Was I Better Off Back Then?

[cathoholic_anonymous]

[quote]Truth isn't subjective or objective - it doesn't exist.[/quote]

This quotation is buried in posts now, but...reading it made me feel some sympathy with atheists. Pontius Pilate was weak enough to say the same thing with the Truth right in front of him. Could a person in the twenty-first century be expected to behave any differently?

Regarding the need to revitalise the Church, I agree with everybody completely. "I have come to spread a fire on earth, and how I wish it were blazing already..." Hopefully that fire will be the hearth that welcomes you and Budge back one day, mulls.

[KizlarAgha]

[quote name='Cathoholic Anonymous' post='1108246' date='Nov 1 2006, 09:18 PM']
This quotation is buried in posts now, but...reading it made me feel some sympathy with atheists. Pontius Pilate was weak enough to say the same thing with the Truth right in front of him. Could a person in the twenty-first century be expected to behave any differently?

Regarding the need to revitalise the Church, I agree with everybody completely. "I have come to spread a fire on earth, and how I wish it were blazing already..." Hopefully that fire will be the hearth that welcomes you and Budge back one day, mulls.
[/quote]

Honestly, and this isn't a knock on Christianity, I wonder how many crazed cult leaders claiming to be the Messiah Pontius Pilate had to deal with before Jesus showed up.

[Socrates]

[quote name='mulls' post='1107649' date='Nov 1 2006, 04:04 PM']
Many of you know my testimony, so I'll be brief:

Was born and raised Catholic. Baptized as an infant.

Attended Catholic grammar school for 8 years. Did first confession and communion in 2nd grade.

Confirmed in high school. Up to then, my mother and I would have periods of attending mass regularly for years, then not go for months, then go for months, back and forth and back and forth like that.

As I progressed though high school, I got more serious about going to mass. Once I got my license, I went every week, by myself.

I believed in the triune God. I never questioned His existence or what Christ did on earth. It just is what it was.

Despite my education and churchgoing, my life did not reflect any sort of relationship with God. I was a typical teenaged kid, doing typical teenaged things. Once I got to college, I flew off the handle.

Summer after my freshman year, I was invited by my best friend to his non-catholic church. It was the first time I had ever been to anything different than a mass on sunday, and was really nervous about it.

I fell in love with the church sevice. I saw genuine joy there. People happy to be there, happy to be singing to the Lord. I fell even more in love with the preaching....I had never seen anybody open the bible and expound on it in such a deep, yet simple and articulate way. The Word pierced my heart that morning. I heard a gospel message, telling me that I could know about God, but I was responsible for doing something about it. There was a sin issue that I never knew was important.

I went back the next week, heard another gospel message, and gave my life to Christ. My eyes were opened. I didn't realize that I had been offending God my whole live by how I lived, and I was so so grateful for what Christ did for me, and I turned my will over to His that morning. I was also shocked that I never heard anything like this during my 19 years of church-going.

Fast foward 4.5 years. I've grown tremendously in my walk with God. My life reflects it. I am indeed a new creation in Christ.

But I have conciously rejected the Catholic church and its teachings.

So my question is, was I better off as a church-going Catholic, being obedient to the only thing I knew (go to mass and believe in God) who lived a hypocritical, sinful lifestyle the other 6 days a week, or am I better off now, a born-again Christian, walking with the Lord as my number one priority in life, but having rejected everything Catholic?
[/quote]
Honestly, not being God, and not being able to see into people's souls (unlike some individuals on here apparently), it's not my place to tell you at which time you were better off spiritually.
Obviously, objectively you are better off in the Catholic Church and receiving the grace of the Sacraments. But if you were only lukewarm and "just going through the motions" your attitude could have caused you to lose graces earned.

If you are on fire with love for Christ now, that is a good thing. But if you have knowingly rejected God's Truth, this is something you will have to answer for.

In short, it's not my place (nor anyone else's here) to judge the state of your soul, but I pray that you will return to the fullness of Christ's Church, and at the same time keep your Christian zeal.
Prayers, brother!


[quote name='KizlarAgha' post='1108254' date='Nov 1 2006, 09:25 PM']
Honestly, and this isn't a knock on Christianity,[/quote]
(Sure it's not !)

[quote]I wonder how many crazed cult leaders claiming to be the Messiah Pontius Pilate had to deal with before Jesus showed up.[/quote]
Well, obviously, if there were any, they are all long forgotten now, while Jesus Christ is worshiped and given glory the world over!

That there should tell you something.

