Wandering Around in My Files - I found this

CHRIST IN HIS CHURCH

I wrote to a friend – a precious friend – a friend who is not a Catholic.  This friend, a group of friends, are planning to start their own church. They are well meaning, of course, and very tired of the heresy in the mainline denominations.  They are so right in their concern.  

After hearing her concerns, I realized, as many of us have done, that she was looking at man in the church instead of Christ in His Church.   Easy to do, I did it myself for years – actually until I was 70. God love the Protestants!!! So many of them – and remember I was one of them - love the Lord and they love the Word.  They long for truth.  Bless their hearts - they mean so well - they are searching for the Truth in all the wrong places and they will only find this Truth in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church!

I wrote something like this to her – and now I share this with you.

"Before the Mass you enter the doors, make the Sign of the Cross and a Holy Hour begins.  Your focus will be on Jesus, only Jesus.  You slip to your knees, slide into the pew – kneel again, pray, and the music begins. The Mass has begun; it is all about Jesus Christ, from beginning to end.  The Mass is not about the sin of man or men, but the Saving Grace of Christ.  Your own sin must be dealt with but you can't focus on others.  Finally you are Home at last. You hear yourself singing, "Christ has Died, Christ has Risen, Christ will Come Again." The Altar is surrounded by Angels.”

I continued telling my friend, who had said that we needed to see the Fruit of the Spirit in others by saying, “You are so right, we are all lacking in showing the fruit of the Spirit, even though we have that gift when we receive the Spirit.”   But my next line was an exhortation to her,  and to all of us, including myself, ”Don't wait until you see it in others, keep showing it yourself and make others die to have what you have.   I mean,  have people grabbing at your skirt hem, begging to know why you are so alive in Christ." 

Then you can say, "I have lunch with Christ everyday!" Then you can say, "I go forward' every day to receive HIM." Then you can say, "I repent daily before I go to worship HIM!" Then you can say, "HE LOVES ME! and I am just beginning to learn to love HIM back!"  

I love the Lord and I love being Catholic. My license plate holder says, "I LOVE BEING CATHOLIC!"  (Converts do funny things - we need space) You have no idea how many people notice it. They follow me on a narrow road along the ocean and on a small mountain road where I live; they can't pass my car.  They have to see it and think and wonder.  The have to think and wonder all the way for 9 full minutes, minimum.

Some people pull me over and give me thumbs up sometimes,  some pull me over to say, "Why?"  So I tell them. "It's the only place I can have lunch with God everyday! He is never too busy for me!”  If the conversation continues I ask who started their Church and mention that Jesus started mine about 2000 years ago.  They don't know that. 

Almighty God has done great things for me from the first day I truly believed, years before I was a Catholic and, every single day since that time, He has been closer and more real. But, worshiping the Savior in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church was amazingly beautiful for both of us. Finding all Truth was the end of the Rainbow.  We had search for all the many years we served and never had thought of going to Home to Rome.  Tom and I had the happiest years of our lives going Home, at last! 


We came into Full Communion on February 3, 2004.  Home at last! Thank God we were Home at last;  not long before Tom left for his final Home in May, 2006.

And that is what I found in my files, today!