do you get those three qualities in one person without creating some kind of explosion you know like anti-gravity effect you know it's kind of like an oxymoron you know because in my experience I had met I had met spirit-filled Catholics before or you know Catholic Charismatic sand stuff when I hung around him I wasn't sure that their elevator was going to the top floor you know what I mean and I was like okay Jesus is gonna let you to heaven because you just don't know enough to realize you're in the of Babylon so it's okay for you and then I had met highly-intelligent spirit-filled people but they had always been Protestant in my experience I met highly intelligent Catholics but they tended to be going through the motions and just showing up but at Mass on Sunday to please their their mom and I knew what those people were about and they didn't impress me too much but here he had a guy I was a highly intelligent spirit-filled and Catholic this is the point gentleman I could not explain away his Catholicism as ignorance or indifference and for most of the other people that I had met in my life with the exception of those priests that came to my home but I was too little to really think through things back then but most of the Catholics I had met my life I had either categorized as well they're Catholic cos are indifferent or they're Catholic cos are ignorant but I met an inexplicable Catholic and I challenge you gentlemen this morning I challenge myself are we inexplicable Catholics when people look at us would they dismiss our Catholicism as oh well you know he just doesn't know enough he does not interested in religious matters so he never reads anything he doesn't read the Bible whatever and that's why he's Catholic can anybody say that of us or when they look at se just like well you know he's got no passion you know he's just going through the motions this is a cultural thing for him he's a cultural Catholic I hope that all of us today including myself especially because I want to go to heaven I anybody else want to go to heaven amen thank you I hope all of us today will leave as inexplicable Catholics that will cause a big question mark in the minds of our co-workers like what makes that guy tick what's going on with that dude that's the question I would like to create in the minds of people that know me and the minds of everyone that knows all of us here so again I met this this this guy filled with the Holy Spirit highly intelligent could not explain this way as Catholicism it's like I got to know this guy better you know I got to find out what makes him tick and his name was Michael and I thought you know what I better try my my six biblical anti-catholic arguments against him and maybe I'll help him to see the light okay so so anyway so I got together with Michaels like you know we really you know I'm fascinated by your story I want to find out you know you know why do you stay in the Catholic Church and stuff like that it and so why can't we just you know maybe get lunch every Wednesday and so we set up to do that so we got lunch every Wednesday in the huddle which was the name for the food court at Notre Dame because of course everything is named after football at Notre Dame we got Touchdown Jesus library at the bottom of which is first down Moses three brought three ton bronze statue of Moses with his finger first down you know and then we had the food court which is called the huddle and so anyway we go to the huddle and we get our two whopper juniors for two bucks from Burger King and sit down there one of the booths and we'd eat our burgers and talk theology and so this would began our relationship my relationship with with Michael and so I began to run against Michael my anti-catholic polemics right from from the scriptures and when I started to do that Michael did something extremely unfair that I found found a little bit offensive actually he answered from Scripture yeah yeah he answered from Scripture like no wait no no no let's let's recall who's who here me Protestant you Catholic okay me me do Bible we're like KFC we do one thing right okay you have to answer from church fathers or papal documents or something like that you know you can't keep yet quote from the Bible to support Catholic doctrines but this is what he did what he did and then later I found out he actually carried about a New Testament around with him to do his spiritual reading on a daily basis yeah Catholics carrying Bibles for me that ranked up there with like pigs flying hell freezing over and other signs of the end of the world you know he was a Bible totin Catholic you know let me just digress on this you know back in the end that the early years of Pope Francis's pontificate first couple years I follow his his his daily homily is quite closely and about the 8th time that I saw or read or heard Pope Francis encouraging Catholic laypeople to carry a New Testament with them I finally broke down I'm like okay the successor of Peter is asking me to do this why don't I just do it so I got online and I bought a pocket Bible pocket New Testament for myself and for all my family members and I've been trying to carry it with me ever since like Michael did and there's more to that story of Michael I'm gonna get back to you in a minute in fact I have