[Katholikos]

[quote name='Anomaly' post='1107700' date='Nov 1 2006, 04:26 PM']
Catholics can't make the distinction between their earthly organization that God particpates in and spiritual Body of Christ.
If Jesus says that He is in attendance where 3 or more are gathered in HIs name, are they then not the Body of Christ?
[/quote]Christ was speaking to His Apostles -- the leaders of His Church -- when He said this about 2 or 3 of them. The Church, of course, is the Body of Christ. But this is Mulls' thread; I don't want to hijack it.

How about starting a thread re the "spiritual Body of Christ." Do you mean Luther's "invisible church of all true believers"?

------------------------------------------------
Blessed Father Damien, pray for us!

[KizlarAgha]

[quote name='Socrates' post='1108329' date='Nov 1 2006, 10:48 PM']

(Sure it's not !)
Well, obviously, if there were any, they are all long forgotten now, while Jesus Christ is worshiped and given glory the world over!

That there should tell you something.
[/quote]

It clearly wasn't a knock on Christianity. I was just thinking that maybe a glut of Messiah claimants walking through his door might have prematurely biased Pontius Pilate.

[jswranch]

(BRACE YOURSELVES, as I think I am about to lose friends)
[quote]But I'm going to take a page out of jswranch's book from another thread here, and just ask you to give a straight answer to what, in your book, is a mysterious question: Was I better off then, or now?[/quote]
[b][size=5]You are better off now[/size].[/b]
(Straight questions, straight answers- I love it!) Some folks are hesitant to have answered your question directly. It is a tough decision.
Really, you have moved from a Lukewarm follower of Christ (grave matter sin of indifferentism or sloth in faith) to becoming a material heretic.

Why are you better off now? Two reasons:
(BRACE YOURSELVES #2)
First, Budge actually got one right. There is a first for everything. Even a blind pig occasionally finds an acorn.
[quote]As hard as it may be to face, many Catholics who have left the Catholic Church to become part of a vital Protestant congregation may have gone to hell if they stayed, unconverted and with virtually no Christian support, in the Catholic Church. [/quote]
I really liked this Catholic article when I read it a few months ago. I have continued to strive in my parish to raise the sense of community and accountability.

Second, you now have faith, whereas before you either never had it or you shipwrecked it.
[i]Mk16:16 Whoever is baptized and believes will be saved; but whoever does not believe will be condemned.[/i]
Mulls, at one point in your life you stopped believing. Now you believe. Are you better off? Yes. Are you in the clear? Nope. This is not the end of the story for what God demands for the plan of salvation, which fully directed in the Catholic expression. The material heretic thing will still permit you to heaven. However, if God reveals to you to return to the fullness of truth and ignore this info, you move to formal heretic. Unrepentant formal heretics are toast. When I say 'better off now' I mean you could be worse off later. But hope remains.


My guess of how this lack of faith happened is a combo of three things:
1 You are a victim of the dry spirit which occasionally occurs as the article Budge mentioned.

2. You once had faith when you were younger, but you let go through sin. See the example Paul gives us in 1 Cor 15:2-3 and 1 Tim1:19.
[having become a bible beater like me, I will not quote the verse since you are probably excited to look them up anyway ]

3. Love is a verb. Faith is meant to be express and to grow by participating in the holiness Christ calls us to. You did not participate. Whatever faith you had dwendled from lack of growth, just like a muscle. Look at the example Peter gives us in 2Pt1:5-8. He warns us to continue in development. [b]Did you 'make every effort to to supplement your faith with virtue...' so as to keep from becoming 'idol or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ?'[/b] By your own testimony, no! The Eucharist is the center of the Christian life and an incredible source of grace. But just sitting in a pew so you can get your 'Jesus Cookie' doesn't release you of your obligation to follow 2Pt1:5-8 or Phil 2:12. Living for God is not a passive act. Only dead fish go with the flow and your faith was belly up.

Let me nitpick a few things you have written:
[quote]am I better off now, a born-again Christian, walking with the Lord as my number one priority in life,[/quote]

It will be by the grace of God if you can comprehend this...

YOU WERE BORN AGAIN AT YOUR BAPTISM.

See John3:3-8. Dont ever let someone tell you different. Your spiritual experience was real in that Protestant setting. The doctrines they tell you are not. I was raised in church's like these. My dad is a Protestant minister. I have seen and experienced it all.
My wife was 'saved' in an AOG setting just like yours. We are both Catholic now. We both had conversions of the heart like you growing up before becoming Catholic.
[quote name='mulls' post='1107849' date='Nov 1 2006, 03:37 PM']
thing is, it didn't have an effect. i needed a personal trainer. i needed instruction. that was God's Word for me. that's what i didn't get at mass.[/quote]
The reason you did not get this at mass is because Mass is not directly for personal training. Such training is to come from ones spiritual advisor. Did you have a spiritual advisor? He was to be the one who was to do this with you.

