My Journey So Far

           

 I thought I would write my first post with some information about myself and my journey back to the Catholic Church. I was brought up in the Catholic Church back in the late 50s through the 70s. I was baptized at Saint Thomas The Apostle church in Rochester New York. I went to catholic school from first grade to eighth grade and graduated in 1973.
  My mother could not afford to send us to catholic high school due to money problems. So I ended up going to the public high school. I did miss the learning further about the catholic church in school, but I accepted it. I still went to church on Sunday and confession on Thursdays. I was very shy as a youth and felt uncomfortable going to confession. As I reached the age of 18 in my senior year I started to slack off from going to church. I was working full time and  eventually started going to college. I guess I just got busy and started to forget about what was important.
  I met my wife in about 1981 and we were married in July 14, 1984 on a very hot July day. I never stopped being Catholic, I just wasn't a practicing Catholic. At the time my wife was going to a Assembly Of God Pentecostal Church. I started going to church with her and decided I liked the church. It seemed to be very alive and I learned a lot about the bible and Jesus. I read more and more from the bible and I guess loved it. One Sunday when they called people to come down I felt it was my time to stand up for my faith in Jesus. Again I will say I never denounced the Catholic Church, it was just that I came closer to Jesus.
  I remember one day at church they started saying things about getting others to accept Jesus as their personal savior. The next thing I knew is I started judging all my friends and family. I started thinking they are all going to hell if they don't accept Jesus as their personal savior. One day I looked at my own mother and had that thought. Something inside me said wait a minute this is not right. I stepped back and started to do some real thinking. I asked my self what does my mother believe. I realized that my mother  has always believed in Jesus. I knew right then and there that this was wrong and decided it was time to leave this church. I spoke to my wife and we both decided to look for a different church that we would be happy in and was not teaching to judge others. That is when my favorite saying happened, Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged.
  My wife and I went to a number of different churches from the Baptist church to the Methodist as well as others. We ended up in the Lutheran Church and both loved it. It seemed to combine both catholic and protestant ideas. All three of my children were raised in the Lutheran Church. Everything was going very good and then one Sunday the pastor was speaking about the Eucharist and he spoke of it as just a symbol. Once again something inside me said this is not right and this is where my journey started back to the Catholic church.
  I decided prayed for some kind of answer as to what was right about the Eucharist. I happened to turn on cable tv and started flipping through the channels as usual looking for something to watch. I stopped at the Catholic channel EWTN http://www.ewtn.com/ ,which I really never watched. The show that happened to be on was called The Journey Home with Marcus Grodi. To my amazement the subject of the show was about a person who had come back to the Catholic Church, because of the Eucharist. I could not believe that this was happening to other people. From that day this show became one of my favorites.
  The next thing I was asking my self was what church is doing the right thing. I started praying a lot once again for an answer. My mother was going to garage sales so I had told her one time if you see any religious books get it for me. Well she bought me a book called thirty years with Christ. I started reading it and the person made a statement about what church is right and who is wrong. Basically she said there are so many denominations out there who is right and who is wrong. This book was written in 1943 and there were thousands of denominations then, so now there are more. She said that various churches say the Holy Spirit told me this about a certain subject and others are saying something different about the same subject. Well someone has to be right and someone has to be wrong, because the Holy Spirit is either lying or does not know what he is saying. Of course I knew that this could not be true. So I decided to go on a search through history to find out what church was doing about the Eucharist.
  I had a book on the history of religions of the world. I did some reading and everything seemed to end up at the Catholic Church. I then heard about the early church fathers on EWTN one day and got a book on this subject. I found that some of the early church fathers were directly associated with some of the Apostles. The further I searched I found that the Catholic Church was the only church teaching that the Eucharist was the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ. I saw another show on the Journey Home about the Eucharist and the person explained that you could tell that Jesus really meant that this was his body and blood by the reaction of the people. They could not accept this teaching and left. Now if Jesus only meant it as a symbol he would have rebuked them and told them so, but he did not.
  My final decision was that I had to come back to the Catholic Church and leave the Lutheran. I spoke to my wife and explained what I had decided. I told her I could not tell her what to do, she had to what she believed her self. Once again I was amazed, because she decided to become Catholic. I went through the classes with her and she became Catholic. My three children also became Catholic. I will have to say I am not perfect and do miss Mass some times, buts that is another story.
  I have to say that I have never been happier in my life then when My wife, my children and myself walk down that aisle and partake in communion. I feel in my heart that I really have come home. I also feel that this is the closest relationship that any person will ever have with Jesus until I see him face to face.
  Thank You for reading about my journey. I believe it's not over and there are more paths to take and I will never stray from the Catholic Church again. Any Comments are always welcomed.
  Take Care and God Bless.