a bunch of pocket New Testaments here with me at the conference I'd love to sell out of them so I don't have that card them back to Steubenville but but this is this is my favorite version you see it's real slim and it's about the size of a cell phone see that see that and I'm trying to get away from this and get more into this there's so much fake yeah give it up because this has fake news and this has good news amen and instead of checking the news all the time which used to be my big addiction I'm trying to check the good news more often and again this is nice too this about the size of a cell phone so you can put it in one of those cell phone holders in your belt or slip it in your pocket you know and then the next time you're out the supermarket you know buying a couple gallons of milk is your wife call and get honey pick up some milk on the way home you know that's what he's sitting in the line you know in the 20 item line and and the the guy in front of you has 24 items you know like jeez I would have to get into the line with the line breaker guy you know so anyway so there you got nothing to do what do we all do I you can't you kind of instinctively go down there you know and you reach for the phone you're gonna check your text and your email but what you do gentleman is you plant this in your and your cell phone holder or whatever and you reach down there and you you pull that out and like oh I've got mail from Jesus loved one another well that's good all right so I'm trying to do that more and if Pope Francis has has recommended that and again you know I was as you're going to find out I was brought into the church by a Bible totin Catholic so he would answer from Scripture when I would would attack the Catholic Church and there was one incident that was very memorable to me you know I can't remember exactly what arguments I had made but I remember clearly that he had defeated all my arguments over our lunch one afternoon and I was getting kind of frustrated and desperate and so I started looking around just trying to get ideas and I was looking around the food court at Notre Dame and my eyes alighted on a deep relief engraving of the Blessed Mother pattered after Our Lady of Guadalupe I didn't know that it was based on Our Lady of Guadalupe at that time but in hindsight I realize it was and then under the engraving of the Blessed Mother there was an inscription that said Our Lady Queen of Heaven and that gave me idea and I came back to Mike and I'm like okay okay I got one for you now all right this title Mary Queen of Heaven that is almost blasphemous I challenge you to produce any part of Scripture that gives any credence to the idea that the Blessed data that Mary didn't call her the Blessed Mother back then that Mary was is the queen of heaven I thought I got him now so you know it's kind of self-satisfied after that as I fold my arms kind of lean back I'm like okay Catholic Wizard boy see what you do with that huh you like them apples you know but he guy I got no reaction out of him he listens to this he's just looking at me just kind of blank as if I had just you know lofted him a big high pitch and slow pitch softball you know for him to hit out the bark but park but you know it was very impressed with myself he's like what he's like well what about revelation 12 I got a little uncomfortable like well what about it so well have you read it recently well not recently well why don't we look at it so you know I I recall him like pulling out that Bible and we go to Revelation 12 and this is a passage that many of you know well and it says a great porchat appeared in the heaven a woman clothed with the Sun with the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars so she's clothed with this Sun she's got the moon under her feet and she's got the stars on the head so where is she in the sky well it's it says heaven right here in the RSV can we see heaven all right she's heavenly what okay heavily woman now she's wearing a crown of 12 stars so what kind of women wear crowns princesses let me say Queens I'll grant you that so so we got a heavenly queen yeah yeah it looks like a heavenly queen there and then you drop down to verse five she brought forth a male child one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron now now who would that be oh you know that's an allusion to Psalm 2 that's the Davidic Messiah you know asking me I'll make the nation's your heritage the ends of the earth possession you will rule them with a rod of iron - they're pieces like a Potter's vessel that was an Old Testament guy who's getting a dissertation the Old Testament so I knew that that was a reference to Psalm 2 so yeah and and the Davidic Messiah is Jesus of course ok says Mike so I've got this heavenly Queen that gives birth to Jesus now do we know of any other women in the Bible that give birth to a messiah ok man quit playing with me score one for Catholics here I didn't see that one coming right yeah I tried to put a good face on it he had just defeated my best argument of the day I think i slunk home with my tail between my legs but that actually shook me up that whole experience because up until this point up until this point every time that Michael had produced some kind of scriptural defense for the Catholic Church