[quote]but the sacramental grace....i'm not sure if i ever believed that sacraments, particularly the eucharist, "did something." but there was no evidence of that grace, if it was there. if i could recognize it, if i was stirred, convicted....i could have presumably acted upon it. but there was just nothing there. what could i have done?[/quote]

I have a Catholic friend (Michelle) who had the exact same thing happen to her. She was raised fairly 'devout Catholic' like you. Also (like you) she lived a very sinful life. One day, she walked into a military base chapel for mass (mass kept her sinful conscience clear), but it turned she had the times wrong and she walked into a protestant/evangelical service. [if my memory serves] She turned to walk out, but she couldn't. Suddenly she broke down in tears. Weeping for Jesus. She had never felt this way before in her life. Folks were starring, but she did not care. The pastor stopped to bring her to the front to pray the 'sinners prayer.' She was alive in Christ in ways she never had felt before.

Within a few meetings, and training, she began to HATE Catholicism. She tried to convert all her old Catholic friends in the bible studdies she lead. To make a long story short, she has reverted back to the church after running into a Catholic who actually knew his faith and the bible. Now she greatly influences our local community in faith and life in Christ. She also greatly assited in my wife becoming Catholic. They prayed her first decade of the rosary together. My point is that God sometimes leads Christians out of their normal environment to teach a point they did not comprehind in their old environment even though it was there.

I can give you her email if you want.

[quote]i didn't look for Christ, but he sought after and found me![/quote]
Of course he did silly:) to believe otherwise is to be Pelagian.

The most important thing for you to keep in mind is that just because you did not receive this new conversion of your heart in a Catholic setting does not mean the Catholic teaching or sacraments are false. If I were you, I would be angry at how you were taught the Catholic faith. I get angry still when I see the same look and spiritual life in the eyes of Catholics as you did before your spiritual experience. However, this does not mean Papal infallibility, Immaculate conception, or transubstantiation are false. It just means what they taught you failed to successfully click into you what you were lacking.

The good news is that I believe folks like you and I who have had incredible spiritual conversions outside the church are called to Come Home to spread that grace around. The Church, like you and I, are always in need of reforming hearts and minds to the will of God. This is to happen by our witness. Before, you were missing a spiritual conversion of the heart. You have it now. Go back to truth and take you new heart with you.


Finally, as I honestly answered your question, I ask that you read the following article by an ex-protestant minister on:

[url="http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/apologetics/ap0057.html"]"How I Lead Catholics Out of the Church"[/url]

Pray, be honest, and tell me your impressions. Is this not different from what happened to you? Next, I ask you to read three 'revert' stories by folks raised Catholic, left like you, and then have come back. [BTW, when Michelle reverted back to Catholicism most of her Protestant 'loving friends' stopped talking to her after they told her she was going to hell]

[goldenchild17]

[quote name='mulls' post='1107649' date='Nov 1 2006, 04:04 PM']So my question is, was I better off as a church-going Catholic, being obedient to the only thing I knew (go to mass and believe in God) who lived a hypocritical, sinful lifestyle the other 6 days a week, or am I better off now, a born-again Christian, walking with the Lord as my number one priority in life, but having rejected everything Catholic?
[/quote]

*Schismatic answer alert*

I haven't read the whole thread and don't know if I'll have time to. But from your story it is a tough situation. I know a lot of people who are in the situation you are in. I actually often attend a Protestant Navigators meeting here at my college because most of my friends here at school are protestant and a few of them used to be neutral non-practicing Catholics. Now they seem to be really strong in their protestant faith. It's cool to see people this on fire for what they believe in, and this is what initially attracted me to such people, even though we disagree significantly on beliefs our views toward moral issues are pretty consistent. But are they, or you, better of as strong non-Catholics or weak Catholics? To be honest I would have to say that I think it better to be a weak Catholic. Because, with that one still has the sacraments available to them which are fundamental for spiritual growth and formation. In my mind a weak Catholic can amend his ways much easier than a non-Catholic can. Of course, coming from the schismatic attitude I would also say that it makes no difference whether you are Novus Ordo or whatever you happen to believe now. If you are asking to compare between your life in Novus Ordo and your life as a protestant then I would say definitely it seems you are benefiting much more in your current state.

Edited November 2, 2006 by goldenchild17

[Anomaly]

[quote name='goldenchild17' post='1108507' date='Nov 2 2006, 04:25 AM']
To be honest I would have to say that I think it better to be a weak Catholic. Because, with that one still has the sacraments available to them which are fundamental for spiritual growth and formation. In my mind a weak Catholic can amend his ways much easier than a non-Catholic can. [/quote]This makes my brain ache.
What's the point of having all those graces made available if they just lay there? Just like the Jews reveled in being God's Chosen and did nothing with it.

