Author Topic: A brief story of how I came to my position (Read 2495 times)

RomanCatholic1953 · « **Reply #2 on:** May 09, 2010, 09:18:22 PM »

We all have stories to tell in our journey in the Catholic
Faith. The Good, the Bad, and the ugly.
My journey began in 1953 at St.James Catholic Church
in Redondo Beach, Ca. I was conditionally Baptized,
after coming from a protestant family that never seen
inside a Catholic Church since the reformation.
My experience was in calmer days when the faith
was really taught. That is where my memory comes
from.
I am glad that you found a Holy Priest. I am surrounded
by Baptists, Methodists, and atheists.

Belloc · « **Reply #3 on:** May 10, 2010, 09:29:49 AM »

thank you for sharing your story!!

Trinity · « **Reply #4 on:** May 10, 2010, 09:51:05 AM »

Yes, thank you for sharing. I wish everyone would. I came from an anti-catholic family, but I was born in a Catholic hospital and named by a nun there---hence my name is Mary. I always believed she handed me to Our Lady and prayed for me. How else explain my devotion to and complete dependence on the Great Mother of God.

After my "experience" I told my priest that I had long prayed to Our Lady that I would not lose my marbles. He told me we can ask but we can't expect. Well, shoot down any hope of my having any say in anything, why don't you? Gall AND wormwood.

But, hey, she brought me back didn't she? I'm only missing seven days. Do any of you have stories of Our Lady helping you out? I would love to collect them into a little book in her honor and for the encouragement of her children. Dawn has shared hers with me.

Aside from this I am fascinated by peoples stories of their struggle to be Catholic and find the Church. This could be a most excellent thread if everyone pitched in.

Lybus · « **Reply #5 on:** May 10, 2010, 10:05:00 AM »

Quote from: Trinity

Yes, thank you for sharing. I wish everyone would. I came from an anti-catholic family, but I was born in a Catholic hospital and named by a nun there---hence my name is Mary. I always believed she handed me to Our Lady and prayed for me. How else explain my devotion to and complete dependence on the Great Mother of God.

After my "experience" I told my priest that I had long prayed to Our Lady that I would not lose my marbles. He told me we can ask but we can't expect. Well, shoot down any hope of my having any say in anything, why don't you? Gall AND wormwood.

But, hey, she brought me back didn't she? I'm only missing seven days. Do any of you have stories of Our Lady helping you out? I would love to collect them into a little book in her honor and for the encouragement of her children. Dawn has shared hers with me.

Aside from this I am fascinated by peoples stories of their struggle to be Catholic and find the Church. This could be a most excellent thread if everyone pitched in.

I was born on August 22, feast day of the Immaculate Heart. I was actually supposed to be born weeks sooner, but for some reason it was delayed. I think she wants me to have special devotion or a particular confidence in her.

Lybus · « **Reply #6 on:** May 10, 2010, 10:18:43 AM »

I have also found that there is very little success that I have that I can really contribute to myself. I am a traditional Catholic because of the work my parents took in researching the faith and coming back to it (we were NO/living a pagan lifestyle at the time). I was 10 or so; all i was really doing at the time was being a spoiled brat. Any understanding of Theology or interest in the subject can be contributed to other people sparking that interest, or giving me the tools to learn it. Throughout my life I have found myself in positions, whether they be social, physical, intellectual, that I did not ask for, and yet helped me enormously in my spiritual growth and overall growth as an individual in general. Without Our Lady, I would be less than a tenth the person I am now. This I am sure of.

Matthew · « **Reply #7 on:** May 10, 2010, 10:38:30 AM »

My parents worked at TAN Books from the very beginning of that apostolate. In fact, they MET at TAN Books! Working at such a place, they found out right away about the independent chapel that Tom Nelson set up to have the Traditional Latin Mass. So me and Traditional Catholicism go way back :)

My mother, always a staunch Catholic (who stopped attending Mass when the Novus Ordo came out, and found the Traditional Mass in the early 70's), became very devout right about the time I was a teenager.

I saw her setting aside regular time for prayer and meditation, and she was doing a lot of reading as well. I know she was praying for me to Our Lady, and that is how I received the grace to decide once and for all to be a good Catholic. It was a conversion of sorts, whereby I threw myself completely into my Faith and left the world for a while. I found myself in the Seminary a few months later, where I would spend 3 1/2 very important years. Needless to say, it changed my life permanently.

Right about the time of my "conversion", I decided to make the Total Consecration to Mary (St. Louis de Montfort) and began to be a devoted servant of Our Lady. I think she helped me many times in the seminary, in ways it's hard to explain here. For starters, she procured for me the grace to benefit as much as possible from each day I was at the seminary.