I'd felt like you know he's pulling cards out of his sleeves doing some kind of Catholic magic tricks with with Scripture but I wasn't really convinced but when he went through revelation 12 and I looked at I was like yeah that's a pretty close argument there you know that was a lot more plausible than a bunch of Baptist interpretations I had heard of Revelation while I was growing up you know Baptists are all kinds of charts they got centerfolds of Revelation you know books that fold out and little diagrams of all the second comings of Jesus and all the times the Saints are brought up and then all the times that Russia invades everybody you know and that was all supposed to be strict literal exegesis of the text and growing up you know rubbing shoulders with Baptists and always giving them the benefit of the doubt and it said yeah you know that that sounds a little bit tenuous to me but I will give you the benefit the doubt and maybe that's that's a possible interpretation but here's a Catholic going boom boom boom almost a syllogism out of Revelation 12 making an application to Mary and I'm like he could be right he could really be right that might be talking about Mary and I've never seen it before in my life and my mom had started me reading the Bible through in a year when I was age 12 Genesis in January revelation in December reading through and I kept that up through most of my my adolescence high school and college etc that was my devotional pattern so and here I was getting a doctorate in Scripture and I already had a degree in scripture I had a master's degree in scripture - another master's degree in divinity I've been reading the Bible all my life and I never saw that revelation 12 could possibly you know be applied to Mary and that shook me up and I thought to myself well what else is in there that I haven't been seeing well I was going to find out because we continue to meet together over the the subsequent weeks by the way that was my second reason scripture and I'll come back to that again second reason I came in the church scripture but we continued to meet together over the subsequent weeks and Michael showed me a lot of other things I didn't realize from Scripture looking more closely at say the passages on the Eucharist and I was beginning to realize that you could mount a really good biblical defense of the Catholic faith over this over the coming weeks and months as we would meet on a regular basis however there was a problem it wasn't just enough to make a case for Catholicism because I still had what I thought was a scriptural case for Calvinism so I had you know Catholicism over there I could see the Catholic verses but then you got Calvinism over here and I could see the Calvinist verses and it was like two systems of interpretation but like who's to know which is better okay who is to cast the deciding vote or what's to tip the scales here between two alternate ways of reading the Bible I mean I was impressed because at first I didn't even think there was a way to read the Bible as a Catholic now I saw that there certainly was but I still had these other you know convictions based on a different way of reading so at that point Michael made a fateful suggestion in our relationship you know he said John I know we kind of reached a stalemate in Scripture kind of button heads on that why don't we go into the earliest of the church fathers and read their writings and see if they can shed some light for us on the New Testament because after all the earliest of the fathers they overlapped in lifetime with the Apostles they knew the Apostles personally so if we could read those guys their writing since they were in living contact with the Apostles that will probably reflect the original intention of the Apostles themselves okay does this make sense to you gentlemen okay that that may be guys that knew say st. John the Apostle men that knew him would have a better understanding of his gospel that maybe you or I would 2,000 years later does that make sense okay I'm just checking just checking it makes sense to me okay but I have run into people that just dismiss the the church fathers yeah you know those those martyrs that knew the Apostles what did they know you know they were just wrong okay like okay so you got your m.div from something-or-other Seminary in Idaho and it's 2,000 years later and you know better than a guy that knew the Apostle John and then went to the Lions confessing the faith on his lips okay okay I will come to you next time I have a question I will seek wisdom at your feet okay all right not just checking just check it you know because this makes sense to me so so Michael said that like wow that sounds great but we don't have anybody from that early we don't have anybody from before Nicaea and Michael looks at me like yes we do like really like I never heard that yeah he's like yeah we do we got guys called the Apostolic fathers have you heard of the Apostolic fathers never heard of them well why don't we get a copy of the Apostolic fathers and take a look at their writing so like yeah that sounds great you know if these guys knew the Apostles you know they'll give us insight and how to interpret the New Testament so I was excited I was convinced I was going to get the Apostolic fathers these