[Winchester]

I have the answer. Only God can judge culpability and true intent, and He knows Mulls even better than Mulls. Obviously, I believe the Catholic Church is the one true church, but that doesn't mean everybody else is going to Hell. I don't pull the lever. God is all just and all merciful.



It's a common fallacy to judge the worth of Church services by their entertainment value or the quality of the congregation's singing.

[Budge]

[quote]The Sacraments are a Channel through which God Works Budge not a Barrier.[/quote]

They were a barrier for me. In fact oftentimes they left me cold. Having experienced the Holy Spirit far more in a group of Christians laying on hands to heal a person, {the way it is supposed to be done not with one man doing it}, the Body of Christ is really where God works through, and its not limited to a group of priests or experts or one guy conducting everything according to a script he reads from.

I believe sacramentalism is a huge lie, that puts middle men between man and God, denies the sufficiency of Christs sacrifice and puts up a wall between a person having an actual living relationship with Jesus Christ.

Scripted prayers, scripted rites, when a true relationship with God, is actually conversing with God, in your own words, and when one prays they are led by the Holy Spirit, not reading a script out of a book.


[quote]Regarding the need to revitalise the Church, I agree with everybody completely. "I have come to spread a fire on earth, and how I wish it were blazing already..." Hopefully that fire will be the hearth that welcomes you and Budge back one day, mulls. [/quote]

Can anyone understand why people leave to where the FIRE is burning instead of stamped out?

Why stay in a church that is lukewarm or dead? {I apply this standard to even apostate Prot and other Christian churches by the way...}

Personally I refuse to be in any church that teaches the antichrist gospel of interfaithism, you guys arent the only one.

[quote]
The good news is that I believe folks like you and I who have had incredible spiritual conversions outside the church are called to Come Home to spread that grace around. The Church, like you and I, are always in need of reforming hearts and minds to the will of God. This is to happen by our witness. Before, you were missing a spiritual conversion of the heart. You have it now. Go back to truth and take you new heart with you.[/quote]

Why should anyone go back? To dead sacraments, to liberal interfaithism to a church that does what it can to stamp out the Holy Spirit such as teaching lifestyle evangelism and belittling those who do go forth and preach the gospel? The commandment of God is to Come out of her. I do not talk about my church experience as much as I should on here, but the joys and great things in true Christian fellowship so far surpass what I experienced in the Catholic church it isnt even funny. I believe there are many who do seek after God in the Catholic Church, but they are being denied Biblical truths, being denied true spiritual food, and many people leave because they are STARVING for spiritual food.

Michelle probably succumbed to what is called the undertow by Mary Ann Collins. I know Catholics who have been saved personally and who went back in or stayed in. One acquaintance, left, is born again, shows the fruits but gave in to her mother and husband to stay within the Catholic church. Her mother actually cried and shouted to get her back in. Many are guilted back in, the fear, family pressures and more can be immense. Some falsely think they can reform the Catholic Church which bibilically is shown as impossible.

I know what the Catholic church really is, so I am not in danger of succumbing to the undertow. One problem too is ecumenical Prot and evangelical churches that do not teach new converts to Jesus Christ the truth about Rome.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

Budge, by what means does God's grace come to you?

[Budge]

God's grace came to us via what Christ did for us.

direct answer to your question here:

[b]1Cr 1:4 I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ;[/b]

[b]2Ti 1:9 Who hath saved us, and called [us] with an holy calling, [u]not according to our works,[/u] but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,[/b]
[b]
Hbr 4:16 Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.[/b]

Rom 1:3 Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;
Rom 1:4 And declared [to be] the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:
Rom 1:5 [b]By whom we have received grace [/b] and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name:

Heres one for you to memorize;)

[b]Rom 11:6 And if by grace, then [is it] no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if [it be] of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.[/b]

You access this grace via FAITH...

[b]Rom 5:2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.[/b]

not by sacraments.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='Budge' post='1108558' date='Nov 2 2006, 11:53 AM']
God's grace came to us via what Christ did for us.[/quote]
You didn't answer my question. I asked how Christ's grace came to you. Christ's grace came in general by what He did for us, but by what means did you in particular receive what He earned?

[Budge]

[b]FAITH[/b]

[mulls]

[quote name='Winchester' post='1108551' date='Nov 2 2006, 09:39 AM']
It's a common fallacy to judge the worth of Church services by their entertainment value or the quality of the congregation's singing.
[/quote]


it's a comman fallacy to think that this is all non-catholics care about. i already cleared this up with someone else on this thread.