There are some elements that are too personal to discuss here in an open forum, but there is much more that Our Lady did to help me, for which I will be eternally grateful.

I gave my first 2 children Marian names: Dominic and Miriam (the original "Mary" -- in Hebrew). Miriam was even born in August, which is the month dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

My third child, Bridget, was born on May 31 last year, which was the feast of the Queenship of Our Lady, as well as Pentecost.

All the many blessings I've received came through Mary -- a certain quote comes to mind: "He that shall find me, shall find life, and shall have salvation from the Lord" (Prov 8:35)

I credit Mary with helping me to learn the truth, and to continue on the path of truth, deviating neither to the right hand nor to the left. I discovered so many snares as I explored and learned about the Catholic Faith, and I even watched many people get caught in those snares. Who am I to have avoided so great and many snares? Only the grace of God, procured for me by the great Queen of Heaven, could be the cause.

Matthew

MyrnaM · « **Reply #8 on:** May 10, 2010, 11:40:10 AM »

Dawn · « **Reply #9 on:** May 10, 2010, 11:49:59 AM »

Welcome and beautiful words MyrnaM. Trinity you found another kindred. This is true. I pray with my children everyday to save the souls of those outside of the Church. And I firmly believe God knows where to apply those prayers and to whom. I know many in my life that are far better than I am. And, due to the madness are not able to see the real Church through the Smoke of Satan. God will find them and pull them out due to the prayers of his people.

Alexandria · « **Reply #10 on:** May 10, 2010, 11:53:38 AM »

God reward you, Dawn, for sharing your beautiful story with us! The two key years in your life (1991 and 1992) are also two key years in my own - the year ('91) I "discovered" the sedevacantists and the year ('92) I, too, married.

What I have always wondered about - and something all of us should think about no matter what "side" (SSPX or sede) we are on, is how Our Lady figures into all of our stories, including my own. I've often thought, after making countless novenas to no avail, that things are so bad and so confusing that it matters not where you are in the Church, as long as you are in the Church.

P.S. Welcome, Myrna! :dancing:

Belloc · « **Reply #11 on:** May 10, 2010, 11:56:14 AM »

thanks again to you all for sahring, good to get to "know" each other through these stories, might avoid some misconceptions from them..

gladius_veritatis · « **Reply #12 on:** May 10, 2010, 12:03:03 PM »

Quote from: Lybus

I was born on August 22, feast day of the Immaculate Heart.

I will share my story later, but...

I was born on September 24 -- OL of Ransom.

Considering where I have been, what I have done, etc., it is rather fitting.

Welcome aboard, Myrna :)

Raoul76 · « **Reply #13 on:** May 10, 2010, 02:38:08 PM »

People on this site may find it amusing, but I was born on July 17 -- the day of the Humility of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Only God knows how fitting this is, since the trajectory of my life has taken me from Luciferian heights of pride and vanity -- and I am not talking about some of my behavior on this website, which was benign compared to how I used to be -- to slowly, gradually, learning to do God's will even when it has taken me so far away from my original hopes and dreams and made me face my own nothingness. I cannot say I have achieved Mary's humility, but eventually, with her grace, maybe I will one day feebly echo it.

And my mom was born on September 8, the Feast Day of the Nativity of the Virgin, of course.

Raoul76 · « **Reply #14 on:** May 10, 2010, 02:41:41 PM »

Welcome Myrna, but --

MyrnaM said:

Quote

However, I do believe that if a Protestant for example dies in the state of grace, he/she is Catholic through desire; he/she is united to the soul of Church if not the body of the Church. Thus the teaching: No salvation outside the Church.

No one is going to say anything about this? I have to be the bad guy yet again?

A Protestant is in a false communion. Some have speculated that a Protestant may be saved if he is invincibly ignorant but that is just speculation. The Baltimore Catechism ( which was put out by the questionable and unapologetically Americanist figure of Cardinal Gibbons ) speaks of someone dying as a Protestant with no mortal sin and suggests that such a person may be saved. But they are still outside the Church.

I do not believe a Protestant past the age of reason can be saved even with no mortal sin -- or perhaps it is better to say that I don't believe such an eventuality has ever happened or will ever happen, or that God would keep someone that pure in the Protestant "church." I will just say that when I was converting from atheism, I was half-Catholic, half-Protestant, thinking that just to be "Christian" was enough, until I truly made the effort to abolish all sin. At that point I became Catholic. Not only that, I went right to sedevacantism. Others who remain Protestant may have the sin of pride.

But Christ said that he has other sheep who are not of this fold that he will bring into this fold -- He doesn't leave them outside. Now, if the Protestant while dying speaks or even thinks a desire to join the Church, and then passes on, I believe that may save him.