were guys that you know knew the Apostles and and they were gonna make my case for Calvinism you know it's gonna be predestination salvation by faith alone Bible alone that's what I was gonna find these guys so just like okay this is gonna be great he's gonna end the argument gonna win Mike over so we go and we get it I got a copy made sure it was a Protestant translation do you want any of this papacy you know manipulation of the truth you know so so I got a early Christian writings by Penguin Books and was a copy with Clement of Rome Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp and some others so I began reading I started with Clement of Rome I read his letter to the Corinthians mmm not really doing it for me doesn't really say anything about predestination doesn't say anything about salvation by faith alone doesn't say anything about the Bayeux alone instead he's talked about the importance of the visible unity of the church and obeying your leaders and those who have validly received Holy Orders well that doesn't sound very Calvinist that sounds pretty Catholic and that's that's kind of making me uncomfortable plus the whole fact that he's a Bishop of Rome you know that's kind of awkward so moving right along moving right along let's get into this guy Ignatius of Antioch maybe he'll do it for me okay so this is the context Ignatius of Antioch he was bishop of the city of Antioch which is in modern-day Syria and he was arrested for being a leader of the Christian community was being taken Rome to face his martyrdom where he would be eventually eaten by lions in the Coliseum and he knew that was his fate they knew that they were going to feed him to the Lions and he writes about it so he's being taken in a cart along the coast of Asia Minor which is modern-day Turkey no Turks there back in the day it was all a greek-speaking landmass back then so he's being taken along there and through these Greek cities in Asia Minor many of the same ones that st. Paul ministered to maybe 50 years earlier and as he's being taken through these cities and they make a stop to get food and water for the soldiers that are guarding him etc at each stop he dashes off a letter to the local church and thanks be to God seven of them have been preserved authentically for us the seven authentic letters of Ignatius of Antioch makes very stimulating reading during lent by the way I only recommend this for some spiritual reading for the few weeks that we have remaining here before we celebrate Easter but in any event this is Ignatius of Antioch so he is writing these letters in 106 okay 106 so they're just in three digits at this time okay this is a long time ago and to put gifts in context the Apostle John probably died most scholars think around 96 ad okay so so 106 80 so it's only about 10 years after the Apostle John has gone home to the Lord John is still as it were warm in the grave and Ignatius is writing these letters so I'm reading these letters going along I'm looking for that that good Protestant doctrine and I'm not finding it instead Ignatius is making me feel very uncomfortable because he's saying things like no Eucharist is valid except that which is approved by your bishop and as Calvinists we didn't believe in the Eucharist or bishops and here this early pastor is talking about that then a little bit farther along Ignatius says wherever the bishop is there is the Catholic Church is the Catholic Church here today amen okay that's right an upper bishop painter gathered around the success of an apostle we're we are truly concept concentrated City Council consecrated as the church constituted excuse me so anyway he says wherever the bishop is there is the the Catholic Church so that's awkward again I didn't think that the word Catholic got invented to like the 1200s and here in the 100's they're already saying you know Catholic Church okay so then there were other painful things that he said I didn't much care for but this was the kicker I get to his letter to the smyrnaeans okay to the town of Smyrna and again he's he's there overnight he's dashing off this letter to the local congregation and about midway through the his letter to the local congregation he starts warning them about the heretics about about false teachers let's put it that way he starts warning them about false teachers and he says beware those who have such perverted notions of God and then he goes through a list of different attributes of these false teachers they don't love the poor they don't care for the widow and the orphan some other characteristics then he says they even absent themselves from the Eucharist and the public prayer because they will not confess the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ which suffered for our sins and which the father in his goodness raised up for us and I read that did he just say what I thought he said so I read that again they will not confess that the Eucharist they will I confess the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ which suffered for our sins in which the father in His goodness raised up and I read that a third time and I thought to myself there's no way to get a symbolic reading out of what said he's saying it's really the flesh of Jesus and then something came back to me okay in order to serve in the group that I used to belong to I had to sign a doctrinal affirmation that affirmed among other things that the Eucharist the Catholic Mass okay the Catholic Mass and the Catholic Eucharist were a condemnable idolatry because in the mass bread and wine were worshipped as if they were God and since they were just bread and wine they were only creatures and therefore to worship the creature rather than the Creator is idolatry therefore the mass was a condemnable idolatry I don't know any more explicit denial that the Eucharist is the flesh of Jesus Christ but I had to affirm that and it suddenly dawned on me Ignatius is warning the true Christians about people like me and I had this this mental experience where I felt like I could see Ignatius like down the shaft of time and he was waving at me he's like hey John or like hey Ignatius and he starts reaching his hand towards me I'm like why is he reaching it's kind of like plastic man he's like stretching his hand through the shaft of time like oh he's like reaches here like why is he doing that and also I find out why he's slapping me upside my face from a distance of 2,000 years you John are the false teacher I've began to think of all the Catholics that I had non-practicing Catholics that let out or you know disaffected from the church it brought into my congregation up in Michigan and then I started looking back at church history I thought well if this is true if it really if it really is Jesus is flesh then the Catholics are right and then I'm looking back through church history and all the white hats switching to black cats and all the black cats are switched into white hats and I'm feeling like the Russian spy who wanders into an American library and reads about Bolshevism for the first time and realized that working on the wrong side I felt like Luke Skywalker hanging from the from the sky walk in the shaft and here comes Vader only Vader has a miter draw I am your father I don't want to become Catholic I had the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach Oh No is this true so I thought well maybe Ignatius is a one-off you know maybe he's the only father that says that that it's really the flesh of Jesus oh he's not a one-off right every other father I checked that talks about it was the saying the same thing you know Ambrose origin Irenaeus ego Agustin agustín's big cuz Lutheran's and Calvinists traced them to think they trace themselves back to Agustin Agustin says things like Jesus held his own body in his hands at the Last Supper saying Agustin whom Calvinists against so revere like John Calvin quotes Agustin on almost every page of the Institutes of the Christian religion is big his big book that he wrote anyway Agustin says it's not a sin to worship the Eucharist which is what I had to affirm it was a kononova idolatry I guess and says it's not a sin to worship the Eucharist it's a sin not to worship the Eucharist that's st. Augusta just about wet myself when I read that oh my goodness so all the fathers are saying it and then I go back into the New Testament and I reread the passages in the New Testament about the Eucharist and it suddenly dawns I mean you know what all these passages the literal sense is just saying it is his body that's what Matthew says that's what Mark says that's what Luke's us even Paul says it in first Corinthians it's just his body and then Paul says if you eat it unworthily your profaning the body and blood of Jesus Christ not profaning a symbol but your profaning the body and blood because it is a participation in the body and blood not a symbol of but a participation in Wow like why did I not see this but you see the APUs the Apostolic fathers and the other fathers broke me out of my blinders that was I had a kind of a brainwashing about reading the New Testament could not even see the plain sense of the text so and then I began to think if it's really true that Jesus is present really present his own flesh present in the Eucharist if that's really true and it's not simply a symbol that outweighs all the different doctrinal issues that I used to quibble about in my tradition like how exactly does predestination work and how exactly does faith and works cooperate and all these other things that has resulted and well over 50 thousand different Protestant denominations I think but if Jesus is there that is reality that is not esoteric debate that is reality and if only Catholics have it and if only Catholics believe it I'm there amen that's the Eucharist [Applause] that is just a black hole of theological gravity if the Eucharist is really present and that is a huge dividing difference between Catholics and all Protestant groups none of which hold to the real presence and then further as we know don't have valid succession in order to have the authority to consecrate it so I made the decision on the basis of the Eucharist almost alone I thought you know I don't fully agree with all the things that my own denomination teaches already so I'm not sure about this Mary thing and this Pope thing but if Jesus is in the Eucharist good enough for me I'll put up with Mary I'll put up with the Pope I wasn't like Scott Hahn who had to figure everything out first you know and have all his t's crossed as I am frankly not that smart but I understood this much understood if that's Jesus in the Eucharist I just got a join for that sake alone so within a space of about 36 hours after reading Ignatius of Antioch his letter to the smyrnaeans I decided I was going to become Catholic now it took about 18 months thank you [Applause] and the good thing about that which took about 18 months I came in February 24 2001 but then I could go to confession without worried about my Olds Cutlass attracting attention in the parking lot because everything was kosher now Oh wrong religion but you know what I mean everything was above board and confession was such a delight and let me explain a little bit more about confession and confessions gonna be available to us at this conference but when I was in process and ministry here's another dimension a confession that I hadn't mentioned already but I was I was active in deliverance ministry okay because I was ministering in an area of the city where as a high prevalence of drug use abortion crime and when you get those kind of activities going on evil spirits are never far away and a lot of the people that prayed to receive Jesus and enjoy my church continued to have various kinds of afflictions that guess what the seminary never treated taught me to deal with but thanks be to God I ran into a much older man who had been working on what we call deliverance ministry for many many decades and he said John I'll help you out and so I used to take persons that had afflictions and bring them to the home of my friend and we would quite literally pray and help them to be delivered from the spiritual forces that were oppressing them and you might ask well what did I see you know was this superhuman strength we're heads spinning around tongues going out three feet in them back in their mouth you know this guy said no actually I never saw any of that because we didn't do that methodology that is what we would call a power encounter and is more like a traditional formal exorcism and there is a place for that there are some persons who are afflicted where you do need a formal exorcism and every diocese in the Catholic Church is supposed to have a designated Exorcist who handles these situations Pittsburgh certainly does one of my former students is the assistant to the Exorcist of the Diocese of Pittsburgh and I know from talking with him firsthand they are busy all the time helping people that have some serious afflictions but getting back to that that was not our method my older friend who started out back in the 70s trying to cast out demons in the name of Jesus found that that was often very traumatic because they did get these supernatural manifestations that you will see you know depicted sometimes with you know as changes and whatnot but but basically the kind of supernatural phenomena that you see portrayed in the movies does in fact happen you can talk to father Gary Thomas who is the designated Exorcist of San Jose he's one of the few exorcists that's publicly known in America because a movie was made about his life and his experience is called the right which you may have seen with Anthony Hopkins and so he's become rather famous and gives talks on exorcism and spiritual warfare and spirituality and so on all around the country but father Gary Thomas sees these supernatural manifestations and so the movies are not completely making that stuff up but I did not see them because what we did was when an afflicted person came we would pray that the demons would be quiet and then my friend would take out a binder a big three-ring binder in which he had written down every sin that he had ever experienced or heard of or read about in spiritual reading or found in the in the scriptures categorized in seven different categories he would open this binder up turn it around to face the person being delivered push it toward them and then start going down the list with them have you ever done this have you ever done that if so confess and renounce confess and renounce and the person would verbally confess and renounce their sin in the presence of witnesses myself and other prayer warriors who were gathered for the purpose and we found that if a person made a thorough and complete confession and renunciation of sin in the presence of other believers that was sufficient to get rid of the afflictions and it was a more permanent longer lasting fix than the power encounter with all its drama well what do you know what does that sound like to you yeah it's what it was was a non-sacramental general confession okay and a general confession is a very thorough confession we've gotten out of practice of it in the Catholic Church in this country but Ignatius of Loyola st. Francis DeSales highly recommended all Catholics making a general confession on an annual basis as part of an annual retreat which is another thing that they recommended that we have kind of let slide and don't remember but yeah many of the great spiritual masters of our tradition recommended an annual treat with a general confession so gentlemen my confess my perspective on confession is it is a form of spiritual warfare it is the frontlines of spiritual warfare and for me it's not a judgment chamber I don't go in there to be judged I go in there to be liberated amen I go in there to get my chains broken off and it may look like the most boring of the sacraments you know there's no processions no hoopla most of the other sag whiskey doesn't even have any substance any cool thing like oil to it or anything you know just people standing in line every five minutes doing this but if we could hear with the ears of faith it might be the most dramatic of sacraments as we hear the howls of demons being cast out and the breaking of bondage and the baking of chains of sin as folks are being liberated and what we think of as a little closet Wow let's pray to God to give us the ears of faith and see the spiritual realities I got a wrap up here gentlemen just quick you know folks folks have said to me you know with all the scandals going on in the church you ever have buyer's remorse and frankly no I'm distressed I know we're all distressed at the things that have come out I've been praying and fasting for purity in the church I know many of you have been doing so as well it hurts it's painful it's embarrassing it's distressing but you know what it doesn't affect the validity of the sacraments because the validity of the sacraments is not dependent on the holiness of the minister and thanks be to God that God in His wisdom set it up that way because amen [Applause] let me read a quote from Saint Francis of Assisi that I just found this morning he said if I were to meet at the same time some Saint coming down from heaven and any poor little priest I would first pay my respects to the priest and proceed to kiss his hands first I would say ah just a moment st. Lawrence because this person's hands handled the Word of Life and possessed something that is more than human these hands have touched my lord and no matter what they be like they could not soil him or lessen his virtue to honor the Lord honor his minister he can be bad for himself but for me he is good amen to that every priest in the world could be a rascal and to clarify it's not like that I mean 94% of our priests have never been accused of anything that's what's actually coming out with these statistics and let's not forget that more than 90% they're probably suffering worse than us laymen because they live this all day long so let's not forget as Catholic men to support our faithful priests let's give them a hand [Applause] but even that priest who is corrupt or sinful the validity of the sacrament is still there and when st. Francis was challenged what if you knew that the priests every masses an adulterer st. Francis said I would still go forward take the Eucharist and kiss the hands that gave it to me now there's a backstory to that to that with the the person that was objecting the st. Francis was speaking about a specific situation st. Francis later went and rebuked that priest that the layman was talking about but before he gave that priest of fraternal correction st. Francis kissed his hands and then rebuked him for his sinful lifestyle so yes do we need to work for purity amen we need to work for purity it needs to start with us too we need to be living chastity and openness to life as Catholic men and many of us you know our struggle to live that the church is teaching to sexuality ourselves and it's not just our priests but it's the whole church that needs to be called to chastity and purity but those priests will sanctify us and we need to be more concerned about ourselves getting to heaven and our own worthy reception of the sacraments then throwing stones about all the other problems that exist in the church amen I want to get to heaven and and even that priest who's struggling he may not make it to heaven himself but he will give me the Eucharist which has the grace so I may go there and and thanks be to God and I'm gonna pray for his soul because we all want to go there because Jesus prayed that they may all be one even as I and the father are one and that's another verse that brought me into the church but I can't talk about that right now so gentlemen let's go to the Lord in prayer the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit amen Heavenly Father we're so thankful for the church that you have brought us into and the graces that are available to us do the sacraments help us to always treasure them and lower confession your scriptures the Eucharist such powerful reasons to remain within the fold of your church may we always hang tight - these unchangeable truth confession Eucharist the Scriptures may we cling to them through difficult times because Lord we know through them you will raise us up to yourself and bring us into eternal life we pray this through Christ our Lord amen you know the Father Son Holy Spirit amen gentlemen the rest of my stories in this book stunned by Scripture how the Biola made me Catholic I also have plenty of these if you want to be a Bible totin Catholic pick one up at my table back there thank you so much it's been great to be with you here in Harrisburg [Applause]

Channel: hbgdiocese

Views: 192,342

Rating: 4.8572965 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, bible, Dr. John Bergsma, conversion to Catholicism, Diocese of Harrisburg, Men's Conference, Convert to the faith, Francisan University of Steubenville

Id: 06F4i4TtS1c

Length: 61min 2sec (3662 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 29 2019